Is the Soul Indestructible? by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · January 15, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 3

Is the Soul Indestructible?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.

When we come to the New Testament, we are met by the objection that the soul cannot be killed. Matt. 10:28 is quoted, which reads as follows: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

We readily admit that, to one trained up in the popular theory of the soul, this scripture would seem at first to favor such a notion; but we firmly believe that a candid examination will harmonize it with the texts which represent that the dead know not anything, but are asleep.

First we remark that this text positively shows that the soul is not immortal, for it can be destroyed. “Fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The soul of the wicked will be destroyed together with the body; hence it is perishable. But in what way does the soul live after the death of the body? Does this passage show that it goes to Heaven at death; that it is alive in Paradise, and has intelligence, knows, and understands? No; no such thing is said of it. It is simply asserted that those who have power to kill the body have not power to kill the soul. The soul may be alive, and yet may be asleep, unconscious. Indeed, one-third of our life is spent in unconscious slumber, and yet we are alive. In this passage the word soul is from the Greek psuche, which means life, the principle of life, which came from the hand of God when he made man live.

This same word is rendered life in the same chapter. “He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Verse 39. In this verse it is properly rendered, but in the other it is not. It should have been rendered life in both verses. Dr. Adam Clarke says: “I know no reason why it should not have been rendered alike in both passages.” The wicked, then, can kill God’s saints here; but when they have done this, these saints are only asleep, and they will revive and live again in the resurrection. See what Jesus said of the maiden who was dead. “And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.” Mark 5:39. Before him lay a corpse. There were no signs of life. Indeed, she was dead, as we commonly use the term. Yet Jesus said she was not dead, but only asleep. He wished to impress upon them the fact that death is not the end of existence. He did not say she was alive and conscious somewhere. He spake the word and she awoke. So he says in the case of Lazarus. “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” “Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.” John 11:11, 14.

Then Jesus, the very person who spoke the text we are examining, took especial pains to inculcate the idea that the dead are simply sleeping, and that he will finally wake them all up. Hence he says in the text that men can destroy the body, but their power ends there. The principle of life is not annihilated. God will restore it at the resurrection; but after this, when God shall destroy the wicked in the second death, he will not only destroy the body as men do here, but the principle of life itself, the soul if you please, will be destroyed, annihilated. So this passage furnishes no assistance to our opponents.