II. Professor Butler-Cloud Rolled Away From Face of God

In the same period was CLEMENT MOORE BUTLER, D.D. (1810-1890), a graduate of Trinity College and of General Theological Seminary (Episcopalian), of New York City. He served as rector of churches in Boston and Washington, D.C. During the latter appointment he was also chaplain of the United States Senate, beginning in 1849. After a further period as rector of Christ Church in Cincinnati, Butler served in a similar post as rector of Grace Church in Rome, Italy. Returning to Washington, D.C., he was for a time rector of Trinity Church (1861-1864). In 1864 he became professor of ecclesiastical history of the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Philadelphia.CFF2 518.1

Dr. Butler was author of numerous books, including The Book of Common Prayer Interpreted by Its History (1846); Old Truths and New Errors (1848); St. Paul in Rome (1865); Inner Rome (1866); and Manual of Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols. (1868-1872). Becoming a firm Conditionalist during his three-year assignment in Rome, he wrote in 1881 with considerable feeling:
“I have long ago, to my great peace of heart, given up the doctrine of the eternal torture by God of any of His creatures. Since I reached and rested in the conclusion that the ultimate doom of the impenitent is death, and not eternal life in agony, a great black cloud seems to have rolled away from the face of God, and I see Him, not only as my loving Father, but as the loving Father of all His creatures.” ^{66) Clement M. Butler, “A Letter,” in Pettingell, The Life Everlasting, p. 739.}CFF2 518.2

The candid story as to how, when, and where Dr. Butler came to adopt the Conditionalist position and repudiate the dogma of an imperishable life in torment for the wicked is of sufficient human interest to warrant its recital here.CFF2 518.3

1. DISILLUSIONED BY FIENDISH “PORTRAYS” IN ROME

In a statement to the compiler of the Symposium, in which he expresses his “accordance” with both its “argument” and its “conclusion” concerning the ultimate and utter destruction of the wicked, Butler writes:CFF2 518.4

“The circumstances in which this conviction came to me were somewhat peculiar. The doctrine of endless life in torture was always so exceedingly painful to me that I locked it up, as it were, in my mind and labeled it ‘orthodox,’ and refused thereafter to take it out and use it. But during my three years residence at Rome, nearly twenty years ago, I was so horrified and disgusted at the mediaeval pictures and with the great painting of the judgment, by Michael Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel, and with many other pictures which represented the doomed in their agony and depicted fiends plying instruments of torture in the midst of the flames, that my mind was forced into the consideration of the question whether that could indeed be the doctrine of the Bible, which warranted these harrowing, revolting and realistic, but not illogical horrors? I began anew a study of the New Testament, and to my immense relief I came to the distinct conclusion that death and destruction dad not mean imperishable life in torment.” ^{77) Ibid., pp. 739, 740.}CFF2 519.1

2. FOUND ELIMINATION ONLY ENHANCED GOSPEL SYSTEM

Continuing, C. M. Butler says:
“I found my mind proceeding on several of the same lines of thought which I see you have followed, and I examined myself with anxious care to ascertain whether the removal of this doctrine shook my faith in the slightest degree in the great truths of the evangelical system which I had always held, and which were dearer to me than life. On the contrary, the blessed scheme of salvation through a God-man Redeemer seemed to me to stand out in a light that was more glorious and tender, as well as brighter than before. I found that the removal of this dreadful dogma was not the striking out of a stone from the complete arch of truth through which we enter into the eternal life, which would weaken and deface the structure, but rather the removal of a stone of stumbling before that arch which prevented multitudes from entering in.” ^{88) Ibid., p. 740 See the chapter “Horrifics of Hell,” pp. 39-48, of this work.}CFF2 519.2

So Professor Butler reached his conclusions not from reading arguments thereon, but by an inner revolt against the fiendish horrors of the “dreadful dogma.” He further states his belief that the “clarified Christian Consciousness” of the church, and its “spiritually enlightened moral sense,” will lead the church to “gradually drop this dogma of eternal torture, as it seems to be doing.” In closing he reiterates the conviction that he feels “bound” to express his “opinion freely, when the occasion calls for it, on this very momentous question.” ^{99) Ibid., p. 741.}CFF2 519.3

Picture 1: Lewis Carter Baker, Dr. Cameron Mann, Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bakon
Left: Lewis Carter Baker (d. 1915), Presbyterian editor and author—man not inherently immortal. Wicked will perish. Center: Dr. Cameron Mann (d. 1932), bishop of North Dakota and Florida—immortal-soulism not taught in Bible. Right: Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon (d. 1907), pastor, polemicist, and physician—immortality “Conditional upon the act of God”.
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