sign in sign up
<<
Home , Soul

Avondale College ResearchOnline@Avondale

School of Ministry and (Avondale Theology Papers and Journal Articles Seminary)

5-2011

The of the Soul: Could Survive Without it? Part 2

Bryan W. Ball Avondale College of Higher Education, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://research.avondale.edu.au/theo_papers

Recommended Citation Ball, B. W. (2011). The immortality of the soul: Could Christianity survive without it? Ministry: International Journal for Pastors, 83(5), 14-17.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Ministry and Theology (Avondale Seminary) at ResearchOnline@Avondale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theology Papers and Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@Avondale. For more , please contact [email protected]. Bryan W. Ball Bryan W. Ball, PhD, is a retired professor and administrator living in Martinsville, New South Wales, Australia. The immortality of the soul: Could Christianity survive without it? (Part 2 of 2)

Editor’s note: In part 1 of this two- of biblical interpretation. This meant absolute and the very word part series, the author traced the that the should be interpreted of .”3 mortalist viewpoint through the literally, unless it was -evident Third, and even more important, continental and . from the text itself that it was not is the place of in the interpre- He concluded the first part by to be so understood. An important tation of Scripture. Richard Overton listing theologians, scholars, and case in point was the parable of believed that the subordination of philosophers throughout the sixteenth the (Luke reason in biblical interpretation had to eighteenth centuries who believed 16:19–31), frequently advanced by contributed to the development of in the mortalist viewpoint. immortalists as textual evidence the innate immortality doctrine. The of the soul’s beyond the existence of the soul as an entity hroughout the sixteenth, grave. Mortalists argued that the separate from the body, able to think seventeenth, and eighteenth story was inadmissible since a and feel apart from the body, and its centuries a succession of parable cannot form the basis of supposed departure either to able and prominent writers doctrine. Henry Layton says, “We or at the moment of , are T 4 were persuaded of the essential cor- take it not for proof, because it all contrary to reason. The subtitle rectness of the mortalist viewpoint was but a parable, spoken without of Layton’s compendious work, A and felt strongly enough about it to design to teach anything concern- Search after Souls, emphasized the publish their convictions for their ing the of Man after death.”1 importance of reason in theological contemporaries and posterity. What, Overton likewise insists, “There and philosophical inquiry as well as then, did they believe? Constraints of was never such a man as Dives in the debate over the soul, “The and space will permit us to note or Lazarus, or ever such a thing Immortality of a Humane [sic] Soul, only three or four of the main planks happened, no more than Jotham’s Theologically, Philosophically, and in the mortalist platform. trees did walk and talk.”2 Rationally Considered.” Similarly, Second, no doctrine should while Milton regards Scripture as The authority of Scripture, be established on a single text or the final authority, as his Treatise correctly interpreted passage, but the whole weight of on Christian Doctrine repeatedly Fundamentally, they believed in biblical evidence should be taken demonstrates, it is not Scripture the Bible, that is, in the authority of into consideration before any con- read blindly or subjectively. Thus Scripture as the source of revealed clusion was reached. Mortalists to the “ of Scripture” truth, and the final court of appeal were highly suspicious of doctrines Milton contends “may be added in all controverted . But so formulated on less than all the . . . arguments from reason” in did those whom they opposed, evidence available. Layton con- “confirmation” of biblical doctrine.5 the immortalists. Wherein lies the tends that he is no “idolizer of the , perhaps, shows difference? We may detect three Scripture,” but holds that “what- the best example of mortalism’s points of emphasis and divergence soever doctrines or opinions can insistence on reason as necessary in mortalist theology. be proved by a strong current or to biblical interpretation. His great First, they insisted that what they stream of Scripture texts, ought theological treatise on the rational believed was a correct to be accepted and believed as of authentic Christian ,

MINISTRY 14 MAY 2011 The Reasonableness of Christianity, be.” After death, Overton says, “Man the dead, and has no other founda- begins with a lengthy and reasoned is void of actual . . . he absolutely tion whatever.”13 exposition of the thnetopsychist IS NOT.”10 Priestley similarly affirms view of man, commencing with the that God made the whole man from Origins of the immortal assertion, “To understand therefore the dust of the ground, arguing “God soul doctrine what we are restored to by Jesus made this man, who was lifeless Almost as important in mortalist Christ, we must consider what the at first, to breathe and live . . . the as the biblical teaching on Scripture shews we lost by .” substance which was formed of the and destiny, were the The process is one of rational con- dust of the earth became a living origins of the immortal soul doctrine. sideration. From that point on, he soul, that is, became alive, by being Once again there was widespread assumes that true Christian faith made to breathe.”11 concurrence among mortalist writers is essentially reasonable, that is Priestley, like all other mortalists, in relation to this question, and once to say, it is always consistent with returns to the at the again Layton and Priestley may be reason, sometimes beyond reason, last day as the key to the taken as representative spokesmen. but never contrary to reason. It was and immortality, for once again the Layton’s collected works were reason applied in the interpretation process of death is then reversed. published posthumously in two of the divine in Scripture Although ceases at the moment volumes, in 1706, under the title A that led Locke to an unequivocal of death, this is not the end for the Search After Souls, or the Immortality thnetopsychism.6

Human nature and destiny Approached from these stand- points, the Bible led to a mortalist the Genesis account . In this context, the Genesis account of human origins is crucial to a correct understanding of human origins is of human nature and destiny. A key text was Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils crucial to a correct the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”7 Overton’s interpretation of this text is representatively mortal- understanding of human ist. When God imparted the breath of life to the lifeless form of Adam, the man became “a living soul.” Overton says, “That which was formed or nature and destiny. made of the earth became a living soul, or creature, by breathing . . . the breath of life (and) that lifeless lumpe became a living soul.”8 Overton then adds an important rider, “that which believer, for the temporary extinc- of a Humane Soul, Theologically, was breathed before it was breathed, tion of life at death is not the same Philosophically and Rationally was not a living soul.”9 It was merely as annihilation. When we say a Considered. Layton’s search began breath which, when infused into the candle is extinguished “we surely late in life, in 1690, after reading body, caused a living soul, a man, do not mean it is annihilated, that Richard Baxter’s Dying , in to exist. there is nothing left to light again.”12 which Baxter re-affirmed the soul’s Death, as the reversal of this This illustrates “precisely” what Paul ascent to heaven to be with Christ, process, occurs when a person had in by the resurrection stressing “the necessity of believing ceases to breathe, when the breath of the dead. Priestley maintains, it.” Layton remarked, “It seemed an leaves the body. When that happens, with Tyndale and all other mortal- over-great morsel to swallow all this the person dies. He or she ceases to ists, that Paul consistently stresses together,”14 embarking on a tireless exist. The “soul” is no more because the resurrection as the gateway campaign of clarification and refuta- the living person is no more. Overton to immortality. So he concludes tion that lasted for the rest of his life. states death “returns man to what that human of a future life Layton came to believe early in this he was before he was, that is, not to “depends upon the resurrection of search that the of an immortal

MINISTRY 15 MAY 2011 Bryan W. Ball soul ante-dated Christianity by sev- a way to eternal life contrary to that that he could not redeem them eral centuries and that it could be forth in Scripture. The debate from that state in which they found in many pre-Christian Greek came to focus on the classic Pauline were not, nor give them that philosophers, noting in particular passages in 1 Corinthians 15 and life and immortality which they , Anaxagoras and , 1 Thessalonians 4, which deal with already possessed. So that by adding that most of the early Greek the resurrection at the last day. With this scheme [the natural immor- and church fathers did not heavy irony, Tyndale challenges tality of the soul] the whole accept it.15 More: of redemption by Jesus Priestley’s History of the Christ is absolutely and entirely Corruptions of Christianity included Nay, Paul, thou art unlearned, go destroyed.21 a brief survey of the history of mortal- to Master More and learn a new ism, in which he maintained that way. We be not most miserable, Without question, this exists the first Christians did not believe though we rise not again, for our as the most damning accusation in an immortal soul. The distinction souls go to heaven as soon as brought by mortalists against the between body and soul, “originally we be dead, and are there in as inherent immortality of the soul. That a doctrine of Oriental ,” great joy as Christ that is risen doctrine, mortalists were convinced, had in later centuries spread into again. And I marvel that Paul was not only unbiblical, it was essen- “the Western part of the world,” a had not comforted the Thes - tially and literally anti-Christian. process that Priestley traces back salonians with that doctrine, if he through Greek to its earliest had wist it, that the souls of their Conclusion Egyptian, Chaldean, and possibly dead had been in joy, as he did While this essay has concentrated Persian and Indian origins, argu- with resurrection, that their dead on the views of seventeenth- and ing that these pre-Christian pagan should rise again. If the souls be eighteenth-century English mortal- views had “exceedingly altered in heaven in as great glory as the ists, it will not be inappropriate, in and debased the true Christian sys- , after your doctrine, shew conclusion, to note that the mortalist tem.”16 Although some third-century me what cause should be of the interpretation of Scripture, or crucial Christians in Arabia kept mortalism resurrection?18 elements of it, have survived until the alive, eventually they capitulated to present time. Two examples must the teachings of . Priestley Burns comments of Tyndale’s suffice. The work of Oscar Cullman, maintains that most of the later robust psychopannychism, “He cited at the beginning of this paper fathers were Platonists who “bor- was certain that God had clearly (see part 1) as a contemporary advo- rowed many of their explanations announced that the resurrection of cate of mortalist theology, appeared of Scripture doctrines from that the body was the beginning of the in time between them. system.”17 Thus Platonic dualism whole of Christians, not It is now 75 years since William infiltrated the medieval church, just an additional reward for souls Temple, then archbishop of York and resulting in the doctrine of purgatory already in joy.”19 shortly to become archbishop of that was built on the foundation of Two hundred and twenty-five Canterbury, published Nature, Man the immortal soul and eventually years later, in 1756 to be precise, and God. Dr. Temple wrote, “Man is came to dominate medieval escha- Peter Peckard published the first not by nature immortal, but capable tology. Mortalists, in general, would of three works in which he persua- of immortality.” The “prevailing doc- have unhesitatingly concurred with sively set forth the thnetopsychist trine of the New Testament,” he said, that. understanding. “Scripture expressly “is that God alone is immortal . . . and asserteth the mortality of man, and that He offers immortality to man Immortalism and the the restoration to life from that not universally but conditionally.”22 redemptive work of Christ mortality by Jesus Christ,” 20 he It would be difficult to find a better Perhaps the most serious charge wrote. This theme ran throughout summary of the mortalist position. brought against the traditional view Peckard’s work. The doctrine of Just a few years have passed of the soul’s immortality was that it the soul’s immortality negated the since the publication of N. T. Wright’s undermined the redemptive work redemptive work of Christ at its very latest book, Surprised by Hope: of Christ. We have already caught , effectively rendering that work Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, a hint of this concern in Tyndale’s superfluous and unnecessary. In and the Mission of the Church .23 introduction to the second edition of Peckard’s own words: Dr. Wright, the bishop of Durham his New Testament in 1534. In fact, and one of today’s leading New Tyndale is much more explicit. In his Jesus Christ came into the world Testament scholars, speaks of the famous dialogue with the erudite on purpose to redeem men from infiltration of Christian thought by and very orthodox Sir Thomas More, death and to give them life and Greek philosophy and says, among Tyndale accuses More of proposing immortality. It is very certain many other things, “at least since the

MINISTRY 16 MAY 2011 Middle Ages the influence of Greek 3 Henry Layton, A Reply to a Letter Dated Sept.14, 1702 was first translated into Latin only in 1160. The Oxford (1703), 70. Dictionary of the Christian Church (p. 1300) notes that “the philosophy has been very marked, 4 Richard Overton, Man Wholly Mortal (1655), 9–11, 33–35. authority” accorded to Plato’s teachings “throughout the resulting in a future expectation 5 Milton, “Treatise on Christian Doctrine,” in The Complete Middle Ages, did much to secure for many Platonic notions Prose Works of John Milton, D. M. Wolfe, ed., (New Haven a permanent place in Latin Christianity.” that bears far more resemblance to and London, 1953–1982), IV: 191, 480. 18 William Tyndale, “An Answer Unto Sir Thomas More’s Plato’s vision of souls entering into 6 John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, As Delivered Dialogue” in The Works of the English Reformers: William in the Scriptures (1695), 1. For a more extended discussion Tyndale and John Frith, T. Russell, ed., (1831), II: 123. disembodied bliss than to the biblical of Locke’s Reasonableness and its significance and the 19 Burns, Christian Mortalism, 101, 102. picture of new and new significance of reason per se in Locke’s theology, see Ball, 20 Peter Peckard, Observations on the Doctrine of an 24 The Soul Sleepers, 119–126, and Victor Nuovo, ed., John Between Death and the Resurrection earth.” Wright’s consistent and Locke, Writings on (Oxford: Oxford, 2002), xliv-lii. (1756), 4. repeated argument is that the resur- 7 Quoted from the Authorized, or , the 21 Ibid., 19. Peckard further explained, “By allowing men a rection at the last day, posited on the translation most used by scholars and writers after its natural of life, we do in effect hinder them from publication in 1611. coming to Christ that they may have life.” Ibid., 39. Himself, is the 8 Overton, Man Wholly Mortal (1655), 29. 22 William Temple, Nature, Man and God (1934), xxx, 461–463. key to immortality and eternal life.25 9 Ibid., 30. See also his article, “The Idea of Immortality in Relation 10 Overton, Mans Mortalitie (1644), 6, 7; emphasis in the to Religion and Ethics,” in The Congregational Quarterly X So, the question presents itself original. (1932), 17 in which he also called for a radical re-evaluation once again, Could Christianity sur- 11 , Disquisitions Relating to and of the traditional doctrine of eternal torment in hell. Temple (1777), 115. was a contemporary of the influential Oxford Old Testament vive without the immortality of the 12 Ibid., 164 scholar H. Wheeler Robinson, who in 1911 published a soul? If Christian history and histori- 13 Ibid., 252. work with similar sentiments under the title The Christian 14 Henry Layton, A Search After Souls and Spiritual Operations Doctrine of Man. cal theology are in any way reliable in Man (1691), 3. 23 N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the guides, the answer must be in the 15 Henry Layton, Observations upon Mr. Wadsworth’s Book of Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York, NY: the Souls Immortality (1692), 8, 16. HarperOne, 2008). affirmative. 16 Joseph Priestley, History of the Corruptions of Christianity 24 Ibid., 80. Dr. Wright points out that Christian minds have (1782), I: 156, 168, 266–8. been conditioned by Greek philosophy “whether or not 1 Henry Layton, Observations Upon a Short Treatise (1697), 43. 17 Priestley, Disquisitions, 294. Plato’s immortalism appears we’ve ever read any of it.” Ibid., 251. 2 Richard Overton, Mans Mortalitie (1644), 31. The parable of in several of his works, notably the (c.360 b.c.), in 25 Ibid., passim, noting in particular the index as a pointer to Jotham’s trees is in Judges 9. which Plato reflects the thinking of . The Phaedo Wright’s insistence on resurrection.

Tell us what you think about this article. Email [email protected] or write to 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904.

Andrews University Presents ANDREWS UNIVERSITY SEMINARY STUDIES Creation Edition Spring 2011 ARTICLES INCLUDE:

“The of the Solid Heavenly Dome” by Randall W. Younker and Richard M. Davidson “Artificial and ” by Eric Scott “Similarities and Differences Between the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East” by Roberto Ouro

Phone (269) 471- 6023 To Order: Email [email protected] www.auss.info Phone (269) 471- 6023 To Order: Email [email protected] www.auss.info 1

MINISTRY 17 MAY 2011