Evidence of a future life

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

FROM REASON AND REVELATION.

Preface

''PHIS book was commenced as the first part of a work on Eschatology, but it is deemed better to publish it as a separate and independent volume. It has been written because it seemed to be needed. No one observant of the current thought among reading people can fail to notice a feeling of uncertainty and doubt as to a future life and a desire for clearer evidence. There is a want of fixed opinion. Many are respectful towards religion because they are not sure that there will be no future retribution, but their doubts neutralize religious impressions and paralyze their spiritual energies. They would be glad to accept the truth if they knew how to find it. Much of the seeming weakness of the Church and the lack of power in the pulpit has its true explanation in the absence of a faith in our immortality.

There are Christians who have not attained (7)

S PREFACE.

intellectual satisfaction. They have religious faith, but they would like to have proved to their understandings what their hearts accept.

This uncertainty has been felt in all ages. It is due in our day to the fact that fundamental beliefs are being subjected to a thorough re-examination. It is known that some of the old proofs of immortality have lost much of their force, but »it is not known how many remain untouched. Science has made wonderful discoveries, and there is a suspicion, encouraged by reckless speculators, that it has been proved that there is no other life.

The lack of satisfaction arises in part, also, from a failure to consider the nature of the only possible evidence in this question. If one looks for demonstration where demonstration is impossible he must go away dissatisfied. It is of the greatest importance to know the kind of proof to be expected and upon which he must form his judgment.

The aim of this book is to show the nature of the proof of a future life and to set forth the evidence in the light of the present. The author from personal experience and from association with educated

PREFACE. 9

young men knows how to sympathize with honest doubt. He appreciates the cravings of the heart and the mind, and has sought to deal frankly and fairly with them. He has tried to state honestly and fully every objection that fell under the line of his discussion, to minimize no difficulty and magnify no proof. He has endeavored to present the truth in its true light and leave it to the judgment, of his readers. How well this aim has been met, and the field been covered by this book the public must decide.

The plan will be so easily seen that only a word in regard to it is necessary. In the first chapter there is a general view of the nature of the argument. To the eleventh chapter there are positive proofs. The following seven are chiefly defensive. They are necessarily largely metaphysical and the facts are condensed, sometimes it may be to a little obscurity. The historical review proves to be a strong argument. The last chapter shows the truth by the results of disbelief.

So many references are given in the body of the book that no general acknowledgement is required.

IO PREFACE.

The author has drawn from his general reading and, has used, doubtless, the thoughts of other writers while mistaking them for his own, but the most important question is not in respect to originality but truth.

The author must be excused for expressing the hope, as he parts with this little book, that it may accomplish some good in the world.

Iv. A. F.

Roanoke College, October, 1890.

Chapter I. The Need And Character Of Proofs Of Immortality

WHAT is after death? This is the greatest problem of the world. The question as to our origin, often coupled with it, is much less important, for it has only a speculative value except as it helps to determine our eternal destiny. We want to know from what we came that we may learn what we are to be. The desire for immortality is universal, and it increases in force as we rise in nobility and worthiness of character. It is quickened under a sense of danger of losing it. The current of scientific opinion tends towards the belief in a future life. There is a "visible diminution in the hostility once entertained by science to the idea." But as so many old faiths have been shaken there is a fear in the public mind that the foundations upon which this rested has been unsettled. Anxiety because of the great interests involved makes a new demand for the proofs that death does not end all.

The discoveries in science and philosophy within (")

the present century has brought some new light to this problem. Biological studies and physiologicalpsychology have taught us much upon the nature of life, and the relation of the body to thought. We have learned more of the methods of nature in the development of the world. Our acquaintance with the range of law in all directions has been extended. We may not be ready yet to determine the final bearing of the new truth upon the faith in our future existence, but we may gather up the results already attained and see the trend of scientific investigation. We may learn how many of the old proofs remain to us, what new ones have been furnished, and some of the tendencies of the higher thought upon this subject. We may see very clearly that nothing now known warrants the opinion that science has proved or will ever be able to prove that there is no future life, or if there is, that we can know nothing about it.

By a future life or immortality, we understand a continued conscious existence. The Materialist and the Pantheist speak-of immortality, but not of a conscious self after death. As one of them has said, "We believe in an immortality, not of the individual but of the race." David's Positivist's Primer has expressed that common faith a little

NEED AND PROOFS OE IMMORTALITY. 1 3

more fully: "We believe that there is a real immortality for man, both objective and subjective, but no conscious life hereafter so far as our faculties go." Harrison still more clearly said: "It may be useful to retain the words soul and future life for their association, provided we make it clear that we mean by soul the combined faculties of the living organism, and by future life the subjective effects of each man's objective life on the actual life of his fellowmen." The Materialist does not deny that the separate powers, which in combination constituted life, continue to exist. The doctrine of the correlation of forces, now universally accepted, prevents him from believing in absolute annihilation. But according to Materialism we lose at death our identity, and we continue to exist only in other forms. The organism is destroyed, and with it mind and self perish. The elements which made us are dissipated and enter into new and diverse combinations. The Pantheist may believe in the unity of the personal force and regard it as something distinct from the body, but that something is at death absorbed in God. All .personality is lost. Memory, will and consciousness are destroyed. That which we call ourself is swallowed up in deity. He may think that the present life has some influence upon our future condition, and that it is important to live in such manner as will enable us to pass over into the next form in the best possible condition, but of real accountability and reward there are none. In the view of both philosophies, self as such is annihilated.

Such unconscious impersonal existence as these philosophers hold out to us has the least possible degree of importance or interest. It is not the Christian doctrine of a future life. It is not what men in all ages mean by immortality. It is not that which the human heart desires nor that in which it instinctively believes. Under the form of reality the doctrine resolves into a shadow. We feel that we have been mocked. We asked for bread but are given a stone, and for a fish there is given a serpent. It is not mere existence that we want. We are not particularly concerned about the fate of the forces of the body. We desire the continuity of conscious life. We want to carry with us our memories to testify to our identity. We want the preservation of our faculties which are the elements of self. This is the only immortality worthy of our personality. Having conceived the possibility of such a future life we are indignant at the tender of any other.

The Christian believes in his immortality because it is a fact of revelation. The Bible does not offer any argument for the immortality of human life except that which is drawn from itself. Christ in answering the objection of the Sadducees to the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection proves a future life, which was involved, by appealing to the books of Moses. The Bible assumes our immortality as a fact. It claims to be a revelation, and the certification of that claim, which it presupposes, sets aside the necessity of direct arguments for its facts. But the Bible affords us our greatest certainty. All the evidence which it has for itself as a supernatural revelation is evidence also of our immortality. Even if we deny it a supernatural character, and regard it inspired only in the lowest sense, its statements must be taken as the highest attainments of quickened insight and therefore as truth. It gives us evidence, also, by awakening a conviction stronger than that which comes from external credentials. It calls into exercise the higher elements of our nature and with them comes the assurance of a personal relationship with the eternal. It begets a sense of immortality. Under the power of its truth, we know ourselves immortal by a spiritual intuition.

l6 EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

To the mere rationalist this may seem like mysticism. Whatever name may be appropriate for it the fact belongs to Christian experience. Men whose characters are well known to be above suspicion of fanaticism or superstition or irrational sentiment, unless all religion is superstition, have borne testimony to it. "The faith of immortality depends on a sense of it begotten, not on an argument for it concluded." (Bushnell.) "Faith in eternal things brings into the soul a sense of eternity." (James Freeman Clarke.) "It would seem that the highest and holiest soul carries with it, like an atmosphere, a perfect serenity, a sense of present eternity, a presage of immortality." (Merriam.) "It is the life of humanity in Christ that is the evidence of the incorruptible, the immortal life. The Christ has brought to the spirit of man, the realization of life and immortality; he has brought life and immortality to light." (Mulford.) "The belief in immortality is at first only a wish and a belief on the authority of others; but the more that any one assures to himself his spiritual life by his own free efforts and a pure love of goodness, the more certain does eternity become, not merely as something future but as something already begun." (Hase). "Immortality begins here." (Charming). This idea is embodied in the lines of Tennyson:

" Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence By which he doubts against the sense.'*"

And Lessing seems to have had the same thought, when he said, u Thus was Christ the first practical! teacher of the immortality of the soul. For it is one thing to wish, to conjecture, to hope for, to believe in immortality as a philosophical speculation — another thing to arrange all our plans and purposes, all our inward and outward life in accordance with it." To these testimonies a great: many others, collected from different ages and: countries, might be added. This Christian assurance comes largely as a feeling, but there is a perceptive power in all feeling as there is a feeling in all perception. Hamilton says that every ultimate truth is a feeling ; and the self-evidence of primary principles is closely connected with the feelings... The analogy to philosophic truth and the testimony of so many thoughtful men are certainly sufficient reasons for checking a rash charge of fanaticisms upon the Christian's certainty of a future life.

Besides this first and great source of certainty, there is other evidence. President Bascom has saidi ;

"The foundations of a faith in a future life lie outside of revelation and ought therefore to be disclosed independently of it." The attempt to separate knowledge and faith, now popular in high quarters, is an effort to divorce that which God has joined together. Bacon remanded all religious truth to faith and has had a disciple in this respect in as devout a Christian and eminent a philosopher as Prof. Baden Powel. A faith that does not stand without conflicting with science must at length fall. Our nature is a unity and our intellectual and religious convictions must harmonize. The Christian feels a certain satisfaction in finding his faith confirmed by reason because his intellectual nature has wants as well as the religious. Because of the unity of his being there is an inter-dependence among the different elements, and he cannot throw off these laws. The body exerts an influence upon the mind, an5 the mind upon the body, and both upon the religious character. The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and if we live after the flesh we shall die. The report of the senses are subjected to the test of the understanding, and the theories of the understanding are tested by the senses. Scholasticism neglecting observation paid the penalty by its barrenness. The understanding obtains its laws from the reason, and reason without the material furnished by the understanding is empty form. The understanding rebelling against the reason is chained to the contingent, and the reason throwing aside the help of the understanding soars into the mists and loses itself in airy nothingness. Whenever the natural relation is disturbed there is a vague unsatisfied desire. So the facts of the religious life must be brought down, whenever possible, to the test of the intellect. In this way we keep our faith rational and avoid fanaticism and superstition. This intellectual want is seen in regard to the faith in the existence of God. No Christian doubts that God is, but the large number of books giving theistic proofs show how much interest the Christian understanding takes in them. He'believes independently of the arguments, but he draws from them a confirmation of his faith. They meet a demand of his nature. In the same way the Christian faith finds a satisfaction in the proofs of a future life.

The Christian religion presupposes a belief in immortality, and that belief must come from proofs independent of Revelation. These proofs show those who are not Christians that there are some rational grounds for the Christian's hope.

These proofs may not produce positive conviction, but they open the way for religious impressions. They answer a purpose analogous to the evidences of Christianity. No man rising from a careful study of the evidences has ever felt that there was not a possibility of doubt. The evidences alone have never made a man a Christian, and therefore no converted infidel has been able to explain satisfactorily the steps by which he became a believer. But these evidences are of great importance in overcoming opposition and creating a religious susceptibility. Wesley is said to have done more than Butler to overthrow Deism in England, but Wesley's work would not have been possible without that of Butler and his great co-workers. The arguments for a future life may not leave us without some doubt, but they are important to lead us under the influence of Christian truth which gives us certitude.

A review of the arguments for immortality is the more important, both for the Christian believer and for others, because of the sceptical tendencies of our age. There is a materialistic spirit or materialistic habit of thought out of which doubts as to the future life spring up spontaneously in the public mind. The spirit originates in three causes.

One is the rapid strides in material progress made in the more recent years. So many energies of mind and body are concentrated upon material things, that the habits of thinking have been thrown into materialistic channels. Another cause is the rapid progress of physical science. The attention of the reading world is largely occupied with the new sciences which have recently sprung up, and the great discoveries made in the older ones. In the physical world the law of necessity rules, and as we watch the operations of that law we lose sight of the world of freedom. The last cause is the state of philosophy. In the English speaking world a materialistic philosophy, if not dominant, is exerting a very great influence upon public thought. It has its power because it falls in with the general modes of thinking. Speculative philosophy in Germany, in the early part of the century went entirely beyond the range of ordinary minds, and, as many philosophers have thought, lost itself in the mists of the Absolute. The results were not satisfactory, not even to the Germans, and there has been a groping about to find a substantial basis for metaphysics. Many have become sceptical in philosophy and discard metaphysics. It is no uncommon thing to hear scholarly men say, "We have no confidence in metaphysical philosophy. We want facts. " Materialistic philosophy professes to proceed by observation and bring all its reasonings down to the test of feeling. It claims to assume no a priori principles, but to deal only with facts. It denies, under the modest disclaimer of not being able to know the existence of God or a spiritual substance. It grew out of the condition of the public mind and reacts upon it, intensifying, by seemingly justifying the public sentiment. It is important, therefore, to call attention again to the evidence that we are not machines, that life is not mechanical, that we do know a force that is not under the law of necessity, and that there are strong reasons for believing in a future life.

Too much is often expected from the proofs of immortality. We are so deeply interested in the subject we would be glad to have every doubt removed. What would be regarded as overwhelming evidence on most subjects leaves us in this with the feeling of Johnson, "I wish that there were more proofs." We would be glad to have absolute certainty, and if we do not find it we are inclined to depreciate the value of the proofs we have. This is the reason for the neglect of the arguments which have come down to us from the past. It is not because they have no force, but because they have not all the force the feelings crave. The character of the problem is forgotten, and unreasonable demands are made by the feelings.

The proof cannot be demonstrative. A demonstration is a necessary deduction from self-evident principles. It starts with necessary truths, truths which cannot without absurdity be denied, and it proceeds by self-evident steps. We can demonstrate a proposition in Geometry because we start with axioms, and having created figures in pure space we apply these axioms to every step in the analysis, and thus test the correctness of the process. Demonstrative proof belongs to mathematics. But there are no intuitions of reason to be taken as premises for a demonstration of a future life. There is no A=A in the argument as Leibnitz says there is in mathematical reasoning, and by which he explains the absolute conviction produced. The steps are not exposed to intuitions so that we can test and verify them as we proceed. We cannot find premises so certain that the contradictories are absurd, and there must always remain in the conclusion the possibility of doubt. The mathematical form of reasoning is sometimes assumed and many persons are deceived by it. Spinoza's Ethics appears to be a mathematical demonstration, bnt he started from principles which are not necessary, and in the process he introduced elements from experience. We may throw the argument for immortality, or the argument against it into a demonstrative form, but it can not be a demonstration or reach an absolutely necessary conclusion. The subject lies outside of the sphere of necessary truth. The range of demonstrative .proof is very narrow. The most practical things cannot be demonstrated. We cannot demonstrate that the seed sown will produce its kind, or that the sun will rise to-morrow. Our demonstrations are confined to things that have the least to do with character. To ask for that kind of certainty in things to which it can not possibly apply is simply foolish. If we cannot believe in immortality because we cannot demonstrate it, we are doomed to selfappointed doubt.

The proof is necessarily of that kind which philosophers call probable. It is called probable not because it is opposed to certainty, but to mathematical reasoning. The premises are obtained from testimony and experience; and while they may be unquestionable facts, they are always subject to the thought of a contrary possibility. We can always think the contradictory of the premises. These probable proofs admit of additions. The convictions produced range from a mere belief up to a certainty only short of the absolute. The great body of our knowledge is, in the philosophic sense of the word, probable. This is the law of our present condition, and we cannot get above it. Since the time of Bacon, great importance is attached to induction, and no one doubts that by the faithful application of his rules we get truth; but inductive reasoning is only probable reasoning. Historical and Geographical facts beyond our own personal sphere are known by probable proof. Reasoning from personal experience belongs to the probable. It is only by probable proof that we know that water will on to-morrow relieve thirst, or that there will be a to-morrow. We are governed continually by probable reasoning. It is upon these probable proofs we must rest our faith in our immortality.

We may recognize this fact, but still want the evidence brought within the reach of our senses. We think that if we co'uld see a disembodied soul or have some sensible proof of its existence after the death of the body we would be above doubt.

We can conceive the possibility of such evidence, but we must recognize it as something outside of the established order of facts. It can not be realized and it is useless to wish for it. We must accommodate ourselves to the world as it exists. But if gratified we might not find all we anticipate. The Great Teacher, who has uncovered so many of the principles of our nature and revealed to us so much of ourselves, said, "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. n We might be like the Sadducees who knew of the resurrection of at least three persons but still denied that there are angels and spirits. If we may trust the wisdom of Him who has done so much for us, it is better that we should not have these sensible proofs else He would have given them to us.

Chapter II. Argument From Analogy

ANALOGICAL, reasoning is based on resemblance. When one thing resembles another in known particulars, we conclude that it resembles it also in the unknown. Logicians differ as to the exact subjects of resemblance. Some say that it does not imply the similarity of two things, but of two relations. Thompson says, " But in popular language we extend the word analogy to resemblance of things as well as relations. ' ' With this Mill agrees : "We extend the name of analogical evidence to arguments from any sort of resemblance, provided they do not amount to a complete induction ; without peculiarly distinguishing resemblance of relations." Whether we place the resemblance in relations or in objects, the argument implies that the resemblance originates in some common cause not yet known.

Analogy is like induction in several important particulars. Both are based upon resemblance, and both proceed upon the uniformity of nature. If the

proof stops short of complete induction, it is called analogy. It produces every degree of belief, from that of slight probability up to a very strong conviction ; but it can never, from its nature, give us certainty. It has been of great service in several directions. It has led science to experiment and thus been the means of discovering very important facts. It has guided philosophy to profound principles. It is often very useful in answering objections. It offers support to other methods of probable reasoning.

Analogical reasoning is exposed to many fallacies. There are metaphorical analogies which are always either false or worthless. Logicians have given us canons which must be carefully observed. Thompson states the most important in this way : "The same attributes may be assigned to distinct but similar things, provided they can be shown to accompany the points of resemblance in the things and not the points of difference." The points of resemblance must be compared with the known points of difference and with the probable qualities not yet known. The greater the number of points of resemblance among the known, the stronger is the probability of agreement among the unknown. A radical difference destroys the argument drawn from a number of agreements.

All analogical reasoning assumes the fact that nature is uniform. Without this principle neither analogy nor induction would be possible. It is not necessary to defend the principle, but it may be important to call attention to the fact that it is not itself a primary truth. We can, without a feeling of absurdity, imagine the whole order of nature changed. The uniformity of nature is an inference from the primary principle that the same forces under the same conditions must produce the same results ; or, in other words, the same causes must produce the same effects. Resemblances imply the same or similar causes, and from known effects we infer others not known.

Resemblance may be produced by different proximate causes, and may seem at first to be worthless as proof, but sometimes the common result may be traced back to the same remote cause. The same power operates through different agents. Carbon is brought as a nourishment in very different articles of food. Until chemistry discovered the common constituent, very different causes seemed to produce the same effect. It is a well-known fact that the world is made up of a few elements, and there are indications that the number will be still further reduced. Philosophy, centuries ago, guessed at this result. The ancient Greek philosophers thought that there were only four elements. Anaximander thought that the infinite was reduced to order by condensation and rarefaction. Others thought that there was only one thing, as water, fire, air or ether, which was both the material and efficient principle. Within recent centuries Newton's law of gravitation has brought into unity a great diversity of phenomena. Further discoveries will find one law controlling facts which are now never thought of together. Monistic philosophies, which to-day dominate so large a portion of the speculative world, are efforts to reduce the entire universe to unity. Analogy may obtain a wider range than is thought of in the present stage of science. The force in metaphors and illustrations may yet be shown to be a half-conscious recognition of the hidden relations of causes.

Theism believes that all causes originate in a Great First Cause — a personal God — who is author of all things. Materialistic science, as soon as it begins to account to itself for its faith and look for ultimate principles, is compelled to recognize a great first force, the source and centre of all forces. Atheism knows nothing behind it, but Theism recognizes a Being to whom the force belongs.

We know force in will, but we know of no force that is certainly independent of will, and Theism starts from the known while Atheism proceeds from the unknown. The great world force produces intelligible results. It has built up a world full of beauty and order. It has brought into existence intelligent beings. It must therefore be itself intelligent, for no effect can rise higher than its cause. This intelligent force we call God. He established the laws of the universe, and in him we have a unifying principle for all diversity. In God analogy and induction find their highest and only sufficient ground. Natural forces working blindly may produce resemblances, but these facts cannot furnish a basis for reasoning, for causes which have no thought cannot give rise to thought in others. The fact that mind can understand the operations of matter shows that there are some laws common to mind and the physical world ; the inter-dependence of the religious, moral, intellectual and physical powers shows that there are laws that comprehend all of them. Theism best explains the world as it is by saying God created all things and rules them by the highest laws, making the lower and more familiar things means of revealing the higher and more hidden truths. But even if we stop in our conclusion short of a personal God, the harmony which we are compelled to admit points back to some great principles which hold the world in unity. Thus, according to either scheme, Atheistic or Theistic, the fact of these higher laws warrants us in reasoning from the resemblances between physical and spiritual in the known to still further agreements. Analogy strengthens our belief in revealed doctrines. When we find these agreements between the facts of nature and scriptural teachings increasing under profounder studies, we are confirmed in our faith in those where no special analogy has been, or can be, discovered. Indirectly, at least, analogy furnishes a proof of a future life.