The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

XI. Professor Vaucher-Handbook of Continental Conditionalism

One of the most valuable contributions to come from French-Swiss sources is Prof. ALFRED VAUCHER’S ¹⁰⁰ collation of key excerpts from French and Swiss Conditionalists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Issued in 1957, this 111page book is the most complete assemblage of Romancelanguage statements on Conditionalism on record. Because of its completeness and excellence, Vaucher has been called the Swiss “Encyclopedist of Conditionalism.” (Photo on page 1018.) CFF2 1027.1

Titled Le probleme de l’immortalite (“The Problem of Immortality”), the book first deals with the witness of the New Testament on the nature and destiny of man, according to some of the ablest Old World scholars. It then sets forth the historical development of the Innate-Immortality theory, as unfolded through revealing historical extracts. Next follows innatism’s penetration into Jewish church ranks in the InterTestament period, and finally its intrusion into one wing of the Christian church-along with the paralleling witness of a line of loyal Early Church Conditionalists. CFF2 1027.2

Vaucher then presents the significant nineteenth- and twentieth-century French and Swiss witnesses-documented extracts that parallel many of the fuller portrayals of this larger work and including most of the contemporary witnesses cited by C. J. Kearney, beginning on page 1017. Vaucher’s is a priceless assemblage of choice testimony, conveniently arranged. It is an indispensable handbook for all who wish to compass the testimony of the Conditionalist witness of Southern Europe. CFF2 1027.3

Professor Vaucher’s Introduction is so apt and graphic in its over-all portrayal that we quote it entirely: CFF2 1027.4

“The option is not between affirmation or denial of immortality, but between two affirmations: the affirmation of immortality which is natural or native, inherent in the human soul, which is that of Roman Catholic theology, and the affirmation of optional or Conditional Immortality, which is that of Biblical theology. CFF2 1027.5

“The clear waters of the Rhone and the muddy waters of the Arve meet at Geneva. They struggle to keep their independence and their homogeneity, and for a certain distance beyond their junction one can see the two distinct streams of different colors.... Then, little by little, the mixture begins. Soon the two streams... give birth to a new river with troubled waters. This is the Rhone, but it is modified in its appearance by the deposits of its tributary. CFF2 1028.1

“Nothing can illustrate better the vicissitudes of the doctrine of immortality. Across the pages of the Old and New Testaments the clear waters of revealed truth flow like a majestic river. It is God, who only hath immortality, offering to men and communicating to the believer His divine, imperishable life. CFF2 1028.2

“But paralleling this stream flows the muddy river of pagan philosophy, which is that of human soul, of divine essence, eternal, pre-existing the body and surviving it. CFF2 1028.3

“After the death of the apostles the two streams merged to make unity of the troubled waters. Little by little the speculation of human philosophy mixed with divine teaching. CFF2 1028.4

“Now the task of evangelical theology is to disengage the two incompatible elements, to dissociate them, to eliminate the pagan element which has installed itself as a usurper in the center of traditional theology; to restore in value the Biblical element, which only is true, which alone conforms to the nature of God and of man, His creature.” ¹⁰¹ CFF2 1028.5

What a multum in parvo simile of the graphic story of the centuries that we are both portraying. CFF2 1028.6