CHAPTER IV.

§ 33. CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY.

Conditional Immortality is a term used to express the belief that only holy persons will live eternally. It is claimed by its supporters that the Sacred Scriptures cannot be harmonized with any other position. Referring to this subject, says Edward White, of London, ex-chairman of the great Congregational Union of England and Wales: "It is the one form of evangelical faith, which seems likely to win the sympathy of modern Europe. . . Some of the very greatest of men are lending their sanction to the movement." "It is espoused with ever increasing energy by evangelical scholars in all parts of the world."1

Among these he mentions Dr. Weymouth, head master of Mill Hill School, one of the best Greek scholars in the country; the late Dr. Mortimer, head master of the City School; the dean of Peterborough, the late professor of Hebrew at Cambridge; Dr. J. Parker, of the City Temple, London; J. B. Heard, M. A., author of The Tripartite Nature of Man; Dr. R. W. Dale; Hugh Stowell Brown; Prof. G. G. Stokes, F. R. S., president of the Royal Society, and mathematical professor in Cambridge University; Prof. P. G. Tait, considered the first mathematical reasoner in Scotland; Prof. Barlow, of Dublin; Prof. Stevenson, of Hottingham; Prof. Barrett, of Royal College of Science in Dublin; and a long list of Christian medical men in all parts of the country.

Among American writers may be named the late Dr. Horace Bushnell, Hartford, Ct.; Prof. C. F. Hudson, Cambridge, Mass. ; Dr. Huntington, Worcester, Mass.; Dr. Leonard Woolsey, New 1 Homiletic Monthly, England, Mar. 1885.

Haven, Ct.; and many other eminent men, including Mr. Skefsrud, missionary to India, one of the greatest linguists in Asia, speaking nearly twenty languages; W. A. Hobbs, an experienced missionary at Calcutta, who writes that it is astonishing how this view of divine truth commends itself to the almost instant appreciation of the unprejudiced native Christian mind.

In Paris the doctrine is held by M. Bastide, head of the French Religious Tract Society; Prof. Sebatier, of the Protestant college, one of the foremost theological scholars of France; Dr. Meyer, theological professor at Montauban; Dr. Petavel, professor of theology at Geneva; Rothe, Olshausen, and other distinguished Germans; Prof. Gess, of Breslaw, who was the theological tutor of Dr. Godet, Neuchatel; and Prof. Schultz, of Gottingen; in Africa, by Mr. Impey, late superintendent of the Caffre mission; and in China the doctrine is held by several of the ablest missionaries.

It may be said that the opposite belief is held by the majority of able men. Very true; but truth is not always in the hands of the majority. When honest truth-seekers differ, what shall be done? Reëxamine the evidence and appeal to the highest authority. In this case there are three standards to which we may appeal: science, the Bible, and current theology. Many will not accept the Bible or current theology as a standard, but they will agree to abide by the voice of science. Then let Science speak first. In 1887 The Christian Register sent the following inquiries to some of the most distinguished scientists:

1. "Are there any facts in the possession of modern science which make it difficult to believe in the immortality of the personal consciousness?"

2. "Is there anything in such discoveries to support or strengthen a belief in immortality?"

3. "Or do you consider the question out of the pale of science altogether?""

Said Charles A. Young, LL. D., Professor of Astronomy at Princeton College, New Jersey: "I think it must be frankly ad

1Science and Immortality, pp. 10, II.

mitted that what is known about the functions of the brain and nervous system does, to a certain extent, tend to make it difficult to believe in the immortality of the personal consciousness.''

Said Joseph Leidy, M. D., LL. D., Professor of Anatomy and Zoology, in the University of Pennsylvania: "Personal consciousness is observed as a condition of each and every living animal, varying from microscopic forms to man. The condition is observed to cease with death; and I know of no facts of modern science which make it otherwise than difficult to believe in the persistence of that condition, that is, the immortality of the personal existence.' Science has learned no more than is expressed in Eccl. 3: 19: For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast."""

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Said Lester F. Ward, A. M., at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.: "The consciousness, when scientifically examined, reveals itself as a quality of brain. . . . It is a universal induction of science that modification of brain is accompanied by modification of consciousness, and that the destruction of brain results in destruction of consciousness. No exception to this law has ever been observed.""

Thomas Hill, D. D., ex-President of Harvard College, says: "Many facts in the possession of modern science make it difficult to believe in immortality.

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Says Alexander G. Bell: "The possibility of thought without a brain whereby to think is opposed to experience, but this persistence of 'personal consciousness' after the death of the body involves this assumption.”

Says the distinguished F. K. C. L. Büchner: "Unprejudiced philosophy is compelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality, and of a personal continuance after death.""

It is certain that the voice of science is emphatically opposed to the doctrine of the immortality of the personal consciousness. 3 Ibid.,

1 Science and Immortality, pp. 15, 16. 2 Ibid., pp. 24, 25. 59, 60. 4 Ibid., p. 96. 5 Force and Matter, 3rd ed., p. 232.

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As it is a well known fact that for several centuries the voice of popular theology has been in favor of the immortality of personal consciousness, I need not offer any proof on this point. This is a good place to repeat the important statement of Joseph Cook: "Every thing fundamentally biblical is scientific, and

every thing fundamentally scientific is biblical."

We have now reached a crucial point in the examination of this subject: does the voice of the Bible harmonize with the voice of science, or with that of current theology? As previously stated: "Whatever is not taught in the Bible cannot be a Bible doctrine."

Says the noted German commentator, Hermann Olshausen: 'The doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the name are alike unknown to the entire Bible.' This being true, the voice of science and the voice of divine inspiration are one on this subject, thus sustaining Mr. Cook's proposition.

It will be remembered that the following axiomatic propositions were offered at the beginning: "Whatever is sustained by one fact is sustained by all other facts relating to that subject, and whatever is opposed by one fact is opposed by all other facts relating to that subject." Unless Mr. Olshausen's statement can be proved untrue, the conclusion is certain that the Bible does not teach the immortality of the soul of man.

"Is personal consciousness immortal?"

The answer to this important question is one in which all human beings are interested. Does death end all consciousness till the resurrection of the dead; or is there a part of man that continues in a conscious state after the death of the body, which will never cease to be conscious? If the foregoing "Rules of Interpretation" are followed, it is believed that a correct answer to the above question will be obtained.

Says an eminent Baptist minister: "The word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, is utterly silent on the natural immortality of man; and the silence of the Scriptures corresponds to the

1 Vol. IV., p. 381, translated from the German by A. C. Kendrick, D. D.

silence of nature on this point. . . . Natural immortality is the foundation stone of the modern theological structure. Remove this, and the whole building will crumble to ruins; there is no place for endless misery or universal restorationism. Put Jesus Christ, the life-giver, in the foundation, and 'the whole building fitly joined together groweth into a holy temple,' symmetrical and beautiful. It solves those terrible problems that have tormented men day and night, from the days of Augustine till now."

"What saith the Scripture ?"—Rom. 4: 3.

What is the Bible meaning of the term soul? As able and good men differ very widely in their teaching on this subject, it is proposed to compare their opinions with the Sacred standard, from which there is no appeal on this subject.

§ 34. Samuel Drew, a very able writer on the subject, says: "The soul is a simple, immaterial substance." "

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"Whatever has parts cannot be immaterial; and what has no parts can never lose them. To suppose any substance to have parts, destroys its immateriality." "The soul is . . . a simple substance, .. therefore, has no parts."

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"An exclusion of all parts is necessary to the existence of an immaterial substance." An immaterial substance has no Whatever has an exterior must have an interior; and what has both must necessarily be extended; and what is thus extended cannot be immaterial." "What has no surface can never be brought into contact with that which has.'

Do such immaterialities go to heaven at death to praise the Lord? having no outside or inside? no hands, no feet, no eyes, no body? How can one be any body without a body? How can they sing praise to God without organs of speech? If the soul of man has vocal organs, then it has "parts," and, according to Mr. Drew, ceases to be immaterial; but when man dies his organs of speech die also and remain in him to be buried in

1See Theological Trilemma, by J. Pettingell, pp. 8, 9. 2 Drew's Essay on the Soul, p. 159. 3 Ibid., p. 156. 5 Ibid., p. 169.

4 Ibid., p. 155.