The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-01-04
THE APOTHEOsIs OF DEATH.
BY JAMES MARLIN.


no such claim on your columns as
member of your church would have;
merely ask privilege. l ask room
for some thoughts in dissent from
Rev. j. B. Saxe's letter in your issue
of Dec. IA.
feel sure that my dissent is. based
on no lingering Presbyterian preju-
dice. | think it rests on purely phil
osophical considerations. consider
Mr.. Saxe's notion of the relation of
the body to the soul profoundly un-
philosophical.
The gist of his whole article seems
to be fairly contained in the follow
ing quotations:
at is absurd to infer that because
we are sinners in this life we shall be
in the next. The directly opposite
inference is the true one. Here the
soul acts through defective, disord
cred and depraved material organ, the
brain, and must needs go wrong or
at least is certain to-" And again:
"Acting then as it the SOUL will
through this glorious body the spir-
itual instead of the corrupt and de-
PRAYED one which it has laid aside,
the soul will rise above
the plain of sim" 1t sin was not to
exist in the after-death life, because
the necessary conditions were not to
| exist.
Now what does this mean if not
that even a healthy, normal brain is
80 "disordered" that no soul can use
it without mourning guilt?-that sin
is merely the result of the union of
soul and body7 May we not then ask
how in such circumstances soul can
incur moral guilt at all? Or is there
such thing as moral guilt?
May we not moreover ask if mere
physical death be not the only saw
Jour needed, if our disordered brain
be all that makes us sin?
There are those who regard the
characteristics of the brain as at least
in part resulting from the character
istics of the soul. This seems to me
a much more philosophical notion
than that the healthy, natural brain
is merely an incubus to the soul. 1t
makes mind dominate matter which
is surely the order of the universe.
have ever regarded the dogma of
Westminster, that "the souls of be-
levers are at death made perfect in
holiness" as most unphilosophical
device to avoid difficulty. l have
termed it the apotheosis of death.
For does it not clothe death with the
god like power of determining human
characteri Inever could understand
why the converse idea, that the souls
of unbelievers are at death made per-
feet in unholiness, should not be as
serted also.
In like manner / do not understand
how to think with Mr.. SAKE of death
relieving us from one set of propen-
sites and not from another. Thus
certain man is untruthful. He has
propensity to lie. This, let us say is
due to defective, disordered and
depraved material organ, the BRAIN
from which death will set him free.
Very we'll. Here is another man
prone to tell the truth. His propen-
sity is that way. To what is this
due? Can we show that untruthful-
ness any more than truthfulness is
due to the brain? If, however, Mr..
SAKE really means that the good pro-
pensities are of the soul while the
evil propensities are of the brain, can
that be likened to anything that we
call philosophy in this ages Unphil-
osophical as it is, l admit that some
'texts" can be adduced in it's favor,
but to use them we must assume the
attitude of abject liberalism that
characterizes Orthodoxy"
beg leave to suggest that the root
of the whole error lies in a wrong
conception of what sin is. We may,
indeed, think of a single act of wrong
doing as a positive thing. But sin in
the abstract must be thought of as
negative, if we are to think clearly.
Righteousness is attainment; sin is
failure. If, then, a disembodied soul
can attain, it can also fail. Indeed,
fail in some degree it always must,
for it is finite. "Sin," that is failure,
may indeed be inherent in the brain,
not because the brain is material, but
because it is finite. For the very same
reason sin, that is failure, is inherent
in the soul itself, for the soul too is
finite. God only is infinite. God
alone is sinless.
Is such view discouraging? No
1t is the fullest expression of the
orandeur of TTniversalism II binds