Conditional Immortality and the Sleep of the Soul
The periodical reprints materialism: the brain thinks, the soul does not exist, the wicked are extinguished. But the Bible shows the spirit returning to God and the believer dwelling with the Lord.
By Rodrigo Custódio ·
The moment
On Thursday, May 5, 1881, page 196 of the weekly Signs of the Times — issue number 17 of the seventh volume, published in Oakland — carried the article "Immortality — Constitutional or Conditional?", signed by D. Chase, doctor of laws. It was a reprint from the Northern Christian Advocate, a northern American Methodist periodical — the Signs was in need of outside reinforcement for its doctrine of the sleep of the soul.
The paper came out every week through the Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society — in this edition, under the direction of editor J. H. Waggoner, with J. N. Andrews, James White and Uriah Smith as corresponding editors. Reprinting someone else's article was not an oversight: it was an endorsement. What Chase wrote in the Methodist paper, the Signs stamped as its own.
Chase's thesis is materialism with a theological veneer: man would be pure matter — "the brain thinks", with no immaterial soul behind it —, and phrenology (the "science" of the bumps of the skull) is cited as proof. The doctrine of the immortal soul is ridiculed as "pagan philosophy" and "immortal-soul-ism". If there is no soul, there is no consciousness after death: the dead "know nothing", and the sleep of death ends only at the resurrection.
And the fate of the wicked follows the same logic: "the death threatened to the impenitent is the extinction of the conscious being" — the fire consumes the stubble, the straw, the tares, and the sinner simply ceases to exist. The immortality of the saved is "conditional, to be sought by faith in Christ and by 'patient continuance in well doing'" — eternal life as the reward of perseverance, salvation by works with a philosophical garb.
Machine shop in the 1880s, amid steam engine, brass gears and leather belts — man reduced to a machine: the brain thinks, the soul does not exist.
The absurdity
The article reduces man to thinking matter, erases consciousness in death, extinguishes the wicked instead of judging them, and even makes immortality conditional upon "patient continuance in well doing". Materialism, sleep of the soul, annihilation and salvation by works. Let the exact words of the printed page be read:
"That the death threatened to the impenitent is the extinction of the conscious being is declared unequivocally by the action of fire upon the stubble, the straw, the tares, the dry branches of the vine, the trees cut down and useless for fruit."
"Immortality is conditional, to be sought by faith in Christ and by 'patient continuance in well doing'."
"Without the resurrection, the sleep of death would be eternal. 'There is no knowledge in the grave whither thou goest.' Those 'that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake', but 'the dead know not anything'."
Source: Signs of the Times, vol. 7, no. 17, May 5, 1881 — p. 196.
Highlighted clipping from the printed page with the cited excerpts, edition of May 5, 1881, p. 196.
Why this is serious
"The brain thinks" — and nothing more. That is the anthropology of the article: no immaterial soul, no spirit that survives the body. But the Bible distinguishes man into body, soul and spirit: "the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless" (1 Thess. 5:23). And the Word "pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit" (Heb. 4:12) — a division impossible if soul and body were the same matter. To reduce man to a machine is philosophy, not revelation.
The "extinction of the conscious being" collides with the very pages of the New Testament. Jesus told of the rich man who, "dead and buried", lifted up his eyes "being in torments" and conversed with Abraham (Luke 16:22-24). John saw "under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God", crying with a loud voice (Rev. 6:9-10). Souls without a body, conscious, crying out. The fire that consumes the tares (Matt. 13:40) illustrates the judgment: a parable is not a treatise on anthropology.
The "sleep of death" as total unconsciousness contradicts the apostle's hope. Paul desired "to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better" (Phil. 1:23) — to depart and to be, with no stopover in nothingness. And he wrote: "we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8). To be present — not to sleep unconscious. The "the dead know not anything" of Ecclesiastes 9:5 describes the perspective "under the sun" — what the dead know of earthly life. And the same book closes the account: "then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (Eccl. 12:7).
And immortality "conditional" upon "patient continuance in well doing" is the old salvation by works in new clothes. If eternal life must be won by perseverance in well doing, then it is wages — and "the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life" (Rom. 6:23). A gift is not won by perseverance; it is received by faith. To make immortality conditional upon works is to say that Christ died to give us the chance to save ourselves alone.
Railroad roundhouse at night in the 1880s, with cold and silent locomotives — the "sleep of death" as the total shutdown of the being.
The verdict of the Scriptures
On what survives death, the verdict is Solomon's: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (Eccl. 12:7). The body returns to the dust — the spirit returns to God. Two destinies, two substances.
On consciousness after death, the verdict is Christ's and John's. The rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) show consciousness, memory, perception and dialogue after death. The souls under the altar (Rev. 6:9-11) cry out, receive white robes and hear an answer. To sleep, in the Bible, is a metaphor for the body that rests (John 11:11-14) — never the extinction of the person.
On the fate of the wicked, the verdict uses the same word on both sides: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal" (Matt. 25:46). The same adjective — eternal — measures the punishment and the life. If "eternal" means "forever" for the righteous, it means "forever" for the wicked; to empty it on one side is to empty it on both. And John is explicit: "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night" (Rev. 14:11). Torment with smoke that ascends forever is not extinction — it is perpetual consciousness.
And on immortality "conditional" upon works, the verdict is the gospel: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). Eternal life is not the prize of "patient continuance in well doing" — it is a gift received by faith in Christ, who has already conquered death (2 Tim. 1:10). The believer does not sleep in nothingness awaiting the resurrection as one awaits being reassembled: he departs to be with Christ — and he will return with Him, in a glorified body (1 Thess. 4:14-16).