The Things Which Remain | Page 9

of sin is practically universal. It is no invention of Christianity, though brought to its greatest force by Christianity. Religions, governments, literatures,--all and everywhere,--treat of sin as a fact. It is more than dominion of body over spirit; more than an incident of growth; more than a result of undeveloped judgment, tinged with emotion, and applied to questions of motive and conduct. Sin is the abnormal; sin is a variant from standard; sin is self-will and selfishness throttling duty. Where men accept a God, it is opposition to His law and government.[7] If no personal God be believed in, then sin is willful opposition to the course of nature and to law, as proved by experience. So, in every case, it is unworthy, injurious, and guilty, and must be repented of and atoned for. The doctrine of sin will never be essentially disturbed.
[Footnote 7: Cf. Clarke. Outline of Theology.]
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[Sidenote: A Supernatural Event.]
[Sidenote: Lacks Scientific Proof.]
[Sidenote: An Old Fallacy.]
[Sidenote: A Jewish Argument.]
[Sidenote: Kant's Reasoning.]
[Sidenote: Can Not Be Demonstrated.]
The next clause in the creed, "The resurrection of the body," if it remains as a permanent article of faith, must rest on the declaration of Christ and on His resurrection. It is confessedly dependent, not on a natural, but a supernatural order. On this point it is again worth our while to note a concession by Huxley, as showing the consistency of one Christian truth with another. "If a genuine, and not merely subjective, immortality awaits us, I conceive that without some such change as that depicted in I Corinthians xv, immortality must be eternal misery."[8] Surely, this is a great testimony to that famous chapter on the resurrection. No scientific proof or probability can be adduced for the resurrection of the body. The older theologians used to point out that the caterpillar entombed itself that it might emerge to the higher life of the butterfly. But we must not take from such a fact what suits our purpose, and leave a fatal weakness in our argument. The butterfly does, indeed, emerge from the coffin of the cocoon and the seemingly dead pupa. But it is only for a brief day of life. Then it lays its eggs and dies forever. It is born to no immortality, but to the most ephemeral life. The early Church; yea, the Jewish Church, found rational warrant for belief in immortality and the resurrection of the body, first in the thought that it was unjust for those who fought for and brought in the kingdom of God, to enjoy nothing of what they secured. So the doctrine of the first resurrection appears as a contribution of justice to holy life. Later on, similar reasoning demanded the resurrection of all. A judgment is necessary, not to acquaint God with the merits of men, but to acquaint men with the righteousness of God. This would be impossible without the resurrection of all. Very close to this is the reasoning of Kant, summarized as follows: "Every moral act must have as an end the highest good. This good consists of two elements, virtue and felicity, or happiness. The two are inseparable. But these can not be realized under the limitations of this existence. Immortality follows as a deduction. The moral law demands perfect virtue or holiness; but a moral being can not realize absolute moral perfection or a holy completeness of nature in this present life." It is wholly of faith that men are immortal. It of necessity can not be demonstrated. The mass of mankind have believed it, and do believe it, and it is one of the most difficult of beliefs to escape from, returning to some skeptical scientists almost as an intuition, conquering the logic of death and decay.
[Footnote 8: Biography, Vol. II. p. 322.]
[Sidenote: How Faith Grows.]
It is also true that faith in immortality grows with the fullness and intelligence of the spiritual life. It becomes a complete persuasion to the pure in heart. Yet some scientific facts, as related to man, make the idea of his extinction improbable, and separate him from the "beast which perisheth."
[Sidenote: Men and Brutes.]
[Sidenote: What Brutes Have.]
It is true that much is common to men and brutes. They walk the same earth; breathe the same air; are nourished by the same food, which is digested by the same processes. Their life is transmitted by the same methods, and their embryonic life is strangely similar. It is also true that there are strong mental resemblances. Both love and hate; are jealous and indifferent; are courageous and cowardly; they perceive by similar organs; record by similar mnemonic ganglia; and are within certain limits impelled by the same motives. Nor can a measure of reason be denied to animals. While much of what appears to be mental life is