Dr. Edward Beecher on the Immortality of the Soul by Dudley Marvin Canright

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1879

Dr. Edward Beecher on the Immortality of the Soul.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

APPLETON and Company of New York have just issued a book from the pen of Edward Beecher, D. D., under the title of "History of Opinions on the Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution." It is written in a candid manner and very many facts are brought out in it concerning the doctrine of immortality. He clearly shows that several of the most eminent Christian Fathers believed in the annihilation of the wicked. He has devoted considerable space to a critical examination of the Greek word (aionios), translated everlasting and forever, showing conclusively that it does not necessarily mean endless. But the particular point to which I wish to call attention is the fact that he squarely and frankly admits that the Bible does not teach the natural immortality of the soul; but on the other hand plainly denies it. The following is taken from pages 58, 59:--

"But before doing this it will be expedient to consider the real foundations of any reliable belief in immortality. Plato sought to find them in the inherent nature of the deathless soul, existing from eternity to eternity. Others have sought them in the aspirations of the soul, and the imperfect development of retribution in this life. But the fundamental positions of the system of the Bible are not of this kind. It does not recognize, nay, it expressly denies, the natural and inherent immortality of the soul. It assures us that God only hath immortality. 1 Tim. 6:16. By this we understand that he only has immortality in the highest sense—that is, inherent immortality. All existences besides himself he created, and he upholds. Men are not, as Plato taught, self-existent, eternal beings, immortal by their very nature. There is no such being except one, and that is God. There is no immortality of the soul in this sense. What God created he sustains in being, and can annihilate if he will. It is by his will that we live, and move, and have our being.

"The true and only sure basis of eternal existence is found in the fact that God is immortal, and chooses to have an eternal system, in which his rational creatures can know and love him and co-operate with him in his eternal plan. So long as God wills this he will render immortal those intelligent moral beings who are involved in his plan. His will, his power, and not their inherent nature, is the pledge of their immortality. How, then, under such a God can the highest assurance of immortality be given? Not by philosophical reasoning on the nature of the mind. God himself must give it. He must reveal himself as immortal; he must disclose an eternal plan; he must take his intelligent creatures into covenant relation with himself; he must reveal himself to them as their portion and their God; he must disclose to them the eternal plan in which they are to co-operate with him and give them the assurance that their action with him is to be eternal. Let this be done, and there will be the highest possible assurance of immortality. It rests upon the assurance of the immortality of God and the eternity of his kingdom, and that he is the God and the eternal portion of the soul."

We could not ourselves more clearly state our belief of the doctrine of the Bible upon the subject of immortality than it is stated in the above. We rejoice to find that scholars and prominent religious men are coming to the light on this important subject. D. M. CANRIGHT.