The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VI. Lutheran Kantonen-No Inherent Capacity to Overleap Tomb

One of the ablest recent books in this field to appear in America was written by Dr. TAITO A. KANTONEN, ³³ professor of systematic theology in the Lutheran Hamma Divinity School, of Springfield, Ohio. It is titled The Christian Hope, and was first given as the Knubel-Miller Foundation Lectures. Taking the position that “Christian eschatology” rests squarely upon “Christology,” Kantonen says that this is “the key to all other doctrines.” ³⁴ Discussing the “hope” in the Old and New Testaments, and the nature and destiny of the soul, Kantonen refers with conviction to the “risen Christ” as “the constant pivot of the Christian message, the living center of the Christian hope.” ³⁵ (Photo on page 871.) CFF2 875.1

1. HISTORICAL VICISSITUDES OF THE “HOPE.”

Coming now to the “Hope in the Thought of the Church,” Dr. Kantonen makes this arresting statement: CFF2 875.2

“The influence of Hellenic philosophy, represented by the Alexandrian fathers in particular, tended to spiritualize eschatology into a continuing inner purification and immortality of the soul.” ³⁶ CFF2 875.3

Nevertheless, the apostolic emphasis was retained in the creeds at Nicea and Constantinople-namely, “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” But Augustine came to identify the present church with the “kingdom of God” and the “millennial reign.” The resurrection was already taking place, for the new life was being “obtained through the gospel.” This, Kantonen adds, “exerted tremendous influence upon the growth of the medieval papacy.” This put the “hope” into an “eclipse.” And along with these developments arose the sacrifice of the mass, and Catholicism’s “teaching on purgatory.” ³⁷ But this was followed by the Reformation, with its restorations and rejections. This involved man’s nature and destiny. CFF2 875.4

“The Reformation marks the beginning of a new epoch also in Christian eschatology. In restoring the gospel, Luther restored also the perspective of eternity.... CFF2 876.1

“Rejecting purgatory, he [Luther] taught that man’s destiny, eternal life or eternal damnation, would be decided on the last day on the basis of his personal relation to Christ in the present time of grace.” ³⁸ CFF2 876.2

“The end of the world, the last judgment, and the resurrection adds little to the content of the Christian hope beyond uniting the soul to its resurrected body.” ³⁹ CFF2 876.3

2. THREE SCHOOLS DEVELOP AS TO ESCHATOLOGY

The rationalistic “Age of Enlightenment” marked a return in interest to the “history of the race” and the “present world.” But it was accompanied by a “secularization of the kingdom of God” and a “weakening of specifically Christian hope.” However, today eschatology is coming into its own as embracing the “essence of the Christian message.” Three trends have developed. One is the “futuristic trend.” The second looks to “present fulfilment rather than future expectation”—“realized eschatology.” The third refuses the “simple alternatives of present or future,” but seeks to combine “both aspects.” ⁴⁰ For this Kantonen mentions Althaus, Otto, Heim, and Tillich. That brings Kantonen to his basic discussion. CFF2 876.4

3. PAGANISM PENETRATES CHURCH IN FORMATIVE PERIOD. -

In chapter 2 (“If a Man Die”) Kantonen says, concerning job’s classic question: “The state of man after death has been the object of endless speculation, philosophical and religious, scientific and popular.” ⁴¹ CFF2 876.5

Christian theology has, alas, gone beyond the “boundaries of revelation” and has incorporated “elements drawn from non-Christian sources”—pagan Animism and Platonism. ⁴² Here is Kantonen’s depiction of Platonism’s penetration and establishment as a dogma, just before the Reformation: CFF2 876.6

“Primitive animism with its notion of a detachable ghost-soul which continues after death to lead a shadowy existence and to enter interaction with the living still underlies much of popular religious thinking on the subject. More important and influential from the theological point of view is the Greek idea of the immortality of the soul which found its classical formulation in Plato’s dialogues four centuries before Christ. Since Platonism furnished the sublimest thought forms for the formative period of Christian theology, it is not surprising that many of the Fathers identified the Christian doctrine of eternal life with Platonic immortality and that finally the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17) adopted it as a dogma of the church.” ⁴³ CFF2 876.7

And added to this, Kantonen says, “Zoroastrian dualism with its eternal separation of the kingdoms of light and of darkness and its legalistic rewards and punishments”—and even “Hindu ideas of retribution and transmigration” ⁴⁴found lodgment. CFF2 877.1

4. GREEK VIEW “ENTIRELY FOREIGN” TO “BIBLE” POSITION

Turning to the relationship of “Soul and Body” and the subversive influence of Platonism in this area, Kantonen says of this foreign influence: CFF2 877.2

“It has been characteristic of Western thought ever since Plato to distinguish sharply between the soul and the body. The body is supposed to be composed of matter, and the soul of spirit. The body is a prison from which the soul is liberated at death to carry on its own proper nonphysical existence. Because of its immaterial spiritual nature the soul has been considered indestructible. Hence the question of life after death has been the question of demonstrating the immortality, the deathdefying capacity, of the soul. The body is of little consequence. CFF2 877.3

“This way of thinking is entirely foreign to the Bible. True to Scripture and definitely rejecting the Greek view, the Christian creed says, not ‘I believe in the immortality of the soul,’ but ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body.’” ⁴⁵ CFF2 877.4

The “body,” Kantonen adds, is a “necessary instrument of human living.” Then he remarks, “The soul is not a separate part of man, constituting a substance of its own.” ⁴⁶ And he cites Prof. A. Nikolainen, of Helsinki, that “man is an indivisible whole.” ⁴⁷ CFF2 877.5

5. EXISTENCE AFTER DEATH ONLY BY RESURRECTION

Considering next the subject “Death,” Kantonen cites the Animist and Platonic views, with their concepts of the “protracted existence of the departed soul in a disembodied state.” There is also the concept that “death is not a state but an event, not a condition but a transition.” ⁴⁸ He then cites Paul Althaus, Die Letzten Dinge, page 126, as soundly saying: “Death is more than a departure of the soul from the body. The whole person, body and soul, is involved in death.’” ⁴⁹ CFF2 877.6

Kantonen adds, quoting further from Althaus ⁵⁰ CFF2 878.1

“‘The Christian faith knows nothing about an immortality of the person. That would mean a denial of death, not recognizing it as judgment of God. It knows only an awakening from real death through the power of God. There is existence after death only by way of awakening, resurrection.’” ⁵¹ CFF2 878.2

And now Kantonen continues with the clear statement:
“There is no immortality of the soul but a resurrection of the whole person, body and soul, from death. The only immortality which the Bible recognizes is the immortality of a personal relationship with God in Christ.” ⁵² CFF2 878.3

6. “SOUL” IS “DESTRUCTIBLE” AS WELL AS “BODY.”

Contending that God can destroy as well as resurrect, Kantonen says the Innate Immortality concept has supplanted the Scripture testimony on the destructibility of the soul:
“The Bible does not distinguish between man and the beasts on the ground that man has an immortal soul while the beasts do not. Men, beasts, even plants, are alike in death. We do not need to concern ourselves about spiritualism or hypotheses of any kind concerning future existence. The whole matter of death and life after death is simplified when our only concern is faith in God who can destroy and who can resurrect. Life makes no sense and holds no hope except in terms of Christ’s victory over death and the assurance that we share in that victory. CFF2 878.4

“There is considerable support in Scripture for the view that the soul as well as the body is destructible. This evidence has been obscured because the Greek conception of the inherent immortality of the soul has supplanted the teaching of Scripture.” ⁵³ CFF2 878.5

So Kantonen concludes that “it is impossible to hold that the soul is by its very nature indestructible.” ⁵⁴ CFF2 878.6

7. LUTHER’S EMPHASIS ON SCRIPTURAL “SLEEP.”

Coming next to the “State After Death,” Kantonen observes:
“There are two indisputable realities in the scriptural doctrine, the fact of death and the fact of resurrection from the dead at Christ’s second coming. But between the death of an individual and the return of Christ is an interval, which from the human point of view, in the case of most men, is a long period of time.” ⁵⁵ CFF2 879.1

“Against such speculation [of Roman Catholic paradise, purgatory, Limbo, etc.] Protestant orthodoxy has, on the whole, denied all conceptions of a neutral state of waiting and held that souls pass immediately into a state of misery or of blessedness.” ⁵⁶ CFF2 879.2

He then presents Luther’s position:
“Luther, with a greater emphasis on the resurrection, preferred to concentrate on the scriptural metaphor of sleep. ‘For just as one who falls asleep and reaches morning unexpectedly when he awakes, without knowing what has happened to him, so we shall suddenly rise on the last day without knowing how we have come into death and through death.’ ‘We shall sleep, until He comes and knocks on the little grave and says, Doctor Martin, get up! Then I shall rise in a moment and be happy with Him forever.’” ⁵⁷ CFF2 879.3

“In Luther’s view, so far as the dead person himself is concerned, the intermediate state is reduced to an unconscious moment. When soulsleeping is denied and sleep is regarded only as an euphemistic metaphor for death, it is logical to deny the intermediate state altogether.” ⁵⁸ CFF2 879.4

So Kantonen observes: “If death means entrance into heaven, then resurrection and judgment lose their significance.” ⁵⁹ CFF2 879.5

8. UNCONSCIOUS OF PASSAGE OF TIME IN SLUMBER

In the closing chapter, “The End of All Things,” with emphasis on the resurrection as the “sole foundation of the hope of life beyond the grave,” ⁶⁰ Kantonen says the “end-result” of “Christ’s triumph over death” is the “resurrection of all the dead.” Recapitulating, he adds, adverting to Luther: CFF2 879.6

“The soul has no existence apart from the body. The whole man, body and soul, dies, and the whole man, body and soul, is resurrected on the last day. At death man proceeds directly to the final resurrection and judgment. There is no period of waiting, for waiting implies time, and beyond death time no longer has any significance. From our own temporal point of view we may speak of the dead as being asleep and then say with Luther that for one in deep slumber the passage of centuries is as an instant. We may even say that departed believers are at home with the Lord in the sense that their striving and waiting are over and they have reached their final goal.” ⁶¹ CFF2 879.7

9. FATE OF WICKED SIMPLY DESTRUCTION

After discussing the claims of Universalism Dr. Kantonen suggests that ultimate destruction meets the demands of the New Testamentultimate nonexistence, final “lapse into nothingness“: CFF2 880.1

“An alternative solution is that the fate of the wicked is neither eventual redemption nor endless torment but simply annihilation. Eternal death would conform to the New Testament connotation of death in general, apoleia, destruction. Proponents of this view claim that the idea of eternal punishment rests on the Platonic conception of the inherent indestructibility of the soul and that the reasoning used to disprove it applies here also. On this ground the nature of God also appears to be vindicated.... CFF2 880.2

“When Christ, then, in the end destroys ‘every rule and every authority and power,’ he will wipe out every vistage of opposition to God, both human and superhuman. This view, unlike universal restoration, preserves the twofold judgment taught in Scripture. And to be completely cut off from God, the source of life, would seem logically to imply nonexistence. Such a lapse into nothingness of all of life’s hopes and values makes perdition a terrible reality even without the added feature of prolonged torture.” ⁶² CFF2 880.3

Kantonen sums up his able discussion in these words:
“The hope of the individual Christian at death does not lie in man’s power to defy death but in God’s power to raise man from the dead. Death is real, and man has no inherent capacity to leap over the grave into another existence.” ⁶³ CFF2 880.4