The problem of “conditional immortality”

(from an introduction to eschatology) Paragraph I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI In general, the area of eschatology is least distinguished by the movement of theological thought. Even in the West, where, since the era of the Reformation, Theology has moved on and, for better or worse, shows new life in different areas, this is least applicable to eschatology. One can rather speak here about a certain eschatological insensitivity, which manifests itself either in the traditional repetition of what is unique in this form, or in the easy acceptance of painless solutions to so-called universalism. Two types of eschatological thinking predominate: the criminal code in all its ferocity, or a complacent amnesty, which is an actual evasion of all the difficulties of the problem. The first path is increasingly becoming an actual impossibility in our days, because it has lost its internal persuasiveness; the second is not an overcoming, but a simple denial of the first (not to mention its serious biblical and theological difficulties). In the face of both types: medieval orthodoxy and humanistic universalism, the question arises about the possibility of another, third, path, which, combining the advantages, would be free from the weaknesses of both, a certain tertium. Thus, from the denial of both members of the eschatological dilemma, a theological doctrine emerged in the second half of the 19th century, calling itself the theory of “conditional immortality” or conditionalism. In any case, it deserves attention simply because it raises with radical sharpness the question of immortality and eternal life, this preliminary question of all eschatology. For some, man is mortal, like animals, and therefore death is a kind of destruction; hence the negative eschatology of emptiness obviously follows. Such is the now widespread belief of atheistic unbelief (for, of course, unbelief here is only a type of faith due to the nature of this question, which does not allow for a rationally provable solution). Or man is immortal, belongs to eternity, and eschatology tries to determine the content of this eternity. In the theory of conditionalism, we have a third alternative: a person does not have natural immortality, but may or may not receive it. Immortality is conditional; it is given or not given depending on certain conditions. This is the formulation of the eschatological problem that we have in “conditionalism.” It is impossible to pass by her in silence, counting with her. 1 The theory of “conditionalism” as a noticeable current of theological thought appears in the second half of the 19th century, in Europe and America, of course, mainly, even almost exclusively, among Protestant theologians not bound by traditional orthodoxy. It counts among its supporters a number of prominent theologians and philosophers (among the latter, for example, Renouvier). The leading founders here are two Protestant pastors: the Englishman E. White 2 and the Swiss Petavel-Olliff, 3 who are joined by their numerous followers. 4 The works of both, despite a certain theological primitiveness, are nevertheless distinguished by their not ordinary power of persuasion, and therefore persuasiveness. They offer conditionalism not only as a Theological truth, the acceptance of which is indicated by revelation, but also as a saving idea, which alone is capable of liberating modern Christianity from the seductive irresponsibility regarding eternal life, for Christian life and especially the Christian mission suffer from this irresponsibility. According to the theory of conditional immortality, the destiny of humanity in eternal life will be heavenly bliss, and this will fulfill the prophetic word of the apostle that God will be all in all. However, only the righteous who are worthy of it will take part in this bliss. Sinners who completely resist the will of God will die, turning into insignificance, and will not receive the destiny of immortality. This is the main idea. Let us turn to its Theological justification. Man was created in contrast to animals, which have only generic life (“according to their kind”: Gen. 1, 21, 24–5), having its personal energy, which is realized in personal immortality. Man was not created mortal by nature, on the contrary, he has the possibility of immortality - posse non mori, by creation. 5 This immortality is characteristic of the human spirit, similar to the spirits of the disembodied. However, man differs from the spiritual world in the complexity of his composition; it is he who was created not as an incorporeal spirit, although existing in the created world, but abiding above this world. He is an embodied spirit, connected with the world. The possibility of death lies in wait for this complexity not from the side of the “immortality of the soul,” but from the side of the life of the whole person, for whom death is not a return to oblivion, but a kind of disembodiment, a break with the world, an ontological catastrophe. The body is by no means the cause of death, but, on the contrary, the condition of human life given to him by God at creation. By this complexity, man differs equally from the disembodied world, which does not know incarnation, and from the animal world, which does not have a spirit, but only a “living soul,” that animal soul that, along with him, man also has. This connection of spirit and body, supernatural and natural being, which was given at creation, had to be secured by man with the power of his free and creative spirit, raising his being to the highest state of positive immortality. This was associated with his certain attitude towards God (which is symbolically expressed in the commandment of not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), as well as in a certain positive attitude towards the world (which is expressed in eating the fruit from the tree of life). The original dispensation did not separate man from the world, and renunciation of the world was neither the goal nor the basis of immortality. On the contrary, a proper connection with the world, included in a proper connection with God, was a necessary condition of human life on the path to positive conquest, non posse mori, although we do not know how it would be realized. But the Fall occurred. Man has lost the unstable ontological balance of his complex being. Death has entered the world, human death, which is deeply different from the death that dominates the animal world, despite all the external similarities. For the death of a person is not death in the strict sense, but an ontological rupture of his single being into two principles, which enters into him. Through death, a person is externally equated to the animal world, to which he is not equal, although by the carnal side of his being he belongs to it; he is equated with the disembodied world, to which he also does not belong, although he is akin to it in the spiritual side of his being. Death is not the cessation of human existence, but a catastrophic, as it were, dehumanization of a person, the loss of his integrity. Conditionalism denies the fundamental difference that exists between man and the animal world, both for reasons of biology (here we have the direct influence of Darwinism and biological evolutionism in general) and a kind of exegesis. Man was created, according to him, “in living soul,” the same as animals, and the difference between them is not qualitative, but quantitative: man has the same animal soul as animals, only with certain properties. It is language, and moral and religious feeling that distinguishes man from animals. Thus, life is the same for humans and animals, and their death or mortality is also the same. “In the Old Testament, the soul and life (nephesh) attributed to man are often attributed to animals.” “We must either share immortality with our neighbors of the animal kingdom, or sacrifice our own hopes and recognize ourselves as mortal like them.” 6 “The image of God in man is not something ontological, but a “shadow”, l’ombre n’est pas la réalité, 7 ombre de ressemblance, – l’ombre n’est pas l’identité. 8 “The “image of God” in Adam consisted in the ability to understand and imitate his Creator, and thus rise morally to immortality.” 9 Man was not created immortal, but he is a “candidate for immortality.” Absolute immortality can be characteristic of God alone, while conditional immortality is characteristic of man. The power of death is the same for humans and animals: it is the destruction of life, the rupture of life unity, the complete and final decomposition of the entire natural complex, the simultaneous destruction of body and soul, “annihilation of substance,” 10 the abolition of personality. The influence of Platonism 11 with its doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as well as “l’immortalité inconditionnelle etimpiede religionspanthéistes”, distorted this direct understanding of death as complete annihilation, despite the fact that out of 600 cases of mention of the soul in the Bible, the soul is never spoken of as immortal 12 (but not in a single case is it spoken of as mortal). Therefore, the threat of death to a person in paradise in case of his disobedience did not mean any “spiritual death”, but immediate and complete destruction. “Death could mean for Adam only what was called by this name in the animal kingdom.” "The original threat predicted imminent death." 13 So, man was given conditional immortality. It was conditioned by doing the will of God. This continued existence depended on material food, eating the fruit of the “tree of life,” 14 which man was deprived of for disobedience. Man fell, and the consequence of this should have been immediate death, which would thereby have made the existence of the human race impossible, for it would have been cut short at its origin. However, this did not follow: the execution of the death sentence was postponed. This happened through the power of redemption: “at the moment of the fall redemption began.” 15 “If the fatal sentence had its immediate effect, we would all be dead in Adam, or rather we would never have been born. Therefore, the very existence of our race is grace.” 16 God did not fulfill his pedagogical threat, which turned out to be a kind of pia fraus. Not only was death delayed altogether, but it turned out not to be the complete death that had threatened. Precisely, the place of destruction of personality, “at the death of the individual, his spirit was preserved intact in order to unite with the body on the day of judgment. This survival of the soul we attribute exclusively to redemption,” 17 the action of which is thus preceded in time. “Redemption is nothing other than the union of humanity with the Divine, of the being who has broken the law with the Supreme Lawgiver.” 18 The Incarnation, the acceptance by the Son of God, the Logos, of human flesh has the goal of redemption and reconciliation of man with God, the sacrifice of the Sinless One, His suffering and death on the cross. “The purpose of atonement is to make man immortal. 19 “Le chemin de limmortalité passe par Gethsémane et par Golgotha. On cherchait en vain autre route.” 20 “According to the prevailing dogma, if a person’s body is mortal, his soul, which forms his personality, is naturally immortal or eternal. The Atonement is not intended to change the nature or duration of this spiritual element. The “resurrection of the body” in glory is an accidental and secondary circumstance for salvation. The greatness of this salvation lies in the deliverance of the soul from the “wrath to come” or eternal torment. Such deliverance meant divine atonement, the sacrifice of the Lamb to God. – These ideas seem to us contrary to Scripture. According to biblical teaching, redemption has the direct object of changing our nature, transferring us not only from sin to holiness, but from mortality to immortality, from death to life." 21 Atonement consists in the fact that the guilt of sin is forgiven, but the punishment is not removed. “Jesus did not redeem everything, nor does Scripture say so. Each of us, suffering and dying, redeems to a certain extent. But the difference that exists between our atonement and that of Jesus Christ is that He died for the guilty, being innocent... Only His atonement has the meaning of intercession. The bitter sinner drinks the cup of redemption to the dregs; the old consequences of sin continue until the complete destruction of his being. Eternal death is the payment for his perseverance: pour lui, par le fait, Jésus se trouvera navoir rien expié.” 22 Christ was raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit. “Being God, as man, He was undoubtedly “subject to the law,” and died as a sacrifice of atonement; as God, He was above the law imposed on creation, and could not die. That is why, when the death sentence was carried out over mortal nature, the Divine Guest, absorbing the human spirit into His own nature, had the power to restore its ruins, the “destroyed church,” take possession of it and “raise it on the third day... He conquered death, but not as the “son of Adam,” but as the “Son of the Most High,” as the Lord in heaven.” 23 The Resurrection of Christ is not an immanent-transcendent, but a completely transcendent act of God's omnipotence. Our own resurrection from the dead rests on the formal and infallible promise of the Son of God. “United with Christ in His suffering and death, we move towards the day when our Savior, participating in omnipotence, will transform our mortal body into the likeness of His glorious body. Father, Son and Holy Spirit will unite in the accomplishment of this glorious work (Rom. 8:11). The omnipotence that was manifested in the creation of the world and in the resurrection of Christ will be manifested in the accomplishment of our own resurrection. If the miracle of the creation of man has its raisondêtre, we can count with even greater raisondêtre on the promised miracle which will give to the elect the glorious organs of new life.” 24 The general resurrection is preceded by two other actions of the incarnation, even before it occurs. The first of them is already known to us: this is the postponement of the death of the ancestors after the Fall, which made it possible for the human race to arise from them. Obviously, this reprieve extends to all sinful humanity, which, although guilty of death for sin, nevertheless lives, albeit within a limited, mortal life. The second anticipation of the power of the incarnation, even more striking, consists in the very immortality of the soul beyond the grave, against which the conditionalists so persistently rebel. They are forced to recognize this afterlife of the soul, both by virtue of the indisputable data of revelation, and by the connection of their own system. 25 “If any element of our nature experiences the first death, it must be attributed to the atonement alone, which operates in a supernatural way to preserve our spiritual being from destruction, whether for judgment or reward...” “I am bound by the Bible to believe that souls survive death... This is how you can imagine their state: some are sleeping; the other essence is absolutely unconscious; others think, perceive, improve; some are in sorrow and even in torment, others wander the earth in a state of daimonia, others are cast into the abyss, others were kept in hell until the first coming of Christ.” 26 The afterlife of the righteous already has the beginning of eternal life and immortality. The life of sinners after death has the purpose of: 1) establishing the personal identity of the one who sinned here and will be awakened to judgment; 2) for torment in hell (1 Peter 2:9); 3) for healing from rebellion against God, when it has an excuse in ignorance, through preaching to “spirits in prison”; 4) to accept the highest punishment, the most solemn and terrifying: the first death kills only the body; to kill the soul is left for the second death. 27 “Preliminary suffering is an addition to the torment; partly it has the meaning of punishment, partly of persuasion. It leaves room for repentance,” 28 this is a genus of purgatory. In general, the afterlife state does not attract special attention from conditionalists and is understood primarily as intermediate between death and resurrection. The resurrection is universal, not only for the good, who awaken in the resurrection of the belly, for eternal life, but also for the evil, who awaken in the resurrection, judgment, for the second and final death, for destruction. The recognition of this double outcome, the immortality of some and the complete destruction of others, is the main idea of ​​conditionalism. The condition of immortality is not any “ontological or physical change of substance, but the moral state of the soul in which Christ was imagined, and thereby attracted the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, 29 the gift of grace. For sinners, a second death and final destruction inevitably occurs at a certain, more indeterminable time after the judgment. A general question arises: is this destruction capital punishment or suicide? Strangely enough, there is no complete clarity on this basic issue, and individual opinions fluctuate between these two possibilities. Sometimes one can think that the “second death” is a death sentence, which is carried out not immediately and not in a short time, but throughout the rest of one’s life - as mortal life is the most qualified. 30 Others stop, so to speak, on the immanent side of death as annihilation. First of all, the very idea of ​​resurrection for a new and final, “second” death is softened, for it unexpectedly includes the possibility of repentance and correction after resurrection. 31 Instead of inexorable justice, we have here a bitter necessity and a kind of suicide on the part of those who persist. 32 The “universalists” pose the questions to the “conditionalists”: “if the evil ones must ultimately be destroyed, then for what purpose did the wisdom of God call them into existence”? This is answered in the sense that God gave existence to beings who are not evil, but capable of choosing good and evil, a valuable but also dangerous gift of freedom. “Forcible immortality would bind this freedom. It is worthy of divine love of freedom (il est digne du libéralisme de Dieu) not to oblige to live indefinitely beings who stubbornly deny the rational conditions of existence... The possibility of suicide, which God leaves for every person in this world, is not an analogy that allows us to understand the possibility of suicide of the soul and conditional immortality... Of course, the evil ones were not created for destruction, but their very destruction, and indirectly their original creation, is something will serve. The memory of their final destiny (whose and when?) will stand as a terrifying barrier to the abuse of freedom in the hereafter.” 33 So, in a strange way, the final punishment of death turns out to be the triumph of created freedom: “une immortalité absolue porterait une grave atteinte à la liberté humaine.” 34 “Il est au sens tragique dans lequel lhomme nanti dune liberté véritablement sérieuse, peut être plus fort que Dieu, plus fort que son Sauveur.” 35 “The sinner destroys himself.” 36 Conditionalists also seek confirmation of their ideas in church tradition, in particular in patristics. In a special chapter, Petavel-Olliff, following White, cites a number of early ecclesiastical writers, mainly apostolic and post-apostolic men, in whom he finds traces of more or less definite conditionalism. These include: Barnabas, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius the God-Bearer, Erm, St. Polycarp, St. Justin the Philosopher, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, St. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Lactantius, St. Afanasy Vel. (de incarnatione), Nemesius. Most of these quoted texts are distinguished by the naive moralism characteristic of the era, and, of course, these early writers are alien to the problems of conditionalism, a definite expression of which we find only in Arnobius. When the eschatological problem arises, we observe in the early church (before the 5th century), two main currents that equally proceed from the recognition of the immortality of the soul: the universalist (with Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa at the head) and the anti-Origenist with the acceptance of “eternal torment”, represented in the West by the blessed. Augustine, in the east by Justinian anti-Origenism. The recognition of conditional immortality is characteristic of Judaism, both orthodox in the influential movements of the Talmud, and mystical, in the Kabbalah, and philosophical in Maimonides (also in Spinoza). Thus, conditionalism is able to find certain strongholds for itself in tradition. However, his main strength - and, it must be said, considerable strength - lies in his exegesis, in his ability and persistent desire to find confirmation for himself in the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. In this regard, its proponents have done a great deal of work, and their biblical argumentation requires more careful consideration than it has hitherto received, 37 both from the study of the texts itself and from their Theological Exegesis. In this essay we will limit ourselves to only the necessary minimum. Conditionalists, first of all, make a statistical and textual account of those biblical texts, both the Old and New Testaments, which generally speak of destruction, destruction, death: in 100 texts of the Old and New Testaments it is said that sinners will be exterminated. In the Hebrew language there are 50 root words meaning the destruction of living beings. 38 Petavel-Olliff compiled a whole synoptic table of various expressions in the Bible, Hebrew, Greek, for the expression notion dune destruction complète (1, 349–356), also 546, 552). In addition to this general summary, 39 both authors provide extensive comparisons of Old Testament and New Testament texts that speak of the final destruction of sinners and those who generally resist the will of God. Most of all such texts are, of course, in the Old Testament, in the psalms and prophecies. However, even a superficial acquaintance with them convinces us that despite all the generosity of the psalmists and prophets in responding to these threats, most often they are of a relative and, so to speak, figurative nature 40 and are difficult to interpret eschatologically (cf. White, 158–162). 41 Much more important are the texts of the New Testament writers. 42 Here is a general list of New Testament expressions regarding the fate of sinners (White, 324–5). To die: “if you live according to the flesh, you will die” (Rom. 8:13). Death: “for the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Destruction: “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction” (Matt. 7:13). Eternal destruction: “they will be subject to punishment, eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess. 1:9). Corruption: “He who sows to his flesh will reap corruption” (Gal. 6:8). “They are like dumb animals... born to be caught and destroyed... in their corruption they will be destroyed” (2 Peter 2:12). Destruction: “and it shall come to pass that every soul... shall be cut off from his people” (Acts 3:35). Death: “And I will strike her (Jezebel’s) children with death” (Rev. 2:23), etc. 43 In 12 places in the New Testament, the place of unrepentant sinners is called Gehenna. In a hundred places in the Old and New Testaments, Scripture teaches that the wicked will be completely destroyed. Supporters of conditional immortality collect all texts that mention death and life in their relationships. 44 Let us limit ourselves to some of the most difficult texts. 45 Rom. 1, 3 2: “The pagans know the righteous (judgment) of God, that those who do such (deeds) are worthy of death.” Rome. 6, 2 3 2: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rome. 8:13: “For if you live in the flesh, you will die, but if in the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” Gal. 6:8: “He who sows to his flesh will reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” 2 Tim. 6, 9: “lusts... plunge people into disaster and destruction.” Heb. 10, 26–31: “...the terrible expectation of judgment and the fury of fire ready to devour the opponents.” 2 Peter 2, 12: “... they are like dumb animals... born to be caught and destroyed... in their corruption they will be destroyed.” Jude 5, 7: “... Sodom and Gomorrah, having suffered the punishment of eternal fire, were set as an example.” (But these and similar texts, which speak of death and destruction in a more or less vague sense of the word, can be contrasted with other texts that speak of death, undoubtedly, not in the sense of destruction: Rom. 7: 10-11: “I died, and thus the commandment given to me for life served to cause death, because sin, taking an occasion from the commandment, deceived me and put me to death.” 13: “sin causes me death Wed. Gal. 2, 19; Eph. 2, 13; Jn. 3, 14; 1Tim. However, the collectors of texts themselves have to reckon with the existence of texts that cannot be favorable for conditionalism. These are either those texts that speak of eternal torment (Matthew 25, 41, 46; Mark 3, 29; Rev. 14, 9–11; 19, 20; 20, 10) or those that speak of Divine mercy and the salvation of the world and people (these are, according to White, 416–18, the following texts: John 3, 17; 1, 29; 12, 32 ; Рим. 5, 15, 18 ; 1Кор. 15, 18 ; Εφ. 1, 10; Флп. 2, 9–11 ; Кол. 1, 19 ; 1Тим. 2, 4, 6 ; 1Тим. 4, 10 ; Тит. 2, 10 ; 1Ин. 2, 2; 1 Cor. 15, 22; 2 Cor. 4, 13). Of course, these interfering texts are subject to appropriate interpretation by conditionalists. So, humanity, sinful and opposed to God, dies and turns into nothing, is forgotten. He is not there as if he never existed. It is forgotten equally in the memory of God, as in human memory (as, obviously, in the memory of the spiritual world, which conditionalism in its theology generally more or less forgets). What remains inviolable is only the freedom of the creature, which accepts its determination to life in God, or to a return to created nothingness. The surviving remnants of humanity (and there is no reason to think that there will be a majority of them) receive eternal bliss and represent a vindication of creation. About the surviving part of it, it will be possible to say that “God will be all in all.” This perforated world and sifted humanity constitute the final goal of creation, its theodicy. Here the presence of eternal hell is abolished, to which it is difficult to apply the text that God will be all in all, except in the sense of scorching fire. Here a seemingly clear, mathematically rational answer is given to the problem of eternal life, with the consent of the Creator to admit an error in creation, the presence of empty numbers, as well as the consent of mankind to selfishness oblivion of executed suicides. It is impossible to deny the simplicity and clarity of this solution, despite all its paradoxical nature. One cannot deny the radicalism of thought and courage in posing the question, which can be more fruitful than timid silence. Thus, in this case, this eschatological heresy, like other heresies, awakens dogmatic thought. However, we must say that the theory of conditional immortality is a real heresy, which includes a whole series of dogmatic errors, and this we now have to show. We should begin with what is still the strongest side of conditionalism, with an analysis of its biblical-exegetical argumentation. As we have seen, they were able to collect a huge number of biblical texts that speak of destruction, destruction and death. It cannot be denied that this comparison in itself, although all these texts separately, of course, are known to attentive readers of the word of God, makes a strong impression and can confuse, if not incline to the recognition of conditional immortality or, what is the same, the natural mortality of man. However, this first and, so to speak, external impression must give way to a more careful understanding, both in the context and in the specific meaning of each individual text. The Word of God, indeed, does not speak of an immortal soul, and this philosophical formula is not at all characteristic of Christian dogma. The latter does not consist at all in the immortality of the soul - regardless of relation to the body, but in the immortality of a person who does not die to the end even in death and is resurrected with the body by the power of Christ's resurrection. At the same time, which is no less important, the Bible does not at all speak of the death of a person as destruction. In general, the Bible does not speak in philosophical terms, but in the language of images, which each time require special understanding, and the same expressions can have many different and multiple meanings. Therefore they need exegesis, at least where there is no obvious meaning. And this exegesis is to a certain extent determined by the entire totality of appropriating ideas, or dogmatic premises, i.e. tradition, which contains the Church’s testimony about the understanding of the Bible. Biblical literalism is both incorrect, for “the letter kills, the spirit gives life,” and is often impossible. And it is the language of eschatological texts that is least amenable to literal understanding, since its imagery is brightly colored by the language of apocalyptic writing, with its fantasy and syncretism, as everyone who has dealt with eschatological texts knows. And of course, apocalyptic language differs sharply from paranoetic texts, spiritual exhortations of the apostles, which deal primarily with ideas of a moral order. Moreover, the difficult task in eschatological exegesis is to distinguish between different plans and perspectives in eschatological images, which are layered one on top of the other in the image of mountain ranges in perspective. Therefore, a literal interpretation of texts is often completely impossible, and the dogmatic exegesis that conditionalists give is by no means indisputable and is by no means the only possible one. It is conditioned by certain Theological premises, which must be highlighted and verified in the light of more basic and general, and at the same time dogmatic truths already established by the Church. In particular, the basic concepts with which the theory of conditional immortality operates: life, death, destruction, extermination, destruction, etc., are also not unambiguous, but ambiguous. In particular, the concept of death, like life, from which conditionalism proceeds, is not at all self-evident. This is already clear from the fact that no one had understood them before in the way they were understood in the latter’s theory. Conditionalism simplifies the concept of life and death to a simple biological comparison. Zoological biologism is the general scheme of this Theology. Life and death here are the same for humans and animals. Man is an animal that differs from the animal world only in certain properties, not in what belongs to him, but in what God gives him, namely conditional immortality. (This is somewhat reminiscent of the Catholic scheme: natura u donum supernaturale). It is given to him first through eating the fruits of the tree of life, i.e. by a physical means, and then restored through the physical union of God with man in the incarnation of God, to which precisely this biological meaning is acquired. They are given physical immortality, and this ends it, so there is no talk of transfiguration, deification, or glorification of man. From this point of view, it even becomes incomprehensible why the incarnation of God took place in man, since he is no different from the animal world, and not in any of the animals, if this is understood only as a physical medicine of immortality. And, on the other hand, the preliminary effect of the incarnation that it exerts before its accomplishment in preserving human life on earth and beyond the grave is inexplicable. Needless to say, the afterlife here loses all independent significance in a person’s fate and represents only an intermediate state between death and resurrection. Here is a significant gap in the eschatology of conditionalism. For him, a person is one of the living beings in this world, who also has relative life. This basic definition clearly reveals the absence of conditionalism in the theology of both anthropology and cosmology, which in this case are the same thing. Man is not for him a created god, and is not the center and ruler of the world. Characteristic here is a superficial interpretation of the image of God in man. It is not recognized as having ontological significance in the sense of Godlikeness and involvement of the Divine. The fact that God created man in fulfillment of the eternal council in the Holy Trinity in Our image (Gen. 1) and, creating man from the earth, with His own breath, i.e., is not sufficiently appreciated. from Himself, breathed into him the “living soul,” which conditionalists identify with the “living soul” of animals. Conditionalists rightly say that man does not have, as a special principle, an immortal soul temporarily imprisoned in a mortal body, like a prison or case, and awaiting liberation from it. This is the Eastern Platonic doctrine. Man has a spirit destined for immortal life in the body, which, although relatively broken by death due to sin, will be restored in the resurrection. However, conditionalists draw from this the erroneous conclusion that man does not have an immortal divine principle within himself, and even see the heresy of pantheism in his recognition. 46 However, we have the word of Revelation, that God breathed into man from Himself the breath of life. This means that man in his spirit has the uncreated principle of the Divinity, which, however, has for itself a hypostasis created by God in His image. 47 Thus, man has an uncreated-created beginning within himself and belongs to the eternity of the divine world, 48 although he receives an original personal existence only in his createdness. To this we must add that man, as the center of creation, destined to dominate him, has in his spiritual nature the participation of the Divine Sophia, while in the world, created Sophia, he is the human world, and the “joy” of Divine Wisdom “is in the sons of men.” Through this, man stands at the center of the world, but also above the world. Belonging to the created animal world, he is at the same time God by grace. 49 And here there is nothing to scare with pantheism, as is often done, in particular in this case. Pantheism in a bad sense means the identity of the world with God, and not just its participation in the Divinity. If man is conformed to God, then this means that God is conformed to man. God-manhood unites God and man; it is eternal, heavenly God-manhood, just as there is created God-manhood. Only on the basis of this conformity of God and man can the incarnation be ontologically understood as the assimilation of human nature by the Logos, the union in one hypostasis of two natures, or two wills, divine and human. In the Christology of conditionalism, the incarnation takes on the character of an ontological absurdity: God perceives... the animal nature of man, without having any ontological connection with it. The absence of anthropology in conditionalism necessarily leads to the absence of Christology. So, according to his divine origin, man has natural immortality. “God alone has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16) in Himself, but man has immortality in God. It is impossible not to give justice to the conditionalists in their criticism of the rational proofs of the immortality of the soul, starting with Plato’s Phaedo (which was done by Kant), 50 for immortality is truly inherent in God alone, but also in that which participates in God, like man. 51 This paradoxical antinomian concept of the living image of God, as the created God, precisely characterizes man. As a creation, man has to fulfill the task that is invested in him by his participation in God and, in this sense, uncreatedness, which is also the power of immortality. This immortality in the creatureliness of its origin is potential immortality, which begins with posse non mori. This actual immortality as a result of the Fall is violated by death, although not absolute, but only relative, but is restored in Christ’s resurrection as non posse mori, as the positive force of immortality. It was given by the God-man, but could be accepted by man as being consistent with him. The fullness of the image of God in man is a person living in his own nature, participating in the created Sophia, included in the world, in the fullness of creation. Personality, understood in this fullness of life, is ens realissimum in creation. The fullness of the image of God in man, rooted in the personality, extends beyond the personality, as a monad, into the multi-unity of all humanity. We can say that the image of God in its entirety belongs not even to man in his individuality, but to humanity in its unity, in love, in the image of the consubstantial trinity of God. It is this original participation in God of a person, which makes him uncreated, and contains within itself the power of immortality, in the supertemporality or eternity of the human personality, the consciousness of which is given to it in a direct act of self-consciousness: I am I. In this capacity, I, I belong to myself, rely on myself, although at the same time, as a created I, I am given to myself, and this is not pantheism, but this, of course, is panentheism, professed by the Apostle: “for all things are from Him, by them and to Him” (Rom. 11:36). Conditionalism has the undeniable merit of giving, in accordance with its main theme, a more careful formulation of the question of life and death than is usually done. We have become too accustomed to the mortality of life, so much so that we have ceased to feel the true mystery of both life and death. Meanwhile, this secret already exists in the animal world, with which man is connected, so to speak, in his phylogenesis, and also in his life, as the master of creation. All life comes from the source of Life, the Life-Giving Spirit, and it is said about all creation: “If you take away their spirit, they die and return to their dust. If you send forth Your spirit, they will be created, and You will renew the face of the earth.” (Ps. 103:29–30). The inexhaustible source of life in the animal world is the constant miracle of the universe, which philosophy has understood since ancient times as hylozoism, the vitality of all matter. The life of animals, and the Wisdom living and acting in them, shook the human soul with philosophical and religious shock, and this mystery of animal life found expression in zoolatric cults. Egypt was penetrated by this secret life of the animal world in its relation to man and to the deity and imprinted its “surprise” in the animal-human images of its Gods. For us, the life of animals remains transcendental, in its limitations, due to their lack of spirit, and at the same time in its zoological sophistry, the “instinct” of the soul of the world. For us, their death remains transcendental, also in the limitations of their life, due to the absence of an immortal personality, the completeness of dying. Death, in a certain sense, is natural for the animal world. However, animals also know with all their might the horror of violent, untimely death with which the world is full, and “the whole creation suffers and is tormented together to this day” (Rom. 8:22). The world is dominated by the struggle for existence, the mutual devouring of some by others, yet together they are devoured by death. Animals do not have personality, but only individuality, however, and this is enough to experience death. Animals are given ancestral immortality, according to their kind (the theory of Weizmann is known, who explained death as a factor in the adaptation of life in the struggle for existence, the “professor in a night dressing gown” can easily darn the holes of the universe), and nevertheless, even in the animal world this natural death is now unknown, like a painless falling asleep, and whoever experienced the death of animals, friends of man, knows this dying melancholy and some kind of call to life that sounds like an involuntary reproach to man: isn’t he called to give immortality to the animal world, and isn’t he to blame for this melancholy of death? However, if the death of animals is now so painful, then in principle it can also be a painless extinction of an outlived life, since animals do not have an ontological basis for immortality, and even the immense wastefulness of nature in their reproduction seems to indicate that the existence of a species is more valued here than of an individual. However, even here there remains a number of open questions, so to speak, of Theological Zoology: how to comprehend the creation of mortal life, since animals are created mortals? and if “God did not create death” (Wis. Sol. 1:31), then how can this be reconciled with the creation of the entire living world only according to their kind? It should be noted that even at its creation there is no mention of death, but only of the “living soul” (Gen. 1:20,24). M.b., the time has not yet come for man to ask these questions, and it is in vain to engage in empty questioning. It remains to admit that death through the animal world was already known to man, as the destruction of the individual with the preservation of the species, as the impersonal immortality of life and its individual weakness. But for man, the death of animals could not help but remain something alien, for within himself he could not help but know his immortal spirit, in his supra-temporal self-consciousness. Therefore, contrary to the statements of the conditionalists, the commandment about not eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil, for him sounded not like a threat of destruction, but like some mysterious, incomprehensible fate, since it did not include that natural death that reigned throughout the animal world, but some kind of unnatural paralysis of life, with a temporary break in the human composition. And even after God’s verdict, Adam did not believe in death as the destruction of life. This was expressed in the fact that immediately after God’s judgment, Adam gave his wife the name Eve, that is, life, for she became the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). The assertion that the reprieve of the death penalty for the ancestors was given in spite of the verdict by the power of the not yet accomplished atonement is not based on anything and is by no means a biblical speculation of speculation, contrary to the facts. And the facts are that Adam and Eve felt their death sentence not as a threat to human life, which was just beginning in its creation, but only as a heavy secret about the fate of human life. They understood death, which God did not create, not as destruction, but as an act of human life. In a word, between death in the animal and human worlds, in the minds of our ancestors, there was a line of difference. It deserves special attention that in a fallen person, the consciousness of his divinity and immortality, evil spirituality, rises with greater strength than before the fall, when man in his created humility lived in God, not yet seeing in this himself, his own Godlikeness. With the Fall begins that Luciferic narcissism, narcissism, which led to the fall of Dennitsa in the spiritual world, and, after him, man. With the actual deification of human life, human deity begins in him, of course, as a special image of his spirituality (the lower side of which leads him to animality, to the state of “flesh”). This is the meaning of God’s words about fallen man: “behold, Adam became like one of Us, knowing good and evil (i.e., in the fallen, Luciferic self-consciousness, in man-deity); and now, lest he stretch out his hand and also take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen. 3:22). Immortality would be the last affirmation of man-theism (as in Lucifer it was angel-theology). And in the ways of human salvation it was necessary, first of all, to leave man to his own fate, that is, mortal life. And the first death that the world saw, the murder of Abel by Cain, was experienced as a great shock, a convulsion of life. God said to Cain: “What have you done? and now you are cursed from the earth, which opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother from your hand” (Gen. 4:10). Death, not being created by God, entered the world contrary to the will of God, as a result of the spiritual weakening of man who changed his posse non mori into non posse non mori. However, included in the path of God’s Providence through the divine sentence, she received her special place in human life, as disembodiment, although unnatural, but fruitful for man, since through her a special experience, so to speak, of forced spirituality and communication with the spiritual world, which otherwise became inaccessible to man, is realized. In the theory of conditionalism, the afterlife has the meaning of only the intermediate time before the resurrection, which they do not know how to fill, and the easiest way would be to fill it with an unconscious state, the sleep of the soul. Meanwhile, the afterlife state in disembodiment is an essential part of human life, on the path to resurrection, without it this last thing is impossible. What is essential here is that the death of a person is life, although flawed in relation to the fullness of the human composition, but essential in its meaning. It is enough just to recall the fact of “Christ’s preaching in hell” to understand this significance. So, in the relationship between human life and death, we have, although something similar, but nevertheless qualitatively different than in the life of the animal world. Namely, what is taking place here is not destruction, but life awakening in its own way. The fullness of life, lost in death, is renewed in Christ's general resurrection, which has its ontological basis in Christ's resurrection. Christ took on all of Adam, all of human nature, and in His resurrection gave him immortality. For the theory of conditionalism, it would, of course, be more convenient to simply accept that not all of humanity is resurrected, but only a part of it that is worthy of immortality. However, it does not go that far, on the one hand, due to the impossibility of direct contradiction to Revelation, (and, on the other hand, due to the need to give place to the agony of dying and satisfy the feeling of punishment. Essentially, this resumption of life for destruction, resurrection for death, is ontologically unjustified. In the perspective of immortal life in resurrection, we can postulate various possibilities, which are not the subject of our consideration now. It should be noted that conditionalism tends to emphasize with great emphasis the presence of the tragic side of eschatology, since it is expressed in numerous texts about destruction and death in the future life. While it is impossible, along with the conditionalists, to interpret these texts in the sense of the complete destruction of life, we must, therefore, accept them as definitions of a possible state of life, moreover, definitions that are clearly not exhaustive, since death and destruction do not destroy the power of life, but are contained in it and, more importantly, are combined with the positive potentialities of life. Eschatological prophecies must be understood not only in statics, but also in dynamics. Different and contradictory forces and states are compatible in a single life, unsearchable in the depths of the human spirit, in the paths of eternity. This is not the place to talk about this in essence, but it should be recognized that the problematic of conditionalism makes the need for a concrete understanding of life in its depth more obvious. 52 Life, and in particular immortality, cannot be understood as a static state, so to speak, of two dimensions; it has three or more dimensions, even if their multi-unity is not amenable to rationalistic definition. Therefore, it becomes possible to simultaneously and equally substantiate the combination of two or more, different and contradictory definitions: death and life, destruction and salvation, eternal life and unconsciousness. And in the present life, is the real existence of the spirit with all its depth, the subconscious and superconscious sphere, known to man, accessible to his consciousness? Of course, it is an ontological absurdity to postulate the extinction of the spirit, its transformation into non-existence, self-decomposition. However, we also stand in the face of the known fact of the immersion of this being in potentiality, its unrealizability in conscious life. Materialists who deny the existence of the spirit and reduce life to one or another “dog reflexes” completely sincerely testify to the poverty of their existing self-awareness, “they are not flesh,” “people of the soul who do not have the spirit” Jude. 19). “A spiritual person does not accept what is from the Spirit of God, and considers it foolishness; and cannot understand why this (needs) to be judged spiritually” (1 Cor. 2:14). Such a person is in a state of spiritual death, although he is alive. He faces a spiritual resurrection. In general, both life and death are intense quantities that have an infinite number of different and complex, changing spectra, up to fainting extinction, which, however, is not non-existence, and new birth, which however does not violate the continuity and identity of the personality. The divine fire of life, which burns in the human spirit, is indestructible, but its lamp, being entrusted to a limited and weakened creature by sin, wavers and freezes, although it is capable of flaring up again with a brightly illuminating flame. Its intensity has an infinity of dimensions, and this is the main super-rational secret of eschatology. Conditionalism, although through denial, makes one feel the secret of concrete immortality. Characteristic, by the way, for conditionalists is their great restraint of judgment, if not a complete absence of it, in relation to the immortality of disembodied spirits, both light and especially dark. First, the question arises of what death could mean here in the absence of a body. However, natural immortality would seem to be excluded here, since God alone has immortality. In view of the inevitability of recognizing the life of fallen spirits operating in the world, conditionalism does not deal with this delicate issue, avoiding direct conflict with Scripture. Meanwhile, here, the judgment of conditionalism about the possible suicide of Satan and his angels, who are in stubborn and conscious opposition to God, could not be more applicable. Why didn't Satan die with all his army? This question remains unanswered from the point of view of the logic of conditionalism, and at the same time it is a test for it. In general, conditionalism does not at all introduce into its eschatology the question of the fate of fallen spirits, although this question was already raised in Origenism. This question is as unanswerable in the theory of conditionalism as it is about conditional immortality itself. How can human nature, which is mortal by nature, become immortal through union with the divine? How can this very connection take place? Here conditionalism unwittingly falls into a mechanical, purely naturalistic understanding of both the Incarnation and immortality. But a person can become immortal only by the power of his own immortality, which is only restored by the power of the Incarnation. The natural is the friend of the blessed. Humanum sarah divini. Now we must consider the arguments of the conditionalists of the greatest severity, not without a certain demogogicity - namely the argument from freedom. Life is accompanied by the consciousness of freedom, even if this freedom is directed towards self-destruction. Man has the freedom to turn into nothingness, from which he is called into being. God does not violate a person’s freedom by imposing on him a hateful life, which he can destroy himself if he wishes. To be or not to be is a matter of human free choice. For a person, metaphysical suicide is possible, turning oneself into a pre-created or some kind of post-created nothingness, complete destruction of God’s creation. True, this series of ideas in conditionalism remains undivided from another series, with which it is constantly mixed and alternated, namely about the destruction of fallen souls by the omnipotence of God, metaphysical death penalty, in which God himself destroys his creation. However, we must distinguish and consider these two sets of ideas separately. So, does a person have freedom in relation to his own being, which constitutes a necessary ontological condition for self-destruction? This question is equivalent to another, more general one: is man his own creator, who by the power of his freedom emerged from nothing and has the power to return to it? Does man's own existence belong to him? But, if this were true, then man would not differ from God, Who exists by His power, by the freedom of the act of absolute self-positing, and freedom here is a completely transparent necessity, excluding any givenness from the outside, realizing self-existence. For this absolute originality of God (aseitas) there is no ontologically external boundary, no nothing for which there is no ontological place in this completeness of the free existential act: “I am who will be, I am who is, Jehovah,” a self-closed actual infinity. On the contrary, man is a creature, he is given to himself, created as he is for himself, determined. But, since omnis definitio est negotio, it is limited not only positively, but also negatively, not only by being, but also by non-being, by the yawning abyss of nothing and nothing. Such an existence, of course, cannot be considered as posited by freedom, as an absolute ontological act. However, it is posited, if not by freedom, then in freedom. A created being, not being a thing, having in itself the Godlikeness of the spirit, although it is put into existence by the Wisdom, Omnipotence and Love of God, it is given into its own ownership, left at its own disposal. Created freedom arises, different from the absolute freedom of the Creator and yet still consistent with it. This created freedom should be called modal, in contrast to absolute. She is the image of being of a creature, which is given to itself in its creation, but is free in its existence and, therefore, has a creative attitude towards its life. She freely creates and lives out the created life given to her. Not free in the theme or content of its being, the creature freely realizes it. The dialectic of the image and likeness of God in man, freedom and creatureliness, givenness and givenness, creation and creativity, determines the nature of human life in its absolute relativity, the absoluteness of self-awareness of freedom and the relativity of its creative act, with constant reflection on oneself, on one’s own self-existence, which, as a givenness, is also otherness. Because of this, a person is not a thing, but he is not only an act; he is both a fact and an act, in active facticity and his factual activity. In a sinful state of discord with himself, in disagreement with his own nature, facticity prevails in him, in which he is a slave to his own element, unable to subjugate it to his willfulness. On the contrary, in accordance with his nature, in the health of chastity, in free fidelity to his own norm, man does not know his facticity, he is free in the truth of his being: “Know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). The modality of created freedom has the consequence that it is realized only within the limits of created being, in its assumption, which has the force of fact and given. Created freedom is not without preconditions. It looks into the givenness of existence and exists only in relation to it and within its limits, beyond which ontologically it cannot pass. That new, without which creativity does not exist at all, is accomplished here only within the limits of its givenness, precisely from something or in something. Sophia determines the entire content of the created world; it is sophia in all the infinite diversity and relative novelty of this sophia’s creativity. But out of nothing a person cannot create anything, not even a small bug, about which, in the sense of its involvement in the fullness of existence, Dostoevsky wrote: “the bug is a mystery.” He belongs to creation, to its fullness, from which flows the fullness of life and creativity, since life and creativity are synonymous. And by the opposite conclusion we are forced to admit that just as a person cannot create anything out of nothing, just as he cannot plunge any being into non-existence, decompose into nothing - not a single atom of the universe: it is God’s, and only given, entrusted to the domination of man. “My hand founded the earth, and My right hand stretched out the heavens” (Is. 48:13). “The Lord, who stretched out the heavens, founded the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him” (Zech. 12:1). Of course, a person can transform the images of being and destroy its given forms, and in this sense, the destructive energy of a person is empirically unlimited, but ontologically it remains powerless: the world is affirmed by God in its existence and cannot be returned by man to the abyss of non-existence, to the darkness of nothing, it is indestructible. But if a person is powerless to destroy at least one ontological atom, does he have the power to encroach on his own existence, and therefore destroy God’s creation, at least at this point? Is a person capable of entering into combat with his Creator and uncreating what He created? This very question contains self-evident ontological absurdity and is only a subtle form of anthropotheism or atheism. The idea of ​​metaphysical suicide of the world was proclaimed by militant preachers of atheism, philosophers of pessimism, Schopenhauer and Hartmann, as the extinguishing of the will to live. However, this question cannot be finally resolved only on the basis of general considerations about the indestructibility of creation. Freedom is also an indestructible fact of creation, although within its own limits and its own nature. And freedom is given precisely that consciousness of originality, self-ownership, self-positing, outside of which it does not exist. The paradox of created freedom lies precisely in the fact that it, being created in its attachment to the givenness of being, carries within itself self-consciousness and uncreatedness, self-positing, and cannot be detached from it without a decomposing, ontological self-contradiction. Freedom opposes the given; in freedom, the consciousness of man’s Godlikeness borders on dangerous man-theism. We need to understand this paradox of self-awareness of created freedom. He is evidence that he has power in the depths of existence, in the very depths of creation. God creates the spirit of man from Himself, breathing into it the “living soul” and by a creative act calling into existence a free individuality, a created self, which, however, is cognate with the triune divine Self and carries within itself the image of His freedom. The very act of creation of a creature by God remains transcendental for it, for it constitutes the condition of its very existence and consciousness, ontologically precedes it, remaining for it, so to speak, behind the scenes of existence. But there is also a depth in it, into which the created spirit penetrates with self-consciousness, finding it also as a condition of its own existence, its prerequisite. This is an act of created original self-positing, as free participation in God’s positing, in the very act of God’s creation. A free spirit cannot be created by a unilateral act of God’s omnipotence, by which the entire visible world was created, that is, as a thing (in the ontological sense), for he is a person who has freedom and self-consciousness in this freedom. If it is said that “the soul of a man is more valuable than the world, and what ransom will a man give for his soul” (Matt. 16, 26), then this also has an ontological meaning in relation to the special nature of the soul in comparison with all creation. We cannot know this primary act of self-positing, which takes place on the verge of creation and on the verge of time, but we feel the consequences throughout our entire existence. We preserve his memory in some dark anamnesis, which can only be expressed in the language of ontological myth. So, we can say that in the creation of the created-uncreated, created-divine spirit, his own created freedom was asked, and therefore participated. In the creative let it be, addressed to every created face, God’s question about his own consent, about his will to being and to life, and the answer in the form of some kind of absolute self-positing are included. Its absoluteness is determined not only by its transtemporality, but also by its inclusion in the absoluteness of the creative act of the Divine. In the language of ontological myth, we can simply say that not only God created the human spirit (as well as the angelic one), but he himself will determine himself into existence, of course, by the power of his inclusion in God’s creation. It is impossible to further comprehend and explain this act of creation in freedom and the participation of created freedom in its own creation, which the conditionalists have so roughly touched upon, without falling into unnecessary mythologizing. But it can be stated on the basis of the evidence of our own self-knowledge that man and the created spirit in general, in the act of creation by God, considers himself an absolute positing, possessing eternity and indestructibility inherent in the power of God’s creation. God, in His love for creation and in His condescension towards it, allows it to participate in creation, and the indestructible yes of creation is answered to the Divine question about the will to be. And let this resound in our soul as evidence of the “immortality” of the soul, the uncreated eternity of the spirit. But this is a timeless act, standing on the very edge of time, which determines the entire temporality of existence, is its silent but indestructible premonition. Freedom gave its consent to existence, showed the will to life, and this life became as indestructible as the entire creation of God is indestructible. Therefore, it is naive to think that in time, even during the afterlife, in general in the temporal discussion of life, this act of self-creation could be canceled or weakened. Metaphysical suicide in general (impossible, because it is contradictory: it can only be thought of as an act of life, presupposing the living subject itself. Ordinary suicide is a clear manifestation of the will to live, expressed in the rejection of only a given way of life, so to speak, a private protest in the general process of life, an act of self-affirmation. This was well understood by Schopenhauer, who preached precisely metaphysical suicide as the extinguishing of the will to live, i.e. the weakening of that a self-creative act, which he imagined as a blind action of the arbitrariness of an unreasonable will. Of course, this is the same delusional utopia as metaphysical suicide due to hellish torment in the theory of conditionalism. The cramps and convulsions of life, whatever they may be, like any desire to defend oneself or free oneself from a certain state of life, is an act of life, its self-affirmation. The fiery wheel of life cannot be stopped or reversed by human freedom in discussion, for this freedom has already been determined for all times. and this self-determination is: to be and to live. 53 Man is a person, and, as such, has on himself the eternally resting love of God. He is a ray of the spectrum of the Divine Sophia, belongs to the Completeness and is included in it. God needs him, precisely in his personality, as another of God, as a friend of God in purpose. And the memory of God is an eternal memory, which we keep and do not forget our friends, and we testify to this “eternal memory” of God in prayer for those who depart into another world. Personality, on the one hand, belongs to the human plurality and in this sense is one of many, but it is also the only one in its uniqueness and irreplaceability for man and for God, the human soul is more valuable than the whole world. It is a strange spiritual self-blinding that the assumption made in the theory of conditionalism is that the human person can perish in the sense of complete self-destruction, escape responsibility, be saved from it, and this idea seems even stranger in relation to the love of God and the corresponding memory of God, which supposedly forgets its creatures. This very thought is blasphemy against the Creator, who created His image in man. And finally, even stranger is this theodicy - the justification of the world in God and God in the world. This justification, the victory of God in the world, is purchased at the price of the destruction of more than half of creation (for for biblical reasons, conditionalists are forced, following St. Augustine, to admit that a minority will be saved). However, the quantity does not fundamentally matter; in a certain sense, it is equally difficult to accept the destruction of even just one soul. The apotheosis of the world will be expressed in the fact that there will be all kinds of God in everyone, 54 but only in all those who survived. God is credited here with a kind of recognition of his mistake in creation, which He corrects by destroying the failed creation. He is likened to a schoolboy tearing up old notebooks at the behest of need, and these notebooks are living personalities. Of course, this is a reproach of the Wisdom of the Creator and creation, the Divine Sophia and the created Sophia. God's lawyers wanted to find a rationally decent outcome from the situation in order to avoid eternal hell, as incompatible with the omniscience of God, but also to recognize the full force of the punishment of sinners. It should also be noted that this oblivion of those who are being destroyed is also attributed to all those who survived: for them, once-loved people fall into the void, are destroyed, and the task of saved virtue is to forget them completely as quickly and decently as possible. As much as this does not resemble the great apostle, who “would like to be excommunicated from Christ for the sake of his brothers, kindred according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3), although they were spiritually dead, it is obvious that in the assumption of annihilationism the concept of whole humanity is abolished. It turns into an aggregate, into a herd of individuals who little notice each other, because they so easily reconcile themselves in the complacency of their salvation with the death of their fellows. The round zero, at least with respect to part of creation, is its final result, for God and men. This is a satanic nightmare, although inspired by good intentions and eschatological fear. But no. Man is the son of eternity, he is created for eternity and has an eternal destiny. God's creation is indestructible. In fear and trembling, but also in the complete clarity of self-combustion, let man, every man without any exception, know his eternity, created eternity, aeviternitas, born from the eternity of God (aeternitas). There is no end to God's creation. Recognition of conditional immortality associated with conditional mortality of a person is impossible. But another question arises: are all individuals belonging to humanity biologically people in the spiritual sense? And if not, then they are not subject to conditional immortality, but to unconditional death, no different from the death of animals and, of course, alien to resurrection. This question, which naturally arises in the face of the fact of the enormous difference in the spiritual level of the differences between representatives of humanity, comes down to this: Do all people have a spirit? Isn’t there really an ape among them, as so many of our contemporaries in Darwinian delight consider themselves to be and even want to be only them, denying any spiritual principle? Man, together with the animal world, has a body and an animal soul (“the soul of animals is in the blood”) and differs from him by the highest guiding, third, part of his composition, the spirit. So, can individuals of homo sapiens who so desire do without this third element, which is so unpleasant to them? Can there be humanoid animals that have an earthly mind, animal cunning and animal cruelty, but are deprived of what is humanity itself in man, the divine principle of the spirit? This thought persistently knocks on our consciousness in the face of well-known impressions of our time. It would be much easier and simpler to classify animal-like creatures directly among the animals, and not among the best, but among the worst, because they are degenerate. Isn't the same thought true regarding the most degraded savages, born idiots, etc.? Mystical writer of the late 19th century. claimed that since 1848 a new breed of people without souls had appeared, those apes, or more precisely, inhuman people from deliberate bestiality. 55 Could She Be Right in Her Intuition? This question has not been posed in Theology, and there is no direct answer to it. There are, of course, some suggestive texts. What do, for example, the words of God mean about the pre-flood giants: “they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3)? True, in 1 Peter. 3:20, in the testimony of Christ’s preaching in hell, the spirits in prison, once rebellious, are also mentioned in the days of Noah. However, there is no direct indication here that this was the entirety of pre-Flood humanity. What can the words al mean? Judas: people “spiritual, without spirit (ψυχικοί, πνευμαμὴ ἕχονεες)? (19), like the similar words of 1 Cor. 2, 14: “a spiritual (ψυχικός) person does not accept what is from the Spirit of God, because he considers it foolishness, and cannot understand, because he (must) judge it spiritually.” Is it said here, especially in St. Judas, only about the absence of spirituality or about the absence of the spirit itself? The text leaves both possibilities. Of course, in spirituality, a person differs from animals, which, although they have the wisdom of instinct, do not have that ability of the generic mind, which allows the accumulation of knowledge or progress, at least in the technology of life. But, perhaps, being interspersed into the general life of mankind, these humanoid creatures in some cases simply die out like savages from contact with civilization, and in others they flourish and even reach the position of recognized and “beloved leaders” of the human herd? We do not have a categorical answer here, and therefore we cannot deny the possibility of the existence of people “without spirit.” However, what is practically more important for us is that we are not given the ability to distinguish between such creatures and generally separate these non-humans from humanity; In any case, their own conviction alone that they are human apes is not enough here. And on the contrary, we have a commandment to see our “neighbor” in every person, i.e. treat him like a human being, like a person. We must, in particular, preach the Christian faith to all pagans, Papuans and communists alike, without questioning ourselves or doubting their humanity. The absence of this principle can give rise to the same truly zoological racism in us, the same differentiation of humanity into pure and unclean, noble and ignoble, as before All class or national racism would fade. Therefore, we need to ascetically overcome and humble in ourselves those feelings from which our suspicion arises about whether a person is truly this or that hero of history, for example. Attila or other of our contemporaries, “leaders”. The Lord has hidden in ignorance the secret of the humanity of each person, and it will be revealed to us only when “all nations”, all humanity in its fullness, appear for judgment. And those who are given to be the “scourge of God” only in human form will not appear in judgment, for they will die just like all animals, including those cruel animals that caused a lot of troubles and suffering to humanity. However, this kind of death would be significantly different from the spiritual self-destruction that the followers of the theory of “conditional immortality” loved, although indirectly inspired by her. Let's summarize. The theory of conditional immortality is characterized by excessive naturalistic biologism. She understands life as a certain general property or quality of the created world, with special strength feeling and professing this vital force of the world, this is hylozoism. This worldview has its share of truth, both philosophical, since life and a living being are the main, primary category of being, which philosophers usually do not include in their table of categories, and religious, because the power of the life-giving Spirit flows in the world equally for all creatures. However, it is necessary to distinguish with much greater force the different stages of life, from its lower organic forms to the spiritually disembodied angelic ones. and human life is not just life, only in the biological sense, but also a special spiritual quality of life, “eternal life,” supernatural and superbiological. Thanks to this lack of distinction, the power of the Incarnation is understood in an overly biological way. Mortal man is given the “medicine of immortality” through the union of the Divine nature with the human. The restoration of the lost power of life, and not its transformation, but new life in a resurrected, glorified body is given to humanity as deification, as life through the grace of the sons of God and friends of God. The theory of conditionalism therefore suffers from excessive cosmism or immanentism. Although the Incarnation is recognized here in full force, it is understood only in relation to death, but not as the revelation of the full power of God-manhood, the unity of divine and human life in the New Adam, in Christ, but in Him and in all humanity. For the Dogma of Chalcedon, like the dogma of the VI Council, there is no place in the general concept of conditionalism. However, this immanentism is not only a weakness, but also a kind of strength, as a motive of eschatology. It is he who introduces within its boundaries that one-sided transcendentism that is generally inherent in eschatology, where final destinies are too often understood as an external verdict and action on a person, and to a lesser extent the state of the person himself. In its one-sidedness, conditionalism stops the thought on what exactly is done by us and is not done to a person himself, what determines the differences in destinies from his own state, how it is his business. In particular, this applies to the spiritual self-determination of the person himself. A person has a spirit, this is given to him, but it is given to him as a creative task and feat, the work of his own life. He who does not want spiritual life does not know it; he does not have the spirit, even though he has it. And this fading of the spirit in a being by nature spiritual, as a person’s own self-determination, is a state of spiritual death, not in the sense of destruction, but in the sense of non-realization, reduction to potentiality: that which by its nature should be actual. Without touching here on the question of the extent to which this self-determination can be unchangeable and final, here we have the expression of that valuable thought that in a certain sense, the final destiny of humanity is the immanent revelation of one’s own human being, his will and creativity, outside of which and without which nothing can be given to him, or rather, accepted. Here the truth of the Gospel is revealed, that from those who had little, this little will be taken away, and from those who had much, much will be given and more will be given to them in abundance. Even in his final destiny, man is not deprived of creative participation, positive or negative: “I have offered you life and death, blessing and curse. choose life, so that you and your descendants may live” (Deut. 30:19). In Russian Theological literature, the only presentation of the theory of conditionalism is incidentally given by Prof. N. N. Glubovsky. The Gospel of St. Paul, vol. I, ch. V, pp. 571–591. Edward White. Life in Christ (A Study of the Scripture doctrine of the nature of man, the object of the divine incarnation, ant the conditions of human immortality. 3-d ed. London 1878. French translation: Limmortalité condtionnelle ou la vie en Christ. Paris (1880 (quotations are made from this translation). E. Petavel-Olliff. Le problème de limmortalité. Vol. I-II. Paris 1891–1892. Bibliography, see White, 1. p. (English), in Petavel-Olliff, 1. p. Alger. A Critical History of the doctrine of a Future Life. Philadelphia 1864 (exhaustive bibliography). G. Runze. Immortality in The New Staff. – Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. V. Fulford. Conditional Immortality in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics by Hastings, v. III. Catholic doctrine (see Scheeben. Handbuch der Dogmatik, B. II, § 165 fg.) considers posse non mori not a natural, but a supernatural, grace-filled gift, for the body itself contains the principle of death and decay - here we have echoes of Manichaeism and Platonism, and together the path of conditionalism is predicted. White, 92–3, 100–1, Petavel-Olliff, 1, 97: La suppression totale de tel ou tel individu est une notion qui se laisse très bien concevoir (!). “God did not say to Adam, “Your body will die,” but “You will die” (103). White, 87. The mythological image of the tree of life is here interpreted as a natural magical means of immortality. In the same sense, the apocalyptic tree of life in the New Jerusalem is compared with it. Open 22, 2; 27. Petaver-Olliff, 1, 141–2. Some conditionalists consistently come to a complete denial of the soul in humans in a different sense than it exists in animals and decomposes along with the body in death. This is N. Constable Hades. The spirit, according to K., is a particle of the divine spirit in the soul, which is taken away with death. Man dies completely in death, and consciousness awakens only in resurrection. In this sense, White develops this idea (478–90): “The satisfaction or discovery of the properties of God is the first and last goal of creation and providence. Such is the sound philosophy of punishment, which, eliminating the hope of universal salvation, establishes the solemn doctrine of retribution. All the unrepentant have to answer to their Creator in their body and soul, and their fate will be determined by death and the final sentence. The good of all will be taken into account. But he who persists in disobedience cannot hope for any means of correction; he will be destroyed "body and soul in Gehenna." God will reject all degenerate and inveterate children, being faithful to His eternal justice, He will destroy them.” “The great day of His vengeance, and the vengeance of the Lamb, is coming.” “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). “I will strike her (Jezebel’s) children with death, and I will make all the churches aware that I am the one who searches the hearts and the reins” (Rev. 2:23). “The Lord God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. I bear witness to you today by heaven and earth that you will soon lose the earth, you will remain on it for a long time, but you will perish” (Deut. 24:26). “The wrath of God abides” (John 3:36) on the disobedient,” etc. (characteristic arbitrariness in quoting and interpreting texts). “The resurrection of the dead can be explained as the last resort of grace,” “en vue d’épreuve,” God does not completely reject man who is not yet completely corrupt,” and “ultimate destruction awaits only the most bitter (Petavel-Olliff, 11 204). "The various expressions of Scripture enable us to believe that they will be put to a new test, and special preaching will be addressed to them" (ibid., 5). “This is a progressive and irresistible decline, a growing decline in two factors of human existence - sensations and actions” (4). “Terrible agony, and then a night without dawn. This soul is no longer conscious or responsive. She was, she loved, she lived; she no longer loves, she is dead, she does not exist” (11). “The complete destruction of the human soul will, no doubt, be preceded by suffering corresponding in its intensity to the innate vitality of that soul. The most severe torments will accompany the agony of the most richly gifted soul, and the destruction of the greatest mass of vital forces. In this sense, “from the one who receives more, he will require more” (13). “Suffering will not fail to play its terrible role in future torments, but this is only a preliminary phase. The ultimate punishment is to end an individual only in a painful death in the afterlife. According to the scientific law of continuity, the unrepentant sinner will become the prey of a long and sad insanity. Then a sorrowful silence will come for the most rebellious, which Scripture speaks of as the “second death.” “We are asked, what do we mean by anéantissement? We answer: the gradual diminution of the faculties which the individual self has, and the eventual extinction of that fundamental faculty by which we have other faculties.” “In dieser Durchdingung des ganzen Seyns vom Tode geht die Persönlichkeit (Lk. 9, 25) im Sterben auf (apoleia); es ist nicht absolutes Nicht-Sein, aber absolute Passivität und Todes-unmacht und Todes-jammer (Beck) (II, 16–17), note 3). Glubkovsky, 1. p. Salmond. The Christian doctrine of immortality. Edinborough 1895. Petavel-Olliff, 1, 105; 11, 150. White makes a comparison of these expressions as ἀπολλυμι, ὄλεθρος, etc., in their meaning in Plato in Phaedo, where their meaning directly means destruction, and in the LXX and in the New Testament, in order to apply the exegesis of Platonic word usage here (of course, completely arbitrarily). Here are some examples: Ps. 7 2, 1 9, 27: “For behold, those who separate themselves from You perish, You destroy everyone who turns away from You.” And s. 1, 2 8: “But all apostates and sinners will perish, and those who fall behind the Lord will be destroyed. Wed. Ps. 29, 20. Nahum. 1:15: “Celebrate your holiday, O Judah, for the wicked will not pass through you; he is completely destroyed.” (And however, Is. 28:9: “For the sake of My name He put aside My wrath, and for the sake of My glory restrained Yourself from destroying evil”). In general, the psalms and prophecies say an unusual amount about the destruction of the wicked, and very often, if not always, what is meant is not so much eschatological as historical destruction. Edward White proves that nowhere in the Old Testament and in particular Genesis, there is direct evidence of the immortality of man, but only of the death of his polysyllabic composition, and that after the Fall of Adam man did not die only by the force of the anticipation of the future incarnation, which is the medicine of immortality. He cites the following texts regarding human mortality: John, v., ch. 18, 20, 21; Psalter: 1, 2, 9, 24, 37, 10, 9, 112, 103, 9, 104, 113; Prem. Sol. 10, 24; 13, 13; 14, 12; 15; 21, 16. Article H. W. G u 1 f o g d . Conditionnai imortality (Ε. II. Ε. Haslings, ν. III). The main texts cited in favor of 1 S.: Gen. 2, 16–17; 3: 4, 19, 22–4; Deut. 30: 15, 19, 20; Ps. 21, 4; 37, 10, 20; 49, 20; 73, 19–20; 92, 7; 94, 23; 145, 20; Ave. Sol. 8, 35–36; 11, 19; 12', 28; 24, 20; Is. 51, 8; Ezek. 18, 26–32; Small 4, 1–3; Mf. 7, 13–19; 10, 28; 13: 30, 40, 48, 49; 16, 26; OK. 13, 4–5; In. 3, 6, 16; 5, 24, 40; 6, 33–5; 8, 51; 10, 28; 11, 25; 14, 6, 19; 15, 6; Rome. 6, 21–3; 7, 5; 8: 6, 11, 13; 1 Cor. 3, 16–17; 2 Cor. 2, 15–16; 4, 3; Gal. 6, 7–8; Phil. 3, 18–19; 1 Tim. 5, 3; 2 Tim. 1, 9 (όλεθρος αιώνιος is the only phrase in N. 3.); Titus 6, 9, 19; Heb. 10, 26–39; 12, 29; Jacob 1, 15; 5, 20; 1 Pet. 1, 23; 4, 18; 2 Pet. 1, 4; 2, 12; 3, 9; 1John 3, 15; 5, 11–12; Open 2, 7, 11; 3, 5; 20, 11–15; 21, 6; 22, 1, 4. These passages prove that man is not immortal, immortality is a property of God (1 Tim. 6, 16), death in the literal sense is a consequence of the fall, and immortality is a gift only for the righteous, that it is conditional. The Bible nowhere speaks of the immortality of the soul. That unrepentant sinners are often threatened with death and spoken of as being destroyed, and that death signifies the immortality of soul and body (824). The whole question centers around understanding the biblical expression death. Quotes from N. 3. about the fate of sinners in the sense of destruction in death (378 ff.): Matt. 3, 12; 5, 25; 10, 28; 16, 25; (Luke 9:25; 17:23; John 12:25). OK. 9, 56; 13, 1–5; 20, 18; 20, 35; John 8, 34–6; 8, 51; 10: 10, 27; and: 49, 50; Acts 3, 22–3; 8, 20; 20, 26; R. 1, 32; 2, 6–7; 8, 13; 1 Cor. 14; Gal. 6, 8; 1 Tim. 6, 9; Heb. 10, 26–31; 2 Pet. 2, 12; 1John 2, 17; Jude 5, 7; Open 2, 7; 3, 5; 21.8. Wed. table resp. words and expressions: 387–90. Petavel-Olliff also has a huge collection of biblical texts of various contents on the topic of immortality: 1, 368–392. Of course, in such a huge summary one can find cases of arbitrary inclusion of certain texts. “Twenty times up. Paul repeats to us that death is the wages of sin, la mort sansphrases” (1:16). It is interesting to see how they cope with texts that are inconvenient for conditionalism. This is undoubtedly 1 Cor. 3, 13–15: “Whoever’s work is burned will suffer loss, however, he himself will be saved, but as if from fire.” White sentences on this occasion (350), which is not in the text: a sinner if he does not want to separate from the cause. will also burn. Oddly enough, they have a predecessor here in their main antagonist - Blaz. Augustine, who, as a church teaching, puts forward the position that the spirit (soul - anima) of man was created by God from nothing (De anima et eius origine, lib. III-V. Minge Patr. s. 1. t. 44. Noli ergo credere, noli docere, quod non de nihilo, sed de sua natura fecit animam Deus, si vis esse eatholicum (1. III. c. V., 7, col. 5, 16). In Petavel-Olliff (1, 171) we find the following obscure definition of spirit: L'esprit est exclusivement l`origin (!!) qui percoit le divin, c`est le sens moral et religieux, ce qùon pourraler en un seul motspiritualiste ... Dans le plan divin l`esprit de l`homme en communion vivante aves l`Esprit de Dier devait penetrer l`ame, et par elle reigner sur le corps et sur tous ses organes. On the contrary, in conditionalism we have the following conclusion regarding the image of God in man: Il portait en lui un fragile miiroir de la divinite, le miroir est brise, et l`homme n`est plus que l`enfant de la poudre. Tire de la terre, le premier homme n`etait que poussiere, dit l`apotre (ibid., 164). For the development of all these thoughts, see Lamb of God. Wed. essay by prof. S. N. Trubetskoy: Immortality of the soul. Works, vol. III (Issue of Phil. and Psych., No. 63, 70, 71, 72). Participation in God belongs not only to man, but also to the angelic world. Conditionalism is characterized by a lack of attention to angelology (which exists for it only as Satanology). Otherwise, he would have to face the question of the natural immortality of angels, precisely because of their participation in God, in which angels do not differ from humans. The problem of angelology would necessarily lead to a revision and doctrine of the immortality of man. Angels share the image of God, just like humans. In relation to the participation of his spirit in God, man does not differ from the angels, being different from them in that, having a body, in it he becomes involved in the world, as its center and master. This merit of conditionalism was recognized by a thinker so alien to it as Baron von Hügel, The mystical Element of Religion etc. v. II London, 1923. Pag. 228–30. V. Hügel speaks relatively mildly about cond. Immortality as having many undeniable advantages over every kind of origenism. This is not the destruction by Omnipotence of the natural immortality of the souls of grave sinners, but it means that the human soul “begins with capacity of asquiring with the help of God’s Spirit, a spiritual personality, build up out of the mere possibilities and partial tendencies of their highly mixed natures which, if left uncultivated and untranscended, become definitely fixed at the first, phenomenal merely individual level, – so that spiritual personality alone deserves to live un and does so while this animal personality does not deserve and does not so. The soul is thus not simply born as, but can become more and more that "inner man" who alone persists, indeed who is "renewed day by day, even though our outward men persist." (2. Rop. 4, 16) (p. 228–9) A particular application of this general idea occurs in application to the doctrine of original sin (see Burning Bush). The spirit created by God self-determines itself to exist in a fallen world and thereby takes on the burden of original sin, which otherwise can only be understood as a hereditary disease, and not as sin. For conditionalists, original sin, as an infection of death, plays a central role, but in fact it has the meaning here only of a hereditary disease. In this they unexpectedly meet with bl. Augustine. All is interpreted in conditionalism or in the sense of all the remaining, or in the sense of totality rather than completeness - an exegetical trick in order to weaken the direct promise. And in this they meet with bl. Augustine. Obviously, in order to convince them of their own animality, they are now trying to again mate a monkey with a man in order to obtain clear proof of the animality of man. And indeed, the question arises as to whom these artificial fiends of militant atheism should be considered. Moses already knew this thought, for we read: “Let every beast-breaker be put to death” (Ex. 22:19).