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"It is impossible to believe the scriptural truth of the Atonement and the doctrine of
Conditional Immortality at the same time."
And the reasons given are as follows:--
"The Conditionalist must be wrong, because if Christ did substitutionally dies for
sinners, He was annihilated."
"When we argue that Christ must have been annihilated, if annihilation is the penalty
of sin, the Conditionalist retorts that He must suffer endless torment, if that is what the
unsaved is to endure."
Mr. Pitt cannot see the perfect fairness of this retort; the argument that condemns the
Conditionalist condemns him also, but prejudice prevents him from realizing it.
Throughout this pamphlet we find illustrations of another type of false argument,
which is very common in controversy--the process of putting words and phrases into the
mouth of one's opponent and then condemning him. Advocates of Conditional
Immortality quote the words, "The wages of sin is death"; Mr. Pitt puts into their
mouths the words "annihilation". If death were not followed by resurrection, then death
would approximate to annihilation; but the latter term can rightly be used of the second
death, for Conditionalists universally acknowledge the teaching of Scripture concerning a
resurrection of both just and unjust.
Another weak point in the pamphlet is the way in which "authorities" are introduced.
On page 6 we read:--
"Montgomery says in an exquisite concentration of truth, `It is not all of life to life;
not all of death to die'."
And on page 7:--
"The spirit returns to God Who gave it, not to be `merged in the ocean of eternal
energy' as Spencer, a high priest of materialism, says, but to some abode appointed by
God."
Strictly speaking, what was said by Montgomery or by Spencer, the high priest of
materialism, is irrelevant; we are only concerned with "What saith the Scriptures?"
The following paragraph might almost serve as a classical example of the creation of
prejudice in the writer's favour:--
" `Absent from the body'--`Present with the Lord'. To make this passage fit their
theory, Conditionalists say that `Present with the Lord' means present with Him after the
resurrection. The context, however, is quite clear in its reference to the disembodied
state. Taken as it is written, it leaves no doubt that the only reason for its perversion is
that it is fatal to the annihilation theory" (page 12).
On page 9, the writer, speaking of this same passage, refers to "the statement that
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord". After, therefore, misquoting the