Untitled article by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 2, 1864

Are the Dead Conscious? No. 5.

By R. F. Cottrell

In Ps. lxxxviii, David addresses the Lord as follows: "Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Verses 10-12.

This representation of the state of death as the land of forgetfulness is either true or false. If it is true, a man knows less when he enters that state than he did before. If some things are forgotten, all things may be. But immortality is subject to neither death nor decay. Do you say, It is the body only that goes into this unconscious state—this state of forgetfulness? I ask, To which does the power of memory belong, to the body, or to the soul? You do not claim that the body, when separated from the soul, can remember or think or exercise any mental power, whatever. Then the body, according to your own theory, does not become forgetful at death, for it has no knowledge to forget. The conclusion then is inevitable, that the soul—that part of man which thinks and remembers—goes into the land of forgetfulness, or, in other words, forgets its knowledge at death.

Hence the Psalmist says, "Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee?" If the immortal souls of the dead are in a state of conscious happiness, it would be no wonder if they should praise the Lord. It would be a greater wonder if they did not. With this view the poet harmonizes when he says,

"I'll praise my Maker while I've breath, And when my voice is lost in death, Praise shall employ my nobler powers."

And David, doubtless, would have sung to the same strain, had he believed that the dead are conscious; for he says, "I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being." Ps. cxlvi, 2. According to the popular theory, the dead have a being no less than the living; and while this conscious being lasts, good men like David, will praise the Lord. But says the Psalmist, "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." cxv, 17. When a good man dies, he ceases to praise the Lord; but this he will not do, while consciousness lasts; therefore the dead are unconscious.

"The dead praise not the Lord." This is a direct and positive testimony concerning the state of the dead. There is no such testimony to the contrary. All on the other side are mere, unnecessary inferences from texts that do not testify anything concerning the state of the dead. Let opponents bring forward the texts which affirm that the dead have knowledge, that they are praising the Lord, that they do not "go down into silence," but ascend to the presence of God, where there is "fullness of joy." No such texts can be found. But we have direct testimonies, which positively affirm all that we believe on the subject. We have no desire for anything to be added to make it plainer. We cannot express our faith better than to use precisely the language of the Bible.

No quibbling, founded upon a supposed double entity, can meet these testimonies of inspiration. The Bible speaks of dead men; and there is such a thing, or there is not. The Bible being true, there is, though the spiritualistic theory declares,

"There is no death; what seems such is transition."

Death, say they, is merely a separation of the soul

and body. Let it be so, and using the term soul merely to signify life, it is so. But let our opponents have it their own way. Let death mean a separation of soul and body. In that separate state then, the state in which men are called dead, they do praise the Lord, or they do not. The Bible being true, they do not. But there is no reason why good men should cease to praise him as long as they have a conscious existence and are able to do so. The language of the man of God is, "While I live will I praise the Lord; I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being." The only reason then why the pious dead do not praise the Lord, is the want of a being in which it is possible to praise him. The living praise the Lord; the dead do not; they are gone down into silence.