THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
and Armand, the one from the point of view of exegetical, the other from that of natural science. Says the one (L'Originc du piche dans le systeme the'ologique de Paul, Paris, 1887, p. 38): " The impenitent sinner never emerges from the fleshlystate, and consequently remains subject to the law of corruption and destruction, which rules fleshly beings; they perish and are as if they had never been." Says the other (Essai sur Vimmortalite au point de vue du naturalisme evolutionniste, 2ded., Paris, 1895, pp. 198,229): "The immortality of man is not universal and necessary; it is subject to certain conditions, it is conditional, to use an established expression." " Ultraterrestrial immortality will be the exclusive lot of souls which have arrived at a sufficient degree of integrity and cohesion to escape absorption or disintegration."
The chief English advocate of conditional immortality has undoubtedly been Edward White whose Life in Christ was published first in 1846 (London), rewritten in 1875 (3d ed., 1878). His labors were seconded, however, not only by older works of similar tendency such as George Storrs's Are the Wicked Immortal ? (21st ed., New York, 1852), but by later teaching from men of the standing of Archbishop Whately (Scripture Revelation Respecting the Future State, 8th ed., London, 1859), Bishop Hampden, J. B. Heard (The Tripartite Nature of Man, 5th ed., Edinburgh, 1852), Prebendary Constable (The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment, London, 1868), Prebendary Row (Future Retribution, London, 1887), J. M. Denniston (The Perishing Soul, 2d ed., London, 1874), S. Minton (The Glory of Christ, London,
1868), J. W Barlow (Eternal Punish- 8. English ment, Cambridge, 1865), and T. Davis Advocates. (Endless Suffering not the Doctrine
of Scripture, London, 1866). Less decisive but not less influential advocacy has been given to the theory also by men like Joseph Parker, R. W. Dale, and J. A. Beet (The Last Things, London, 1897). Mr. Beet (who quotes Clemance, Future Punishment, London, 1880, as much of his way of thinking) occupies essentially the position of Schultz. " The sacred writers," he says, " while apparently inclining sometimes to one and sometimes to the other, do not pronounce decisive judgment " between eternal punishment and annihilation (p. 216), while annihilation is free from speculative objections. In America C. F. Hudson's initial efforts (Debt and Grace, Boston, 1857, 5th ed., 1889; Christ Our Life, 1860) were ably seconded by W R. Huntington (Conditional Immortality, New York, 1878) and J. H. Pettingell (The Life Everlasting, Philadelphia, 1882, combining two previously published tractates; The Unspeakable Gift, Yarmouth, Me., 1884). Views of much the same character have been expressed also by Horace Bushnell, L. W Bacon, L. C. Baker, Lyman Abbott, and without much insistence on them by Henry C. Sheldon (System of Christian Doctrine, Cincinnati, 1903, pp. 573 sqq.).
There is a particular form of conditionalism requiring special mention which seeks to avoid the difficulties of annihilationism, by teaching, not
the total extinction of the souls of the wicked, but rather, as it is commonly phrased, their" transformation " into impersonal beings incapable of moral action, or indeed of any feeling. This is the form of conditionalism which is suggested by James Martineau (A Study of Religion, ii., Oxford, 1888, p. 114) and by Horace Bushnell (Forgiveness and Law, New York, 1874, p. 147, notes 5 and 6). It is also hinted by Henry Drummond 9. Modifica- (Natural Law in the Spiritual World, tions of the London, 1874), when he supposes Theory, the lost soul to lose not salvation merely but the capacity for it and for God; so that what is left is no longer fit to be called a soul, but is a shrunken, useless organ ready to fall away like a rotten twig. The Alsatian theologian A. Schaffer (Was ist Gliick ?, Gotha, 1891, pp. 290-294) similarly speaks of the wicked soul losing the light from heaven, the divine spark which gave it its value, and the human personality thereby becoming obliterated. " The forces out of which it arises break up and become at last again impersonal. They do not pass away, but they are transformed." One sees the conception here put forward at its highest level in such a view as that presented by Prof. O. A. Curtis (The Christian Faith, New York, 1905, p. 467), which thinks of the lost not, to be sure, as " crushed into mere thinghood " but as sunk into a condition " below the possibility of any moral action or moral concern like persons in this life whose personality is entirely overwhelmed by the base sense of what we call physical fear." There is no annihilation in Prof. Curtis 's view; not even relief for the lost from suffering; but it may perhaps be looked at as marking the point where the theories of annihilationism reach up to and melt at last into the doctrine of eternal punishment.
Benjamin B. Warfield.
Bibliography: An exhaustive bibliography of the subject up to 1863 is given in Ezra Abbot's Appendix to W. R. Alger's History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, also published separately, New York, 1871; consult also W. Reid, Everlasting Punishment and Modern Speculation, pp. 311- 313, Boston, 1874. Special works on annihilationism are J. C. Killam, Annihilationism Examined, Syracuse, 1859; I. P. Warren, The Wicked not Annihilated, New York, 1867; N. D. George, Annihilationism not of the Bible, ib. 1874; J. B. Brown, Doctrine of Annihilation in the Light of the Gospel of Love, London, 1875; S. C. Bartlett, Life and Death Eternal. A Refutation of the Theory of Annihilationism, Boston, 1878. The subject is treated in S. D. F. Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality, pp. 473-499, Edinburgh, 1901; R. W. Landis, Immortality, pp. 422 sqq., New York, 1860; A. Hovey, State of the Impenitent Dead, pp. 93 sqq., Boston, 1875; C. M. Mead, The Soul Here and Hereafter, Boston, 1879; G. Godet, in Chretienne Evangelique, 1881-82; F. Godet, in Revue Theologique . 1886; J. Fyfe, The Hereafter, Edinburgh, 1889; R. Falke, Die Lehre von der ewigen Verdamniss, pp. 25-38, Eisenach, 1892. On conditional immortality, consult W. R. Huntington, Conditional Immortality, New York, 1878; J. H. Pettingell, Theological Tri-lemma, ib. 1878; idem, Life Everlasting. What is it t Whence is it t Whose is it f A Symposium, Philadelphia, 1882; E. White, Life and Death : A Reply to J. B. Brown's Lectures on Conditional Immortality, London, 1877; idem, Life in Christ. A Study of the Scripture Doctrine on . the Conditions of Human
Immortality, New York, 1892. Further discussions may be found in the appropriate sections of most works on systematic theology and also in works on eschatology and future punishment See, besides the works mentioned in the text, the literature under Immortality.