THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
The class of theories to which the designation of " conditional immortality " is most properlyapplicable, agree with the theories 3. Con- of pure mortalism in teaching the ditional natural mortality of man in his en- Immor- tirety, but separate from them in tality. maintaining that this mortal may, and in many cases does, put on immortality Immortality in their view is a gift of God, conferred on those who have entered into living communion with him. Many theorists of this class adopt frankly the materialistic doctrine of the soul, and deny that it is a distinct entity; they therefore teach that the soul necessarily dies with the body, and identify life beyond death with the resurrection, conceived as essentially a recreation of the entire man. Whether all men are subjects of this recreative resurrection is a mooted question among themselves. Some deny it, and affirm therefore that the wicked perish finally at death, the children of God alone attaining to resurrection. The greater part, however, teach a resurrection for all, and a " second death," which is annihilation, for the wicked (e.g., Jacob Blain, Death not Life, Buffalo, 1857, pp. 39-42; Aaron Ellis and Thomas Read, Bible versus Tradition, New York, 1853, pp. 13-121; George Storrs, Six Sermons, ib. 1856, p. 29; Zenas Campbell, The Age of Gospel Light, Hartford, 1854). There are many, on the other hand, who recognize that the soul is a spiritual entity, disparate to, though conjoined in personal union with, the body. In their view, however, ordinarily at least, the soul requires the body either for its existence, or certainly for its activity. C. F. Hudson, for example (Debt and Grace, New York, 1861, pp. 263-264), teaches that the soul lies unconscious, or at least inactive, from death to the resurrection; then the just rise to an ecstasy of bliss; the unjust, however, start up at the voice of God to become extinct in the very act. Most, perhaps, prolong the second life of the wicked for the purpose of the infliction of their merited punishment; and some make their extinction a protracted process (e.g.,H.L. Hastings, Retribution or the Doom of the Ungodly, Providence, 1861, pp. 77. 153; cf. Horace Bushnell, Forgiveness and Law, New York, 1874, p. 147, notes 5 and 6; James Martineau, A Study of Religion, ii., Oxford, 1888, p. 114). For further discussion of the theory of conditional immortality, see Immortality.
Already, however, in speaking of extinction we are passing beyond the limits of " conditionalism " pure and simple and entering the region 4. Annihila- of annihilationism proper. Whether we tionism think of this extinction as the result of Proper: the punishment or as the gradual dying out of the personality undei- the enfeebling effects of sin, we are no longer looking at the soul as naturally mortal and requiring a new gift of grace to keep it in existence, but as naturally immortal and suffering destruction at the hands of an inimical power. And this becomes even more apparent when the assumed mortalism of the soul is grounded not in its nature but in its sinfulness; so that the theory deals not with souls as such, but with sinful souls, and it is
a question of salvation by a gift of grace to everlasting life or of being left to the disintegrating effects of sin. The point of distinction between theories of this class and " conditionalism " is that these theories with more or less consistency or heartiness recognize what is called the " natural immortality of the soul," and are not tempted therefore to think of the soul as by nature passing out of being at death (or at any time), and yet teach that the actual punishment inflicted upon or suffered by the wicked results in extinction of being. They may differ among themselves, as to the time when this extinction takes place, — whether at death, or at the general judgment, — or as to the more or less extended or intense punishment accorded to the varying guilt of each soul. They may differ also as to the means by which the annihilation of the wicked soul is accomplished, — whether by a mere act of divine power, cutting off the sinful life, or by the destructive fury of the punishment inflicted, or by the gradual enervating and sapping working of sin itself on the personality. They retain their common character as theories of annihilation proper so long as they conceive the extinction of the soul as an effect wrought on it to which it succumbs, rather than as the natural exit of the soul from a life which could be continued to it only by some operation upon it raising it to a higher than its natural potency.
It must be borne in mind that the adherents of these two classes of theories are not very careful to keep strictly within the logical limits of 5. Mingling one of the classes. Convenient as it of Theories, is to approach their study with a definite schematization in hand, it is not always easy to assign individual writers with definiteness to one or the other of them. It has become usual, therefore, to speak of them all as annihilationists or of them all as conditionalists; annihilationists because they all agree that the souls of the wicked cease to exist; conditionalists because they all agree that therefore persistence in life is conditioned on a right relation to God. Perhaps the majority of those who call themselves conditionalists allow that the mortality of the soul, which is the prime postulate of the conditionalist theory, is in one way or another connected with sin; that the souls of the wicked persist in existence after death and even after the judgment, in order to receive the punishment due their sin; and that this punishment, whether it be conceived as infliction from without or as the simple consequence of sin, has much to do with their extinction. When so held, conditionalism certainly falls little short of annihilationism proper.
Some confusion has arisen, in tracing the history of the annihilationist theories, from confounding with them enunciations by the
6. Early earlier Church Fathers of the essential