Debate on Man’s Mortality
By Editor
A FRIEND sends us the following extract of a debate held by the Literary Society of Gilroy, and published in the Advocate, on March 6, stating that the three judges appointed to decide this debate were none of them Adventists, yet they unanimously awarded the victory to the affirmative. The Methodist minister representing the negative has consented to debate the question again, stipulating, however, that there shall be neither judges nor decisions upon the discussion. "A debate, Resolved, That man is mortal, was next in order. His colleague, Mr. Van Schaick, being absent, Mr. Dryden occupied the time allotted the negative speakers without assistance. E. A. Briggs, in support of the resolution, said that the word immortal is used but once in the entire Bible, and it is then named as an attribute of God. Immortality is used five times, but in each instance it is mentioned as something that man does not possess, or that belongs to God exclusively. We are to strive for immortality, and it is possessed by God alone. The Bible teaches that the dead sleep in the grave where there is no knowledge, nor device, until the resurrection, when all will be judged, and the wicked will suffer the second death, from which there is no restoration. The gift of God is eternal life, and this will be given at the final Judgment to those who shall have overcome. Much importance is attached to the declaration that Man became a living soul; but Kitto translates this identical passage, a living animal. We learn from the Revelation that a living soul may die; the life and soul of the Bible are from the same word, as marginal references frequently explain, and Solomon says that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, and they have all one breath. No doctrine of the Bible is more clear than that fire is to cleanse the earth, and man's mortal nature is further argued by the frequent comparison of the wicked to the most combustible materials—chaff, tares, thistles, dry branches, the fat of lambs, and stubble fully dry. God will by no means clear the guilty. He cometh to judge with equity; Christ speaks of sins that shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Paul tells us of classes for whom it is impossible to renew themselves unto repentance; yet, in the new earth, every knee shall bow unto the Lord, and every living creature shall praise Him. These Scriptures agree with annihilation and with nothing else. That every tongue shall praise the Lord, and that some neither repent nor be forgiven, are perfectly consistent, when we understand that the dead know not anything, and *the wicked shall not be.'" "Mr. Dryden did not believe that man ever went into the grave. The material body, the prison of man, returns to dust, but the spirit goes to God who gave it. There is no demand in nature unrequited or unanswered, and it must be true that desires of the human heart may be gratified. The God would be monstrous and cruel who would create beings capable of thirst, without affording means for satisfying it; and it is as contrary to the divine attributes that his creatures should have this longing after immortality, if they are to be blotted from existence. Again, life on this earth is worse than a failure—it is a curse. Thousands are surrounded by such conditions that development of their powers is utterly impossible; millions of the dead have never heard of Jesus or the Bible, and that such should be destroyed before they have had opportunity to develop the faculties that God has given, is neither merciful nor just. The speaker would not create frogs or tadpoles with wishes that could not be satisfied. When, in the field, we overturn a rock, the grass lies pale, and bent, and crushed beneath, and thousands of souls, panting for light and life, are like the grass under the rock. He did not doubt that he might quote three times as many texts as had the young theologus, and prove the opposite position, but he would simply refer to a few Bible facts. Samuel had appeared to Saul and the witch of Endor, and had conversed with them. Moses, and Elias, thousands of years after their death, appeared with Christ upon the mount; John, with his gift of spiritual power, was able to know of events passing in the spiritual world, and to converse with spirits or angels; and other Scriptures told of the re-appearance of the dead, hence arguing their consciousness. Within our knowledge, the dead have been seen and heard—they have reported themselves, and their works are facts that we may easily examine. The speaker closed his interesting argument by referring to special instances of the recent appearance and work of departed spirits." "C. H. Darrough said belief in immortality is far from universal. Buddhism is called the doctrine of annihilation and half the world are Buddhists. If the longing after immortality is part of our nature and should be satisfied, the answer is that it may be, though there is but one straight path. The man who thirsts must go to the well or spring; the man who would acquire learning, must seek the fountains of knowledge; and he who longs for immortality may find it through faith in Christ, though it is the gift of God and in no sense belongs to man. Ours is certainly a cheerless struggle, but the man who employs his gifts and poor advantages according to the best light that God gives him, will inherit a better life in which his faculties will find their full development. His opponent would not create creatures however humble, with desires that might never be gratified; but, did he believe that toad and tadpole would have another chance?" "He quoted a large number of texts indicating the total destruction of the wicked. Four times the Bible says that fire shall devour them, four times that fire shall burn them up and they shall be as if they had not been. Moses forbade consulting with wizards, and Saul died for his offense. Spirits that become familiar with man are spirits of devils, according to Paul. John commands us to try them and if they testify against God's word there is no light in them. The Bible declares, that thoughts perish in the grave, and the spirit that pretends to represent an inhabitant of the grave, is a spirit of the devil. Life and thought are dependent on our food and breath. If we could construct a machine as delicately perfect in organization as the human body, we have no reason to doubt that air would animate it." "In sleep we lose consciousness; and, so far as scientific knowledge extends, death differs only in being a more complete suspension. It is certainly the word of science that man knows not anything in death, even as it is the word of God. The doctrine of immortality is of man's invention. Herodotus tells us that it originated with the Egyptians; Strabo writes that Plato taught it that the ignorant might be more easily controlled; the early fathers in the church considered it a dangerous heresy; it was rejected by the rest of the reformers, and Luther, Wilson and Wesley testify that it has no place in the oracles of God."