We might have sufficed ourselves in the preceding argument by simply quoting the conclusions above, as they may be found in almost every scientific work which touches the subject of the human soul. We shall take space for only a few quotations from one recent work, “The Destiny of Man,” by John Fiske. In chapter xvi, under the caption, “The Question as to a Future Life,” he says:—
It is not likely that we shall ever succeed in making the immortality of the soul a matter of scientific demonstration, for we lack the requisite data. It must ever remain an affair of religion. In the domain of cerebral physiology the question might be debated forever without a result. During the present life, altho thought and feeling [these words show that he identifies mind and soul] are always manifested in connection with a peculiar form of matter, yet by no possibility can thought and feeling be in any sense the products of matter.
But cerebral physiology says nothing about another life. During the present life we know soul only in its association with body, and therefore can not discover disembodied soul without dying ourselves. [And whether we can then or not remains to be proved.] This fact must always prevent belief in the soul’s survival.
No comment is needed; an immortal soul from the standpoint of physical science is purely and confessedly a guess or assumption. Tho not a product of matter, so far as can be determined, it is never found separate from matter; and can not therefore be affirmed to survive the conditions under which it is manifested, namely, life of the body.
We now wish to answer Scripturally the argument of the above-mentioned scientific work.
The object of the book is to make the presumption of immortality appear reasonable from the view-point of the dignity and importance of man as the supreme end God had in mind as the consummation of His creative energy working through eons of evolution. We quote:—
The creation and the perfecting of man is the goal toward which nature’s work has all the while been tending. It enlarges ten-fold the significance of human life, places it upon a loftier eminence than poets or prophets have imagined, and makes it seem more than ever the chief object of that creative activity which is manifested in the physical universe.—Page 25.
After going over his argument in the body of the book, he sums up in the last chapter:—
The question, then, is reduced to this: Are man’s highest spiritual qualities, into the production of which all this creative energy has gone, to disappear with the rest? Has all this work been done for nothing? Is it all ephemeral, all a bubble that bursts, a vision that fades? Are we to regard the Creator’s work as like that of a child, who builds houses out of blocks, just for the pleasure of knocking them down? For aught that science can tell us, it may be so; but I can see no good reason for believing any such thing. On such a view the riddle of the universe becomes a riddle without a meaning. Why, then, are we any more called upon to throw away our belief in the permanence of the spiritual element in man than we are called upon to throw away our belief in the constancy of nature?
Now the more thoroughly we comprehend that process of evolution by which things have come to be what they are, the more we are likely to feel that to deny the everlasting persistence of the spiritual element in man is to rob the whole process of its meaning. It goes far toward putting us to permanent intellectual confusion. For my own part, I believe in the immortality of the soul.
A Socrates or a Plato might perhaps be more worthy of our honor for arriving at a conclusion of this kind, guided, as they were, only by natural reason, without the light of revelation, and prompted by the universally instinctive desire for life, than they would be for adopting the idea of annihilation. But the person who prefers these uncertain speculations to a divine revelation—the evidence of the superhuman and divine character of which is infinitely stronger and worthier of belief than the inferences of Mr. Darwin—such a person is little more justifiable than one who, in spite of the testimony of navigators to the rotundity of the earth, judging of the course of nature from the way it seems to him, persists in believing that the earth is flat, and that the sun travels around it. One book like “Daniel and Revelation,” by U. Smith, showing the exact fulfilment of the prophecies of these books, comprehending, as they do, the greatest events in almost the half of human history,—one such book, to say nothing of the multitudinous other evidences of inspiration, places on human reason an obligation to accept the Bible, compared with which the evidences for evolution are not to be mentioned.
Error of the Book.
The error of Mr. Fiske’s book lies in the fact, from the Scriptural standpoint, that he has not properly conceived the purpose of God.
We will admit most cheerfully that man is the object of the whole creation, by whatever process it came into existence and was perfected; for thus saith the Scriptures: “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited.” Isa. 45:18. Here the certainty of the eternal purpose as well as the purpose itself is plainly asserted. God’s aim in creating this sphere was that man might dwell here. So far we stand on common ground. But just at this point comes in a qualification of the divine intention which our author has not included in his argument. What kind of man did the Creator design should make earth his home? The answer to this query is found in the character of the man He first placed here—“God hath made man upright” (Eccl. 7:29), “very good” (Gen. 1:31),—and the precaution He took to preserve him in that state by warning him not to commit sin. It is evident, therefore, that a race of righteous beings—not spirits, be it remembered—was the divine ideal.
Now God has said that this purpose shall be carried out, for “He created it not in vain.” Why the “eternal persistence” of the incorporeal souls of wicked men is a physical or logical necessity consequent on the Creator’s aim to populate the earth with holy beings, is a dilemma not provided for by any evidence in our author or elsewhere.
John Brown tells me that he came all the way from Maine to start a fruit orchard in California. He bought his ground, planted his trees, and irrigated his soil at great expense and pains; but blight, scale, and borers attacked several trees, and they became very poor. After spraying and cultivating these bad trees for several years, to see whether they would yield good fruit, and finding them a failure, he cut them down to make room for better, and burned them root and branch. Why should the Almighty be bound to preserve wickedness in “everlasting persistence,” by a law that would not bind a mere man to save sour apples?
If all men, good or bad, were created immortal, the evil would of necessity continue as long as the righteous; but whether man is naturally immortal or not is the very point in discussion. To assume it, is to beg the question.
There is some misunderstanding as to the meaning of the term immortal. A word is needed on this. Immortal may signify one of two states; (a) life which can not possibly end, and (b) life which need not end. That the first is not the Biblical sense is evident from the fact that God Himself, to all intents and purposes, died in Jesus Christ upon the cross. I am well aware that Romanist theologians will be ready to hurl anathemas and the Athanasian creed at this affirmation; but since through Romanism the doctrine of natural immortality was brought into the creeds of Christendom, so also may we expect that from the same source will come the arguments to support it. None the less, that Christ was the very God is stated in Hebrews 1:8: “But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” And that this was the Being who died upon the cross is shown by Acts 20:28: “Feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” From this there is no escape. So when the Scripture states that “God only hath immortality,” it can not mean that He could by no possibility lay this condition aside, so far, at least, as to pass through the experience which we call death. No one will claim, however, that there was5any law (except the law of love—glory be to God!) in His divine Being which made death a necessity. Christ died voluntarily—not necessarily. Hence the Biblical idea of immortality is, not necessarily subject to death.
This explains the case of Adam before his fall. By partaking of the tree of life he could have perpetuated life, yes, even a sinful life; but that he became mortal, or, as we may say, was placed under conditions where he was of necessity mortal, is proved by the fact that he was shut away from the tree of life. For saith the Word: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Gen. 3:22-24.
The other fact which proved Adam mortal was that he died—the same being that might have lived forever.
It is evident, therefore (referring again to the argument of Mr. Fiske), that God has a method of eliminating from His purpose all men who fail to attain the character of those intended for habitation in the new earth, and that method is death. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Amen and amen! The “restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21)—the earth to its glorious condition before the curse fell upon it; man to the tree of life in the midst of this Paradise of God—has been His purpose since the world began. This will be accomplished, not by the “eternal persistence” of disembodied spirits, but by the resurrection of the dead, the purification of the earth by fire, and the new creation. 1 Thess. 4:16; 2 Peter 3:10-13; Rev. 21:1-8. But even in that beatified state immortality will not be inherent in man, but dependent upon his relation to his surroundings, upon partaking of the virtues of the tree of life, and especially upon character. To this conclusion we are led by Rev. 22:2 and Isa. 65:17, 22. “And on either side of the river [in the New Jerusalem] was there the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. . . . As the days of a tree [the tree of life] are the days of My people.” At that time “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
[The next article in this series is “The Physical Phenomena of Spiritism.”]
