II. Nitzsch-Have Only Contingent Immortality; May Cease

KARL IMMANUEL NITZSCH (1787-1868), Lutheran theologian and profound thinker, was trained at Schulpforta and Wittenberg. After pastoral work in the cathedral at Wittenberg, he became professor at Bonn (1822) and then at Berlin (1840), where he taught church history and then theology. Caught in the conflicting cross currents of the thought of his time, he became an opponent of contemporary rationalism and speculative interpretation. Systematic theology was his major field, his chief work being System der Christlichen Lehre (“System of Christian Doctrine”), 1829. Nitzsch was the university preacher, and exerted a potent influence on the entire life of the institution. Students came from all over Germany to sit at his feet. He had positive convictions on the nature and destiny of man, and clearly expressed them.CFF2 587.3

1. PERPETUAL EXISTENCE OF DAMNED NOT BIBLICAL

Nitzsch, for example, denies that man has “absolute immortality,” holding thatCFF2 587.4

“‘the sinner invokes, provokes, and invites death. It is certain that the question is not one of purely spiritual death, but of the fact that evil tends towards non-existence, to the violation and suppression of all life.... The soul is dependent upon the Creator, it has not an absolute immortality. It is certain that it has been created and constituted with a view to obtaining an eternal life; but it loses the life that is personal to it in the measure in which it becomes a stranger to the truth, to love, and to salvation. It follows that with the progress of sin the soul advances towards the destruction that awaits it in hell; in other terms, towards its death.’” ^{44)Karl I. Nitzsch, System der Christlichen Lehre (5th ed.), secs. 121, 122, quoted in Petavel The Problem of Immortality, pp. 203, 204. (Italics supplied.)}CFF2 587.5

2. NO “PERPETUAL EXISTENCE” OF DAMNED

Nltzsch stresses the ultimate “cessation of existence” of the wicked:
“‘There is nothing in the Word of God, or in the conditions of the kingdom of God, to require the admission of the perpetual existence of the damned, the indestructibility of an individual incapable of becoming holy and happy.... The notion of annihilation is evident in the passage which represents death and hell as being cast into the lake burning with fire and brimstone. There, in fact, death and hell cease absolutely to exist.... Further, as the first death puts an end to the existence of the body, the analogy implies that the second death is the cessation of the existence of the soul.’” ^{55) Ibid., p. 204.}CFF2 588.1

Professor Twesten, colleague of Nitzsch, likewise held to final annihilation of personal consciousness for the wicked.CFF2 588.2