ANNIHILATIONISM, the theory of the utter extinction of man's being, both bodily and spiritual, either at death or at some later period. Little was heard of the doctrine until in the last century, when Taylor, of Norwich, England, McKnight, and a few others wrote upon it. Among later supporters perhaps archbishop Whately may be counted; for in his View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State, he says that in the passages in which "death," "destruction," "eternal death," are spoken of, the words may be taken as signifying literal death, real destruction, the utter end of things; that " unquenchable fire" may mean a fire that quite consumes what it feeds upon, and the "worm that dieth not" may be that which entirely devours its .prey. In the United States, the question was revived about 25years ago by Six Sermons on the Question, are the Wicked Immortal, by George Storrs. • Just before these appeared, Dr. .McCulloch, in his Analytical Investigations concerning the Scripture, maintained that after the final decis ions at the judgment the wicked will be utterly destroyed by the visitation of God in wrath. IIudson, in Debt and Grace, as Related to the Doctrine of a Future State, denies that the natural immortality of the soul is ever expressed or even implied in the Bible; on the contrary, life and immortality are brought to the redeemed alone; all others being not only naturally mortal, soul and body, at death, but, after that mortal suspension of positive existence, all are raised at the final resurrection and cast into the lake of fire at the second death. He denies that endless conscious suffering is ever affirmed to be the nature of future penalty, but affirms that the penalty consists in privation, and that in the perpetuity of this privation consists the eternity of future punishment. The scrip ture terms, from which eternal misery is usually understood, such terms as "condemna tion," "destruction," "perdition," "damnation," etc., he thinks express the painful and
penal consignment of the entire nature to disorganization and to the complete non-exist ence from which it came. Mr. Landis replies to Hudson, in his treatise On the Immortality of the Soul and the Final Condition of the ]licked, and many other writers have discussed the subject, especially in religious reviews and magazines.
It is significant that those who hold to this theory of late prefer to use instead of A. the term "conditional immortality." Three considerations may be noted as bearing on this subject: 1. The theory of man's tripartite nature, body, soul, and spirit, may be so held as to admit as possible a literal destruction (i.e. de-structuralization) of man, an utter and final disorganization, wherein body and soul, as forming man's organized existence, might cease to be, while the spirit, or the inmost essence of his being, might remain for ever disembodied and disorganized; and thence might fitly be spoken of as " cast out into the outer darkness" and swallowed up in " the bottomless pit." 2. To establish the doctrine of entire extinction of a being like a man, existing in various departments, whether two or three, it is necessary that the origin of his complex being be understood. Was he created out of nothing, or out of somewhat previously existing, or out of God as a child out of parents? 3. The theory of A. requires that the word " death" in the Bible, and in science, be taken to mean, when literally used, extinction of being. Thus the question arises whether the Bible gives "death" any meaning beyond destruction of the organism; and whether science can assure us that death in any case is more than disso lution of the organism, or destruction, i.e. de-structuralization. In the lack of affirma tive answer on these points from either science or revelation, it would be found difficult to prove the theory of A., even were it "true.