Immortality of the Soul
By Arthur L. Manous
WHAT is said to be the nature of the soul? Is it immortal, as some teach? or is it mortal, as others teach? Let the following compilation answer: 1. "The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is as unknown to the entire Bible, as the name."—Olshausen on 1 Cor. 15: 19, 20. 2. "The immortality of the soul appears to follow as an inference from some of Julian's Platonic doctrines."—Milman's "History of Christianity," standard edition, volume 2, page 470. 3. "The doctrine of Aristotle and Peripatetics gives no countenance to the opinion of the soul's immortality, or even of its existence after death."—Watson's "Theological Institutes," pages 34, 35. 4. "The truth is, that God only hath independent immortality, because He only is self-existent, and neither human nor brute souls are of necessity immortal."—Id., page 200. 5. "Pliny declares that 'the soul and body have no more sense after death than before we were born.' Caesar, 'that beyond death there is neither place for care or joy.' Seneca . . . says that death makes us incapable of good or evil."—Id., page 35. 6. The false doctrines about the immortality of the soul are based on the supposition "that consciousness is an essential attribute of the spirit, and that the soul is naturally immortal—the former of which can not be proved, while the latter is contradicted by Scripture, which makes our immortality a gift dependent on the will of the Giver."—Id., page 405. 7. "Even the religious Pausanias speaks of the immortality of the soul as a foreign doctrine introduced by the Chaldeans and the magi, and embraced by some of the Greeks, particularly by Plato." Pliny exposes "the idle notion of the immortality of the soul, as a vision of human pride, and equally absurd, whether under the form of existence in another sphere or under that of transmigration."—Milman's "History of Christianity," standard edition, volume 1, page 48. In His own good time God will show "who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto."81 Tim. 6: 15, 16. "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." 1 John 5: 11-13. Our God would have us be assured of the fact that we do have eternal life in His Son, even tho we do not possess it in ourselves. He does not leave us to grope in darkness on this important matter. We do not have to say, as did the several notable heathen quoted above, that there is no hope beyond the tomb. We know that death does not end all. There is unmistakable reality in the life beyond, through Christ Jesus the Lord.
ARTHUR L. MANOUS.