The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

I. Rector Simcox-Not a “Guess” About the “Grand Perhaps”

Episcopalian CARROLL E. Simcox, ¹ former book editor of The Living Church, then rector of Zion Church, Manchester Center, Virginia, in discussing “the Doctrines of the Apostles’ Creed,” and specifically The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting, speaks of the “vast conspiracy of silence about death.” ² Following a discussion on “The Christian View of Death,” he first of all contrasts “immortality and resurrection.” ³ CFF2 842.3

1. INNATE IMMORTALITY ONLY A THEORY

Here is Dr. Simcox’ incisive opening statement:
“Our first logical step is to make a distinction between two very different things: immortality and resurrection. CFF2 843.1

“Most non-Christians have always believed in some kind of immortality of man and hence in some life beyond the grave. Many have envisioned a life to come that is indeed beautiful and glorious. But they have based their hope for this life to come entirely on the theory of the immortality of man. The essence of this theory is that there is some imperishable something in man himself which death cannot destroy: so long as this something cannot die, man himself cannot die. This theory of the imperishable-something in man has commended itself to the reason of most of the wisest men. Yet it can never be anything more than a theory. If the theory is false, man’s hope for life beyond death is grounded in a bad guess.” ⁴ CFF2 843.2

On the contrary CFF2 843.3

“the Christian has an entirely different reason for believing in the life to come. He believes in resurrection, and he believes that he has sufficient reason to consider resurrection not so much a theory as an established fact.” ⁵ CFF2 843.4

2. INNATISM NOT BIBLICAL, MERELY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Simcox points out that the “basic idea” of such “immortality” is that “man is made up of two elements, soul and body,” ⁶ which is, of course, straight Dualism. And the corollary is that CFF2 843.5

“while man is in this present life, his soul and his body are in a temporary working partnership. Soul is by its very nature immortal: it cannot die. It is the imperishable-something. Body is mortal and must die. What happens, then, at death? The partnership of soul and body is dissolved. The body disintegrates into dust, and for all practical purposes ceases to be.” ⁷ CFF2 843.6

This theory Simcox attributes to Plato. This “grand surmise” rests, he says, simply on the “high authority” of Plato. ⁸ Then Simcox immediately declares: CFF2 843.7

“Nevertheless, it is all a guess about the Grand Perhaps, whether we think it a reasonable guess or not. It can never be established as a certainty. We must understand that it may be nothing more than what the psychologists call a wish-projection: a fantasy of pure wishful thinking.” ⁹ CFF2 844.1

Simcox then stresses the following point as “very important” CFF2 844.2

“This doctrine of immortality is not distinctly Christian. Most Christians have believed it, but not on Biblical and Christian grounds. The Bible does not teach it. The Bible knows no such sharp distinction and radical cleavage between soul and body. This doctrine in its familiar form comes down to us, not from the people of Israel and the early Christians, but from the philosophers of Greece: the most brilliant guessers in all history, but still guessers.” ¹⁰ CFF2 844.3

3. MAN A UNIT, NOT A DUALITY

Turning now to “The Christian Doctrine,” Simcox denies the Dualism theory and stresses the unitary character of man-man as a “single,” or “whole,” being. Thus:
“One important difference between it and the immortality doctrine is this: the resurrection doctrine thinks of the whole man as a whole. It does not divide man into two or more parts. It allows us to call something in man ‘soul,’ something else in man ‘mind,’ something else ‘body’; but the Bible never theorizes about that. If man lives, the whole man lives; if man dies, the whole man dies; if man suffers, the whole man suffers-soul, mind, body, all of him. Whatever elements together make up a human life, their togetherness-rather than their differentness-is the important fact about them. Man is a single being, in life and in death.” ¹¹ CFF2 844.4

4. TRANSFERS HOPE FROM MAN TO GOD

And what is more important, under the resurrection our hope is centered in God, not in man. Thus: CFF2 844.5

“If we base our hope for life after death on the theory of immortality, we are putting our faith in man, in this immortal something in man. If we base our hope on the Christian ground of resurrection, we are placing our faith in God rather than in man, in the divine power and goodness rather than in human nature. Surely this makes a tremendous difference, if we believe in God at all. The theory of immortality says that we shall live beyond the grave because we are incapable of dying. The Christian claim of resurrection (it is a claim, not a theory, as we shall see later) asserts that we shall live beyond the grave because God, in His mighty love and loving might, raises us from death to life. In whom do we put our trust: in God, or in ourselves?” ¹² CFF2 844.6

It is not, therefore, a “disembodied” part of a person that lives on. ¹³ Through the resurrection, man-the whole man is raised by divine power from death. This section closes with the affirmation: “I affirm that the whole person—as we might say today ‘the complete personality’—is raised by God’s power from death to life eternal.” ¹⁴ CFF2 845.1