Faith and immortality; a study of the Christian doctrine of the life to come, by E. Griffith-Jones

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Preface

GREAT events in history have always had a profound effect on the development of religious as well as philosophical thought; and there can be no doubt that the present war, which is shaking the fabric of modern civilisation to its foundations, will issue in many as yet undreamt-of changes of perspective and emphasis in Theology. It is too soon to forecast the issue in many directions; but already many pressing problems are demanding fresh treatment. Among these none is more urgent than the question of human destiny in the world to come.

Among the reasons for the decay of the influence of the Christian pulpit during the past generation, one is undoubtedly the fact that the doctrine of immortality has so largely lost its place at the heart of the Christian message. Preachers nowadays do not concern themselves so much with what happens after death as with what happens to us here and now. The pains of Hell, the bliss of Heaven, the penalties and rewards which await us in the Unseen, have largely disappeared from amongst the incentives and warnings of the religious life, nor have any other taken their place. Life is dealt with as though it found its sanctions, rewards and punishments within the circle of our earthly experience, and needed no future life to round off its incompleteness,

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and bring its tremendous issues to fruition. This may be a healthy revulsion from the exaggerated "otherworldliness " of our forefathers, but it places the Christian preacher in a curious and anomalous position if pushed to extremes. For the emphasis now placed on the Apocalyptic element in our Lord's teaching has once more made the " otherworldly " aspect of religion a central part of its message ; and if the future life is to be left out of the preacher's programme, it means that he is called upon to urge his hearers to such a temper on the basis of considerations that have no relevance except to the life that now is. Such a phase of thought is Hebrew, not Christian, and was already outgrown when the Book of Job was written. Morality may conceivably be justified, after a fashion, on the basis of one world. Religion unquestionably demands two.

We believe that the true reason for this neglect is the chaotic condition to which the doctrine of the future life has been reduced by the inevitable movements of thought. The old beliefs have grown impossible, both exegetically and spiritually. Say what we will, the crude division of the race into the "saved" and the "lost," with no great indeterminate class between, no longer appeals to anyone as true; the timeworn appeals to the hearer based on that ground make no impression on the mind. The same is true of the literalistic interpretations given to the eschatological parables of our Lord, and to the pictures of doom in the Epistles and the Revelation of John. These no longer either frighten or inspire. It is instinctively felt that there is something unreal in the business. But so far no more believable doctrine of future destiny has taken their place. We

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seem to be living eschatalogically between two worlds, " one dead, the other powerless to be born."

The time has come when a fresh start may be made in the preaching of a truly evangelical and believable doctrine of the Last Things. This is due largely to the noble band of scholars who have recently recovered for us the true historical perspective of the revelation of the Life to Come in the Scriptures through the study of the Apocalyptic literature which fills the gap between the two Testaments. This has enabled us to realise how and why the Gospel has come down to us in the particular form which it took, and thus to distinguish between its historical integument and its essential message. The same historical method enables us to see that there are many questions relating to the Unseen World which were not so much as thought of when the New Testament was written, and which therefore find no place there. For reasons comprehensible to the student of history, but which we need not enter into here, many of these questions seem never to have become living problems for faith till our own day. Take for instance the frightful loss of precious life in this inhuman war, which has brought bereavement already into millions of homes. What has become of these brave men, cut off in the flower of their age, and who have all died for others ? It is scarcely to the point to urge that this is no new perplexity ; that death in battle is no new fact ; that war and sudden death have been ubiquitous elements in human experience from the beginning ; that the problem of what has become of those suddenly cut off by war is as old as humanity. These are commonplaces. The time has come, however, when the old solution no longer x Preface

satisfies the mind and heart of humanity; something in us which we cannot stifle rises in protest against it. To pass by the question therefore in silence, or to utter a few platitudes about it whose meaning has long lost their force, is to be guilty of cruelty as well as negligence; and it is no wonder that many aching hearts, anxious for what light there is, but hearing nothing to the point on a question that gives them untold secret agony, take refuge in a stony agnosticism, and often cease attending public worship altogether.

These considerations give the clue to the particular purpose of this book. It has no novel doctrine of destiny to propound ; but it strives to clear the ground of the silt and rubble of non-essential beliefs concerning human life beyond the grave which have come down with the stream of time, and which even to-day make it difficult to construct a purely Christian doctrine of the Future Life — by which we mean one that flows centrally from the revelation of God's Holy Fatherhood, and of all men's potential Sonship in Jesus Christ. Great emphasis has been laid in the text on the doctrine of Future Probation as a corollary of these two determinative doctrines. Few now maintain the traditional position that death automatically determines the destiny of every man ; but there are few who frankly face the real alternative to that crude and inhuman belief.

The writer begs to make his acknowledgments to the following writers : to Professor McDougall for his thorough and able book on Body and Mind, which has been largely drawn upon in the text; to Professor Charles, who has done so much suggestive work in unfolding the significance of the Apocalyptic literature

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which bridges the gap between the Old and New Testaments, and in helping us to distinguish the essence of the Christian doctrine of Eschatology from its first historic integument (A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, and Between the Testaments) ; to Professor Salmond for his masterly treatment of the subject from the older standpoint {The Christian Doctrine of Immortality) ; to Professor Adams Brown (The Christian Hope) ; and to Professor H. R. Mackintosh, for some helpful hints in his fine little volume, full of spiritual insight, on Immortality and the Future. Other more occasional sources of indebtedness are referred to in the footnotes.

It may be useful to point out that the main positions developed more at length in this book were first presented in the form of lectures to a post-collegiate class for ministers in the spring term of this year. The writer owes much to the very useful discussions which followed these lectures, and to the criticisms to which they were then subjected. But for the encouragement of his brethren he would scarcely have had the boldness to challenge the wider audience here addressed.

The writer's warm thanks are due to his colleagues, Dr. Grieve and Professor Price, for their help in revising proofs, in drawing up the indices and the analysis of contents, and in seeing the work through the press.

E. GRIFFITH-JONES.

The United College, Bradford,

September, 1916.

Contents

PREFACE - ix

Introduction

The unparalleled mortality of the Great War — Men of distinction and of promise — Ordinary men — The question of their destiny forced upon us by (a) the scale of the tragedy ; (b) the sacrificial quality of their death — The question for faith — The modern revolt from older views — Need of restating the doctrine of Immortality - - - 3-15

Chapter I. — The Eclipse Of Faith In Immortality

The waning of the belief in immortality illustrated by (a) letters from and conversations with soldiers; (b) the questionnaire of the Society for Psychical Research — Probability of a revived hold on the doctrine which has been eclipsed by (a) the researches of physical and psychical science; (b) the confusion attendant on the new study of the Bible — e.g., by the Eschatological School ; (c) the appeal of other and present interests, " one world at a time " — The disastrous result on faith and conduct of a permanent loss of belief in immortality — The uselessness of alternative theories — e.g., (a) social immortality; (b) the immortality of influence; (c) the theory of eternal values - I 7-42

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Chapter II. — Science And Immortality — I

Do the ascertained facts of Science (i.e., ordered thought about phenomena) concerning the relations of soul and bodypreclude the belief in the continued existence of the former ? — Primitive belief in a surviving spiritual principle — Attempts to explain the origin of this belief — Modern inquiries into the relation between soul and body — Cause and effect — The Physical School: soul is the result of bodily processes — The empirical argument and its limitations : the body possibly transmitter rather than creator — The a priori argument, or epiphenomenalism, and its defects — The Vitalist School : the body is the effect of the creative or formative activity of the soul — i.e., of a teleological, non-material energy - - - - - - 43-60

Chapter III. — Science And Immortality — II

Three theories of the identity of body and mind: (a) Parallelism or concomitance; (b) ultimate identity of mind and matter; (c) consciousness the only reality — Where such theories fail — The only satisfactory theory is one of the proximate dualism of mind and matter which permits interaction and suggests an underlying unity — viz., the activity of a personal God — Bearing of Evolution and of Psychology on this point — Theory of the subconscious personality — Investigations of the Society for Psychical Research — The existence of the soul — The partial independence of Mind and Body — Survival of the soul after bodily death — The modern scientific world has moved from the materialistic view of the origin of mind 61-82

CHAPTER IV. — INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM THE NATURE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY, AND THE LIMITA- TIONS OF EXPERIENCE

Legitimacy of assumptions of faith and of inferences from the rationality of the Universe — Inferences from the theory of Evolution — Problems of personality: (a) "in man consciousness becomes self-consciousness "; (b) " instinct in the human personality almost vanishes in reason " ; (c) " in Man spontaneity of movement develops into freedom of action";

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[d) " in Man the mere response to sense-stimulus rises into the power of creative thought and will " — Contrast between the human outlook and the contingencies of earthly experience — What is Man ? — His victorious endowment of Thought ------ 83-107

Chapter I. — The Religious Argument For Immortality, As Unfolded In The Old Testament

I. The pre-prophetic conception of God; Jahweh the tribal deity — Attenuated survival of the soul — Sheol. — II. Prophetism — Enhanced conception of God — Influence of the Exile. —

III. Higher value of the individual — His personal relationship with God — The New Covenant — Ezekiel and Job. —

IV. The Messianic Kingdom and communal immortality. —

V. Apocalyptic and the synthesis of individual and national eschatology — Resurrection of the righteous. — VI. Summary of Jewish thought — The coming Kingdom of God is (a) within man, (b) world-wide, (c) consummated in the world to come - ----- 109-137

Chapter II. — Jesus And The Future Life

I. The person and teaching of Christ central for all New Testament thought. — II. The eschatological teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels is indirect and fragmentary, but presupposes life after death for all mankind — It is cast in apocalyptic moulds of temporary validity. — III. The regulative principle is the revelation of God in His redeeming activity — The three Old Testament notes repeated and emphasised. — IV. Christ's teaching on the relative significance of the present life — Teaching on the Kingdom of God, the Parousia, Resurrection, Judgment, Paradise, Hades, and Gehenna. — V. Importance of distinguishing between form and spiritual significance of Christ's teaching on the future life ------- 139-162 xvi Contents

Chapter III. — The Primitive Church And The Future Life

I. Influence of the Resurrection of Jesus on the Apostolic Church. — II. The Second Advent Hope and its disappointment . and gradual transformation. — III. The teaching of Paul in i and 2 Thessalonians : (a) Anti-Christ and Apostasy;

(b) Parousia; (c) Resurrection and destiny of the faithful — Modification of these views in i Corinthians, and again in 2 Corinthians and Romans : extension of the Christian faith, nature of the resurrection body — The Epistles of the Captivity: cosmic significance of Christ: disappearance of apocalyptic phraseology — Summary of Pauline doctrine. — IV. Johannine and Petrine eschatology; Parousia, Resurrection, and Judgment, present as well as future ; Value of the Book of Revelation; The spirits in prison. — V. Summary of teaching of Epistles: (a) The future life is the moral and spiritual issue of this life ; (b) The touchstone of character is the soul's attitude to the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ;

(c) The forms of the eschatalogical hope vary, but the spiritual content is the same throughout. — VI. Concluding observations on the Biblical doctrine of Immortality. — Importance of the historical method - - 163-193

Chapter I. — Immortality And The Moral Significance Of This Life

The supreme moral significance of the present life is a fundamental postulate of the Christian faith — It solves many difficulties : (a) The scope of the present life is insufficient for the working out of the issues of human character; (6) The lesser ends of this life are dignified by the immortal hope; (c) Immortality justifies both the Christian doctrine of sin and its conception of " otherworldliness " — It is endorsed by the Christian doctrine of judgment, which is demanded both by the character of God and the nature of man - 195-2 11

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Chapter II. Immortality And Human Probation

What are the limits of moral and spiritual probation for the human soul ? — Position of those who have had the opportunity of accepting the Christian redemption — Some have accepted it, others have rejected it, others are still undecided — The last-named are surely not beyond hope — Death does not end probation for all men — Position of those to whom the Gospel has not been presented : the heathen and many dwellers in Christian lands — The fresh emphasis given by the War — Conclusion : Probation must continue as long as moral personality persists - 213-236

, .CHAPTER III. — TWO THEORIES OF FUTURE DESTINY: (a) UNIVERSAL RESTORATION

Ancient and modern advocates of the theory of Universal Restoration— The argument from the revealed character of God and His purpose for humanity— -The " New Determinism " — -The theory fails to do justice to the nature of man as a free agents—The teaching of Jesus is on the whole against the theory— Yet it has served a useful purpose in (a) vindicating the character of God against the doctrine that man has no rights as regards the Creator ; (b) helping to reopen the question of human probation; (c) restoring the balance of thought after the gloomy outlook of the traditional theology ------ 237-254

CHAPTER IV. — TWO THEORIES OF FUTURE DESTINY : (b) CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY

Is the soul naturally immortal, or does it only attain immortality by an act of Divine grace ? — Ancient and modern supporters of Conditional Immortality — The religious conviction of Scripture is on the whole against them — The theory denies the possibility of future probation and weakens the conception of personality — The new biological argument as stated by McConnell examined and rejected — Net value of the Conditionalist theory - 255-279 xviii Contents

Chapter V. — A Constructive View

Attempt at a constructive statement—Man is by nature immortal — The present life is one of probation, which is continued hereafter in heaven and hell— The possibility of future betterment exists for all, though there is no certainty of Universal Restoration— Many, including the dead in battle, die unsaved but salvable— Of the finally unrepentant we have no clear vision— The objection that Future Probation is only another term for Purgatory— Prayers for the dead 28l -30i

Chapter VI, — The Heavenly State

Contrast between the Apostolic Age and our own— Modern hesitancy due to the conception of the future life as a disembodied state— The resurrection of the body— The soul's need of an organ of expression— Concept of the spiritual body

The soul may even now be shaping such a body — The New

Testament conception of heaven : an embodied state in which there is mutual recognition and fellowship and a life of progressively perfected ethical and spiritual relationships— In the heavenly state the highest energies of the redeemed are directed towards the salvation of the unredeemed, and there is ever-deepening and heightening fellowship with God as revealed in Jesus - 3°3-33 2

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES- - - 33 6 "33 8

" Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins! Away, O soul ! hoist instantly the anchor ! Cut the hawsers — haul out — shake out every sail ! Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? Have we not darkened and dazed ourselves with books long

enough ?

Sail forth — steer for the deep waters only, Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me : For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all. O my brave soul!

O, farther, farther sail !

O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God? O, farther, farther sail!"

Walt Whitman.

INTRODUCTION

" There's none of these so lonely and poor of old But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away ; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth ; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age, and those who would have been Their sons, they gave their immortality."

Rupert Brooke.

I

THE great world-war of 191 4 has brought to pass, among other colossal evils, an unparalleled mortality among the rising generation of European nations. Already several millions of the ablest-bodied, most adventurous-spirited and eager-hearted of our young men have been hurled into a premature grave through the gateway of a violent death. In the ordinary course of nature the vast majority of these men would have lived many years, and would have done useful service in their day and generation. Some would have attained to influence and fame; a few would doubtless have touched the high-watermark of genius in their respective callings and professions; and the names of not a few would have gone down to posterity as among the benefactors of mankind.

Even in the early months of the year 191 5, an article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, from the pen of Rev.

Herbert W. Horwill, detailing some of the cost to humanity which the first six months of the war had caused. Within so short a period irreparable gaps had already been made in the ranks of rising scientists, artists, musicians, and thinkers, among the belligerent nations. One of the first German soldiers killed in the war was Dr. Bertheim, who, with Dr. Ehrlich, was the discoverer of salvarsan, one of the most potent remedies known to medicine. Of a distinguished young English doctor, serving as a Red Cross surgeon at the front, it was written in a newspaper, "Had his life been spared there is no height in his profession to which he might not have attained " ; of another, that an essay with which he won the prize at the London Hospital "was regarded as an earnest of a steady outflow of original work in the future"; and of a third, who received the V.C. for bravery in attending the wounded under fire, that he " had been investigating the problem of sleeping sickness in Africa, and was hoping soon to bring his work in it to a practical conclusion." Among distinguished Germans, early newspaper paragraphs contained the following array of men of varied ability and usefulness— Professor Hermann Kriegsmann of Tubingen, a leading authority on criminal law; the jurist Carl Kornmann, who had recently been appointed to a full chair at Leipzig ; Dr. Heinrich Hermelink, Professor of Church History at Kiel; Dr. Ernst Heidrich, Professor of the History of Art at Basel; Dr. Ernst Sadler (a B.Litt. of Oxford), Professor of German Philosophy at Strassburg; Dr.

Maxmilian Reinganum, Extraordinary Professor of Physics at Freiburg ; and many other leading thinkers and writers in their respective departments of learning. Among well-known and rising Frenchmen the names of the following were already numbered among the fallen : Emile Raymond, a senator and surgeon of distinction ; Joseph Dechelehe, a leading writer on archaeology; Paul Philippe Cret, Professor of architectural design at the University of Pennsylvania ; Charles Peguy, the leader of a new school in French poetry and criticism, and his brilliant disciple, Ernest Pischari; Alfred Druin, another writer of distinction; and Alberic Maguard, who had already produced music pronounced to be among the best works for wind instruments since Mozart's time. It would be possible by this time to add a melancholy list of names of young men of almost equal distinction drawn from the casualty lists of all the nations engaged in this fratricidal war. Of the 20,000 French priests enrolled in the army, how many have by this time paid the penalty of their heroism with their lives ! And if, so far, our own losses have been less appalling, the casualty lists already contain not a few promising and some distinguished names among our young men; and as the voluntary army which has been slowly gathering its units from every class of society, and especially from our universities and public schools, moves into the firing-line, we are increasingly finding our own national life being bled of its most promising elements. We must add to the list of the dead who have already given a good account of themselves in definite directions, those others as yet too young to show their mettle in any channel of national service. If Gray's Elegy \ with its pathetic references of "mute inglorious Miltons" who have died before their genius had opportunity to mature had so much significance though suggested by a quiet country churchyard, what of the vast cemeteries that lie along the 1,500 miles of trenches in the east and west, the couth and south-east of this appalling battle-line ? We shall never know what poets and mystics, what scientists and philosophers, what prophets and preachers of the days to come have "fallen on sleep " before their time owing to this devastating struggle. Alas for the silent army of men who if they had had their chance to come to their own would have been the singers, orators, political leaders, philosophers, scientific thinkers, artists, saints of the coming days ! We shall never know what we have lost.

And what of that vaster multitude of ordinary men who have fallen, who would have been their followers — the common humanity which is after all the most important because the most numerous section of the human race — the fathers and citizens, artists and artizans, workers in trade, business and the professions, who make up the average mass of our population? They were already doing useful work, at least most of them, and others were in the years of their novitiate. Many of them had formed their relationships in life, and some were knit into the organic fabric of society in a hundred different ways. They were already dear to some one, every man of them. Rivers of tears are flowing for them in obscure homes in city, town, hamlet, countryside in many lands; hearts are breaking — the hearts of mothers, fathers, sisters, lovers, wives : with their passing, the light has gone out of many a life, and the joy out of innumerable homes. The spectacular tragedy of the fighting-line, brutal and bloody as it may be, is in a

Introduction *j

true sense less awful than the far-flung silent tragedy of these desolate and impoverished households scattered through the lands of Europe. So much love cheated of its joy, so much hope shorn of its brightness, so many years of loving sacrifice for the training, education, equipment for life of these lost sons of the race — all apparently in vain ! The horrible wastefulness of war in money, treasure, commodities, institutions, stored up through the thrift of generations of industry and selfdiscipline — what is it compared with the waste of precious, promising, unfolding life, which it involves ? This world of ours will be a poor world in many ways, as we shall find when we sit down in the first sad days of peace to count our losses; and its most sorrowful loss will not be its maimed and halting civilisation, but its missing legions of brawny, brainy, high-spirited young men, who will be lying silent beneath the sod ere ever they had their opportunity of proving their full worth in their appointed work, and of living out their normal day of effort and achievement

II

The question inevitably presses home upon us in view of these facts, What has become of all these unrealised and prematurely ended lives? Have they been "cast as rubbish to the void " ? Are they gone out, like flames that flared up bravely only to fade suddenly into darkness? If not, where are they? What is their future, their fate, their destiny in the Silent Land into which they have so suddenly disappeared ?

It may be said, these are no new questions, pertinent only to such a time as this. This war is not the first in history (may it be the last !), but the latest in a long series of sanguinary struggles which have incarnadined the pages of human history from the beginning, all of which have drunk deep of the blood of youth and manhood. And even in times of peace we have had to bemoan the loss of many young lives prematurely cut off before their prime. Death comes to men at any age and has no respect of persons. And whenever it strikes young and promising souls to earth, these questions recur, and clamour for some kind of answer. There is nothing new under the sun — least of all in the spectacle of life cut short in its early morning, or its brilliant noon, as well as its quiet evening.

There are, however, certain aspects of the vast holocaust of young lives sacrificed on the altar of this wasteful war which make us ask such questions with a more poignant insistence than ever before.

I. There is first the scale of the tragedy. There has never been a war on a front so vast; never one fought with such pitiless severity and indifference to life ; never one in which the proportion of fallen has been so high ; never one whose cost in life will be so disproportionate to any probable benefits to be afterwards reaped. The biggest battles of the past have lasted at best but a few days, whereas this war is a continuous battle that has been already (October, 191 6) protracted without any real pause or intermission, night or day, well over its second year. Other wars have slain their thousands, this war its millions. Such colossal waste of human life has never been so much as dreamt of by the most bloodthirsty conquerors of the past. And though this is an aspect of our enigma that appeals to the imagination rather than the reason, which recognises no difference in kind between the problems of a skirmish and those of a campaign, yet — nay, because of, that very fact, it drives its spearhead deeper into our consciousness, and calls more loudly for an answer.

2. Secondly, these lost lives, let us repeat, have died a sacrificial death in a very real and special sense. Speaking only of our own lost sons, they have fallen on the field of battle in order to preserve for us all that is precious in the heritage of the past, all that is noble in the possession of to-day, all that is promising in the future for our nation, and for the world at large. They went forth, consciously, into battle — the vast majority of them — to " make the bounds of freedom wider yet," and to establish righteousness on the earth. Is it unnatural, is it not inevitable, that we should ask whether the fruit of their anguish is to be only for those who survive, and for those who shall come after? Is there to be for these men no element of compensation for the good they were instrumental in winning, no share in the Beyond in the benefits which they have died to purchase for us Here ? Is it enough for those who go into battle only to die, to pray with the speaker in George Eliot's poem, The Spanish Gipsy: