THAT PUZZLING QUESTION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, April 28, 1885

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 62, No. 17

THAT PUZZLING QUESTION.

We have had in our hands for several weeks, a communication from an eastern Conference, raising the query at some length and under a variety of suppositions, whether Adam was created mortal or immortal. The letter states that the question has been under discussion there, and that it is not yet settled. Since then other communications have been received on the same subject, confirming the representation of the former that the question is exciting quite widespread attention at the present time. Therefore in reference to all these we offer a few suggestions.

Briefly stated, the difficulties under which our correspondents labor is this: If Adam was created immortal, how could he come under the sentence of death and lose his life? But if he was created mortal, must he not have died in course of time, even if he had not sinned? It strikes us that our friends manufacture most of the difficulty involved in the case; that they spread the net before their feet and then deliberately entangle themselves therein.

In contemplating the beginning of Adam’s life, what need is there of taking into account anything more than that he was put upon a state of existence—a state as perfect as could be consistently with a condition of probation—and then left to decide his own destiny in reference to the continuance of that existence? Immortality is conceived of as a state to which death never can come; and mortality as a state to which inevitably death must come; and conceiving that Adam must have been created in one or the other of these conditions, of course a difficulty is at once involved. But again we ask, Why attribute to Adam any limitations of this kind in either direction? With a perfect organization he was set upon the plane of life; and the continuance of that life was suspended upon conditions of such a nature that it was to be determined by his own course of action. And this we understand is the very status in which the Scriptures leave this question. Says the record respecting the creation of Adam, “And man became a living soul,”—not a mortal soul, nor an immortal soul, but simply a being endowed with life on such conditions that he might on the one hand retain that life forever, and on the other he might lose it entirely. If, on the one hand, he so failed to comply with the conditions, as to forfeit life and pass under the sentence of death, he then would become mortal, in the sense of being subject to death as his inevitable portion. But if, on the contrary, he should so comply with the conditions as to retain that life till his probation closed, he would then have become immortal.

With this view a query proposed by one of our correspondents is easily answered. He says: “If Adam was created immortal, and lost that immortality by sin, and if everything that was lost in Adam is to be restored in Christ, as we believe, will not all men be made immortal at last through Christ?” The answer is that as Adam simply had life without any reference to the question of its continuance, that question being left to be determined by his own actions, so all men will be put in possession of life again, and then their own actions will come into the account to determine the question of the continuance of that life.

The fact that Adam was placed upon probation, shows that the question of the continuance of his life was an open one. When he sinned, his probation and that of the whole human family, so far as this life is concerned, was at an end. We are on probation for the future life, and when it is decided whether we have gained or lost it, our probation for that future life will be at an end.

Let us apply an illustration or two to the subject before us. Suppose a person is brought into existence as was Adam, and placed at a point at which two ways diverge, the one, we will say, leading to the capital of Germany, the other to the capital of France. He is told that he can take which he will; but if he takes the former he will, on reaching the capital of that empire, become a German; if he takes the latter and pursues it to the same extent, he will become a Frenchman. Now we will raise a question parallel to that which is asked in reference to Adam; namely, Was that man created a Frenchman or a German? That question was not at the time determined; for whether he would become a citizen of one country or the other depended on the course he might choose to take.

Again, suppose that before a person thus brought into existence two lines of study are proposed; for instance, mathematics and language. If he pursues the one he will become a mathematician; if the other, a linguist. Now we raise the question, Was that man created a mathematician or a linguist? Neither the one nor the other; but he might become either, and which one, would depend entirely upon the course he might adopt as his branch of study.

To the question, then, Was Adam created mortal or immortal? we answer, He was created a “living soul.” There the Scriptures leave it. He began to live; but how long he should live, it was left for himself to determine. In the sense of being under the necessity of dying he was not mortal. In the sense of being under any certainty that he would live forever, he was not immortal.