The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

V. Free Church’s Vine-Man Not Immortal, but “Immortizable”

In 1948, Dr. AUBREY R. VINE, ¹⁶ secretary of the Free Churches Federal Council of Britain, made a distinct contribution to our quest in his An Approach to Christology. He was formerly professor at Yorkshire United Independent College and for years editor of The Congregational Quarterly. His experience in classroom, editorial chair, pulpit, and administrative office gives weight to his words. His chapter on “Man” is packed with gem statements. At the outset Dr. Vine sets forth this fundamental principle of man’s total dependence on God for continuance: CFF2 830.1

“God is the only self-existent, and though perfected man live for countless aeons in harmony and unity with God, man’s being will always depend for its continuance on God’s being.” ¹⁷ CFF2 830.2

1. MAN AN “INTEGRATED UNIT,” NOT A DUALISM

Emphasizing “God’s grace and man’s choice,” Dr. Vine stresses the fact that man is an “integrated unit”—“from his birth to his death man is a natural unit.” He was brought into being “by integrating a spirit into a suitable body.” ¹⁸ Then he hastens to add: CFF2 830.3

“His spirit is not like the tenant of a house or the driver of a vehicle. The tenant can leave and return, the driver can get out and in. But the spirit cannot act like that. The spirit is utterly committed to the body and cannot leave it except in accordance with natural law, and once having left cannot return.” ¹⁹ CFF2 830.4

As to man’s “spirit,” Vine says that man appeared CFF2 830.5

“differing from all else in the scheme of creation by the possession of a spirit, a spirit which was in some special way different both in nature and origin from all else in the material universe.” ²⁰ CFF2 830.6

“It is derived from God in some way intentionally different from the way in which all else in the material Universe has been brought into being.” ²¹ CFF2 831.1

Thus it was that man came CFF2 831.2

“into being in a different way from that in which all else in the Universe had come into being, and which was integrated into the new unit, man, in a way in which no other integration had ever taken place.” ²² CFF2 831.3

2. GOD ONLY HAS “NATURAL IMMORTALITY.”

Stressing that man is “immortizable,” ²³ not innately immortal, Dr. Vine develops the point:
“‘Immortal’ should only be applied to a human spirit if we clearly recognize that it is only immortal at God’s grace and pleasure. Only God is immortal by His own nature and without qualification.” ²⁴ CFF2 831.4

3. “NATURAL IMMORTALITY” OF MAN A “GREEK CONCEPT.”

After declaring that “the natural immortality of the spirit is a Greek rather than a Christian concept,” ²⁵ Dr. Vine comes to the question of whether it is “by nature indestructible or eternal,” and reminds us that only “God can destroy (disintegrate) spirits; and no spirit continues to exist except by the good-will of God.” ²⁶ He again emphasizes this important truth: CFF2 831.5

“Against the idea of the natural immortality of the spirit we must set the fact that God is the only self-existent and that nothing exists or continues to exist except by His grace and will, within this schema or within any other. God only is exoschematic. When we use the word ‘immortal,’ therefore, of anything but God, we must always realize that none but God is immortal by His own nature and without qualification.” ²⁷ CFF2 831.6

He repeats, for emphasis, man is “only immortal at God’s grace and pleasure.” ²⁸ (Vine photo on page 826.) CFF2 831.7

4. MAN “NOT A SPIRIT INHABITING A BODY.”

Dr. Vine begins the section “The Life of Man” with the reiterated thought “Man thus begins his life as the result of an integration which makes him a biotic unit of a special kind.” ²⁹ Then he adds: “Man is a system, because he is a complex integration of many parts. Man is a unit, because the many parts are integrated into one autocentricity.” ³⁰ CFF2 831.8

This he expands:
“Man is not a spirit inhabiting a body. He is a spirit naturally integrated into a body, which is a very different matter. While a man lives he is not a spirit: he is a man, and ‘man’ includes body just as certainly as it includes spirit. He is a complex, and he reacts as a complex, though that complex is a natural unit and therefore acts as a unit.” ³¹ CFF2 832.1

And Dr. Vine had already warned against imagining that “the spirit is a kind of tenant occupying a material body and then leaving it to live disembodied or re-embodied.” ³² CFF2 832.2

5. DISINTEGRATION ENDS “HUMAN BIOTIC UNIT.”

In the section “The death of man” Dr. Vine next states that “a time comes when the human biotic unit disintegrates”—at death. This he expands: “Death is the end of the biotic unit man, and he disintegrates into his constituents. Those constituents are in the main three: body, centrum vitae and spirit.” ³³ CFF2 832.3

The “centrum vitae” he defines as “the conscious centre of vital force.” ³⁴ Then, reverting to “disintegration,” Dr. Vine says: CFF2 832.4

“The disintegration of man is a natural disintegration, that is, it takes place in accordance with inevitable laws. It is therefore beyond man’s control, except in so far that he can place himself or others in circumstances in which the natural laws will operate which will cause the disintegration to occur.” ³⁵ CFF2 832.5

Moreover, death is irreversible. That is why it is dreaded. This leads to the statement with which we conclude this survey:
“Death is the end of man. The human biotic unit begins at conception and ends at death. When the spirit has disengaged from the dying body it is no longer a man.” ³⁶ CFF2 832.6

It takes a creative act of God, the resurrection, to reconstitute man in immortality. Such is the important witness of Dr. Vine, of the Free Churches Federal Council of Britain. CFF2 832.7