The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life

by William Rounseville Alger

There are two general methods of interpretation respectively applied to the words of Christ, the literal, or mechanical, and the spiritual, or vital. The former leads to a belief in his second visible advent with an army of angels from heaven, a bodily resurrection of the dead, a universal judgment, the burning up of the world, eternal tortures of the wicked in an abyss of infernal fire, a heaven located on the arch of the Hebrew firmament. The latter gives us a group of the profoundest moral truths clustered about the illuminating and emphasizing mission of Christ, sealed with Divine sanctions, truths of universal obligation and of all redeeming power. The former method is still adopted by the great body of Christendom, who are landed by it in a system of doctrines well nigh identical with those of the Pharisees, against which Christ so emphatically warned his followers, a system of traditional dogmas not having the slightest support in philosophy, nor the least contact with the realities of experience, nor the faintest color of inherent or historical probability. In this age they are absolutely incredible to unhampered and studious minds. On the other hand, the latter method is pursued by the growing body of rational Christians, and it guides them to a consistent array of indestructible moral truths, simple, fundamental, and exhaustive, an array of spiritual principles commanding universal and implicit homage, robed in their own brightness, accredited by their own fitness, armed with the loveliness and terror of their own rewarding and avenging divinity, flashing in mutual lights and sounding in consonant echoes alike from the law of nature and from the soul of man, as the Son of God, with miraculous voice, speaks between.

CHAPTER VII.

RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

OF all the single events that ever were supposed to have occurred in the world, perhaps the most august in its moral associations and the most stupendous in its lineal effects, both on the outward fortunes and on the inward experience of mankind, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If, therefore, there is one theme in all the range of thought worthy of candid consideration, it is this. There are two ways of examining it. We may, as unquestioning Christians, inquire how the New Testament writers represent it, what premises they assume, what statements they make, and what inferences they draw. Thus, without perversion, without mixture of our own notions, we should construct the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection of the Savior. Again as critical scholars and philosophical thinkers, we may study that doctrine in all its parts, scrutinize it in all its bearings, trace, as far as possible, the steps and processes of its formation, discriminate as well as we can, by all fair tests, whether it be entirely correct, or wholly erroneous, or partly true and partly false. Both of these methods of investigation are necessary to a full understanding of the subject. Both are obligatory upon the earnest inquirer. Whoso would bravely face his beliefs and intelligently comprehend them, with their grounds and their issues, with a devout desire for the pure truth, whatsoever it may be, putting his trust in the God who made him, will never shrink from either of these courses of examination. Whoso does shrink from these inquiries is either a moral coward, afraid of the results of an honest search after that truth of things which expresses the will of the Creator, or a spiritual sluggard, frightened by a call to mental effort and torpidly clinging to ease of mind. And whoso, accepting the personal challenge of criticism, carries on the investigation with prejudice and passion, holding errors because he thinks them safe and useful, and rejecting realities because he fancies them dangerous and evil, is an intellectual traitor, disloyal to the sacred laws by which God hedges the holy fields and rules the responsible subjects of the realm of truth. We shall combine the two modes of inquiry, first singly asking what the Scriptures declare, then critically seeking what the facts will warrant, it being unimportant to us whether these lines exactly coincide or diverge somewhat, the truth itself being all. We now pass to an examination of Christ's resurrection from five points of view: first, as a fact; second, as a fulfilment of prophecy; third, as a pledge; fourth, as a symbol; and fifth, as a theory.

The writers of the New Testament speak of the resurrection of Christ, in the first place, as a fact. "Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a tree, him hath God raised up." It could not have been viewed by them in the light of a theory or a legend, nor, indeed, as any thing else than a marvellous but literal fact. This appears from their minute accounts of the scenes at the sepulchre and of the disappearance of his body. Their declarations of this are most unequivocal, emphatic, iterated, "The Lord is risen indeed." All that was most important in their faith they based upon it, all that was most precious to them in this life they staked upon it. "Else why stand we in jeopardy every hour?" They held it before their inner vision as a guiding star through the night of their sufferings and dangers, and freely poured out their blood upon the cruel shrines of martyrdom in testimony that it was a fact. That they believed he literally rose from the grave in visible form also appears, and still more forcibly, from their descriptions of his frequent manifestations to them. These show that in their faith he assumed at his resurrection the same body in which he had lived before, which was crucified and buried. All attempts, whether by Swedenborgians or others, to explain this Scripture language as signifying that he rose in an immaterial body, are futile.1 He appeared to their senses and was recognised by his identical bodily form. He partook of physical food with them. "They gave him a piece of broiled fish and of an honey comb; and he ate before them." The marks in his hands and side were felt by the incredulous Thomas, and convinced him. He said to them, "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." To a candid mind there can hardly be a question that the gospel records describe the resurrection of Christ as a literal fact, that his soul reanimated the deceased body, and that in it he showed himself to his disciples. Yet that there are a few texts implying the immateriality of his resurrection body that there are two accounts of it in the gospels we cannot deny.

We advance to see what is the historical evidence for the fact of the resurrection of Christ. This argument, of course, turns chiefly on one point, namely, the competency of the witnesses, and the validity of their testimony.2 We will present the usually exhibited scheme of proof as strongly as we can.3 In the first place, those who testified to the resurrection were numerous enough, so far as mere numbers go, to establish the fact beyond question. Paul declares there were above five hundred who from their personal knowledge could affirm of the Lord's resurrection. But particularly there were the eleven apostles, the two Marys, Cleopas, and the disciples from whom Joseph and Matthias the candidates for Judas Iscariot's apostleship were selected, consisting probably of most of the seventy. If the evidence of any number of men ought to convince us of the alleged event, then, under the existing circumstances, that of twelve ought. Important matters of history are often unhesitatingly received on the authority of a single historian. If the occurrences at the time were sufficient to demonstrate to a reasonable mind the reality of the resurrection, then the unanimous testimony of twelve men to those occurrences should convince us. The oaths of a thousand would be no stronger.

These men possessed sufficient abilities to be trusted, good powers of judgment, and varied experience. The selection of them by Him who "knew what was in man," the boldness and efficiency of their lives, the fruits of their labors everywhere, amply prove their

1 The opposite view is ably argued by Bush in his valuable treatise on the Resurrection.

2 Sherlock, Trial of the Witnesses.

3 Ditton, Demonstration of the Resurrection of Christ. For a sternly faithful estimate of the cogency of this argument, it must be remembered that all the data, every fact and postulate in each step of the reasoning, rest on the historical authority of the four Gospels, documents whose authorship and date are lost in obscurity. Even of "orthodox" theologians few, with any claims to scholarship, now hold that these Gospels, as they stand, were written by the persons whose names they bear. They wander and waver in a thick fog. See Milman's "History of Christianity," vol. i. ch. ii. appendix ii.