The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

X. Rejects Immortal-Soulism Because of Pagan Origin

In the dedication of Second Thoughts, Coward denies that he was raising a mere “cavil,” and like Luther declares he was ready to “recant” any “error” in his position if it could be shown to be such on the “Authority of the Holy Scriptures.” But his thesis was that “this Life will to the Righteous be chang’d into Life Everlasting at the Day of the general Resurrection.” ⁴¹ Then he proceeds to show that the immortality of the soul postulate springs from pagan philosophy, and offers detailed proof (chap. v). CFF2 196.1

Coward contends that the “Human Soul will cease to be when the Body dies, and consequently it cannot be a Substantial Immortal Spirit” (chap. vi). He maintains that “Human Soul and Life are the same thing, and consequently the Notion of a Spiritual Immortal Substance in Man is Erroneous, and according to the Common Course of Providence, Man’s Immortality begins not until the Resurrection” (chap. vii). In chapter nine Coward discusses “Purgatory, Prayers for the Dead, Invocation of Saints, Mens going immediately after Death to Heaven or Hell,” and “Ghosts,” as springing from natural-immortalism. CFF2 196.2

1. WICKED NOT YET IN TORMENT, NOR RIGHTEOUS IN HEAVEN

In chapter ten, on the “History” of the soul question, Coward declares:
“After Death the Damn’d will not be in a full State of Misery, but that their utmost Misery will begin after Condemnation at the General Judgment, when Soul and Body are united again (as the Phrase is) as will also the Initial Happiness of the Soul, immediately after Death, and the Perfect Happiness of it after the Day of Judgment.” ⁴² CFF2 196.3

2. IMMORTAL-SOULISM DERIVED FROM HEATHEN PHILOSOPHERS

Coward then charges that the papists “invented a Purgatory, out of which the Souls of the Deceas’d hereafter will be deliver’d from Punishment.” Then he asks pointedly: “What can there be more evident than that from these Heathen Philosophers we have imbib’d, and, as it were, sucked with our Breast-Milk the Notion of a Spiritual Substance united to the Body, call’d the Soul of Man? And yet upon Examination we find upon what weak Foundation, unsatisfactory Grounds, and trifling Reasons they build their Notion on, which Posterity has so greedily devoured.” ⁴³ CFF2 196.4

3. THE CONTENTION OF THE PHILOSOPHERS

Turning to the Grecian philosophers—Pythagoras, Socrates, Hereclitus, Pindar, et cetera—Coward shows in terse phrases how they taught that “the Body being compounded is dissolvable by death.” “The Soul being simple passeth into another Life, incapable of Corruption.” “The Souls of Men are Divine, to whom, when they go out of the Body, the way to Heaven is open,” according to Thales and Pythagoras. “The Souls of the Good after Death are in an happy Estate, united to God in a Blessed inaccessible Place; The Bad in convenient Places suffer condign Punishment”; and “Death to resemble Absolute Annihilation of Soul and Body, making us insensible of Pain and Pleasure.” ⁴⁴ CFF2 197.1

4. PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY INTERWOVEN INTO EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

Asserting that Plato’s philosophy is essentially the same as that of his master, Socrates, and having traced the “Doctrine of the Nature of Immortality of an Human Soul” from ancient times down to the philosophers, Coward makes the connection between the philosophers and the Christian Church: CFF2 197.2

“I proceed to show how, Plato gave a final and undeniable Stamp to this Doctrine; insomuch, that from him it was delivered down to Posterity interwoven in the Doctrines of Christianity.” ⁴⁵ CFF2 197.3

5. CREPT INTO CHURCH THROUGH PLATONIC FATHERS

Reaffirming that Plato derived his philosophy of the soul from Socrates, and he in turn from Egypt, Coward next sought to blend it into Old Testament positions. The “first fathers of the Church ... were almost all Platonicks,” he continues— Justin, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Cyril, Basil, et cetera. Thus it is “demonstrably plain” CFF2 197.4

“that this Notion of Human Soul, conceived to be a Spirit united to the Body, crept into the Church by the means of the first Fathers thereof, so heartily espousing the Platonick Philosophy.” ⁴⁶ CFF2 198.1

Such was the “first foundation of the belief” as found in the “Primitive Fathers,” ⁴⁷ with “Threats of Damnation to the Souls of the Wicked, and the Promise of Salvation to the Souls of the righteous.” ⁴⁸ So such a conception of the soul was derived “Originally and Chiefly from Plato a Pagan or heathen,” who held that “God created the Soul of Man, and made it Immortal.” ⁵⁰ Aristotle, on the other hand, says nothing of creation, but asserts man to be mortal. Plato held that men would rise again from the dead, while Aristotle held that “life once lost can never be renewed or recovered again.” So there was sharp conflict and contradiction in pagan philosophy, especially over the resurrection. CFF2 198.2

6. LIFE INTERRUPTED BY DEATH RESTORED AT RESURRECTION

After listing the primitive Christian Fathers, Coward asserts that their teachings concerning the human soul are “pure principles of Platonism,” and these in turn were adopted by the Papacy as the “ground” of its “base Practices and Cheats in Religion,” when it became the dominant power of the Middle Ages. Coward concludes his position in this summarizing paragraph: CFF2 198.3

“Lastly, and to conclude this Treatise. Why I have made use of the Words, Cease to be, rather than Corrupt, I have already told you; and why I call it, the renewing of Life in Man, rather than Quickening a Man again, as some perhaps would call it; I do it, as near as I can, to signifie my meaning by such Scriptural Phrases and Expressions, because from them I have taken the Grounds of my Definition of the Soul, and not from Philosophy, as may give the best Light I can to the understanding and comprehending my Opinion. Thus Psalm 104:9. Thou hidest thy Face, and they are troubled; thou takest away their Breath, and they die. Thus far it is explain’d how by the Power of God Life ceaseth to be, and Man, the Subject in which it is, dies, like motion in the thing moved, or Re projecta when it obtains its End or Center. But when God is pleased Man shall live again, like Motion reconvey’d to the thing moved by a second Agent. Thus Psalm 104:30. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, [Breath of Life] they are created and thou renewest the Face of the Earth again. So that as it were by a long Chain, whose Link for some time was broken or interrupted, the present Life is then united, or rather converted by the omnipotent Power of God, in whom it center’d, unto Life eternal.” ⁵¹ CFF2 198.4

In his Grand Essay ... Against Impostures of Philosophy (1704), Coward emblazons on the title page that the concept of “the Existence of any Immaterial Substance is a Philosophic Imposture.” And in his Preface he says, “Now is the Axe laid to the Root of the Tree.” ⁵² CFF2 199.1