Conditional Immortality

The concept of conditional immortality has gained signicant acceptance among Christians of various denominations. Although maintaned by individuals like John Milton, Sir Isaac Newton and William Whiston in the 17th century it greatly increased in popularity during the 19th century. It's advocates tended to prefer a more positive description for their views by using the phrase "life in Christ". That was even used as the title of one of the most important conditionalist works of the late 1800's, Life in Christ (1846 and 1878 editions) by Edward White. The key thought of this view is that God only give immortality to the righteous believers in the gospel. The wicked of the world won't have any life after death, that translates then into a negation of the popular view of eternal torment or future retribution of peoples immortal soul's.

While this is a step in eliminating the moral concerns about eternal conscious punishments it offers nothing the extend the hope of salvation beyond the narrow scope of Christian believers.
Edward White himself felt the burden of this lack, he later elaborated a mild form of future probation. In a clerical symposium published in the Homiletic magazine of England he admitted the place that future probation had for those who receive no knowledge of the gospel in this life. The book Future Probation a Clerical Symposium, published by Nisbett in 1886 contains the full text of various prominent English clerics, some in favour and other opposed.

Edward White wasn't the only one among conditionalists to make this shift. I'd like to highlight Charles F Hudson, Canon C A Row, Henry Dunn, Jacob Blain and George Storrs. They each made the leap to the next level beyond simply opposing orthodox future retribution and eternal torment beliefs. They held that all people would have an opportunity for salvation beyond this life. Among present day evangelicals, a similar movement is taking place. See John Sanders No Other Name, and Crockett's The Fate of Those who Have Never Heard.

Life is indeed conditional, but it also provides a real offer of divine grace to all of humanity.