In discussing Conditional Immortality among Conservative Protestants I am often told, “That’s not the traditional view of the church!” I believe Scripture alone binds my conscience, but I also believe that those who say this often misunderstand what the “tradition” of the church is and would be surprised to find that the view they support is generally not that held by the majority in the early church. Part One of this article focused on the Intermediate State. Part Two focuses on Eternal Destinies.

THE CONDITIONALIST VIEW

In the early Christian writing known as the “Epistle of Barnabas” (AD 70-120) there is not a word as to eternal conscious torment. So too, the work known as “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” (AD 120-160) and the two epistles of Clement are silent as to this doctrine. At the same time the language used by these and other less important works is consistent with a Conditionalist view of Hell.

Justin Martyr is explicitly Conditionalist when he says: “Now the soul partakes of life, since God wills it to live. Thus, then, it will not even partake [of life] when God does not will it to live. For to live is not its attribute, as it is God’s … whenever the soul must cease to exist, the spirit of life is removed from it, and there is no more soul, but it goes back to the place from whence it was taken.” (“Dialogue”, Chapter 6).

Irenaeus (AD 180) held an explicitly Conditionalist view. He says: “[I]t is the Father of all who imparts continuance forever and ever on those who are saved. For life does not arise from us, nor from our own nature; but it is bestowed according to the grace of God. And therefore he who shall preserve the life bestowed upon him, and give thanks to Him who imparted it, shall receive also length of days for ever and ever. But he who shall reject it, and prove himself ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he has been created, and has not recognised Him who bestowed [the gift upon him], deprives himself of [the privilege of] continuance forever and ever. And, for this reason, the Lord declared to those who showed themselves ungrateful towards Him: “If ye have not been faithful in that which is little, who will give you that which is great?” indicating that those who, in this brief temporal life, have shown themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from Him length of days for ever and ever.” (Irenaeus, “Against Heresies”, Book 2, Chapter 34.3).

THE UNIVERSALIST VIEW

Many of the early fathers were in fact card carrying Universalists (So says J.W. Hanson in “Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine Of the Christian Church During Its First Five-Hundred Years” from which much of what follows is drawn). The widespread belief that Christ, between his death and resurrection, descended to Hades and there preached the Gospel to the dead (See Issue 33 for the contra view), and the practice of prayers for the dead, may indicate that, at a popular level, many in the early church believed that one’s eternal destiny was NOT fixed at death.

Clement of Alexandria explicitly declared that all punishment, however severe, was intended to purify the sinner. His pupil, Origen, perhaps the most famous and influential Universalist in the early church, taught that even Gehenna signified limited and curative punishment. Origen was later condemned for various heresies (including his belief in the preexistence of souls) but he was never officially condemned for his Universalism. The council that condemned “Origenism” at the same time eulogized Gregory of Nyssa, who was himself an outspoken Universalist and a most conspicuous figure in Christendom at the time.

As late as A.D. 400, both Jerome and Augustine acknowledged that there were very many believers in Universalism within the Church. However, no writer among those who describe the heresies prevalent throughout the first three hundred years of Christendom ever intimates that Universalism was considered a heresy, though it was believedby so many even among the fathers. Nor did any creed condemn the doctrine in favour of eternal conscious torment.

The half-pagan emperor Justinian attempted to have Universalism condemned. He closed the theological schools, and demanded the condemnation of Universalism by law. But the doctrine was so prevalent in the church that the council refused to obey his edict to suppress it.

My point is not to defend the doctrine of Universal Salvation (which I do not believe is supported by Scripture). My point is merely to suggest that an honest appraisal of church history will reveal that both Conditionalism and Universalism can at least lay an equal claim to being part of “original primitive Christianity” as can the so-called “traditional view” of eternal conscious torment.

ETERNAL CONSCIOUS TORMENT

One of the first clear advocates of eternal conscious torment was Tertullian (AD 197). He speaks of a time when “there will be neither death again nor resurrection again, but we shall be always the same as we are now, without changing. The worshippers of God shall always be with God, clothed in the proper substance of eternity. But the godless and those who have not turned wholly to God will be punished in fire equally unending, and they shall have from the very nature of this fire, divine as it were, a supply of incorruptibility” (Apology, 44:12-13).

So too, Hippolytus (AD 212) speaks thus: “The unquenchable and unending fire awaits these latter [lovers of evil], and a certain fiery worm which does not die and which does not waste the body but continually bursts forth from the body with unceasing pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no appeal of interceding friends will profit them” (Against the Greeks 3).

CONCLUSIONS

There was a hard edge to the theology of the Latins (in the West) not found among the Greeks (in the East). No historian disputes that eternal conscious torment was increasingly favoured in the West until Augustine. Since then it has predominated. Nevertheless, it is intriguing to note the variety of opinion that existed among early Christian interpreters and that, especially among those born to the language of the New Testament (the Greeks), there was no attempt to impose upon believers the awful doctrine of eternal conscious torment.

Scripture alone binds my conscience, but I believe history shows us that belief in eternal conscious torment was not as “universal” in the early church as is sometimes supposed. When we consider the horrible nature of the doctrine, how it reflects badly upon our loving God and the Lord Jesus Christ, given that it is founded on exegetically “thin ice” shouldn’t we be quick to abandon this doctrine?

This article first appeared in From Death to Life, Issue 33 (March 2007), pages 31-34.

In discussing “Conditional Immortality”, from the Bible, with Christians of all stripes I have lost count of the number of times I have been told, “But that’s not the traditional view of the church!” Fair call. However, when discussing Conditional Immortality with Protestants this objection seems a bit rich. “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture Alone) is one of the fundamental principles of the Reformation. As John Wesley stated in the 18th century, “The Church is to be judged by the Scriptures, not the Scriptures by the Church.”

Nevertheless, that is not my only objection: I might as well ask, “Why don’t you believe the traditional view of the church?” What is today passed off by most Protestants as “the traditional view” was not the dominant view in the early church. One book that makes this clear is Freeman Barton’s, “Heaven, Hell and Hades” (Henceforth … Publications, Lenox, Mass., 1990).

Concerning the intermediate state, for example, Barton says, “From the mid-second century, at least, the intermediate state has been a subject of controversy. … [F]our main alternatives have been held by some almost from the beginning of the church (p. 30-31). The four views Barton refers to he calls the “Materialistic view”, the “Traditional view”, “the Modern view” and the “Unconscious view”.

To be honest the views of the Apostolic Fathers are not always easy to determine. They did not write specifically to address this point. What statements they do make are often interpreted in a variety of ways depending on ones own position. No two writers are in 100% agreement as to who among the Fathers taught what. Because of this I find it easier to think in terms of three main alternatives:

THE CONDITIONALIST VIEW

I am among a minority today who call themselves Conditionalists. Some of us maintain that a human being is a material being only and that at death the whole person ceases to exist. Other Conditionalists believe there is an immaterial aspect to human beings but that this aspect is so tied to the material that when the body dies the immaterial part ceases to exist. Still others teach the view that at death the soul “sleeps” such that both the righteous and the wicked remain unconscious until the time of the resurrection.

In each of the above cases, the only hope for eternal life comes by way of resurrection when Christ comes again. Barton notes that the church father, Tatian (mid-2nd century) and later Athenagoras (late second century) held Conditionalist views. That Tertullian (late second, early third century) opposed “soul sleep” shows that such a view was not uncommon in his day. Eusebius (4th century) wrote of an Arabian “heresy” which maintained “that during the present time the soul dies and perishes with the body, but that at the time of the resurrection they will be renewed together.”

The Conditionalist view was so common among Anabaptists of the 16th century that Calvin felt compelled to write his first theological work, Psychopannychia, against it (Barton, p. 31).

Admittedly, the Conditionalist view however has never been the dominant view among Christians, but it has not been uncommon.

THE TRADITIONAL VIEW

Having said that, the view which perhaps more than any other deserves to be labelled the “traditional view” is not the one common among Protestant Christians today.

Most of the early Fathers maintained that the souls of the dead were gathered to some subterranean locality, neither heaven nor hell, to await the resurrection.

This view was common in Jewish writings of the intertestamental period. Justin Martyr affirmed: “The souls of the devout dwell in a better place whereas the souls of the unjust and evil dwell in a worse place, and there they await the judgment day.” Tertullian also wrote that “every soul is detained in safe keeping in Hades until the day of the Lord” (On the Soul, LV). Hippolytus gave a potted geography of Hades showing it to be a subterranean locality, distinct from Heaven or Hell, wherein both the righteous and the wicked were detained until the resurrection and judgment.

Many Conditionalists enthusiastically own as theirs those Fathers who say that the dead do not go immediately to Heaven or Hell. Often they are not in fact affirming what we know as Conditional Immortality. Rather, they affirm the existence of a third place where (they say) souls go consciously to await the resurrection and judgment.

There were differences of opinion among the Fathers, but this view was predominant in the post Apostolic Church and therefore might better deserve to be called the Traditional view. It is the view of the Orthodox (Capital-O) Church today. Now, the Roman Catholic Church, since the early Middle ages has held to a variation of this view. They offer several more options for post mortem accommodation including various Limbos and Purgatory. Only a few saints go straight to Heaven while the wicked go to Hell. Proponents of this view today have abandoned all speculation as to the geography of the afterlife, preferring to think of Purgatory etc, as a state in which souls exist after death, rather than a place to which they go at death.

THE MODERN VIEW

A third idea was the idea that upon the death of the body the soul goes immediately to the place of its final destiny, Heaven or Hell. The Gnostics (going back at least to the second century) taught that the soul ascended immediately to heaven. Justin Martyr roundly condemned such a view. Those who assert “that there is no resurrection of the dead, but their souls are taken up to Heaven at the very moment of their death, do not consider them to be real Christians”, says he (Barton, p. 33). Irenaeus and Tertullian likewise condemn this view.

A very few among the Fathers did teach that the souls of the dead go immediately to Heaven or Hell without going to any intermediate place and, at the same time, that there would be a resurrection at Christ’s return. This view, the most common among Protestant Christians today, in fact, only came to prominence at the time of the Reformation. It was a reaction against the Roman Catholic view, particularly against the doctrine of purgatory. As such it hardly merits being called “the Traditional view of the church.”

Answer A Question With A Question

The so-called “Traditional view” is not the “earliest” of the views that have been held in the church; nor has it ever been held by the majority in the wider Church. It is a fact that this falsely labelled view is not even the majority opinion of Christians today if we include Orthodox and Roman Catholics in our count.

The Bible alone is our guide in matters of faith and practice. But in discussing the Scriptures I am often asked, “Why don’t you believe the traditional view of the church?”, I now say, ‘Why don’t you believe the traditional view of the church?” A brief discussion of the information outlined above is more than enough to bring the most ardent Protestant back to his or her roots: “Oh well, what really matters is what the Scriptures teach!” they say.

“On that much we agree”, say I. “Let’s open the Bible again.”

David Burge

The nineteenth century advances in the disciplines of science, philosophy and religion loosened the grip of tradition from searching minds; finally, hundreds of years of tradition looked set to be overturned. Yet, on both sides of the Atlantic it was strangely suppressed by those obsessed with conformity to tradition rather than a commitment to both biblical truth and a society whose world view had changed!

Click hear to hear our 2008 Conference address: The Story of Conditional Immortality in the 19th Century.

Duration and Nature of Future Punishment by Henry Constable.

Hades: or the Intermediate State of Man by Henry Constable.

Clicking these links will take you away from our site.

The first link provided, by an online friend of mine, leads to a good clean copy of Constable’s book. The second is a bit more complicated but the best available at present. You will have to click one of the links on the left of the page. Note the Text files are dificult to read, so it is worthwhile taking the time to download the pdf files though they will take some time to download.

By the way, the website where the books are found seems to have Constable confused with an earlier man of the same name who lived from 1562-1613.