Alfred Ernest Garvie

“ Buddhism has its Tripitaka (three baskets) , and the reading, reciting and copying of the sacred scriptures is one of the surest means of acquiring merit. But as it ignores the gods, and places Buddha far above them, it does not claim divine inspiration for its writings. Buddha himself enlightens, but every man must save himself by walking in the true way which has been shown to him. Confucianism has its literature of absolute authority on manners, morals, rites and politics, but its claim does not rest on inspiration. ”

“ While there is much superstition in the view of inspiration found in many religions, and much imposture in the claims to the possession of it, yet it would be illogical to conclude that this feature of religion is altogether human error and not at all divine truth. Man’s knowledge of God is conditional, and therefore limited by his knowledge of the world and himself, and has accordingly the same imperfection. The reality of a divine communion and communication with man is not to be denied because its nature has been imperfectly apprehended. ”

“ The starting-point of the development was the common belief that the dead continued to exist in an unsubstantial mode of life, but cut off from fellowship with God and man; but faith left this far behind. Sheol is the common abode of the righteous and the ungodly: life there is shadowy and feeble, but seems to continue in a wavering and dim reflection features of this life. As the present life is, however, determined by moral issues, and as death does not change man’s relation to God, moral considerations could not be absolutely excluded from the future life. ”

“ We cannot admit that the history of mankind justifies his conclusion; for the great majority of men life is a good, and its continuance an object of hope.
For pantheism personal immortality appears a lesser good than reabsorption in the universal life; but against this objection we may confidently maintain that worthier of God and more blessed for man is the hope of a conscious communion in an eternal life of the Father of all with His whole family.
Lastly positivism teaches a corporate instead of an individual immortality; man should desire to live on as a beneficent influence in the race. ”

“ In stating constructively the doctrine of immortality we must assign altogether secondary importance to the metaphysical arguments from the nature of the soul. It is sufficient to show, as has already been done, that the soul is not so absolutely dependent on the body, that the dissolution of the one must necessarily involve the cessation of the other. Such arguments as the indivisibility of the soul and its persistence can at most indicate the possibility of immortality. ”

“ Clement of Alexandria taught that justice is not merely retributive, that punishment is remedial, that probation continues after death till the final judgment, that Christ and the apostles preached the Gospel in Hades to those who lacked knowledge, but whose heart was right, that a spiritual body will be raised. ”

“ Inspiration, or the presence and influence of the Divine Spirit in the soul of man, cannot be limited to the writers of the Scriptures; but, comparing the Bible with the other sacred literature of the world, its religious and moral superiority cannot be denied, and we may, therefore, claim for it as a whole a fuller inspiration. (2) As different writings in the Bible have more or less important functions in the progressive divine revelation, we may distinguish degrees of inspiration. ”

“ We may say that where the revelation is the clearest, there inspiration is the fullest, that nearness to the perfect fulfilment in Christ of God’s progressive purpose determines the degree of inspiration; but we cannot formulate any elaborate theory of the operation of the Spirit from the standpoint of the psychic states of the writers. While subjectively we cannot separate the divine and the human spirit in the process, so objectively we cannot distinguish the divine substance and the human form in the product of inspiration. ”

“ Swedenborg discards a physical resurrection, as at death the eyes of men are opened to the spiritual world in which we exist now, and they continue to live essentially as they lived here, until by their affinities they are drawn to heaven or hell. ”

“ And just because individuals whose lives have uniqueness of meaning are here only objects of pursuit, the attainment of this very individuality, since it is indeed real, occurs not in our present form of consciousness, but in a life that now we see not, yet in a life whose genuine meaning is continuous with our own human life, however far from our present flickering form of disappointed human consciousness that life of the final individuality may be. ”

“ The Fourth Gospel interprets both judgment and resurrection spiritually. Accordingly the general resurrection and the last judgment may be regarded as the temporal and local forms of thought to express the universal permanent truths that life survives death in the completeness of its necessary organs and essential functions, and that the character of that continued life is determined by personal choice of submission or antagonism to God’s purpose of grace in Christ, the perfect realization of which is the Christian’s hope for himself, mankind and the world. ”

“ Marcus Aurelius teaches that even if the spirit survive for a time it is at last “absorbed in the generative principle of the universe.” Epicureanism thought that “the wise man fears not death, before which most men tremble; for, if we are, it is not; if it is, we are not.” Death is extinction. Augustine adopts a Platonic thought when he teaches that the immortality of the soul follows from its participation in the eternal truths. The Apologists themselves welcomed, and commended to others, the Christian revelation as affording a certainty of immortality such as reason could not give. ”

“ Man does distinguish himself from his body; (2) he is conscious of his personal identity, through all the changes of his body; (3) in the exercise of his will he knows himself not controlled by but controlling his body; (4) his consciousness warrants his denying the absolute identification of himself and his body. It may further be added that materialism can be shown to be an inadequate philosophy in its attempts to account even for the physical universe, for this is inexplicable without the assumption of mind distinct from, and directive of, matter. ”

“ Recollection (anamnesis) alone would prove pre-existence, but not existence after death. In the tenth book of the Republic we find the curious argument that the soul does not perish like the body, because its characteristic evil, sin or wickedness does not kill it as the diseases of the body wear out the bodily life. In the Timaeus (41 a) the immortality even of the gods is made dependent on the will of the Supreme Creator; souls are not in their own nature indestructible, but persist because of His goodness. ”

“ In some of the writings no Messianic kingdom is looked for; in others only a temporal duration on earth is assigned to it; in others still it abides for ever either on earth as it is, or on earth transformed. The dispersion among the nations is to return home. Sometimes the Resurrection is narrowed down to the resurrection of the righteous, at others widened out to the resurrection of all mankind for the last judgment. A blessed immortality after judgment, or even after death itself, is sometimes taught without reference to any resurrection. ”

“ The New Testament represents the Christian life as an inspired life. It is living communion with Christ, and therefore constant possession of the Holy Spirit. Every Christian in the measure in which he has become a new creature in Christ is a prophet, because he knows by the enlightening of God’s Spirit “what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans xii. 2) . An occasional state of divine possession in the other religions becomes in the prophets of Israel a permanent endowment for a few select agents of God’s revelation ”

“ The reasons for the belief in a life after death are discussed in the article Immortality. The present article, after a brief glance at the conceptions of the future of the individual or the world found in other religions, will deal with the teaching of the Old and New Testaments, the Jewish and the Christian Church regarding the hereafter.
There is a bewildering variety in the views of the future life and world held by different peoples. The future life may be conceived as simply a continuation of the present life in its essential features, although under conditions more or less favourable. ”

“ This condition has been predicated of man, both body and soul, in many senses; and the term is used by analogy of those whose deeds or writings have made a lasting impression on the memory of man. The belief in human immortality in some form is almost universal; even in early animistic cults the germ of the idea is present, and in all the higher religions it is an important feature. This article is confined to summarizing the philosophical or scientific arguments for, and objections to, the doctrine of the persistence of the human soul after death. ”

“ The juridical argument has some force; the present life does not show that harmony of condition and character which our sense of justice leads us to expect; the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer; there is ground for the expectation that in the future life the anomalies of this life will be corrected. Although this argument has the support of such great names as Butler and Kant, yet it will repel many minds as an appeal to the motive of self-interest. ”

“ On the one hand it is impossible to maintain the inerrancy of the Bible in matters of science, philosophy, history, and even in doctrine and morals there is progress; on the other hand the personal characteristics, the historical circumstances, the individual differences of the writers are so reproduced in the writings that the action of the human factor must be frankly and fully recognized as well as the divine activity.
The second theory is that of dynamic influence or degrees of inspiration. While the Spirit controls and directs, the human personality is not entirely suppressed. ”

“ That, as now constituted, mind does depend on brain, life on body, must be conceded, but that this dependence is so absolute that the function must cease with the organ has not been scientifically demonstrated; the connexion of the soul with the body is as yet too obscure to justify any such dogmatism. ”

“ The third theory, which is a modification of the second, is that of essential inspiration, which distinguishes matters of doctrine and conduct as closely related to God’s purpose in the Scriptures from the remaining contents of the Scripture, and claims for the Bible only such inspiration as was necessary to secure accuracy in regard to these. The theology and the morality of the Bible are inspired, but not its history, science, philosophy. ”

“ Although in recent theological thought attention has been mainly directed to individual destiny, yet the other elements of Christian eschatology must not be altogether passed over. History has offered the authoritative commentary on the prophecy of the Parousia of Christ. The presence and power of His Spirit, the spread of His Gospel, the progress of His kingdom have been as much a fulfilment of the eschatological teaching of the New Testament as His life and work on earth were a fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, for fulfilment always transcends prophecy. ”

“ By the end of the 3rd century the use and approval of the churches had established the present canon.
The doctrine of the inspiration of these writings in the Jewish and Christian Church now claims attention. Inspiration is first of all ascribed to persons to account for abnormal states, or exceptional powers and gifts; in this doctrine it is transferred to writings, and its effects in securing for these inerrancy, authority, &c., are discussed with little regard for the psychic state of the writers.
The New Testament affirms the inspiration of the Old Testament. ”

“ It was only at the Exile, when the nation ceased to be, that the worth of the individual came to be recognized, and the hopes given to the nation were claimed for the individual. In dealing with the individual eschatology we must carefully distinguish the popular ideas regarding death and the hereafter which Israel shared with the other Semitic peoples, from the intuitions, inferences, aspirations evoked in the pious by the divine revelation itself. ”

“ Paul links the human resurrection with a universal renovation (Rom. viii. 19-23) . Paul’s eschatology is not free of obscurities and ambiguities; and in the New Testament eschatology generally we are forced to recognize a mixture of inherited Jewish and original Christian elements (see Antichrist) .
During the first century of the existence of the Gentile Christian Church, “the hope of the approaching end of the world and the glorious kingdom of Christ” was dominant, although warnings had to be given against doubt and indifference. ”

“ The purpose of inspiration is practical; the inspired men are used of God to give guidance in belief and duty by declaring the word and will of God as bearing on human life. (5) As revelation is progressive, inspiration does not exclude defects in doctrine and practice in the earlier stages and their correction in the later stages of development. ”