The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2
V. The Gist of Calvin’s Attack on Soul Sleep
Here are the leading points of Calvin’s classic attack on the doctrine of soul sleep, the revival of which he blames upon the Anabaptists. 17 The arguments here presented, in his Psychopannychia, set the pattern for most of the later champions of Immortal-Soulism in Protestant circles through the centuries that have followed. There has been little deviation. The digressions are chiefly variations within the standard framework. CFF2 120.4
Note certain of Calvin’s basic definitions. CFF2 121.1
1. CALVIN’S DEFINITION OF THE SOUL
Calvin undeviatingly maintains that the “soul” “is a substance, and after the death of the body truly lives, being endued both with sense and understanding.” 18 CFF2 121.2
This assertion he repeats in intensified and emphasized form: CFF2 121.3
“The Spirit or soul of man is a substance distinct from the body .... THE SOUL, AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY, STILL SURVIVES, ENDUED WITH SENSE AND INTELLECT. And it is a mistake to suppose that I am here affirming anything else than THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.” 19 CFF2 121.4
2. DEATH OF “SOUL” IS “ABANDONMENT BY GOD.”
Calvin then defines the “DEATH OF THE SOUL” as being “abandoned by God, and left to itself.” “It loses its life when it loses the presence of God.” 20 CFF2 121.5
3. “DEAD” DEFINED AS NOT “VISIBLY EXISTING.”
He subsequently defines “not to be” as “equivalent to being estranged from God.” Then, he asserts that man is “not said to be absolutely dead, but dead only with reference to men. For they are no longer with men, nor in the presence of men, but only with God.” And he repeats, “‘Not to be’ is not to be visibly existing.” 21 In others words, he says that man does not really die. CFF2 121.6
4. “THOUGHTS PERISHING” CONSTRUED AS “DESIGNS” DISSIPATED
Calvin attempts to dismiss the Anabaptist Biblical argument and phrasing that in death all man’s “thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:4) by the statement that “whatever they designed while alive is dissipated and given to the winds.” Every scheme will be “dissipated.” 22 CFF2 121.7
5. CENTRAL ATTACK IS ON “SLEEP” OF SOUL
Calvin’s central attack is upon the Anabaptist contention that the human soul “sleeps in a state of insensibility from Death to The Judgment-day.” 23 Instead, he stoutly contends that “after the death of the body” the soul “truly lives, being endued both with sense and understanding.” 24 CFF2 121.8
6. “SLEEP” APPLIES ONLY TO “BODY,” NEVER TO “SOUL.”
He seeks to dispose of the constantly iterated Biblical term “sleep” by insisting that it refers only to the “dead body,” and adds, “Nowhere in Scripture is the term sleep applied to the soul, when it is used to designate death.” 25 CFF2 122.1
7. ACQUAINTANCE WITH PLATONISM DISCLOSED
It is important to note here that Calvin’s acquaintance with Platonism, its terms and postulates, is revealed at the outset in his statement that “Plato, in some passages, talks nobly of the faculties of the soul; and Aristotle, in discoursing of it, has surpassed all in acuteness.” 26 CFF2 122.2
8. AUTHORITY OF TRADITION IS INVOKED
Moreover, Calvin invokes the teachings “handed down to us by tradition,” citing early Christian writers who declare that such “souls are indeed in paradise”—Church Fathers like Tertullian, Chrysostom, and Augustine, 27 champions of Immortal-Soulism. It is but fair, however, to add that he selects those writers who held to universal Innate Immortality, but is usually significantly silent as to the testimony of those holding to the contrary Conditionalist school in the sharply divided Early Church testimony. And in insisting on immortality of the soul, he likewise has recourse to the Apocryphal books such as “Baruch” for needed support. 28 CFF2 122.3
9. THE SOUL RETURNS TO GOD AT DEATH
Calvin further contends that “when it [the soul] quits this prison-house [the body] it returns to God, whose presence it meanwhile enjoys while it rests in the hope of a blessed Resurrection.” 29 “This rest is its paradise.” Thus “they seemed to die, but they are in peace.” 30 CFF2 122.4
10. FREED FROM BODY, SOUL SOARS ALOFT
He continues by asserting that “the body, which decays, weighs down the soul, and confining it within an earthly habitation, greatly limits its perceptions.” It is the “prison of the soul,” from which it is “set free” at death, and “loosed from these fetters.” Then it “can rise aloft unencumbered with any load” 31—this allegedly occurring, of course, at death. CFF2 123.1
11. CONTENDS “RICH MAN AND LAZARUS” NOT A PARABLE
Calvin early derides the interpretation of the Anabaptists who “make the history [of the Rich Man and Lazarus] a parable.” 32 Calvin contends, instead, that it is an actual historical “narrative rather than a parable,” and not fiction, concerning the soul when it is “freed from the body.” 33 “Let them now go and try to put out the light of day by means of their smoke!” In support, he invokes the testimony of a group of third- and fourth-century Innate-Immortality proponents—such as Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and Cyril—who early held it to be “history,” not “parable.” 34 He conveniently omits those of contrary opinion. CFF2 123.2
12. CHRIST INTENSELY ALIVE DURING HIS DEATH
Referring to the death of Christ, Calvin asserts, sarcastically: CFF2 123.3
“As the soul of Christ was set free from prison, so our souls also are set free before they perish. Let any one of you now put on a supercilious air, and pretend that the death of Christ was a sleep—or let him go over and join the camp of Apollinaris! Christ was indeed awake when he exerted himself for your salvation; but you sleep your sleep, and, buried in the darkness of blindness, give no heed to his wakening calls!” 35 CFF2 123.4
In another place: CFF2 123.5
“O dreamy sleepers, commune with your own hearts, and consider how Christ died .... Could he who has life in himself lose it?” 36 CFF2 123.6
13. ALLEGES JONAH PRAYED WHILE DEAD IN WHALE
Calvin says that “another proof of the immortality of his [man’s] soul was given us by our Saviour when he made the confinement of Jonah three days within the whale’s belly to be a type of his death.” He then asserts: “That belly is death. He therefore had his soul safe in death, and by means of it could cry unto the Lord” 37 while dead. CFF2 124.1
As to technical arguments, he touches briefly on Christ preaching to the “spirits in prison,” Paul’s expressions “clothed” and “unclothed,” the revelator’s portrayal of souls crying aloud, the case of the thief on the cross, Paul’s “in the body” and “out of the body,” and the eternal fire and the worm that dieth not. But in these he adds nothing new and does little to elucidate. CFF2 124.2
14. WICKED SAID TO FEEL CEASELESS FLAME OF ETERNAL FIRE
As to the death of the wicked, Calvin asks “whether there is to be any end to that death.” Then he answers, “Although dead, they still feel eternal fire and the worm which dieth not.” This, he affirms, makes “manifest” the “immortality of the soul, which we assert, ... exists even when it is dead.” Consequently, the death of the wicked is not “annihilation,” to which the Anabaptists would “reduce it.” 38 Such Eternal Torment is inevitable if the soul is indefeasible. CFF2 124.3
15. SOUL SLEEP DECLARED A FABRICATED ABOMINATION
Calvin concludes his bristling treatise by stating, “They [the Anabaptists] brandish some other darts, but they are pointless. They give no stroke.” And he closes by chiding them for quoting “irrelevant” passages, even to citing 2 Maccabees, but which treatise, he rightly contends, alludes on the contrary to the teaching of “prayers” for “the dead.” In parting he declares that the “famous dogma” of soul sleep is but a “fabricated” abomination. 39 CFF2 124.4
Such are Calvin’s main contentions, which quickly became the norm for nearly all Immortal-Soulist contentions in the future, the weapons of continuing attack wherever the battle has been joined in succeeding centuries. The stage was thus set by Calvin’s Psychopannychia for the clash of Protestant pens over the soul question that has characterized succeeding generations. CFF2 124.5