p. 4 | Weighing the Soul by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 4, 1907

Weighing the Soul

By C. M. S.

THE world was needing proof that human beings possess an immortal soul. The Bible was lacking in such proof—in fact, was teaching the opposite. So men began to seek a demonstration of an unscriptural hypothesis. There is nothing like weight to prove the existence of a thing, and so they determined to weigh the immortal soul of man. They have done it(?), and it weighs an ounce or less. It was a simple procedure. A person was placed on a special set of scales to die. Immediately after his death there was a difference of about one ounce in his weight. The soul had fled (supposedly), and the body was lighter by that much. But what does it prove as to the point in question?—Nothing. If there had been no difference in weight, what would that prove?—Nothing. As reasonably might we prove the existence of love or hate, righteousness or sin, or any other quality or attribute by the method of weight. We can not weigh thought, energy, sensation, desire, hope, love,—in short, we can not weigh life. The ponderable process of proving the existence of an immortal soul is lacking in the first essential of the demonstration. They must first prove that the soul has weight before they can prove that they have weighed it. To call that fraction of an ounce the weight of the soul, because we do not know what else to call it, is not in any sense furnishing a proof of the proposition.

We do not know what makes the difference in the weights taken ante-mortemly and postmortemly; but we know that the soul dies, and that which dies is not immortal. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

C. M. S.