The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-03-17
KlopstoeR.Ii
2. Immortality of the Soul.

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KlopstocEt'E
p. Immortality Of the Soul.
Objection I: Dead is dead. =
Answer: Living is living. We are
both right: The body is dead and the
soul is living.
Objection 2: Dead is dead and there
is no other life
Answer: That sounds just as smart
as when one says: Red is red and
there is no other color. Even if the
body is lifeless or dead, why should
there be no other life for the soul?
Objection 8: l adhere to my asser-
ton: Dead is dead, and that's all!
Answer: Then tell me at least what
death is. Death is the dissolution of
the living being into its parts. But
the spiritual soul has no parts, there
fore it can't die or be dissolved into
parts.
Objection a: With death all is
ended.
Answer: That would please many a
one; then he would not have to fear
the Judge and His punishment.
Objection 5: One can't be more
than dead.
Answer: Certainly; one can also
be damned.
These doubts about eternity do not
come from reason, but from a corrupt
heart, which darkens reason. 1t is a
well-known fact that before q man
throws the creed over board the com
mandents have gone before it.
70. Suspicious Zeal.
Objections: The infdel scientist
Buechner CISCO writes: THAT zeal
is suspicious with which at different
times and with the display
of all possible arguments men have
endeavored and still endeaVor to de-
fend the Immortality of the SOUL
which on the whole has never been as
sailed in earnest
1t may also appear funny that at all
times ordinarily just those are the
loudest and most jealous in their fight
for individual Immortality whose per
sonal soul is perhaps the least worthy
KRAFT und Stoff-Force and Matter,
y. 234).
Answer: Such champions of immor-
tally were Socrates (f399 3. CO,
Plato (f347l, Cicero CAB b. c., st.
Augustine rt143O) and all the great
Church Fathers, St Thomas of Aquin
lf1274) and all the Christian schol-
airs.
1t is funny when Buechner says
Kraft und Stoff, p. 30D: True
knowledge teaches modesty" and then
so shamelessly sits in Judgment on
the greatest scholars. If modesty lin
Judgment is a sign of true learning,
then it goes hard with Buechner.
The first sentence you quote is a
sign of the shallowness Of his mind;
as though in q matter SO imminently
important to imam as the Immortality
of his soul, it were not self-eyident,
that one seeks zealously for argu-
ments against the doubts Of our men
of the world. Lloes not Buechner him
self seek arguments with the same
zeal for his side of the question
though, of course, not with the same
skill and success?
Already in the foreword of his work
Kraft ind Stoff (p. XXXIV.) he be-
trays a bewildering,. superficiality of
thinking when h : writes: Whether
man is considered as a product of ma,
ture or of seller eating will, whether
the human spirit of soul is a product
of material complexes, or as some
thing independent, is for the most part
Indifferent for the Judgment of the ma
ture %, of the quality, of the laws
of this spirit" No thinker speaks and
writes that way for thinking men.
a. Form and Color.
Objection: What is the soul? How
does it look? Is it round, square,
green, yellow or how? can not imag-
inc it, therefore it does not exist.
Answer: Is your reason round or
angular, green or yellow? And it most
likely exists. Is justice black or blue
or red? Is tolerance conical or cylin-
drical? And still they exist, though
not in things You can think the SUI
per-sensible, but you can not imagine
it or picture it to yourself. So it is
with the soul, which is a super-sensible,
spiritual being.