The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VII. St. Paul’s Dean Matthews-Favors Conditional Immortality

In Dean WALTER R. MATTHEWS, ⁴⁵ of St. Paul’s Cathedral, we find another prominent voice, in 1930, favoring “conditional or conferred immortality,” as against the traditional “inherent immortality” postulate. This view of man, the dean believes, harmonizes best with God’s “moral government.” He too places resurrection over against Innate Immortality, considering them to be irreconcilable. He likewise notes the relation between mind and body. Man, he holds, is a unity. (Matthews’ photo on page 759.) Writing in The Hibbert journal, he says: CFF2 763.3

“The alternative view to the inherent immortality of the soul is some kind of conditional or conferred immortality. This view would appear to be most in harmony with the fundamental assumption of Theism, and as we shall see later, will probably best conform to what we may conceive to be the moral government of the universe. But the contrast usually drawn is that between immortality and the resurrection of the body. The latter doctrine, it has been frequently pointed out, is the characteristic feature of Christian teaching of the New Testament.... CFF2 763.4

“The old problem of the relation of mind and body has not indeed been solved, but it becomes clear that the sharp antithesis between them is not tenable. This does not mean that we are being insensibly carried towards materialism. Perhaps the tendency is really in the other direction. It does mean, however, that we are discovering that the distinction between mind and body is one which is made within the unity of the personal life and experience, which therefore includes what we mean by body as well as what we mean by mind.” ⁴⁶ CFF2 764.1

1. SIN BRINGS ITS OWN DESTRUCTION

Turning then to the destiny of the wicked, Matthews rejected both Calvin’s abhorrent Eternal Torment and Origen’s Universalism as alike unsound. The dean saw ultimate “destruction” as the fate of the finally “incorrigible sinners.” In this connection the power of “self-determination” must be recognized, and the “risk” that it entailed. The first retribution of evil is “destruction of the self.” Because of the importance of his testimony we quote Dean Matthews at some length: CFF2 764.2

“The idea that eternal punishment of the wicked is somehow implied in the belief in the divine justice seems to me one of the strangest aberrations of the human mind, and the idea of Calvin that hell shows forth the glory of God by showing His justice, no less than Heaven by showing His mercy, one of the most horrible.... Are we then led by our fundamental assumptions as Christian Theists to the conclusion of universalism? Must all souls in the end be saved? Many of us no doubt would rather err with Origen than be right with Augustine. But I do not think that either extreme is forced upon us by the thought of God on which we rest, indeed neither view seems to me to be really in harmony with it.” ⁴⁷ CFF2 764.3

2. SELF-DETERMINATION INVOLVES RISK OF DISASTER

Dean Matthews continues his line of reasoning thus:
“The Creator, when He brought into existence spirits with the power of self-determination, brought into being a sphere in which real risk and possibilities of disaster were present. It would surely be a puerile conception of God which would regard Him as allowing the game of freedom to go on for a time and then, like a parent who has had enough of the confusion, bringing it to a stop, giving everyone a present. Life is no game, and freedom involves real decisions. We must therefore hold to the Apostolic doctrine that the wages of sin is death.” ⁴⁸ CFF2 764.4

3. WRONG CHOICE LEADS TO DESTRUCTION

The inevitable outcome of such a wrong choice, Matthews holds, is destruction:
“But we shall be giving only a mythological version of the truth if we think of God as dealing out destruction from above upon incorrigible sinners. Just as the reward of goodness is the opportunity for further developments along the same line, so the retribution of evil is the opportunity of further evil. CFF2 765.1

“‘God gave them up to a reprobate mind,’ says the Apostle. He left them to themselves. Here, then, are the two ways: on the one hand, the response to the call of that ideal which is indeed beyond our petty selves, but the utterance at the same time of the deepest reality of the self; on the other, the assertion of the self and its immediate claims. Since the first is in harmony with the moral structure of the universe, it opens before the soul unending vistas of life, and since the other is in ultimate conflict with the nature of reality, it leads through self assertion to the destruction of the self.” ⁴⁹ CFF2 765.2

That was the position of Dean Matthews in January, 1930. CFF2 765.3