Discussion at Vacaville.
By William M. Healey
THE discussion closed Tuesday, January 1, with good results. Mr. Johnson affirmed that the soul or spirit survived death. We denied and affirmed as our third proposition for debate that "The punishment of the wicked will end in the final extinction of their being." Our opponent made great pretensions to a knowledge of the Greek and soon left the English version of the Bible, apparently thinking he was safe in saying anything in Greek. He turned with great flourish to the Greek of 1 Peter 3:3, 4 which he claimed proved the spirit was immortal, not corruptible being translated from the same Greek word as immortal. We soon showed this to have no reference to an entity but to an ornament which we were to put on "even a meek and quiet spirit" that such an ornament was in the "sight of God of great price." Upon this text my opponent was going to claim the reward he had seen offered for a text of scripture plainly stating that any part of man is immortal, but after I showed that he had entirely perverted the meaning of the Greek, we heard no more about the reward. He said he would give $50 for a plain declaration of scripture showing that the soul or spirit was mortal. We took his own definition that the soul or spirit is the real man and then quoted Job 4:17, where Job says "Mortal man." The doctrine of inherent immortality originated with the serpent as we find him saying to Eve "Ye shall not surely die," Gen. 3:4, when God had told them they should "surely die." If they did not die, then God had told a falsehood. John recognizes this fact in 1 John 5:10-12 where he says that those who do not believe the record that God gave of his Son hath made God a liar. Verse 11. "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." Verse 12. "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." This plainly declares that any who claim eternal life by any means except in Christ make God a liar for that is the record that God hath given of his Son that in him we can have life. But the believer in the inherent immortality of the soul claims life for all mankind whether they believe in Christ or not. My opponent did not attempt to answer the above. Why not believe God's word and let him stand true and the devil a liar, as Christ said that he was? W. M. HEALEY. January 6, 1878.