p. 44 | Untitled article by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 5, 1864

Are the Dead Conscious? No. 2.

By R. F. Cottrell

The evidences on this subject must be found in the revelation which God has graciously given us. Men talk of a philosophical argument in favor of natural immortality and consciousness in death. If the fact that Plato and other heathens, that were called philosophers, held the doctrine, furnishes such an argument, they certainly have one. But if it is claimed that natural science furnishes any proof of it, all we have to do is to deny it and ask for the proof. Nothing short of what is called theological science, a science not derived from the oracles of Jehovah, nor from any facts discoverable in nature, but from the oracles of heathen deities and the superstitions of those who did not choose "to retain God in their knowledge," and were consequently given "over to a reprobate mind," and led captive by Satan at his will, can furnish anything in its favor. It is truly lamentable that so much of what is honored with the title of theology, is derived from such a source; but still it is the truth. Witness the heathen festival of the sun, the rival of the Sabbath of the Lord, usurping its place, and sustained by modern theology, Bible in hand! This and that have one parentage; the Bible says nothing in support of either, but much against both.

The utmost stretch of human capacity is not able to discover any difference whatever between the death of a man and that of a brute. As far as our sagacity can penetrate, "as dieth the one, so dieth the other." And no man has come back from the dead, with the information of what he knew while he was dead. A person in a trance is not dead, but living; and, like one in a partial sleep, he may dream. But, on the other hand, there are instances innumerable of living persons being utterly unconscious for a considerable length of time. Where were their immortal souls, which cannot cease to think during that time? And what principle of philosophy is that which teaches, that should you take a person in an unconscious state, and dash his brain to fragments, instantly his consciousness will return, and he will know, not only all he ever knew in his life, but besides this, what it is to be dead, and what is to be his eternal destiny? A slight pressure on the brain produces utter unconsciousness; but, according to this philosophy, grind the person to powder, or burn him to ashes, and it only increases his knowledge! If the word of the Lord asked me to believe this, I would try to believe it; but "oppositions of science, falsely so called," will fail to produce the slightest conviction of its truth.

It is a well known fact, that the powers of the mind, the judgment and the memory, decline and fall with those of the body. This is utterly inconsistent with the idea that the mind is immortal, and not dependent upon the body for the exercise of its faculties.

We turn from the wisdom of man to the word of the Lord; and this word we shall find decisive of the question before us. It is said of Adam and of many of the antediluvian patriarchs, that they lived to a certain age and then died. The Bible nowhere informs us of an immortal principle that is separated from the body at death; but the man himself is represented as dying. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is the word of Him who cannot lie. Jacob, when about to die, charged his sons, saying, "Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah." Gen. xlix, 29. How unorthodox are such expressions at the present day! The man himself is represented as dying and being buried; as going down into the grave and mingling with the dust. If this is not the truth, it seems to me the Bible ought to have told us of it. But it has not. But concerning the resurrection it is said, that "all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth."

Job said of himself, in case he had died in infancy, "For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept, then had I been at rest." Ch. iii, 13. Could Job be asleep and awake at the same time? Could he be in motion when he was at rest? It certainly looks like an impossibility. "I will tell you how it is," says a friend, "the body sleeps while the soul is awake, the body rests while the soul is in motion. The soul is immortal; it cannot die."

But Ezekiel says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

"But," says my friend, "you quote it as though the spirit of man was meant by the term soul, when the context incontestibly shows that no more than person or life is meant by it."

'Amen. That is just what is meant by the term. Person and life are its primary and chief significations. When it is said \'Man became a living soul,\' person is meant. He became a living person. And when it is said, \'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath soul,\' life simply is the meaning of the term. Hence a person, or any being that has life, is a living soul. And when it is said, \'The soul that sinneth, it shall die,\' death is threatened against the living person that sins. And when it is said, \'As her soul was in departing,\' (for she died,) life is all that departed; \'she died.\' Gen. xxxv, 18, 19. \'Rachel died, and was buried.\' This is the key that unlocks the whole subject.'

But, my friend, you make a distinction between soul and spirit; and seem to admit that the soul is mortal, while you claim that the spirit is immortal. I believe it is generally understood that the "immortal soul" and the "deathless spirit" are one and the same thing. This idea must be corrected. Two parts of man, then, the body and the soul, are admitted to be mortal, while immortality is only claimed for one part out of three. This is narrowing down the controversy. And when it is proved, as it has been, that the spirit, which at death returns to God who gave it, is simply the breath of life which was breathed into his nostrils at the beginning, the whole question is settled.

R. F. COTTRELL.