The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

II. Cardinal Billot-Dead “Sleep” Until Appointed Awakening

Even in the higher echelons of Catholicism unexpected statements have appeared that are singularly out of tune with the traditional papal positions on the nature and destiny of man. These constitute fringe voices in the far-flung chorus that knows no creedal boundaries. One such declaration was made by no less a personage than a cardinal in the very city of Rome —highly trained Cardinal LUDOVICO BILLOT, S. J., ⁸ who for twenty-five years taught dogmatic theology at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Vatican City, a graduate institution. He was therefore thoroughly acquainted with Catholic theology and Roman tradition. CFF2 772.1

In a book titled La Parousie (“The Parousia”), issued in 1920, the cardinal touches on two points coming within the scope of our quest. We do not set Billot forth as a Conditionalist, but as having taken a long step in that direction-away from the traditional papal position shared by many Protestants. Here is a succession of illuminating statements appearing in his volume dealing with the Second Advent in relation to every individual’s unchanged condition between the time of death and the time of the judgment. CFF2 772.2

1. MAN’S FATE FIXED IMMOVABLY AT DEATH

Billot declares that everyone’s destiny is settled forever at the moment of death. His condition will continue unchanged to the day of judgment at the end of the world. It will not have varied when the Son of man comes later in the clouds of heaven. That, Billot says, is the dictum of Scripture. Note three of his explicit statements: CFF2 772.3

“‘Thus, death fixes us forever in the moral state in which it finds us, without leaving us any possibility of ever changing it. Thus, before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, the inquiry will deal solely with that which we have done, whether good or whether evil, while in the body. Thus, at the precise instant when the soul is separated from the body, takes place the particular judgment of which the last judgment will be but a repetition or solemn confirmation. CFF2 772.4

“‘Thus, for each one of us who dies, everything is, with regards to the salvation of the soul, exactly as it would be i f the entire interval between the last day of our life and the moment of the Parousia were eliminated, exactly as it would be i f the one coincided punctually and mathematically with the other, and we were seized by death only to be immediately cast at the feet of the judge, before the face of the Son of man arriving in the clouds of heaven with the great power and great majesty described to us in the Gospel. This is what has always been believed in the Church. CFF2 773.1

“‘This, is what is formally taught in the Scriptures-in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament. This is what no one has ever attempted to refute with any resource of critique-no, not even in the recent Modernist school any more than in all the schools whose heritage it has gathered and whose procedures of demolition it has perfected.’” ⁹ CFF2 773.2

A few pages farther on he repeats the same thought:
“‘Death, in seizing him, fixes him in the state, whether of grace, whether of damnation, in which the great day of universal judgment will find him.’” ¹⁰ CFF2 773.3

The thought is similarly expressed on an earlier page. It is so reiterated that there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Thus:
“‘In the state in which man is found on the last day of his life, in this very state will he be found on the last day of the world, and that, as he was on the day of his death, so will he be judged on this day.” ¹¹ CFF2 773.4

That, of course, contravenes the common Catholic position of the purification wrought by the fires of Purgatory. But according to Billot, there is no change during the interim between death and the Second Advent. CFF2 773.5

2. SLEEPS IN DEATH UNTIL GENERAL AWAKENING

Cardinal Billot also significantly stresses the related fact that death, in Scripture, is denominated “sleep”—sleep until the hour of final awakening. Here are two statements: CFF2 773.6

“‘Who does not know, after all, that in the Scriptures of the New Testament death is constantly presented as a sleep? That therein the dead are currently called those that sleep, and those who die those who fall asleep? (Matthew 27:52; John 11:11; 1 Corinthians 7:39, and 1 Corinthians 15:6, 18, 20; 1 Thessalonians 4:12-14; etc.).’” ¹² CFF2 773.7

“‘And this is what, in all hypotheses, will put them in a category altogether apart from that of the other dead, who go down into the grave there to sojourn and sleep until the happy hour of the general awakening.’” ¹³ CFF2 774.1

This is likewise a most remarkable position for a Roman Catholic, and a prelate at that, to take. It is actually one of the three basic postulates of Conditionalism. One wonders whether these declarations had any bearing upon his resignation. CFF2 774.2