THE Protestant doctrine on the state of the soul after death includes, first of all, the continued conscious existence of the soul after the dissolution of the body. This is opposed, not only to the doctrine that the soul is merely a function of the body and perishes with it, but also to the doctrine of the sleep of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection.
The former doctrine belongs to the theory of materialism, and stands or falls with it. If there be no substance but matter, and no force but such as is the phenomenon of matter; and if the form in which physical force manifests itself as mind, or mental action, depends on the highly organized matter of the brain, then when the brain is disorganized the mind ceases to exist. But if the soul and body are two distinct substances, then the dissolution of the latter does not necessarily involve the end of the conscious existence of the former.
There is another view on this subject adopted by many who are not materialists, but who still hold that mind cannot act or manifest itself without a material organ. Thus, for example, the late Isaac Taylor says that as extension is an attribute of matter, the soul without a body cannot be extended. But extension is a relation to space; what is not extended is consequently nowhere. “We might as well,” he says, “say of a pure spirit that it is hard, heavy, or red, or that it is a cubic foot in dimensions, as say that it is here or there, or that it has come, and is gone.” “When we talk of absolute immateriality, and wish to withdraw mind altogether from matter, we must no longer allow ourselves to imagine that it is, or that it can be, in any place, or that it has any kind of relationship to the visible and extended universe.” In like manner, he argues that mind is dependent upon its corporeity, or union with matter, for its relationship to time. A pure spirit could not tell the difference between a moment and a century; it could have no perception of the equable flow of duration, for that is a knowledge drawn from the external world and its regular motions. To its union with matter, mind is indebted also for its sensibility or sensations, for its power over matter, for its imaginative emotions, and for its “defined, recognizable individuality,” and of course for its personality. The soul after death, therefore, must either cease its activity, at least in reference to all out of itself, or be furnished at once with a new body. The latter assumption is the one commonly adopted. “Have the dead ceased to exist?” he asks, “Have those who are fallen asleep perished? No; — for there is a spiritual body, and another vehicle of human nature, as well as a natural body; and, therefore, the dissolution of this animal structure leaves the life untouched. The animal body is not itself the life, nor is it the cause of life; nor again is the spiritual body the life, nor the cause of it; but the one as well as the other are the instruments of the mind, and the necessary medium of every productive exercise of its faculties.”1
On this theory of the dependence of mind on matter, “for every productive exercise of its faculties,” for its individuality, and its susceptibilities, it may be remarked, (1.) That the theory is admitted to be untrue in relation to God. He has no body; and He can act and be acted upon, and his activity is productive. If such be the case with God who is a pure spirit, it is altogether arbitrary to deny that it is true with regard to the human soul. Man as a spirit is of the same nature with God. He is like Him in all that is essential to the nature of a spirit. (2.) The theory has no support from Scripture, and, therefore, has no right to intrude itself into the explanation of Scriptural doctrines. The Bible never attributes corporeity to angels; yet it ascribes to them a “ubi”; speaks of their coming and going;. and of their being mighty in power to produce effects in the material and spiritual worlds. It never speaks of man’s having any other body besides his earthly tabernacle, and the body which he is to have at the resurrection. And yet it speaks of the soul as active and conscious when absent from the body and present with the Lord. (3.) If the soul is a substance it has power, power of self-manifestation, and productive power according to its nature. Electricity may be a force in nature manifested to us, in our present state, only under certain conditions. But that does not prove that it is active only under those conditions, or that beings constituted differently from what we are, may not be cognizant of its activity. It is enough, however, that the theory in question is extra-scriptural, and therefore has no authority in matters of faith.
It is no less evident that according to the pantheistic theory, in all its phases, which regards man as only one of the transient forms of God’s existence, there is no room for the doctrine of the conscious existence of the soul after death. The race is immortal, but the individual man is not. Trees and flowers cover the earth from generation to generation; yet the same flower blooms but once. The mass of men whose convictions, on such subjects, are founded on their moral and religious nature, have in all ages believed in the continued existence of the soul after death. And that universality of belief is valid evidence of the truth believed. But men whose opinions are under the control of the speculative understanding, have never arrived at any settled conviction on this subject. To be, or not to be? was a question speculation could not answer. The dying Hume said he was about to take a leap in the dark. The continued existence of the soul after death is a matter of divine revelation. It was part of the faith of the Church before the coming of Christ. The revelation of all the great doctrines which concern the destiny and salvation of men has been indeed progressive. It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise that the doctrine of the future state is much less clearly unfolded in the Old Testament than in the New. Still it is there. When the Apostle Paul (2 Tim. i. 10) speaks of “Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel,” he is not to be understood as saying that the future life was unknown, as Archbishop Whately argues, before the coming of Christ. This would be inconsistent with the most explicit declarations elsewhere. It is often said that Christ came to preach the Gospel, to make propitiation for sin, and to reveal the way of reconciliation with God. Paul says in Galatians iii. 23, “before faith came we were kept under the law.” Yet he strenuously insists that the Gospel, or plan of salvation which he taught, was taught by the law and prophets (Rom. iii. 21); and that the patriarchs were saved by faith in the same promise on which sinners are now called upon to rely. What was imperfectly revealed under the old economy, is clearly revealed under the new. This is all that those passages which speak of the Gospel bringing new truths to light, are intended to teach. Christ shed a flood of light on the darkness beyond the grave. Objects before dimly discerned in that gloom, now stand clearly unveiled; so that it may well be said He brought life and immortality to light, he revealed the nature of this future state, and showed how, for the people of God, that state was one of life. It may be observed in passing, that many Christian writers who speak of the doctrine of a future life being unknown, at least to the patriarchs, and to the writers of the Psalms, mean “the Christian doctrine” on that subject. They do not intend to deny that the people of God from the beginning believed in the conscious existence of the soul after death. This Hengstenberg, for example, distinctly asserts concerning himself.2