p. 190 | FACTS AND IMMORTALITY by B. F. Snook

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 12, 1861

FACTS AND IMMORTALITY.

By B. F. Snook

THE great doctrine of man's entire mortality is taught throughout the Bible, and attested by the most plain and unmistakable facts. David well knew that the organ of thought is not an immortal soul, nor a never-dying spirit, but the brain of man. Speaking of death connected with man, he says, "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. cxlvi, 4. We now ask, Why is it so expressly stated that in the day of death the thoughts of man perish? We answer, Because the organ of thought, the brain, then ceases to act—to think. The result is, all thoughts perish, die, or cease, as a natural consequence. This the Bible clearly teaches. Facts also prove the same to be true.

Richmond mentions the case of a woman whose brain was exposed in consequence of the removal of a considerable of its bony covering by disease. He says, "I repeatedly made pressure on the brain, and each time suspended all feeling, and all intellect, which were immediately restored when the pressure was withdrawn." The same writer mentions another case. He says, "There was a man who had been trepanned, and who perceived his intellectual faculties falling, and his existence drawing to a close, every time the effused blood collected upon the brain so as to produce pressure."

Prof. Chapman, in one of his lectures, says, "I saw an individual with his skull perforated, and the brain exposed, who was accustomed to submit his brain to be experimented upon by pressure, and who was exhibited by the late Prof. Weston to his class. His intellect and moral faculties disappeared on the application of pressure to the brain. They were held under the thumb, as it were, and restored at pleasure to their full activity by discontinuing the pressure."

But of all facts, the following, related by Sir Astley Cooper in his Surgical Lectures, is the most remarkable: "A man by the name of Jones received an injury on his head while on board a vessel in the Mediterranean, which rendered him insensible. The vessel soon after made Gibraltar, where Jones was placed in the hospital, and remained several months in the same insensible state. He was then carried on board the Dolphin frigate to Deptford, and from thence was sent to St. Thomas' Hospital, London. He lay constantly on his back and breathed with difficulty. When hungry or thirsty, he moved his lips and tongue. Mr. Clyne, the surgeon, found a portion of the skull depressed, trepanned him, and removed the depressed portion. Immediately after this operation the motion of his fingers occasioned by the beating of the pulse ceased, and in three hours he sat up in bed, sensation and volition returned, and in four days he got up out of his bed and conversed. The last thing he remembered was the circumstance of taking a prize in the Mediterranean. From the moment of the accident, thirteen months and a few days, oblivion had come over him, and all recollection ceased. Yet on removing a small portion of bone which pressed upon the brain he was restored to the full possession of the powers of his mind and body."

We now ask, Could such facts as the above exist if the common theory be true that the soul is immortal, and is the organ of thought? They could not. The powers of immortality can never be so trammelled that they cannot manifest themselves. But the powers of man's thoughts can be so trammelled that thought ceases. Therefore man's thinking powers are not immortal. From this conclusion there is no escape. The above facts prove to a demonstration that the brain is the organ of thought, and seat of consciousness. If you press upon the brain so as to interfere with its action, you suspend thought and consciousness; and the person is just as unconscious as he will be when his brain ceases to act, on account of the heavy hand of death pressing upon it.

Upon this fact rest the following scriptural truths: "The dead know not anything." Eccl. ix, 5. "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Ps. cxv, 17. "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" Ps. vi, 5.

That the reader may see for himself the entire use of the words immortal and immortality in the New Testament,—words with which the theology of the present day is so plentifully interlarded, we give the following from the Englishman's Greek Concordance:

IMMORTALITY—Aptharsia.

Rom. ii, 7. Glory, and honor, and immortality.

1 Cor. xv, 42. It is raised in incorruption.

50. Doth corruption inherit incorruption.

53. Must put on incorruption.

54. Shall have put on incorruption.

Eph. vi, 24. Love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

2 Tim. i, 10. Brought life and immortality.

Titus ii, 7. Uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity.

IMMORTAL—Aphthartos.

Rom. i, 23. The glory of the incorruptible God.

1 Cor. ix, 25. But we an incorruptible.

xv, 52. Dead shall be raised incorruptible.

1 Tim. i, 17. King eternal, immortal.

1 Pet. i, 4. To an inheritance incorruptible.

23. Incorruptible by the word of God.

iii, 4. That which is not corruptible.

IMMORTALITY—Athanasia.

1 Cor. xv, 53. This mortal must put on immortality.

54. Shall have put on immortality.

1 Tim. vi, 16. Who only hath immortality.

B. F. SNOOK.