NATURAL IMMORTALITY by C. P. B.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 10, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 22.

NATURAL IMMORTALITY.

By C. P. B.

THE Christian at Work is jubilant over the fact that Prof. Joseph Le Conte, of the University of California, a leading evolutionist, has declared in favor of the natural immortality of the soul. The professor’s great argument is that a man can examine the thoughts of his own mind. “To animals,” says the Christian at Work, in giving a résumé of the professor’s argument, “there is certainly no self-consciousness, no turning of thought in observation upon self, no inside view of brain phenomena. Is not this a whole world occupied by man alone? Here, then, man differs totally from the animal, showing himself possessed of a spirit, self-conscious, self-acting, and, as we hope, immortal.”

Perhaps it is all right for Professor Le Conte to reason in this way, since he has no faith in divine revelation, and of course can have no hope of immortality from a Bible standpoint. But why Christians should adopt such reasoning is not apparent. Life and immortality are brought to light only through the gospel, and had the Christian at Work a single text to support its view of natural immortality, it would certainly consider it worth more than the vague speculation of mere philosophy. It simply shows that there is no Scripture for natural immortality, and this our contemporary virtually confesses when it says: “The Christian sees clearly that without immortality life wou’d not be worth the living, and if faith in it be a sham then all else is a sham, and man might as well lie down at once to die as the brute dieth. But with the resurrection of Jesus historically proved a belief in immortality is now the most rational and certain of truths, as it tends to the noblest aspirations and endeavors of the soul.”

What we cannot see is how natural immortality is proved by the resurrection. Indeed, it seems to us that it proves that without a resurrection there can be no immortality, and we feel the more sure of this because it is the teaching of the word of God. Says the apostle, “If the dead rise not, . . . then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” And we believe his words.

C. P. B.