IMMATERIALITY

Although we noted in the outset that the light of nature and reason is insufficient to decide the immortality of the soul, yet as there are a few points to which some may be fondly cleaving, in the belief that the doctrine can be fairly demonstrated therefrom, it may not be amiss to briefly notice them. The first is the argument drawn from immateriality. The soul, it is claimed, is immaterial, and hence immortal in its nature. Having progressed so far as we have in this investigation, this point need not detain us long. We reply, then, 1. We neither know what matter is, nor what spirit is, but only some of the qualities of each. 2. Where is the proof that the soul is immaterial? It certainly is not drawn from nature, for all nature is material; it is not drawn from reason, for reason cannot comprehend the existence of immateriality; it cannot be drawn from revelation, for that expressly declares that man is dust. We do not mean to be understood that the mind is material; but we do claim that all vital and mental phenomena result from material causes.MOI 24.2

But, allowing the utmost latitude to this view, it equally proves the souls of all animals, fishes, reptiles and insects immaterial; for they remember, fear, imagine, compare, manifest gratitude, anger, sorrow, desire, etc. Bishop Warburton expressly says, “I think it may be strictly demonstrated that man has an immaterial soul; but then, the same arguments which prove that, prove, likewise, that the souls of all living animals are immaterial.” Whoever, therefore, affirms the immortality of man from the immateriality of his soul, is bound to affirm the same, not only of the nobler animals, but also of all the lower orders of the brute creation. Here, again, believers in natural immortality are crushed beneath the weight of their own arguments. If it be said that God can, if he choose, blot from existence the immaterial soul of the beetle and the titmouse, we reply, so can he that of man; and then its immortality is at an end, and the whole argument abandoned.MOI 24.3