The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VIII. Union’s Niebuhr-Sole Hope of Survival Lies in Resurrection

Dr. REINHOLD NIEBUHR, ⁶⁵ of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, one of the renowned theologians of America and longtime professor at Union Theological Seminary, as well as author of numerous works, expressly affirmed that if man is to be made immortal he must receive it from God, “who only hath immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). Niebuhr’s views are explicitimmortality depends solely on the grace and power of God. Along with this he stresses the “unity of body and soul.” CFF2 839.3

1. CLASSICAL PAGAN CONCEPT SUPPLANTS “BIBLICAL” VIEW

After contrasting the “classical” view of man, of GrecoRoman antiquity, and the “Biblical” view, Niebuhr states that the two “were actually merged in the thought of medieval Catholicism.” ⁶⁶ The classical view, that the “mind,” or “spirit,” is “immortal,” was inseparably tied to the dualistic “bodymind” concept of man ⁶⁷ But among the Hebrews, he observes, “the concept of an immortal mind in a mortal body, remains unknown to the end.” ⁶⁸ Furthermore, “Origen’s Platonism completely destroys the Biblical sense of the unity of man.” CFF2 839.4

2. RESURRECTION TEACHING SUPPLANTED BY IMMORTALSOULISM

Here are Niebuhr’s strictures on the traditional inherent immortality view. Note two excerpts: CFF2 840.1

“The idea of the resurrection of the body is a Biblical symbol in which modern minds take the greatest offense and which has long since been displaced in most modern versions of the Christian faith by the idea of the immortality of the soul. The latter idea is regarded as a more plausible expression of the hope of everlasting life.” ⁶⁹ CFF2 840.2

“The Christian hope of the consummation of life and history is less absurd than alternate doctrines which seek to comprehend and to effect the completion of life by some power or capacity inherent in man and his history.” ⁷⁰ CFF2 840.3

3. CONTRAST BETWEEN “RESURRECTION” AND “IMMORTALITY.”

Now observe Niebuhr’s clear contrast between “resurrection” and “immortality“:. CFF2 840.4

“In this answer of faith the meaningfulness of history is the more certainly affirmed because the consummation of history as a human possibility is denied. The resurrection is not a human possibility in the sense that the immortality of the soul is thought to be so. All the plausible and implausible proofs for the immortality of the soul are efforts on the part of the human mind to master and to control the consummation of life. They all try to prove in one way or another that an eternal element in the nature of man is worthy and capable of survival beyond death. But every mystic or rational technique which seek to extricate the eternal element tends to deny the meaningfulness of the historical unity of body and soul; and with it the meaningfulness of the whole historical process with its infinite elaborations of that unity.” ⁷¹ CFF2 840.5

In this connection Niebuhr quotes Prof. John Baillie (And the Life Everlasting, chapter four) to the effect that the Platonic concept of immortality is but a philosophic version of the “animistic sense of a shadowy survival after death.” ⁷² CFF2 840.6