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The Immortality of the Soul: Could Christianity Survive Without It? Part 1 Avondale College ResearchOnline@Avondale School of Ministry and Theology (Avondale Theology Papers and Journal Articles Seminary) 3-2011 The Immortality of the Soul: Could Christianity Survive Without It? Part 1 Bryan W. Ball Avondale College of Higher Education, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://research.avondale.edu.au/theo_papers Recommended Citation Ball, B. W. (2011). The immortality of the soul: Could Christianity survive without it? Ministry: International Journal for Pastors, 83(3), 10-14. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Ministry and Theology (Avondale Seminary) at ResearchOnline@Avondale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theology Papers and Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@Avondale. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bryan W. BALL bryan w. ball, phd, is a retired professor and administrator living in Martinsville, New South Wales, Australia. The immortality of the soul: Could Christianity survive 1 without it? (part 1 of 2) ore than half a century alternative eschatology, which to older still. It was unthinkable that has passed since Oscar each of them was always more bibli- belief in the soul and its immortality Cullmann delivered cal, more thoroughly Christological, could ever seriously be challenged Mthe Ingersoll lecture at and, therefore, nearer to the heart or that a credible alternative should Harvard and it was published under of the authentic Christian message. even be considered. Yet that is pre- the title Immortality of the Soul or cisely what has taken place over the Resurrection of the Dead? 2 Cullmann Some preliminary past four centuries, beginning, as we was, at the time, a professor of considerations have said, in the very earliest years theology at the University of Basel Although it hardly seems neces- of the Protestant Reformation and and at the Sorbonne in Paris and had sary to explain the traditional view of continuing in an unbroken succes- already published Christ and Time, the immortality of the soul, yet for sion of biblical scholars ever since.6 described by one reviewer as “one the sake of clarity, it may be helpful Those who have challenged the of the most significant theological to restate the doctrine briefly. Human traditional doctrine and proposed works” of the decade.3 beings consist of two components: a an alternative eschatology have Given the almost universal adher- material, mortal body and an immate- generally been known as mortalists, ence to the immortality of the soul rial, immortal soul. At death, the Christian mortalists, or conditionalists- within contemporary Christendom, it immortal soul leaves the body and, mortalists because they believed may be legitimate to raise Cullmann’s in the case of the righteous believer, that human beings are essentially question once more, even to press it ascends immediately to heaven and mortal rather than inherently immor- further. Could Christianity survive into the presence of God to enjoy tal creatures. Or they were known without the soul’s immortality? Or is eternal bliss. The souls of the unsaved as conditionalists because they resurrection at the last day a more go somewhere else. This belief has argued that immortality belonged credible and biblical alternative? We defined and undergirded Christianity only to God and was attainable by shall attempt to answer these ques- for at least 1,000 years. It is almost humans through Christ and that tions from theological and historical impossible to overstate how crucial its acquisition was dependent on perspectives; the theological from it has been in the faith structure of the believer’s faith in Him and the within the context of the historical, countless millions of believers in resurrection at the last day, rather bearing in mind that Cullmann was in every country where Christianity has than on themselves. the mid-twentieth century, the latest taken root, who have died believing It is important for a correct under- in a very long line of distinguished that they were about to go to heaven standing of the mortalist position to thinkers and writers who had raised and enter eternal glory.4 recognize that there were, from the similar questions. By the time the Westminster early days, two forms of Christian We shall perhaps be surprised Assembly finally articulated this mortalism: psychopannychism and to discover that some of Europe’s doctrine in its influential Confes- thnetopsychism. Psychopannychists keenest minds were engaged in sion in 1646,5 English Protestantism believed that the soul was a separate this discussion, challenging the was over 100 years old, continental immortal entity, which left the body assumption that the immortality of Protestantism a generation older at death, did not ascend immediately the soul was central to the Christian than that, and belief in the soul’s to heaven, but slept in rest and peace proclamation and propounding an immortality several hundred years until the last day when it would be MINISTRY 10 MARCH 2011 reunited with the body and then in purgatory were to become one G. H. Williams of Princeton, in received into glory. Thnetopsychists of the major concerns of Luther’s his monumental analysis of the did not believe in the existence of a Ninety-Five Theses, along with his Radical Reformation, maintains that separate soul, holding instead that attack on the sale of indulgences mortalism, in either of its forms, was the word soul referred to the whole and the “audacious” claim that souls a central article in the theology of person and that at death the whole could be released from purgatory many continental radicals. He argues person died, to await the resurrection thereby. Luther would soon conclude that the evangelical rationalists of the at the last day. that the underlying doctrines of the Radical Reformation, Italian in origin, N. T. Burns explains, “The psy- soul’s reality and immortality were spread widely across eastern Europe chopannychists believed that the “monstrous” opinions concocted by by the latter half of the sixteenth cen- immortal substance called soul liter- the medieval church. tury, took mortalism convincingly to ally slept until the resurrection of the A careful analysis of Luther’s writ- what he calls its “extreme” position body; the thnetopsychists, denying ings reveals more than 300 instances of thnetopsychism.12 The evangelical that the soul was an immortal sub- where he rebuts the medieval view rationalists themselves, with their stance, believed that the soul slept of the soul, substituting in its place insistence that reason must prevail in after the death only in a figurative an undeniable psychopannychism. the interpretation of Scripture, might sense. Both groups of soul sleepers Indeed, all the essentials of the psy- have called it the more logical and believed in the personal immortality chopannychistic view of man are consistent formulation of mortalist of the individual after the resurrec- found in Luther’s writings; most of theology. tion of the body.”7 them stated repeatedly: the separate Thus, by the mid-sixteenth Both forms of the mortalist existence of the soul, its unconscious century, psychopannychism and understanding appeared throughout sleep in death, its exclusion from thnetopsychism were established Europe within only a few years of the heavenly bliss until the resurrection, in various parts of Europe and had onset of the Reformation. and the ultimate reunification of already given Calvin the motivation We will briefly trace mortalism’s body and soul at the last day as the for his Psychopannychia, which first development in the early Reforma- true way to immortality and eternal appeared in print in 1542 but possibly tion years in Europe and England life. In his lectures on Ecclesiastes had been written as early as 1536. and then turn our attention to some (1526), Luther asserted that the dead This was a fierce attack on mortalists of the more influential mortalist are “completely asleep” and do not and mortalist theology, which had spokesmen, specifically to note their “feel anything at all . they lie there enormous and lasting implications concerns and the arguments they not counting days or years; but when for the future of Protestantism.13 used to challenge the traditional view they are raised it will seem to them and sustain their own position. that they have only slept a moment.”10 English mortalism Luther actually says of the resurrec- We now turn our attention to Early continental tion at the last day, that it is “the chief the English scene for it is English mortalism article of Christian doctrine.”11 Reformation theology that has In 1439, the Council of Flor - Already, by the mid-1520s, most influenced Protestantism, ence declared canonical a belief psychopannychism was being particularly in its Anglican and non- that had already existed for some advocated in Austria, Switzerland, conformist forms, throughout the time, the doctrine of purgatory, with France, and the Netherlands as well English-speaking world. its essential presupposition that the as in Germany. In 1527, the Swiss In 1526, eight years before the souls of the dead are conscious and Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler English Reformation, William Tyn- “capable of pain or joy even prior was burned at the stake, convicted dale’s historic translation of the New to the resurrection of their bod- on numerous counts of heresy, Testament in English was published ies.”8 Few doctrines of the medieval including denying the efficacy of the in Germany and smuggled into church provoked such widespread intercession of the virgin Mary and En gland.14 Not only was Tyndale’s opposition from the early Reformers the departed saints (since, like all the New Testament influential in the devel- and those who followed them than faithful, they were asleep, awaiting opment of the English language and this doctrine of an intermediate state the resurrection and the last judg- English Protestantism, it also contrib- between death and a future life in ment).
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