Balfour, Walter (1776-1852)

Letters on the Immortality of the Soul: the Intermediate State of the Dead, and a Future Retribution, in Reply to Mr. Charles Hudson

Charlestown, Mass.

G. Davidson

1829

"And if the man is as complete without the body, as he is without the house he resides in, the immortal soul ought to be thankful when it gets quit of the body."

Your system teaches us, that we are partly mortal and partly immortal; or are both mortal and immortal at the same time. Hence it is common for believers in an immortal soul, to speak of their mortal and immortal part, and that at death the immortal part has taken its flight to God in heaven, or has sunk into hell beneath. But I ask, is the mortal part animated by the immortal? If this be true, there is no death in the case. Death is only the removal of an immortal soul from dead matter, which many have considered merely as a clog to the soul. And if the man is as complete without the body, as he is without the house he resides in, the immortal soul ought to be thankful when it gets quit of the body. And instead of believing in or hoping for a resurrection of it from the dead, the soul ought to pray and hope that such a thing may never take place. And if the man, the immortal soul is complete without the body as you affirm, there is just as little propriety in raising it to punish it after the resurrection, as in punishing the house in which a man commits murder. In fact, Sir, if this doctrine of yours be true, the judge ought to condemn the immortal soul to be hung instead of the body, for the body was no more to be blamed for the murder, than the dagger is with which the horrid deed was done. But your doctrine of an immortal soul is not only at war with the principles of the Bible, but with that of reason, justice, and common sense.
(pp. 352-3)

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Walter Balfour, Letters on the Immortality of the Soul: the Intermediate State of the Dead, and a Future Retribution, in Reply to Mr. Charles Hudson (Charlestown, Mass.: G. Davidson, 1829). <Link to Google Books>

07/21/2011