SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 136, 26 October 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

IMMORTALITY. •Sermon preached by Rev. T. H. ROSJ<> VIiAUE in Si. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, New Plymouth. "If a man die, shall he live again?"— Job. XIV., 14. The fact of death is too grim and patent a reality to need arguing. "It is ajjpointed unto man once to die." "Man is like the grass. In the morning it groweth up and llourioheth, in the evening it is cut down and withereth away." But we are better logicians .with our hearts than with our heads at times, and so we refuse to rest, satisfied with the superficial appearances. Where are our departed ones with whom our hearts have become entwined, and what is to become of us when our bodies wear out or decay 1 The question of immortality demands an answer.

THE MATERIALISTIC OBJECTION TO IMMORTALITY. Note,, at the outset, that the principal objection to immortality arises out of a materialistic interpretation of being. Materialism, in its crassest form, declares that ••the 'brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile," that mind has no existence exsept as a function of the body. Confirmation of this theory seems to arise out of the close relationship that exists between the thoughts of the mind and the functions of the bodv. When we have thoughts that are joyful, the eyes sparkle; when we are ashamed, a blush arises to the cheek; when we are afraid, the knees tremble; when nervous, the fingers twitch; when pitiful, tears flow; and so on. So evident has this close relationship ever been that we have dropped into the use of such an expression as "bowels of compassion"; we talk of the heart as the seat of affection, of the spleen as the origin of jealousy, and so on. But even passing away from such rudimentary psychology we are ready to admit that thought is confined to the brain. Still there are phenomeaa that seem to give evidence of the materialistic explanation of mind. Is it not true that a brain is indispensible to thought, and that, the higher the development, of the brain, the more complicated will b« the thought? The lower animals, with a very rudimentary nervous system, including little more thau a vestige of a brain, are capable of only rudimentary and simple sensations, while man, with a highly developed and convoluted brain, is capable of rationality, memory, anticipation, self- consciousness, etc. Farther, if the brain becomes injured or diseased, immediately thought is impaired, and if the brain is inactive in sleep, then thought ceases. All tthe considerations seem to indicate that, not only are brain and thought inseparable, but that braia is indispensible to thought.

MATERIALISM INSUFFICIENT. But materialism fails to take account of all the facts of life. In the first place, it violates the law of the conservation of energy. It is a universally acknowledged scientific fact that force is never lost to the physical world although it may change its form. That solid lump of black coal, full of•■ potential energy, may be transformed into heat, thence into the motion of a fly-wheel, and so on, but the sum total of energy is never lessened. Now, if the energy o'f the brain be transformed into thought or consciousness, it would thereby be lost to thd physical world, which is an impossibility. Again, memory and the subconscious are as real to us as are our present thoughts operating in our minds. But the store of knowledge locked up in our memories cannot be the product of our brain, for our brain is not at present acting upon it, and yet it is ours. Still further, if thought is the product purely of atomic action of the brain, then all" that is, is devoid of moral value—one thought must be as good or bad as another; there can be no right nor wrong, for all is necessitated. This contradicts one of the first principles of our moral natures. We have said enough to show that there is a duality about us, the physical part of our being and the thinking* self, the ego, the soul. It is this that makjes immortality possible even although the body returns to the dust from which it came.

EVIDENCES OF IMMORTALITY. First among the evidences of immortality let us note the fact that it is substantially, true that all peoples of the world have heldto a belief in some sort of survival after death. The form that the being will then take may differ so far as the conceptions of the various peoples go, but Egyptians. Persians. Romans, Greeks and Hebrews all held the belief in some form. Whence this universal belief.' It could not have retained its hold upon the minds of men so long, were it not (hat it is evidently consistent with the facts of life. Note in the second place that the idea of immortality arises out »f the persistence of the ego. I am the same person I was thirty years ago, the same ego, the same self. And yet, if science be true, there has been a continuous process of throwing off the worn out particles of this material body, and growth of new; to. such an extent has this been going on that my whole body has been renewed three or four times. And yet it is the same T, the same living soul. It is therefore very hard to believe that when this body is completely worn out. that then the soul will be clothed upon by a new ami spiritual body. This is. what Paul asserts in his Epistle to the Corinthians, "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body," and again, "If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Again, the scale of this life is too large to be intended to be confined to the duration of our earthly existence. Take the intellectual life. Man never reaches the summit of knowledge. He is ever ascending, each acquisition only revealing heights that have not yet been scaled; and so we are ready to see the truth of Or Chalmers' famous saying: "The greater the diameter of light,' the greater the circumference of darkness." Can we suppose it to be consistent with the creative plan of an allwise Creator that He should thus lead us up to the brink of knowledge and then immediately snatch us out of existence to be no more? Take the desires of life. The Gospels ask. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" There is nothing in this world large enough to satisfy the desires of man's heart, and hence men have been led. like Tolstoy, to renounce earth's plenty in order to seek happiness from another source. Now, the wing of the bird has been adapted by the Creator for the air, the fin of the fish for the water, and so on and it is just as evident that,the soul of man is constituted with a capacity for eternal life. Consider vet further, the moral development of man. He is brought, as it were, into a large school to be trained and to have his character matured. It is the work of a life time, and just when the process is nearing completion, are we to suppose that God immediately dashes his work to nothingness? What would we think of an artist, who. having spent days and weeks and months and even years upon a statue, just when he has brought it to completion and perfection, dashing it to pieces? No, it is evident that man is immortal, hut the kind of immortal life he will live will depend on whether the natural, the carnal soul, has been awakened and been made spiritual by the inflow of the divine life here and now, through Jesus Christ.