Living Soul by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 3, 1863

Living Soul.

By R. F. Cottrell

THAT man is said to be a living soul, is taken, by those who have already received the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as an evidence of that doctrine. But to one not thus indoctrinated it is no evidence at all. It never suggested the idea to any one who had not the idea already. That man is called a living soul is not declaring that he is ever-living, or immortal. And when it is known that every animated being that breathes is called a living soul, by the same authority, it must be admitted that if by the application of the term to man, it proves him immortal, its application to brutes proves them immortal too. This is proving altogether too much, and hence it proves nothing to the point. It certainly never ought to be urged in proof of man's immortality by those who know the fact that the same Hebrew terms which are translated living soul in Gen. ii, 7, are applied to all creatures to which God gave life, in other places in the inspired narrative. A person's honesty might well be suspected, who, being acquainted with this fact, still urges this expression as a proof of the immortality of the soul.

Those who do not know that this is the truth, may easily ascertain that it is, and this without being able to read the Hebrew; for our translators have given, in the margin of Gen. i, 20, 30, the literal rendering of the original language.

This, then, proves no distinction between man and beast. We admit that there is a wide distinction, but it is not because one has a soul, or is a living soul, and the other not. All that live are living souls, that is, living persons or beings; and if we read the Hebrew scriptures in the original, we shall read of dead souls as well as living. This simply means dead persons, not dead immortal souls.

BREATH OF LIFE.

It is thought that because we are told that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, that a never-dying principle was thus communicated to man, which was not given to the brute creation. This is easily shown to be a mistake.

Brutes have nostrils, as well as men. They have breath in their nostrils; and that breath serves to perpetuate the life which God gave them. In Ps. civ, speaking of the lower orders of animals, from "things creeping innumerable," up to "leviathan," "both small and great beasts," it is said, "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the face of the earth."

This testimony harmonizes with the sentence passed upon man, Gen. iii, 19, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," and also with Eccl. iii, 19, where, speaking of both man and beasts, it is said, "They have all one breath."

But had the language of Ps. civ, 30—"thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created"—been used in reference to man's creation instead of that of the lower orders of animals, I apprehend that our friends who advocate natural immortality, would take it as their strongest proof of their doctrine, and claim that the spirit of God was especially communicated to man in his creation, and that hence the soul or spirit of man is an emanation from God, and must exist as long as he exists. But the language being used with reference to beasts, and not to men, they make no use of the text.

In the record of the flood we read, Gen. vii, 21, "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man; all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." This testimony proves that the breath of life is common to man and all the lower orders of animals; if it makes one immortal, it makes them all immortal; and until the ground is taken that all these beasts and creeping things are immortal, the breath of life in man's nostrils should never be adduced as a proof of his immortality.

The way is now open to look at a text which is supposed to teach that a man leaves the man at death, and goes to live with God. Eccl. xii, 7. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

This is spoken of man in general; if it proves that one goes at death to dwell with God, it proves that all do; and none but Universalists and Spiritualists should claim it in support of their theory.

But let us examine and compare. In Ps. civ, already quoted, we read of the lower animals, "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created." In Gen. vii, 22, we find the term, breath of life, literally rendered from the Hebrew in the margin, "The breath of the spirit of life." Here, when dust returns to dust, it is said, "The spirit shall return to God who gave it." In Ps. civ it is said, "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust." Job, chap. xxxiv, 14, "If he [God] set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." Again, "All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils." Job xxvii, 3. Margin, "That is, the breath which God gave him. Gen. ii, 7." Where James represents the body without the spirit as being dead, the marginal reading for spirit, is breath. "The body without the breath is dead."

Whoever will compare these scriptures carefully and without prejudice, will readily discover that the breath of life, the spirit, and the spirit given by God, in these texts are one and the same thing, that it is common to man and beast, that it is said to be in their nostrils, because the life principle is sustained by breathing, and that at death God takes away their breath, or his spirit which was sent forth in their creation, and which is in their nostrils, and this is the return of the spirit to God who gave it.

But where goes the man? He was made of dust, he goes to dust. The dust returns to the earth "as it was." Says Job, "Man shall turn again unto dust."

R. F. COTTRELL.