THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ment, there is need to preserve the Christian estimate of life so far as this is a matter of feeling and will, without surrendering the free scientific approach. It must also be recognized that the forms of the creative ideas by which men seek to give expression to the content of these conceptions are changeable and dependent upon the usage of language at a given time (see Future Punishment) . VI. The Principal Elements of the Christian Ideal of Immortality: The Christian estimate of life subordinates all motives of the hope of immortality to belief in God; he is " not the God of the dead, but of the living." Presuppositions for correct deduction are: (1) Negatively: proof may not be adduced from rational psychology. If the soul of man is immortal because it is simple and immaterial, the same must be true of animals and of plants: these no less than the soul of man may be regarded sub specie ceternitatis. Moreover, the thought of immortality is developed from simple psychical experiences. The child lives in the joy of the unending moment. Many savages have need only to project thought forward for a year or a month; o,he abstract idea of immortality matures first with monotheism. Even then " absolute endlessness " remains only a half-understood problem. ^The question of immortality retires to the background in comparison with the ethical social interests and with faith in God in which the true endlessness is felt (Ps. lxxiii.). If with Berkeley, Fichte, and Schopenhauer one conceives the idea not as result, but as cause of the entire world, including time and space, then the thinking subject as thinking can not be destroyed by the object which it has itself produced — time. The notions of subject, object, idea, time, infinite, and the like are not original; still more elementary is language, which originates in a practical motive. (2) Positively: the verbal condition of the solution of the problem, (a) Soul is the man as a unity; body is the man as an organism of many factors. The word " soul " in popular use is associated with the idea of the sea in motion. In the notion of soul lies life, change, inconstancy, death. The nature of psyche is perishableness. Even knowledge will not shield from destruction (Gen. hi. 17-19). Yet the soul, according to its notion, is essentially life, (b) The negative ideas of the intransient, the infinite, arose from the power of abstraction and negation. The underworld (cf. the notions of the Egyptians, New Zealanders, Enoch, the Greeks, and the Middle Ages) was identical with the place of the sun setting in the west, (c) Both the sun (cf. Egyptian and Accadian-Babylonian myths) and the seed-corn are at the same time result and cause, and this sensuous form of imperishableness has contributed to the terms dealing with immortality (the cult of Persephone; I Cor. xv.; poetical uses, as Schiller's Noch kostlicheren Samen bergen). Metempsychosis is only a further step forward (degradation and elevation; punishment and purification). In the Christian view the soul as substance of the body is wakened by the light of the creative sun of God to a new individual corporeity (John xii.; I Cor. xv.). The soul rests " in God " (Col. iii. 3; Rev. xiv. 13), receives a new glorified body whose principal features have already on
earth been developed through ethical growth suffering, and victory (cf. Matt. xxii. 30; Acts ii. 31 sqq. with Ps. xvi., Rev. xxi. 4 with Isa. xxv. 8).
VII. The Truth of These Forms of Experience: In
the degree to which the naturally true and ethically grounded idea creates a corresponding expression can the truth of its affirmation be removed from doubt. This is proved by the religion of Buddhism. Although one may never say that the soul is or is not in Nirvana, yet this is designated as the " land of peace," the " immeasurable, abysmal sea of eternity." Even to a philosopher such experiences compel the thought of a positive, ideal imperishableness. Mightier than with the Buddhist is the Christian's longing for absolute emancipation and blessedness. The fulness of God's love, as it fills the Christian heart absorbed in the kingdom of God, is immediately infinite. In the degree to which there is given the real basis for an idea true to life must the positive joy in the picture of the Christian hope of glory be affirmed.
In conclusion, the attitude toward immortality will be positive in case (1) the certainty of God as the supreme concrete content of the consciousness is presupposed, (2) the one miracle which lies in the being of the entire world is beheld under the correct figure of a creative divine deed, and accordingly (3) the hope of the future which corresponds to the Christian valuation of life is directly related to the idea of the creative divine deed. The twofold contents of the Christian spirit of life are (1) the idea of the Father-God as the free creative love, and (2) the hope that nothing hereafter can separate from the " infinite " worth of the love of God. If the real grounds of both of these ideas are inexhaustible, then the endeavors after a formal presentation of faith, in God and immortality must be just as enduring as the power of language (see also Eschatology).
For extended discussion and proof of this thesis cf. G. Runze, Studien zur vergleichenden Religionswissenschaft; II., Die Psychologie des Unsterblichkeitsglaubens und der Unsterblichkeitsleugnung, Berlin, 1894. G. Runze.
VIII. Additional Note : The arguments from data furnished by the Society of Psychical Research, to the effect that authentic messages have been received from those who have passed from the earthly life, lack convincing cogency (cf. F. W H. Myers, Human Personality, London, 1903). Not to accentuate the still incomplete evidence for the alleged communications, this, if valid, would at best prove only that some who have ceased to live here continue their life in other conditions. But whether this is true for all, or whether any or all of those who have been supposed to manifest themselves from the other world will live forever does not yet appear. The Biblical evidence for the immortality, i.e., the resurrection, of all, including the wicked, is not perhaps decisive. This involves the critical interpretation of three passages which are open to other values than those which have been assigned to them (Luke xx. 34-38; John v. 28, 29; Acts xxiv. 15). In the last reference Paul is reported as teaching the resurrection of the wicked, no trace of which is found in his own authentic writings.