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glass, a prism, or a refracting lens, may transmit light and at the same time determine its colour
and direction. The light exists independent of the glass or lens; so thought also exists
independent of the brain. He comes to the conclusion that one can, in strict logic, believe in
immortality. Some evolutionists now base the doctrine of conditional immortality on the
struggle for existence. And such scientists as William James, Sir Oliver Lodge, and James H.
Hyslop, attach great significance to reputed communications with the dead. On the basis of
psychic phenomena the first was inclined to believe in immortality, while the other two
embraced it as an established fact.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY:
Is the doctrine of immortality found in the Pentateuch?
What accounts for the comparative scarcity of proofs for it in the Old Testament? On what did
Plato base his belief in the immortality of the soul? How did Kant judge of the usual natural
arguments for the doctrine of immortality? Is there any place for belief in personal immortality
in either Materialism or Pantheism? Why does the doctrine of so-called “social immortality” fail
to satisfy? Is the immortality of the soul in the philosophical sense the same as eternal life?
How should we judge of the reputed spiritualistic communications with the dead?
LITERATURE:
Bavinck, Geref. Dogm. IV, pp. 645-655; Kuyper, Dict. Dogm., De Consummatione
Saeculi, pp. 3-24; Hodge, Syst. Theol. III, pp. 713-730; Dabney, Syst. and Polem. Theol., pp. 817-
823; Dick, Lect. on Theol., Lectures LXXX, LXXXI; Litton, Introd. to Dogm. Theol., pp. 535-548;
Heagle, Do the Dead Still Live; Dahl, Life After Death, pp. 59-84; Salmond, Christian Doctrine of
Immortality, cf. Index; Mackintosh, Immortality and the Future, pp. 164-179; Brown, The
Christian Hope, cf. Index; Randall, The New Light on Immortality; Macintosh, Theology as an
Empirical Science, pp. 72-80; Althaus, Die Letzten Dinge, pp. 1-76; A. G. James, Personal
Immortality, pp. 19-52; Rimmer, The Evidences for Immortality; Lawton, The Drama of Life After
Death; Addison, Life Beyond Death, pp. 3-132.