Is Man Mortal or Immortal?
By G. B. T.
IS man by nature mortal or immortal? Has he within him an immortal, indestructible principle, which survives the stroke of death and lives forever? This is one of the greatest questions of modern theology. For centuries sermons and eloquent orations have been delivered by doctors of divinity, intending to prove that man possesses a deathless spirit. Devout and pious writers of repute have written learnedly, and sought to prove that the soul is immortal. Poets have written about it, and congregations in all lands have it in their hymns, and have sung it through the centuries. Man can never settle this question and solve the mysteries of life by mental reasoning. He can explore the heaven, and explain many of its mysteries; he can study the forces of nature, and gather from it many of its secrets; he can overturn empires, and blot out dynasties; he can make great achievements in science, and startle the world with his inventive genius and explorations; he can study the rocks, and divine, to some extent, the history of the globe; but he is utterly unable to solve the problem of his own existence, or determine his future. In his most mature state intellectually, unaided by divine revelation, he stands dumb before the question of what lies beyond this life. And he has scarcely arrived at his maturity ere his strength wanes, and he is compelled to submit to the power of death. He perishes like the grass. The place of his fondest hopes and activities knows him no more. With millions of others of his fellow creatures, he lies down in the dust, and the portals of the tomb close about him. And from beyond the curtain which divides the present from the future none have ever returned with tidings of what lies hidden there. The human mind is bound to reflect; and thoughtful men have asked through the centuries, "What is this mysterious doom of death which overshadows all?" Does death end all? Is man, who has existed a brief span in the midst of an eternity, to live again? Does he, as much of orthodox theology tells us, possess an immortal soul that can not die, but lives beyond what we term death, either in the realm of bliss or in the confines of despair? Why should we conclude that man is immortal? No results of physical inquiry are favorable to such a conclusion. When we look at the question through the lens of scientific investigation, we find nothing that confirms the claim that man possesses inherent immortality, or a deathless spirit. "The processes of development, nutrition, and decay, are identical for animals and for mankind. The faculty, whether of body or brain, gradually developed, as gradually wastes away. What ground for the confident assertion of a perishable life in the one case, of a deathless being in the other? Rather is it not evident that all through the lower world mind is but one of the manifold energies of life, and that life, whatever its essence, dissolves with the organization? Science knows nothing, affirms nothing, respecting substance or essence. It affirms nothing respecting metaphysical annihilation of the material out of which organisms are built. It declares simply that man and the animals belong to one system of life. They are brought into being under one law. And there is no material or positive evidence of the concrete survival of any portion of the one series of organisms more than of the other. Any expectation of the survival of the vital force of man in death must then be founded on something that is not science. . . ." "But even if the repeated creation of species be admitted as a hypothesis, it is further argued that the case of man is not materially improved. Here are nearly a million of species on the earth. Man at the head of them appears, in his barbarous and savage state, superior to them, indeed, but not so superior as to suggest either to himself in that state, or to us, the idea of a wholly different nature. Why should 999,999 species of living creatures be voted mortal and perishable, and the millionth declared to be immortal as to the animating principle, just because he sometimes wishes to maintain a continued existence? Perhaps the higher animals wish it too. How know we that the thinking principle can survive the breaking up of the organization in the one species, when it is dissipated in the cases of the 999,999? . . . Since the production of mental and voluntary power in men and animals is subject to precisely the same laws, why should it be held that the dissolution of the brain is attended by such marvelously different results as these,—in the case of all other species to bring the individuality to an end, in the case of man to set free the animating force for a life immortal?"698—"Life in Christ," pages 7-9. Apart from a divine revelation, there is no satisfying solution to the problem of our existence and the life beyond the grave. But the omniscient God has given us a revelation that answers all these queries, and settles forever the question whether the soul of man is mortal or immortal. Our appeal therefore is to the inspired Scriptures, which reveal the origin of man, how and by whom made, and the future that awaits him. Does then the Bible teach that the human race is possessed of natural immortality? "There's the rub!" It surely does not, but teaches, instead, that eternal life is obtained through faith, the direct gift of God through Jesus Christ. The teaching of the Scriptures is well stated by the Rev. Samuel Minton in the following terse language: "Scripture is silent on man's necessary immortality. It is trumpet-tongued on the other side. From beginning to end, it positively labors to impress upon man that he is not immortal, indestructible, but a dying, perishing creature, who, if he desires to inherit eternal life, must accept it as the free gift of God in Christ, and seek for it by patient continuance in well-doing. The alternatives of life and death, immortality and destruction, are incessantly put before us in every shape and form. Dogmatic assertions, warnings, promises, arguments, illustrations, and necessary inferences, are massed together in such a way that it might have been thought impossible for any human being to misunderstand them. The very object of Christ's death is again and again declared to be, 'that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life'; yet Scripture, we are told, presupposes that man is absolutely imperishable, and must spend an everlasting life of some kind, whether he believes or not. It teaches that 'whosoever doeth the will of God abideth forever'; but presupposes that every one must abide forever 'either in weal or wo.' It teaches that 'if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever'; but presupposes that every man must live forever, whether he eat of it or not,—presupposes that 'unutterably solemn fact that each one of us in this cathedral must live on forever and ever.' It teaches that 'the wages of sin is death'; but presupposes that man's spirit is essentially deathless, and that his body, having been raised from its first temporary death, can incur no second death, but must 'live eternally on in weal or in wo.' It teaches that the 'end' of impenitent sinners 'is destruction,' even 'everlasting destruction'; that 'like natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed,' they 'will utterly perish in their own corruption'; that they will be 'cast forth as a branch and withered, . . . cast into the fire and burned,—burned up like 'chaff' without unquenchable fire; that 'a fiery indignation' will 'devour' them; that they 'shall be cut off,' and 'shall not be'; that 'into smoke they shall consume away.'"