Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-26
Religious Questions
DISCUSSED BY
DR.. S. Parkes Cadman.

descended from David, or is it merely
by courtesy that Jesus is, referred to in
the Bible as the son of David because
of Joseph's descent from DAVID?
A. Christs descent from the royal
house OF Israel is reflected in the New
Testament In his letter to the Romans
st. Paul states that Jesus was born of
Davids line by natural descent. The
popular belief that the promised Mes
siah would be of this lineage may have
influenced his conclusion that such was
the case.
But the Master Himself did not en-
phasi2e the question of His human an
cestry. In St. Matthew, xxii41, we
read, Now While the Pharisees we're
gathered together. Jesus asked them a
question, saying, What think We of the
Christ? Whose son is He? They say
unto Him, The son of David. He saith
unto them, How then doth David in
the spirit call Him Lord? saying, The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on
my right hand till I put Thine enemies
underneath Thy feet? If David then
called Him Lord, how is He His son?"-
Psalm, cX.1.
The Apostle to the Gentiles declared
in this second epistle to the Corinthians
that he no longer knew Christ after the
flesh GI Corinthians, v.16). For Him
the divine crucified and risen Redeemer
was forever supreme apart from any
questions concerning His earthly origin.
He reigned in the spiritual realm,
where pride of blood and temporal rank
and its honors were meaningless.
@. If, as we are told, the soul is i'm
mortal. without beginning or end, and
viii have existence and consciousness
after death, it must have consciousness
before birth. If SO. why do we have
no recollection of that ''pre-existent"
stage?
A. Immortality does not necessarily
involve pre-eXistence. True, some phi
losophers have argued that it does, but
their reasoning is purely speculative:
The Christian and Jewish teaching is
that the soul is Gods creation Modern
scienf supplements. but does not an
null. this teaching by asserting that the
souls creation takes place in connection
with the genesis of its physical body.
Neither does continuity of existence
involve detailed momory. Think back
on your own life, and while certain days
stand out distinctly, the large majority
of them are obscured in shadows or
buried in oblivion. If some of us had
to depend solely on our memory to
establish the fact that we were on the
earth on a given day 10 years ago, we
should in many instances have to admit
that so far as memory was concerned,
we were non-eXistent on that day. In
brief, the evidence of recollection or
lack of it does not itself necessarily de-
termine the existence of past facts.
Other sources of proof may have to be
consulted to establish those facts.
This applies to your question about
the souls pre-eXistent stage 1t is not
because of lack of memory, but for
other reasons, that such pre-existence
is discounted. Moreover, the deStruc-
ton of the brain at death may end
given functions of mans psychic life
without destroying that life. Depend
ence of thought on material BRAIN"
said John Stuart Mill, rs an empiric
fact. but this does not mean that it is
a metaphysical necessity"
Copyright, 1929