But this reply is extremely futile; for how can it be proved that God’s goodness requires him to reward the virtuous here? The assertion is quite arbitrary, not to say absurd; for if God’s goodness does not actually reward the virtuous here, it is evident that God’s goodness does not require that they should have their reward here. Then the writer seems to question the very necessity of reward and punishment; but he gives no reason for his doubt, as in fact no reason could be found for assuming that the moral law can be either observed without profit or violated with impunity. If there be no retribution, right and wrong are empty names, virtue becomes vice, and vice virtue. If no happiness is to be expected after death, he is most reasonable and virtuous who strives to satisfy all his passions, and he is most vicious and unreasonable who renounces his present gratification for the sake of morality. The sceptic, therefore, who denies a future life is constrained logically to admit that all virtue is foolishness, and all wisdom consists in self-indulgence and pleasure. The evident absurdity of this conclusion shows the falsity of the opinion from which it proceeds.
The writer imagines also that the future punishment is “uncertain,” and that after death there is only a “problematical” state of existence. To this we need not make a new answer, as we have seen that a future retribution is absolutely certain and not at all problematic.
“It may still further be said,” adds our writer, “that when we turn to the Scriptures, we do not find them by any means so clear and positive in regard to the survival of the soul as people generally suppose. The five books of Moses are absolutely destitute of all allusion to the subject. The Jews were told by the great lawgiver nothing whatever concerning a life beyond the grave. They were promised rewards in this world if they behaved well, and threatened with punishments in this world if they behaved ill. Their whole subsequent history illustrates this fundamental principle. When they rebelled against Jehovah and worshipped other gods, they were smitten with war, pestilence, famine, and captivity. When they were obedient to him, they were blessed with peace and plenty, and victory was granted them over their foes. In the prophetical writings, full as they are of rebukes and warnings, there is no more explicit teaching of a future life than in the Pentateuch; and, down to the advent of Christ, the sect of Sadducees, who prided themselves of their adherence to the faith of their fathers, stoutly denied it.”
Let us make a few remarks on this argument. First, were we to concede that Moses is absolutely silent about a future life, it would make no difference as to the question of the soul’s immortality. For if we argue with Christians, Moses’ silence is abundantly compensated for by other inspired writers; and if we argue with unbelievers, we know that Moses with them is no authority whether he speaks or remains silent.
Secondly, it is not true that “the five books of Moses are absolutely destitute of all allusion to the subject.” We are not going to write a dissertation on this Biblical question; it will suffice to point out a few passages which would have no meaning apart from a belief in a future life. We read in Genesis (xv. 1) that the Lord said to Abraham: “I am thy protector, and thy reward exceedingly great.” Can these words have any other meaning than “protector in the troubles of thy present life, and reward exceedingly great after the end of the struggle”? Again we read that Jacob at the approach of his death, while blessing his children, exclaimed: “I will look for thy salvation, O Lord” (ib. xlix. 18)—that is, “though I shall soon die, yet my soul will not cease to rejoice in the earnest expectation of the Redeemer who is to come”—Salutare tuum expectabo, Domine. And the same patriarch, when mourning for his son (Joseph), “would not receive comfort, but said: I will go down to my son into hell, mourning” (ib. xxxvii. 35). He therefore believed that his soul would survive its separation from the body. It is not true, then, that the books of Moses are absolutely destitute of all allusion to a future life. Nor is it lawful to argue that, because the great lawgiver promised rewards and threatened punishments of a temporal order, the eternal rewards and the eternal punishments must have been unknown to the children of Israel; for we must reflect that Moses’ menaces and promises were made to the nation or the political body, not to individual persons, and that the political body was not destined to last for ever; whence it follows that all the promises and all the menaces addressed to the nation ought to refer exclusively to the temporal order.
Thirdly, it is not true that the prophetical writings do not teach a future life. We read in Daniel (xii. 2) that “many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach.” These words are decisive. Death is but a sleep; we shall awake to a new life, and this future life will last for ever. “On the last day,” says Job, “I shall rise out of the earth, and I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God” (c. xix.) David says: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, all the nations that forget God. For the poor man shall not be forgotten to the end: the patience of the poor shall not perish for ever” (Psalm ix.) “Thy dead men,” says Isaias, “shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, ye that dwell in the dust” (c. xxvi.) Ezechiel (c. xviii.) intimates to the wicked that they shall die, while the just shall live; where living and dying cannot refer to the course of natural events, but must be interpreted as meaning salvation and damnation. David says again: “But God will redeem my soul from the hand of hell, when he shall receive me” (Psalm xlviii.) These passages, to which many others might be added, suffice to show that our writer is not more accurate in speaking of the prophetical writings than he is in speaking of the Pentateuch.
Fourthly, he does not seem to know that the Sadducees, notwithstanding their “priding themselves of their adherence to the faith of their fathers,” were nothing but a heretical sect; they denied the resurrection of the flesh, just as modern Protestants deny transubstantiation; and it is as absurd to appeal to the Sadducees for the right understanding of the Jewish faith as it would be to appeal to our modern heretics for the interpretation of the Catholic doctrine.
The writer adds:
“The historical books, indeed, show that in later days the doctrine gained admission into some Jewish minds, having most probably been communicated to them from their Assyrian, Persian, and Babylonian captors; but the form it took on was that of the resurrection of the flesh, which, Dr. Nisbet says, was erroneously adopted by the Christian Church. If, therefore, the Old Testament be silent on the topic, and the New Testament, as interpreted by contemporary critics, teaches a doctrine which reason cannot accept, what is there in the Bible to require a belief in any resurrection whatever?”
We have shown that the immortality of the soul was known to the Jews from the time of the patriarchs. The Assyrians, the Persians, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians were also acquainted with the same truth, but they seem to have been altogether ignorant of a future resurrection, and many of them thought that their souls were destined to transmigrate from one body to another. These errors may have been communicated to some Jews by their captors; as we know that the Sadducees denied the resurrection, and most of the Pharisees believed in metempsychosis, according to Josephus (Antiquit. l. xviii. c. 2). But if the captivity of the Jews may have been the source of these errors, it has certainly not been the origin of the belief in immortality and resurrection, which pre-existed among the Jews long before their captivity.