I. DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF THEORIES
A term designating broadly a large body of theories which unite in contending that human beings pass, or are put, out of existence altogether.
These theories fall logically into three classes, according as they hold that all souls, being mortal, actually cease to exist at death; or that, souls being naturally mortal, only those persist in life to which immortality is given by God; or that, though souls are naturally immortal and persist in existence unless destroyed by a force working upon them from without, wicked souls are actually thus destroyed. These three classes of theories may be conveniently called respectively, (1) pure mortalism, (2) conditional immortality, and (3) annihilationism proper.
II. PURE MORTALISM
The common contention of the theories which form the first of these classes is that human life is bound up with the organism, and that therefore the entire man passes out of being with the dissolution of the organism. The usual basis of this contention is either materialistic or pantheistic or at least pantheizing (e.g. realistic); the soul being conceived in the former case as but a function of organized matter and necessarily ceasing to exist with the dissolution of the organism, in the latter case as but the individualized manifestation of a much more extensive entity, back into which it sinks with the dissolution of the organism in connection with which the individualization takes place. Rarely, however, the contention in question is based on the notion that the soul, although a spiritual entity distinct from the material body, is incapable of maintaining its existence separate from the body. The promise of eternal life is too essential an element of Christianity for theories like these to thrive in a Christian atmosphere. It is even admitted now by Stade, Oort, Schwally, and others that the Old Testament, even in its oldest strata, presupposes the persistence of life after death - which used to be very commonly denied. Nevertheless, the materialists (e.g. Feuerbach, Vogt, Moleschott, Büchner, Häckel) and pantheists (Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Strauss; cf. S. Davidson, "The Doctrine of Last Things," London, 1882, pp. 132-133) still deny the possibility of immortality; and in exceedingly wide circles, even among those who would not wholly break with Christianity, men permit themselves to cherish nothing more than a "hope" of it (S. Hoekstra, "De Hoop der Onsterfelijkheid," Amsterdam, 1867; L. W. E. Rauwenhoff, " Wijsbegeerte van den Godsdienst," Leiden, 1887, p. 811; cf. the "Ingersoll Lectures").
III. CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY
The class of theories to which the designation of "conditional immortality" is most properly applicable, agree with the theories of pure mortalism in teaching the natural mortality of man in his entirety, but separate from them in maintaining that this mortal may, and in many cases does, put on immortality. Immortality in their view is a gift of God, conferred on those who have entered into living communion with Him. Many theorists of this class adopt frankly the materialistic doctrine of the soul, and deny that it is a distinct entity; they therefore teach that the soul necessarily dies with the body, and identify life beyond death with the resurrection, conceived as essentially a recreation of the entire man. Whether all men are subjects of this recreative resurrection is a mooted question among themselves. Some deny it, and affirm therefore that the wicked perish finally at death, the children of God alone attaining to resurrection. The greater part, however, teach a resurrection for all, and a "second death," which is annihilation, for the wicked (e.g. Jacob Blain, "Death not Life," Buffalo, 1857, pp. 39-42; Aaron Ellis and Thomas Read, "Bible versus Tradition," New York, 1853, pp. 13-121; George Storrs, "Six Sermons," New York, 1856, pp. 29 ft.; Zenas Campbell, "The Age of Gospel Light," Hartford, 1854).
There are many, on the other hand, who recognize that the soul is a spiritual entity, disparate to, though conjoined in personal union with, the body. In their view, however, ordinarily at least, the soul requires the body either for its existence, or certainly for its activity. C. F. Hudson, for example ("Debt and Grace," New York, 1861, pp. 263-264), teaches that the soul lies unconscious, or at least inactive, from death to the resurrection; then the just rise to an ecstasy of bliss; the unjust, however, start up at the voice of God to become extinct in the very act. Most, perhaps, prolong the second life of the wicked for the purpose of the infliction of their merited punishment; and some make their extinction a protracted process (e.g. H. L. Hastings, "Retribution or the Doom of the Ungodly," Providence, 1861, pp. 77, 153; cf. Horace Bushnell, "Forgiveness and Law," New York, 1874, p. 147, notes 5 and 6; James Martineau, "A Study of Religion," Oxford, 11888, p. 114). For further discussion of the theory of conditional immortality, see "Immortality."
IV. ANNIHILATIONISM PROPER
Already, however, in speaking of extinction we are passing beyond the limits of "conditionalism" pure and simple and entering the region of annihilationism proper. Whether we think of this extinction as the result of the punishment or as the gradual dying out of the personality under the enfeebling effects of sin, we are no longer looking at the soul as naturally mortal and requiring a new gift of grace to keep it in existence, but as naturally immortal and suffering destruction at the hands of an inimical power. And this becomes even more apparent when the assumed mortalism of the soul is grounded not in its nature but in its sinfulness; so that the theory deals not with souls as such, but with sinful souls, and it is a question of salvation by a gift of grace to everlasting life or of being left to the disintegrating effects of sin.
The point of distinction between theories of this class and "conditionalism" is that these theories with more or less consistency or heartiness recognize what is called the "natural immortality of the soul," and are not tempted therefore to think of the soul as by nature passing out of being at death (or at any time), and yet teach that the actual punishment inflicted upon or suffered by the wicked results in extinction of being. They may differ among themselves, as to the time when this extinction takes place - whether at death, or at the general judgment - or as to the more or less extended or intense punishment accorded to the varying guilt of each soul. They may differ also as to the means by which the annihilation of the wicked soul is accomplished - whether by a mere act of divine power, cutting off the sinful life, or by the destructive fury of the punishment inflicted, or by the gradual enervating and sapping working of sin itself on the personality. They retain their common character as theories of annihilation proper so long as they conceive the extinction of the soul as an effect wrought on it to which it succumbs, rather than as the natural exit of the soul from a life which could be continued to it only by some operation upon it raising it to a higher than its natural potency.
