CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY, a tenet held by a theological school which denies the inherent immortality of the soul, and the consequent doctrines both of eternal misery and of Universalism as contrary to the teach ings both of nature and of revelation. Its ad vocates maintain that the Bible sets immortality before men as something to be sought after (Rom. ii, 7), as a divine gift offered on cer tain conditions (Rom. vi, 23; John iii, 15, 16), and as a matter of hope and promise in the present life (Titus i, 2) ; that this immortality is.not a present possession (Mark rc, 30), and is to be realized by the assumption of a spiritual body at the resurrection of regenerate men from the dead (Luke xx, 35, 36), an event synchronous with the second coming of Christ (1 Cor. xv, 51, 52). Divine testimony, no less than experience, they say,. declares unequivocally that man has the same natural life as all other animals (Eccles. iii, 19), and only those who
by faith and obedience are united to Christ have the promise of immortality. The Calvinis tic doctrine of eternal misery is untenable, the punishment of sin being death or everlasting destruction, to be inflicted subsequent to a judg ment after the Lord returns (2 Thess. i, 9, 10). The dogma of Universalism, the only alterna tive to endless torment if the soul must live forever, is also, they maintain, unfounded, since the punishment of sin (death) is said to be everlasting, like the life which is the reward of the righteous (Matt. xxv, 46). The Condi tional Immortality Mission began in Great Britain in 1878. It has an organ The Bible Standard, published monthly by the secretary. Churches have been established in the United States.