Immortality of the soul and the destiny of the wicked

Front matter

5 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J

| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J

AND

Chapter I. Statement Of The Question

rflWO great questions have, in all ages, excited the anxious inquiries of thinking minds. The first is the question of the introduction of sin and suffering into our world ; the second is the question of the continuance of evil, moral and natural. The number and variety of the theories adopted on these subjects sufficiently indicate the difficulties attending the investigation, and show how little satisfaction human reason alone can afford. It is to the second of these two great questions that we propose now to devote a few pages, relying mainly, in the investigation, on the inspired Word, though not neglecting the aid of reason.

That in this world all do sin and suffer, we know; but we inquire anxiously, What is to be the future of man? Will natural and moral evil always continue, or will both terminate either at death or at some future period? Those who regard man as only a material organism, whose conscious existence is terminated by death, of course have no difficulty respecting his eternal future. That which has no conscious existence can be neither holy nor unholy, neither happy nor unhappy. Amongst professing Christians some have held that at the resurrection, though not before, all will be holy and happy. Such is the creed of Universalists. Others think there will be, at least to many, a period of suffering after death, but that ultimately all will be saved. Such is the belief of Eestorationists. But the great body of Christians of all ages have believed that after death the righteous

"will be for ever holy and happy ; the wicked for ever unholy and unhappy.

But we are now plausibly urged to abandon the long-established creed of the Church of Christ, and to embrace new doctrines respecting the nature of man and his future. It is contended that evil, natural and moral, must come to an end ; that in the government of the infinitely perfect Jehovah, it cannot be eternal. It is further contended that it will terminate, not, as Eestorationists and Universalists suppose, by all becoming holy and happy, but by the annihilation of the wicked. Those of the human race who die in unbelief, it is affirmed, will, as the just penalty of their sin, return to their original elements, and cease for ever to have a conscious existence. This doctrine has practical bearings far more important than the mere question of the final doom of the wicked, for —

1. It involves the doctrine that the human soul is mortal. One of the most plausible advocates of the annihilation of the wicked says : " If it were true that immortality is an essential attribute of man, then indeed it must be admitted and maintained that a doctrine of endless life in ceaseless woe is a doctrine of the inspired Book." Other advocates of this doctrine contend earnestly that the human soul is not immortal.

2. It involves the doctrine that the human soul is material, and, consequently, that man is nothing more than a material organism. We propose, in the progress of this discussion, to prove that Annihilationists do teach this doctrine. They cannot escape from it; for if the soul is pure spirit, it is not subject to decay or decomposition.

3. Logically it involves the denial of the doctrine of man's free and accountable agency, and, consequently, the denial of the possibility of sin and holiness in man. For matter, being governed by fixed laws, is incapable of voluntary action, and, of course, incapable of moral action. This is not an inference of ours. The two doctrines — materialism and human accountability — have never, so -far as we know, been associated for any length of time.

The history of the sensational philosophy, which gained a wonderful popularity in France just before the Revolution, warns us of the inevitable tendencies of the doctrine of the materiality of the soul. The leading philosophers of that period regarded man as a mere material organism, but for a time they shrank from carrying out the doctrine to its logical results. Men, however, are far more likely to carry out false principles, even to the most revolting results, than to abandon them and return to the truth. The time soon came when the philosophers of France, having asserted the materiality of the soul, denied its free agency, and made virtue and vice synonymous with pleasure and pain. 'The crowning piece/ says the learned Morell, 6 in which the ultimate results of the whole system are concentrated, was presented to the world by the Baron d'Holbach in his " Systenae de la Nature," a work in which materialism, fatalism and avowed atheism all combine to form a view of human nature which even Voltaire pronounced to be illogical in its deductions, absurd in its physics and abominable in its morality/ " — Hist of Mod. Philos., v. i., p. 161.

4. Logically it also involves the rejection of a vicarious atonement. The doctrine, inconsistent with itself, is, that man is mortal by nature; that he would, therefore, die by the course of nature, and death would be the endurance of the entire penalty of his sin, if we suppose him capable of sinning. If, after this, God were pleased to raise him from his dust to a new life, only the exertion of infinite power would be necessary • and there appears to be no reason why the incarnation and death of Christ should be necessary in order to the putting forth of such power. We are not surprised, therefore, to find one of the most plausible advocates of annihilationism rejecting and contending against the doctrine. He says : " In two different ways is the actual pardon of sin denied — 1st. AVhere sin is said to be punished in the person of the transgressor. 2d. Where it is said to be punished in the person of the Redeemer." Again : " We remark, then, that it [the doctrine that sin was punished in the Redeemer] seems to be implied and properly to inhere in several of the theodicies of eternal suffering." And again : " That theory of the atonement which makes the sufferings of Christ a satisfaction to the divine justice is commonly found in closest connection with the notion of sin as infinite guilt." * We quote this language, not now for the purpose of refuting it, but simply to show that according to this writer the two doctrines — the eternal punishment of the wicked and the vicarious atonement of Christ — stand or fall together.

5. If the preceding positions are true, it requires no long argument to prove that the prevalence of the doctrines of annihila- * "Debt and Grace," pp. 392-397.

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tionists must result in the overthrow of morals. In making man a mere material organism and denying his free agency, they furnish the very best apology for all wickedness ; and in making the only penalty of sin the privation of conscious existence, they take away one of the most powerful motives by which it is restrained. It may be said that men shrink from annihilation more than from eternal suffering. But, in the first place, the zeal with which not a few in our day are seeking to prove, scientifically, that man is only a material and perishing organism, disproves the assertion. In the second place, it is an instructive fact that it was when the French infidels of the Revolution succeeded in convincing the masses of the people that death is an eternal sleep, that wickedness in every form abounded, and France became a pandemonium.

If, then, we have not misunderstood the consequences which legitimately flow from the doctrine of annihilationism ; it is evidently of sufficient importance to demand careful investigation. Should we embrace this doctrine, we do not merely abandon one of the doctrines of our present creed. We receive a doctrine which will, if we are consistent, compel us to reject other doctrines hitherto regarded as fundamental to the Christian system ; nor is it easy to say where we should find a solid resting-place for our faith.

It is, then, apparent that the discussion of the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked involves the inquiry into the nature as w T ell as the destiny of man. The following questions will cover the entire ground of the discussion, and will conduct us without confusion through the several steps necessary to a safe and satisfactory conclusion :

I. What do the Scriptures teach us respecting the nature of the soul ?

II. How far do the known properties of the soul confirm the obvious meaning of the Scriptures respecting its nature?

III. What do the Scriptures teach us re- 2

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specting the state of the soul between death and the resurrection?

IV. What do the Scriptures teach respecting the eternal state of the wicked?

Chapter II. Preliminary Considerations

BEFORE entering upon the discussion of these questions, there are some preliminary considerations which claim attention, either as affording strong presumptive evidence against the annihilationist creed, or as removing difficulties and preparing the way for a satisfactory discussion of the whole subject.

1. It is important to explain the sense in which the word immortality is employed in relation to the soul. In the New Testament there are two words translated immortality — aphtharsia and athanasia. In the highest sense these words are applied to God. In 1 Tim. i. 7 we read : " Now unto the Kino; eternal, immortal (aphtharto), invisible, the

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

only wise God, be honor and glory for ever/ 5 In 1 Tim. vi. 16 we read: " Who only hath immortality (athanasian), dwelling in light which no man can approach unto." Now, it is manifest that immortality cannot belong to any finite being in the sense in which it belongs to God. Of him only can it be said that he " hath life in himself." The immortality of a creature must of necessity be derived and dependent.

These words are used with reference to the bodies of the saints as they will be raised from the dead. In 1 Cor. xv. 53 it is written : " For this corruptible must put on incorruption (aphtharsian), and this mortal must put on immortality (athanasian)." Their bodies will be so changed and refined as to be no more subject to decay and death. The word aphtharsia is also employed to express the happy immortality of the righteous. Eon], ii. 7. The English word immortality is constantly used to signify the incorruptibility of the soul, in consequence of which it does not die with the body, but will live for ever. Webster defines it to be " the quality of being immortal ; exemption from death and annihilation; life destined to endure without end." In this sense we use the word when we affirm that the soul is immortal. We do not mean that it possesses an immortality independent of its Creator, or that he could not, if he chose, annihilate it, but that, as he designed it to live for ever, he imparted to it a nature suited to its destiny. Whether the word immortality is applied to the soul in this sense in the Scriptures or not, the doctrine which it expresses we hope to prove is abundantly taught there.

2. That the Scriptures do teach this doctrine is made extremely probable — to use no stronger language — by the fact that the church of Christ in all ages and countries has so understood them. Hudson, one of the most plausible advocates of the soul's mortality, asserts that the early history of the opposite

doctrine " is evidently Platonic," and he adds : 2*

" This view was first tolerated in the Christian church in the person of a remarkable man in the fifth century, Synesius." But, in the first place, the doctrine of Plato, as stated by this author himself, is essentially different from that which we advocate. He says : "P]ato himself regarded the soul as not only immortal, but a divine essence, and, because divine, it was pre-existent and eternal." But we who contend for the doctrine of the soul's immortality do not regard it as a divine essence, or as pre-existent, but as simply created by God with a nature not subject to decay and death. Our doctrine, therefore, is not of Platonic origin. Besides, this same author informs us that Justin Martyr, in his " Exhortation to the Greeks," mentions the doctrine "of the soul's immortality" among the truths " held in common by the philosophers and the Christians/' * Xow, Justin Martyr lived in the second century of the Christian era, and no man had better opportunities of * "Debt and Grace," p. 313.

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knowing the faith of Christians at that period; It cannot be true, then, that the doctrine of the soul's immortality was first tolerated in the Christian church in the fifth century. The truth is, that the doctrines of the soul's mortality and of the annihilation of the wicked never gained a footing in the primitive church.

We have a very important testimony respecting the belief of the church in all its branches, for several centuries past, which relieves us from the necessity of adducing other proofs. One of the ablest annihilationists says : " From the various schools of ecclesiastical tuition a reply [i. <?., to the question, Uliat is man ?~\ has come forth, the substance of which may be thus condensed : - Man is an immortal being J — mortal as to his body, but immortal in his soul." And after stating the doctrine of the future destiny of the wicked, he says : " From the press and from the pulpit the reply has for centuries gone forth. In every country in Christendom, and in every city and hamlet, this teaching is heard." * We are far from claiming infallibility for the church in her interpretations of the Scriptures, but we are as far from regarding it as even remotely probable that on a subject of so great importance — a subject of which, confessedly, the Scriptures treat abundantly and plainly — the whole church has been given up for centuries to believe a lie. We are constrained to ask, What strange and all-pervading delusion has come over the minds of all the students of God's word — embracing great multitudes of the eminently wise and good — that for centuries past they should have so grossly misinterpreted its plain language, all, too, understanding it in the same way? Within these centuries the Scriptures have been in the hands of the people, and have been studied as never before by learned laymen — independent thinkers — as well as by learned ministers, and during no preceding period have * " Question of Ages," p. 381.

the minds of good men been so free from the perverting influence of false philosophy. The Reformation expelled Plato and Aristotle from the church, but the doctrine of the soul's immortality remained. The Baconian philosophy gave a new direction to philosophical inquiry, but still this doctrine has held its place in the creed of almost the whole of Christendom. How shall we account for this if the doctrine is false and injurious? Is it more probable that the whole church should have so long and so strangely erred, or that the few men who now assail the long-established faith have themselves misinterpreted the inspired record ? "We leave the candid reader to answer. But surely we are justified in demanding of those who make pretensions so extraordinary, arguments the most conclusive, before we change our faith.

3. On close inspection we discover in the creed we are invited to embrace some inconsistencies which shake our confidence in it. The truth is always consistent with itself, and the human understanding refuses to receive contradictions as inspired truths.

1st. The annihilationist creed ascribes the same qualities to two substances essentially different in their nature. Annihilationists hold that the soul is a material substance, and that God is a spirit, and so are angels ; and yet they ascribe the same qualities or properties to these two essentially different substances. We may be charged with misrepresentation when we charge them with holding that the soul is matter. Let us, therefore, adduce the evidence upon which the statement is founded. Hudson, shrinking from the avowal of gross materialism, yet admits " the prevalence of a materialist philosophy which has frequently attended the doctrine we (annihilationists) maintain;" and he insists, in the behalf of pious materialists, "that speculative materialism is not to be for itself condemned." * Now, between the doctrine that the soul is spirit, and the doctrine * "Debt and Grace," pp. 2-iS, 246.

that the soul is matter, there is fundamental difference. The one view or the other is a very grave error. Why. then, we may reasonably inquire, has a materialist philosophy so frequently attended the doctrine of annihilationisrn, unless there is some decided affinity between the two? Evidently the advocates of this doctrine have felt that the spiritual nature of the soul could never be made to harmonize with it. And why, we may further ask, is not speculative materialism to be for itself condemned if it be an error? Is not all error, especially on a subject so vital, injurious? But our author himself, wdiilst apparently contending that the soul is " a spiritual substance," adopts a theory which is substantially and really materialistic. His theory is that " which regards the soul as an entity, not destroyed by the death of the body, however dependent it may be on an embodiment for the purposes of active existence." * No materialist imagines that death destroys * "Debt and Grace," p. 250.

either body or soul, as an entity. If conscious existence is destroyed, it avails nothing to say that as an entity the soul still exists. If it does not exist as an intelligent, active being, it is virtually destroyed. To speak of its condition as " a repose " — " not a state of thinking, perhaps, on the other hand, not of unconsciousness, but of momentary all-consciousness" * — is to use words without meaning. It is the attempt to imagine a state unknown alike to philosophy and to the Scriptures.

Another writer of the same school, shrinking from the avowal of materialism, admits that the soul is a substance, yet denies that it is either matter or spirit. In one place he speaks of "the vital, vigorous substance, the immaterial soul of man," as created by God. In another place, replying to the argument that the soul is immaterial, and therefore immortal, he says : " The argument is invalid and unreasonable, and its only supposable * " Debt and Grace," p, 261.

force arises from a silent assumption that because the soul of man is not matter, therefore it is spirit. But this assumption is not warranted." * Now, since the soul is confessedly a substance, it must be either matter or spirit, unless there is a third substance different in nature from both of these. There is no third substance known to us, and, therefore, if the soul is not spirit, we must regard it as matter. And notwithstanding the occasional use of language which might have another meaning, this is evidently the view of our author, for he contends that man is wholly of earthly origin. The sentence pronounced upon Adam he expounds thus : " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return into the earth ; for out of it (mimenha — out of that sort of origin) wast thou taken : for dust (gah-phar, elemental atoms) thou art, and unto dust (elemental atoms) shalt thou return." He adds by way of comment : u In this sentence pronounced on the man, the fact of * " Quest, of Ages," pp. 5, 27.

28 immortaIjIty of the soul.

his personal origin out of the earth is embodied." * Now, dust is matter; and he who contends that man, as a person, is formed of dust, and at death returns to dust, is a materialist.

Another writer of the same creed reasons about the immateriality of the soul thus : " Where is the proof that the soul is immaterial? It certainly is not drawn from nature, for all nature is material ; it is not drawn from reason, for reason cannot comprehend the existence of immateriality; it cannot be drawn from revelation, for that expressly declares that man is dust and the mind carnal." f Can there be grosser materialism or more absurd reasoning than this? Yet the writer, as if, under the silent protest of his own soul, shrinking from his own doctrine, says : " We do not mean to be understood that the mind is material, but we do claim that all vital and mental phenomena result from material causes." Then take

* " Quest, of Ages/' p. 34.

away the material causes, and all vital and mental phenomena must cease. Where, then, is the soul, and what is it ? He has explained his meaning in replying to the argument for the immateriality of the soul founded in Eccles. xii. 7. The word translated spirit, he contends, means breath, and he reasons thus : " Is, then, this breath of life the spirit which God has given to man ? We have no record of any other. But this breath of life, as we have seen, is common to ail living things," * etc. The soul of man, then, is only his breath, and just such souls have all living things ! There can be no grosser materialism than this.

Now, according to the creed of these writers, God is a spirit, and the soul of man is matter. What are the properties of spirit as they appear in the divine nature ? They are intelligence, voluntary agency and moral character. God is an infinitely intelligent Being, he is infinitely free in his choices

* " Mortal or Immortal," p. 40.

and acts, and he is infinitely holy. These are the distinguishing properties of spirit. But the soul of man, though finite, is an intelligent being, free in its choices and acts, and possesses moral character. Possessing, therefore, the distinguishing properties of spirit, it is spirit. There is no greater absurdity than to ascribe the same properties to two substances essentially different in nature. This absurdity is chargeable upon the doctrine we are controverting. The ancient Sadducees, w T ho denied the immortality of the soul, were consistent enough to deny the existence of spirits. " For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit." * But the annihilationists are inconsistent enough to maintain the materiality and mortality of the soul, and yet to admit the existence of spirits.

2d. The creed of the annihilationists is absurd and contradictory, because, according to it, the righteous, though they are justified,

* Acts xxiii. 8.

suffer the full penalty of sin once, the wicked, twice. They insist with great earnestness that " the revealed penalty of human sin, and, in this, the revealed destiny of man, as a sinner, is found in the sentence pronounced upon Adam,^ which, as interpreted by one of them, means that man was formed of the dust — elemental atoms — and is to return to dust or elemental atoms. " The first man," says he, "is out of the earth, and the final destiny of man, as man and a sinner, is to return unto the earth, and to become as though he had not been. The destiny of man, as denounced of God in the garden of Eden, is continuously shown in the concurrent teaching of the inspired Book."* Now, if it be true that the soul is material and dies with the body, every human being does suffer this entire penalty at death, for then the entire person returns to dust or elemental atoms. It is true that the writer just quoted attempts to escape the difficulty by saying that,

* "Quest, of Ages/' pp. 34, 135.

3* since Jesus died and rose again, " the saints do not in reality die, but, before that, the saints died and were held captive by death."* But this assertion, if it were true, does not remove the difficulty; for it would still be true that the saints who died before the death and resurrection of Christ did suffer the full penalty of sin; for their souls, as we are told, were " held by the chords of death insensible and inert." But other annihilationists do not accept this theory, that since the resurrection of Christ the saints do not die. One of them states his belief thus : u That man has no inherent immortal principle in his nature. That consequently no part of him remains in a separate conscious state in death, but that the whole man lies in unconsciousness till called to new life by the resurrection." f Accordingly, he labors to prove that all those passages which seem to teach that the saints, between the time of

* Quest, of Ages," p. 107.

f Preface to " Mortal or Immortal."

their death and that of the resurrection, enjoy a happy existence, mean something else. Hudson reasons in the same way.

The penalty of sin, then, according to annihilationists, is death — that is, the return of man, soul and body, to the earth from which he was taken. If this is the penalty, every one who dies suffers it. Eat the saints die and return to dust. Therefore the saints endure the full penalty of sin. This conclusion is not affected by the fact, if it were true, that new beings will, at some distant period, be created out of the same "elemental atoms," for in no possible sense could they be the same persons who died. And if this were possible, still it would be true that they did suffer the whole penalty when they returned to dust. Hudson sees and vainly attempts to escape the difficulty respecting identity. He says : " This view p. e. 9 that the soul dies with the body] makes the identity of man's present and future being inexplicable, if not impossible." He would meet the difficulty by the theory, already noticed, that the soul continues as "an entity," though without active existence. His view of the penalty, consequently, is stated thus : " In the doctrine of death which we maintain, this view of man's nature would lead us to say that the first and second death are the first and second installments of the debt incurred by sin, the execution of the sentence being divided in such sort that those who escape the second death are in the New Testament spoken of not as properly dead, but as fallen asleep."* But, in the first place, this view is absurd. The soul is either matter or spirit. If it is matter, death destroys it as completely as it destroys the body. If it is spirit, death simply dissolves the tie that binds soul and body together, and it passes into another state of conscious existence. A spirit must possess the properties of spirit, and therefore must be active, thinking, feeling, acting. To talk of the disembodied soul as " lost in * "Debt and Grace," pp. 247, 250.

an intuition of its past history, with no process of thinking and with no note of time," is to talk nonsense.* Neither philosophy nor revelation knows anything of such a state.

Secondly, If we were to admit the truth of these wild conjectures, and that the penalty of sin is divided into "two installments," still, the righteous, as well as the wicked, would pay the first installment. Now, the Scriptures teach us that believers in Christ are fully justified, and that to them " there is no condemnation." f They suffer no part of the penalty of sin. They are, indeed, subject to natural death, but in the case of believers the plan of redemption has converted death into a rich blessing, since it introduces them into the blissful presence of God. Paul, therefore, in enumerating the believer's blessings, includes death among them. J But according to the doctrine of annihilationists, death deprives the righteous,

* "Debt and Grace/' p. 261. f Eoin. viii. 1. J 1 Cor. iii. 22.

as well as the wicked, of conscious existence ; it converts them into " elemental atoms/' or dust. They, therefore, suffer just what was denounced against Adam as the penalty of sin. So that we have, in the case of the righteous, the same persons fully justified, yet enduring the penalty of sin. This is contradiction.

But as for the wicked, they endure the penalty ticice, which is absurd, and would be unjust. For the advocates of annihilation tell us that after having: died once — having returned to dust — they are to be raised from the dead that they may again be annihilated, or die a second time ! Hudson saw the difficulty, and it had its influence in inducing him to adopt the absurd theory of the soul's continued existence as "an entity." Says he, " If the human soul or spirit is not an immaterial substance, but perishes with the body, then the wicked will wholly die twice, and the penalty of the law will appear to be executed a second time. This difficulty, with another to be named hereafter, has led many to deny that the 6 resurrection of the unjust' signifies their being made alive." To such absurdities are men driven who abandon the obvious teachings of God's word.*