Questions on immortality of the soul

10 Objections to the immortality of the soul

(excerpts from an article called "Appeal on Immortality" written by Elder James White)

 

 

1. Is it reasonable to suppose that God created man

an immortal being, and yet never once in his holy word
informed us of the fact?

2. Is it reasonable to suppose that if man naturally

possessed immortality, God’s word would recommend
us to seek for it, as it does in Rom. 2:7?

3. Is it reasonable to suppose, that if men were naturally

immortal, God’s word would so plainly assure usthat “God only hath immortality?” 1 Tim. 6:16.

4. Is it not far more reasonable to believe that immortality

is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our

Lord? Rom. 6:23.

5. Is is reasonable to suppose that words, when

found in the Bible, must have a meaning attached to
them, which no man in his senses would ever think
of attaching to them in any other book? For instance,the words Life and Death, when found in the Bible,
must (as theologians tell us) mean happiness and misery;
but, if found in any other book in the world, they
would simply mean “Existence” and “Cessation of existence.”

6. Is it reasonable to suppose that in all the vast

multitude of passages in which Christ promised Life,
Eternal Life, to his followers, he did not literally mean
what he said? This he could not, if all men have immortal
life by nature. In that case the wicked will live
through eternity as well as the righteous.

7. Is it reasonable to suppose, in all the vast multitude

of passages in which Death is threatened as the
punishment of the sinner, that loss of happiness is all
that is meant? An unhappy man is as truly alive as the
most happy being in existence; and if he be immortal
by nature, will continue alive through all eternity. In
no plain, common-sense language can any immortalbeing be said to suffer Death.

8. Is it reasonable to believe that men go to heaven

or hell immediately at death, and then hundreds
or thousands of years afterward are taken out to be
judged, and to see which they deserve to be sent to?
Should we deem it right to send a man to the State’s
prison for ten years, and then bring him out for trial to
see if he deserved such a punishment? And “shall not
the Judge of all the earth do right?”

9. Is it reasonable to believe in the eternal torment

of the wicked, when more than two hundred passages
of Scripture plainly affirm that they shall “die,” be
“consumed,” “devoured,” “destroyed,” “burnt up,” be
as though they had not been,” etc.? 

10. Is it reasonable that such prominence should be

given in Scripture to the doctrine of the resurrection
from the dead, if that event only means a “re-union”
of a lump of clay, with the conscious thinking and real
man—the soul; and which is said by theologians to be
as capable of happiness or misery, without the body
as with it?