Mortal or Immortal? Which?

ANALOGIES OF NATURE - A DISTINCTION

The day shuts down in darkness; but is not forever lost; the morn returns again, and the bright sun comes forth rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. Nature is bound, cold and lifeless, in the icy chains of winter; but it is not lost in absolute death. Anon the spring approaches, and at his animating voice and warm breath, the pulse of life beats again through all her works; her cold cheek kindles with the glow of fresh vitality; and she comes forth adorned with new beauty, waking new songs of praise in every grove. The chrysalis, too, that lay apparently a dead worm, motionless and dry, soon wakes up to a higher life, and comes forth gloriously arrayed, like a “living blossom of the air,” sipping nectar from the choicest sweets of earth, and nestling in the bosom of its fairest flowers. And so, too, it is claimed of man, “that when the body shall drop as a withered calyx, the soul shall go forth like a winged seed.” ¹ MOI 28.1

Let us take care that here our judgments are not led captive by the fascinations of poetry, or the rhetorical beauties of which this argument is so eminently susceptible. Among the many instances of nature, we find only a few that present the analogies here presented. The chrysalis, so often referred to, after it has spent its brief day as a living butterfly, perishes and is heard of no more forever. So with all the higher order of animals: they fall in death and make no more their appearance upon our path. The most, then, that can be drawn from this argument, is a faint foreshadowing, perhaps, of a future life. But here, let it be understood, there is no issue. We all agree that the race shall be called again to life. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:22. But the point at issue is, Are our souls immortal, and must this life be, to all our race, necessarily eternal? To prove that man will live again is one thing; to prove that that life will be eternal, is quite another. MOI 28.2