The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

III. Petavel’s Masterful Presentation of Case for Conditionalism

1. PURPOSE: TO DEFEND DOCTRINE OF “ATTAINABLE IMMORTALITY.”

Petavel consistently contended that “Eschatology, the science of the last things” is the “keystone of the arch... of Christian dogmatics.” ⁵ He declares that a revolt is on against the old concepts, and says picturesquely: “The nets of the old doctrine being broken, we need to sit down awhile on the shore to mend them.” ⁶ CFF2 609.4

That he proceeds to do. Recognizing with all others the three primary schools of thought-the traditional Eternal Torment, Universalism, and Conditional Immortality theorieshe charges the first two with having a “Platonic origin,” which endows mankind with “imperishable personality.” He epitomizes the difference between them and Conditionalism as death involving “perpetuation of life” versus “cessation of life.” Christian Conditionalism presents man as a “candidate for immortality.” ⁷ And Petavel states his writing purpose plainly: “Our purpose is to defend and to recommend this doctrine of attainable immortality.” ⁸ CFF2 610.1

This, he avers, is “entitled to be rescued from the oblivion in which... it has long been buried.” ⁹ CFF2 610.2

2. “CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE” NOW BROKEN

The “conspiracy of silence” has now been broken. In support he cites a brilliant list of names: Rothe, Weisse, Schultz, Ritschl, and Gess in Germany. ¹⁰ In England and America there are “hundreds of volumes and pamphlets,” with specific titles (and dates)-such as Dodwell, Watts, Whately, White, Dale, Aitken, Minton-Senhouse, Constable, Row, Heard, Hobson, Warleigh, Griffith, Tinling, Perowne, Mortimer, Weymouth, Dunn, Clarke in Britain. ¹¹ And in America by Abbott, Beecher, Baker, Bacon, Hastings, Potwin, Oliphant, Huntington, Hudson, Bushnell, Pettingell. ¹³ He lists separately such “scientific celebrities” as Stokes, Bonney, Adams, Geikie, and Tait. And then he cites Phillips Brooks as saying, “‘We are on the verge, I believe, of a mighty revolution’ in theology. Numerous other names-such as Parker, Dörner, Byse-are added on pages twenty-two to twenty-six, including Cocorda of Italy and Jonker in Holland. CFF2 610.3

3. CONDITIONALISTS NOT “INNOVATORS” BUT CONTINUATORS

Petavel, urging a true eschatology, declares: “A system of dogmatics without eschatology is like a building without a roof, liable to be damaged by every change of weather.” ¹⁵ CFF2 610.4

And he refers to the “traditionalist hammer” and the “Universalist anvil” with Conditionalism between them.” ¹⁶ Petavel closes chapter one by declaring, “We repudiate the name of innovators with which we are often reproached.” ¹⁷ And he avers that the status quo cannot long be maintained in the religious world. “Conditionalism must soon be either generally accepted or rejected.” ¹⁸ But he adds, “For the present the discussion continues.” CFF2 611.1

4. EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE YIELDS NO SUPPORT FOR INNATISM

Chapter two (“Immortality as Viewed by Independent Science”) deals with the evidence of biology, comparative physiology, geology, and paleontology, and declares that “experimental science, fails to supply any proof of the immortality of the soul.” ¹⁹ From these, he observes, it is impossible to affirm the “exclusive immortality of man on the ground of attributes which are common to him and all living beings.” ²⁰ Again, “Life independent of an organism cannot be scientifically demonstrated.”’ And, “The mind seems to be one of the various manifestations of life.” Dr. Petavel says that “the legitimate conclusion” is “that the soul dies with the body.” ²¹ CFF2 611.2

5. IN DEATH THE INDIVIDUAL CEASES TO EXIST

Dealing with the soul and the involvements of death, Professor Petavel states: CFF2 611.3

“If our prospect of a future life depends upon the possession of a soul, we must either be resigned to share that immortality with all our collaterals of the animal kingdom, or else forego our own hopes, admitting that we are mortal, like them.” ²² CFF2 611.4

“So far as science can perceive, there is no exception to the general law of death. After a brief life of a few hours, days, or years, all the denizens of earth, water, and air ‘return to their dust’; their constituent elements are dissipated, and go to form parts of new chemical combinations, but the individual as such, ceases to exist.... CFF2 611.5

“Death is the cessation of the organic functions.” ²³ CFF2 611.6

6. CHALLENGES CONTENTION OF “UNIVERSAL CONSENT.”

The doctor challenges the commonly accepted theory of the “almost universal consent” of “unconditional immortality,” and observes: CFF2 612.1

“One half of the human race believes in annihilation, and aspires no higherl The teaching which has come to us from ecclesiastical tradition inclines us to allow the Platonic hypothesis of the imperishability of individual souls to pass without examination.” ²⁴ CFF2 612.2

But he says we must “stop it [the universal acceptance theory] as it goes, stare it in the face, demand its title to acceptance.” ²⁵ And he refers to the great sages, the founders of Stoicism and Criticism, as highly skeptical. Neither did the Egyptians believe in the “indestructibility of individual souls,” but rather in the “annihilation of the being” for the “wicked.” ²⁶ CFF2 612.3

7. PLATONISM CONTAINED PRINCIPLE OF PANTHEISM

Coming to the metaphysical, ontological, and teleological proofs, Petavel says the Platonists “felt it necessary to suppose that the soul is essentially divine.” ²⁷ To Plato, the “dogma of pre-existence and that of immortality were inseparable from each other.” ²⁸ But this is simply “covert pantheism.” ²⁹ Then he says: CFF2 612.4

“No doubt the spirit of God gives to man his vital force; but that does not mean that the creature forms part of the Creator, and on that account possesses the immortality of God himself. The created soul has had a beginning; it may, therefore, come to an end; it will come to an end unless an express purpose of the Creator perpetuates its existence.” ³⁰ CFF2 612.5

8. INDIVIDUALIST IMMORTALITY INVOLVES GODSHIP

Then Petavel observes:
“If the soul possessed an independent and absolute immortality, it would not be a creature, but would form part of God himself.... CFF2 612.6

“If the soul were of the divine essence, that would not prove the immortality of any individual, but merely the imperishability of a substance without individual character; the perpetuation of a vital principle does not at all imply the perpetuity of individuals who are its ephemeral manifestations.” ³¹ CFF2 612.7

Rather, on that thesis “man returning in death to the universal spirit at once loses its individuality; but it is with personal immortality that we have to do.” ³² The concept that “man can set up his own will, can be in insurrection against God and defy him eternally” is simply “dualism.” ³³ Petavel’s conclusion is that the so-called “traditional proofs of the absolute immortality of individual souls” lead only to “the admission that man is susceptible of immortalization.” ³⁴ CFF2 613.1

9. PLATONISM ONLY A “HOPE,” NOT “DEMONSTRATED TRUTH.”

Platonism was only a “hope,” not a “demonstrated truth.” Seneca and Cicero doubted it. ³⁵ There is “no true immortality without the maintenance of the individual identity.” ³⁶ Discussing the proponents of Conditionalism sustaining these points, he names and quotes from a score of Continental and British savants, and concludes: CFF2 613.2

“If a key is handed to us which fits the lock and opens the door we shall be disposed to admit that it has come from God himself. This very key the Gospel claims to bring to us. We will try it.” ³⁷ CFF2 613.3

10. FUNDAMENTAL INTENT OF “LIFE” AND “DEATH.”

Chapter three concerns “Immortality According to the Old Testament and in Judaism.” Petavel’s opening observation is: CFF2 613.4

“Under the powerful influence of Platonic philosophy the Scriptures and the God therein revealed have been calumniated; they have been obscured by the dismal tint of the darkened glass through which they have been regarded.” ³⁸ CFF2 613.5

Everything turns on the two words “life” and “death.” They are the “two poles of the biblical sphere. Everything turns upon these great antitheses.” ³⁹ These he defines as follows: CFF2 613.6

“Life in the historic and grammatical sense is an existence composed of action and sensation; death is the cessation of that existence, the end of all action and all sensation.” ⁴⁰ CFF2 613.7

Popular theology holds that “the life of the soul cannot possibly cease,” and that “death” is understood in “the sense of perpetual life in the midst of sin and sufferings without end.” But he avers that this “traditional exegesis is false.” Instead, “Life and death are opposites, like black and white.” ⁴¹ “If death were a certain state of life, it would be a manifestation of life: the contradiction is evident.” ⁴² CFF2 613.8

11. CREATOR PROVIDED CONDITIONAL NOT INALIENABLE IMMORTALITY

In the Genesis record, man is set forth as a “candidate for immortality.” He is “subjected to a test.” “If he revolts, he will lose life.” Thus: CFF2 614.1

“To man the Creator gives existence and offers immortality. So long as Adam remains in the garden of Eden he is allowed to eat the fruit of the tree of life; but his immortality is conditional: as soon as he infringes the condition laid down he is devoted to death, and he no longer has access to the tree which alone could render him immortal.” ⁴³ CFF2 614.2

“He does not enjoy a native and inalienable immortality.” ⁴⁴ And disobeying would end in “dissolution,” or “cessation of individual existence.” Thus man became “mortal.” ⁴⁵ As to the Old Testament, he says: CFF2 614.3

“The Old Testament never mentions a native and inalienable immortality. The expression immortal soul, that favourite formula of ecclesiastical phraseology, is not there to be found. ⁴⁶ CFF2 614.4

12. INNATISM PENETRATES JEWRY THROUGH ALEXANDRIA

In certain Apocryphal, or extra-canonical, books the doctrine of Innate Immortality did creep in-in the Alexandrian branch. Outside of Palestine, Platonism got a foothold. Yet others were clearly Conditionalist.” ⁴⁷ So we find “a hybrid compend of contradictory opinions.” ⁴⁸ But the Mishna “speaks neither of native immortality nor of eternal torments.” ⁵⁰ Rather, it is of “absolute extermination” of the sinful soul. And the great Talmudists-Deutsch, Hamburger, Benisch, Phillipson, Marks, Adler, Löwe, Mossé, and Weill-all deny the “eternity of torments” in the Talmud. ⁵¹ Many other supporting authorities are cited in footnotes. CFF2 614.5

13. KABBALAH INTRODUCES “EMANATION” AND “DUALISM.”

This is sustained by medieval rabbis, Maimonides and half a dozen other celebrities, down to Manasseh ben Israel, and there are no higher Jewish authorities. ⁵² The theosophic Kabbalah is pantheistic in character, and asserts that the soul is “an emanation of the Divinity; therefore every human soul is both pre-existent and imperishable by nature.” ⁵³ And some held an “eschatological dualism” of “an eternal hell and an eternal paradise”—“two eternal and incompatible principles,” ⁵⁴ utterly foreign to original Hebrewism. Petavel here cites an important statement from M. Auguste Sabatier: CFF2 615.1

“‘A theology which derives everything from a single principle, from God alone, can only conceive of evil as an accident, and cannot possibly issue in an eternal dualism. There is a necessary correspondence between the principle of absolute creation and the complete restoration of all things.’ ⁵⁵ CFF2 615.2

Then Petavel concludes: CFF2 615.3

“Taken as a whole, the Synagogue has remained faithful to the eschatology of the Old Testament. The Israelites are in principle Conditionalists. Their great mistake has been in refusing to recognize in Jesus the supreme condition and the mediator of life eternal. By his resurrection the Christ has illuminated the grave; the hope of the Israelites is but an uncertain glimmer.” ⁵⁶ CFF2 615.4

14. ETERNITY OF LIFE AND OF NONEXISTENCE

Chapter four (“Immortality According to the New Testament”) opens with the words: “Immortality, which in the Old Testament is conditional, is conditional also in the New.” ⁵⁷ CFF2 615.5

Then follows this comprehensive statement:
“In both Testaments immortality appears as the result of a personal faith in the personal and living God: the redeemed righteous shall live; the obstinate sinners shall be for ever destroyed. Still, the horizon becomes wider; the New Testament prolongs the lines; it clearly extends to the future life the temporal promises and threatenings of the Old Testament. The eternity of life and the eternity of non-existence, veiled under the Old Covenant, are revealed and made prominent in the New.” ⁵⁸ CFF2 615.6

In Jesus Himself are found the “conditions of immortalization.” He “offers in his own person the only bridge” to “righteousness” and an “imperishable life.” ⁵⁹ That is the aim of the gospel. He came to offer life and to save from death. And CFF2 616.1

“by death we understand the contrary of life: the deprivation of all sentiment, the end of all activity, the extinction of all individual faculties. Death without any restriction, expressed or understood, death absolute, sometimes called second death, will be the definitive and complete cessation of life as just described.” ⁶⁰ CFF2 616.2

Since the New Testament area has been so often covered, we forbear to dilate on Petavel’s “attainable immortality” through Christ alone. ⁶¹ As to the fate of the wicked, he says: CFF2 616.3

“The New Testament predicts a total extinction of the irreconcilable wicked; to signify this it employs the same terms that Plato uses in the Phaedo to indicate annihilation. There are no stronger terms. The obstinate sinner will be as the rivers separated from their sources, as the trees with neither roots nor branches, as the dry bundles of tares, as the corpses eaten by worms; he will go to destruction, to Gehenna, the refuse-heap of souls.” ⁶² CFF2 616.4

15. IMMORTALITY ONLY THROUGH CHRIST

In chapter five (“Jesus Christ the Only Source of Immortality”) Petavel discusses “conscience” and “spirituality,” and he adds: CFF2 616.5

“To awaken sleeping consciences, to set before them the torch of revealed truth, to put them into communication with the Spirit of God, this will be the preliminary operation, indispensable if they are to be immortalized.” ⁶³ CFF2 616.6

Dealing with the relationship of immortality to the atonement and expiation, reconciliation, and ransom, Petavel says: “The way of immortality traverses Gethsemane and Golgotha.” ⁶⁴ CFF2 616.7

Discussing the “new birth” as the “fruit of faith,” he adds: “Conditional in its principle, immortality remains conditional, even to our last breath.” ⁶⁵ And this involves our resurrection, and the “certitude of our resurrection” rests in Christ. ⁶⁶ “Life and death, death and resurrection, the new birth and the future life” are all inseparably bound together. ⁶⁷ CFF2 616.8

16. SYMBOLS OF IMMORTALITY PERVERTED BY APOSTASY

In chapter six (“Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Symbols of Immortality”) the Lord’s Supper is “an emblem of the sustenance of the new life” provided by Christ. ⁶⁸ Blood “is the symbol of life.” ⁶⁹ But this symbolism was lost through perversion of the Supper into transubstantiation and partly retained in “consubstantiation.” ⁷¹ Similarly, immersion, a “symbol of death and resurrection” unto life, was originally for “believers only.” But the rite was changed to sprinkling, and the “divine symbolism” lost. So in a corrupted church, with its ritualism, sacerdotalism, and sacramentalism these expressive symbols of death and restored life “lost their meaning.” But they bear on Life Only in Christ. This thought was unique with Petavel. CFF2 617.1

17. DEATH: FINAL EXTINCTION OF ALL FACULTIES

In chapter seven (“The Second Death, or Future Punishment”) Petavel discusses the symbolism of “fire” and “worm,” “two agents of destruction,” and shows the punishment to be “deprivation of all faculties.” “Death indicates a suppression, never a manifestation of life.” ⁷⁴ Here are two key statements: “Total destruction is then, according to the Scripture, the final lot of obstinate sinners.” ⁷⁵ CFF2 617.2

As to “eternal punishment,” he says:
“It should be observed that when the word eternal qualifies an act, the.eternity is the attribute not of the act itself, but of the result of the act. It then denotes the perpetuity of the effect produced by the act or by the agent.” ⁷⁶ CFF2 617.3

Asked to define “annihilation,” he says:
“The gradual diminution of the faculties possessed by the individual ego, and the final extinction of that master faculty by which we take possession of the other faculties.” ⁷⁷ CFF2 618.1

18. CONDITIONALISM AMONG APOSTOLIC AND APOLOGIST FATHERS

In chapter eight (“Conditional Immortality in the Writings of the Earliest Fathers of the Church”) Petavel opens with “the apostolic Fathers never speak of a native immortality.” ⁷⁸ And the punishment of the wicked consists “in a gradual destruction of their being, which finally becomes total.” Nor do they teach “universal salvation.” He repeats, “They all with one accord appear to be Conditionalists.” ⁷⁹ (Their testimony he skillfully examines in detail.) Coming then to the “apologist Fathers,” Petavel Surveys Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Arnobius, Athanasius, and Lactantius, and declares them all to be Conditionalists ⁸¹—believing in “attainable,” not Innate, Immortality, and the passing of the wicked back into nonexistence, “relapsing into nothingness.” But this testimony was “drowned in the rising tide of the Platonic theory,” “made to triumph” under Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Cyprian, Jerome, and Augustine. CFF2 618.2

19. COMPULSORY IMMORTALITY IN ETERNAL HELL

Chapter nine (“The Deviation of the Churches, and the Doctrine of Compulsory Immortality in an Eternal Hell”) treats on the “infiltration of heathen dualism.” Special mention is made of Athenagoras. Petavel shows how three North Africans, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine, “secure the triumph of the Platonic doctrine.” ⁸³ It was at this time that Catholic error was developed, which has been largely retained in Protestantism.” ⁸⁴ Athenagoras sought to show the accord between Plato and Christianity, subordinating Christianity to Platonism. ⁸⁵ CFF2 618.3

But it was Tertullian who conceived a Hell with a “special kind of fire, a secret or divine fire, which does not consume that which it burns, but while it burns it repairs.” ⁸⁶ And Augustine was followed after many centuries by Calvin, with the “predestination of the wicked,” “condemned to the eternal fire of hell.” ⁸⁷ And all this involved the “dualism” of Persia, with its “two contrary principles, both eternal,” perpetuated through the Gnostics and Manichaeans. ⁸⁸ And this was all based on the idea of the indestructibility of the soul. On the contrary— CFF2 618.4

“annihilation is the logical consequence of sin as viewed from either the metaphysical, the juridical, or the moral standpoint. He who revolts against God puts himself outside of life.” ⁸⁹ CFF2 619.1

20. REVIVAL OF CONDITIONALISM IN NINETEENTH CENTURY

The remainder of the chapter traces the issue through the Renaissance-Duns Scotus, Pomponatius, and Leo X, and thence to Luther, and Archbishop Parker and the Anglican Church in 1562, together with Calvin’s opposition-and down to the nineteenth century and Ami Bost, who wrote the first Conditionalist tract in France, The Fate of the Wicked in the Other Life (1861). ⁹⁰ Then come the Standards and Confessions, with the Calvinists in particular holding to the dogmas of Innate Immortality and Eternal Torment. Then appear the many Conditionalists of the nineteenth century. ⁹¹ CFF2 619.2

21. UNIVERSALISM’S FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY REVEALED

Chapter ten (“The Theory of Universal Salvation”) reveals the basis of Origen’s fallacy, which likewise holds to “indefeasible immortality.” “There will be an end of evil,” but it will be accomplished through the “destruction of obstinate sinners.” ⁹² But Universalism involves “enforced immortality.” ⁹³ “Salvation is inevitable; it cannot fail of accomplishment.” Sinners are “doomed to salvation.” ⁹⁴ That makes the Biblical “to destroy, and to save” to be “synonymous terms.” But the second, or “final death,” is a “complete and definitive death.” There is no “third,” or subsequent, life. ⁹⁵ “Universalism shows itself generous at the expense of justice and liberty.” ⁹⁶ CFF2 619.3

22. ADVANTAGES AND SUPERIORITY OF CONDITIONALISM

Chapter eleven deals with the “Principal Arguments Adduced Against Conditionalism.” These Petavel answers in a masterful way, drafting upon the writings of other Conditionalists. As these have been answered many times before, we need not repeat them here. Chapter twelve deals with the “Harmonies and Benefits of the True Biblical Teaching.” It is a recapitulation of the evidences marshaled in the preceding chapters. In Conditionalism we are “freed” from the “fetters of scholasticism.” ⁹⁷ Here are some statements: CFF2 620.1

“Bestowing life upon all as a provisional gift, he does not impose upon any one the perpetuity of that boon.” ⁹⁸ CFF2 620.2

Conditionalism leaves “intact the liberty of man.” ⁹⁹ Eternal life is imparted solely through Christ, the “Author of life” —that is His “unique glory.” ¹⁰⁰ CFF2 620.3

“Punishment will be strictly proportional. Guilt will be measured exactly by responsibility.” ¹⁰¹ CFF2 620.4

There is an “ever-exact equilibrium between these three factors: gifts, responsibilities, retribution.” ¹⁰² CFF2 620.5

“God has established an exact and infallible correlation between sin and its punishment.” ¹⁰³ CFF2 620.6

Conditionalism “restores to resurrection the predominant place assigned to it in Scripture.” ¹⁰⁴ CFF2 620.7

23. MULTIPLE EXCELLENCIES OF BIBLE CONDITIONALISM

Here is Petavel’s comprehensive summation of Conditionalism as he closes the text of his treatise: CFF2 620.8

“This is a doctrine which uses neither palliation nor dissimulation; it rests straight and square upon the Bible, bringing all the biblical declarations into harmony; it was maintained by the earliest Fathers; it is in conformity with universal analogy, it satisfies the instinct of selfpreservation, an instinct which is also a duty; within the sphere of liberty it is the crowning of the great scientific law of the survival of the fittest, the graft of the Gospel upon the vigorous but wild tree of evolution. CFF2 620.9

“It humiliates the presumptuous child of the dust; it glorifies Jesus Christ; it is the basis of a new theodicy; it keeps the golden mean between the manichaean pessimism which makes evil eternal and the optimism which sees no serious danger in evil. By removing the stumbling-block of eternal torments, it shows a God always faithful to himself, and merciful even in the terrible chastisement wherewith he threatens obstinate sinners. By re-establishing the notion of irreparability, it restores to the preacher a weapon that he had lost.” ¹⁰⁵ CFF2 621.1

“Conditionalism boldly declares the irreparable consequences of sin; the pardon that it offers is not impunity. Its mathematical morality deals out future retributions in exact proportion to the use made here below of the resources put within reach. A doctrine so clear and so just is a well-sharpened sword wherewith the defenders of the Gospel will be able to resume the attack, quitting the position of the besieged for that of conquerors.” ¹⁰⁶ CFF2 621.2

24. FIGHTING FOR GREAT BUT STILL-MISUNDERSTOOD TRUTH

Conditionalism thus consequently is “not at the circumference, but at the centre of Christian dogma.” ¹⁰⁷ It is “the gravest question in the world,” for it involves not only “our eternal destinies” but the “character of God” and the “future of the Christian religion.” ¹⁰⁸ And “upon the Churches this testimony lays a certain responsibility from which they can free themselves only by a serious response to the challenge.” ¹⁰⁹ CFF2 621.3

Petavel agrees with a Christian thinker who says: “I know no greater delight than that of fighting for the triumph of a great truth that is still misunderstood.” ¹¹⁰ CFF2 621.4