The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VI. Schoolmaster Cundy-Resurrection, Not Survival of Separated Souls

In another treatise appearing in the same year, The Faith of a Christian (1945), issued by the Inter-Varsity Press in England, Dr. H. MARTYN CUNDY, mathematician and master of the public school of Sherborne, makes the foundational statement that “God is eternally self-existent. lie owes His being to no other, and all else owes its being to Him.” ⁵⁸ Man, at his creation, received “self-consciousness” and “personality.” ⁵⁹ But through Eve’s act of transgression “death was the penalty of her act.” ⁶⁰ Eve, who was a “free moral agent,” succumbed to Satan’s seductive assurance, “Thou shalt not surely die.” But CFF2 820.1

“God’s words were no idle threat. Their assertion of independence meant a life of independence; a life independent of Him in whom all live and move and have their being; a life that was but a living death. ‘Man, being in honour and abiding not, is made alike unto the breasts that perish’ (Psalm 49:12). The natural tendency of his body to decay now runs its uninterrupted course; death is his end, and death his present state.” ⁶¹ CFF2 820.2

Master Cundy rejects both Dualism and Spiritism. ⁶² He holds that the “Christian doctrine of Creation carries with it as a corollary the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and of His final victory.”’ ⁶³ (Cundy photo on page 804.) CFF2 820.3

1. LIFE SPARK MUST COME FROM OUTSIDE

In allusion to the second suggestion of the evil one, “Ye shall be as gods,” Dr. Cundy says: CFF2 820.4

“There is no more subtle error than that which talks of the divine spark within us which only needs fanning to burst into flame. The New Testament tells us unequivocally that we are dead, and that the spark of life must come to us from outside. We have the materials for spiritual life, but life itself we have not; God must give it us, and this gift is a miracle of creative power (2 Corinthians 4:6).” ⁶⁴ CFF2 820.5

Concerning “The Fall,” Cundy stated:
“Through a specific act of self-assertive rebellion early in his history, man has forfeited his authority and broken his fellowship with his Creator, thereby experiencing physical and spiritual death.” ⁶⁵ CFF2 820.6

Redemption is imperative. CFF2 821.1

2. BODILESS SURVIVAL OF SOUL A “PAGAN NOTION.”

And now comes Dr. Cundy’s key statement in the field of our questthat the “survival of the soul” apart from the body is of “pagan” origin: CFF2 821.2

“It is important that we understand clearly what Christians mean by the resurrection of the dead. We do not mean mere survival of the soul. That is a pagan notion, and the Bible has practically nothing to say about the souls of men apart from their bodies.” ⁶⁶ CFF2 821.3

3. ETERNAL HELL NOT FOREGONE CONCLUSION

As to Eternal Torment, Cundy says: “Many Christians have believed that it involves everlasting conscious suffering. Some of our Lord’s words seem to point to this, but possibly not conclusively.” ⁶⁷ And on the resurrection, he wrote: “The Resurrection. The dead, good and evil, will be raised in bodily form, not merely survive in spirit, and will stand before God as judge.” ⁶⁸ These statements, first made in 1945, are more or less incidental to his theme, but they are indicative for us. CFF2 821.4

4. SECOND DEATH EXTINGUISHES PERSONALITY

In a personal letter to the author, written in 1961, Dr. Cundy reiterates the foregoing views in these words:
“I still hold to my view of there being no conscious interval between death and resurrection.... As to eternal punishment, I hold the Conditionalist view-that man is not inherently immortal (a Greek idea, foreign to the Bible) but holds his life solely by the will of God. Immortality has been brought to light through the gospel, and is in Christ. The second death then means to me what it so obviously seems to implyextinction of personality in circumstances of great anguish.” ⁶⁹ CFF2 821.5

This from Mathematician and Schoolmaster Cundy. CFF2 821.6