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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
The claim has often been made over the centuries that the presence of the spirit of God, seen especially in saintly people, is an anticipation of immortality. My purpose in this paper is to see why this claim is made and to lay bare the structure of the argument which underlies it. Although there has been a renewed interest in the question of immortality, both among philosophers and theologians in recent years, this particular aspect of it has been neglected.
The claim being discussed is not, as we shall see, restricted to Christianity; and even within the Christian religion it is expressed in many different ways. John Wesley, for instance, says in his sermon On the Holy Spirit:
page 13 note 1 Works of John Wesley(4th ed., London, 1840),VII, 490.Google Scholar
page 13 note 2 ‘The Church of the Saints’, in Theological Investigations, III (trans. Kruger, K.-H. and B., London, 1967), 104.Google Scholar Elsewhere he speaks of grace anticipating glory and the Beatific Vision, e.g. in ‘The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology’, Theological Investigations, IV (trans. Smyth, K., London, 1966), 54, 56.Google Scholar
page 14 note 1 The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church(London, 1957), p. 179; cf. p. 230.Google Scholar
page 14 note 2 Assuming, with Chrysostom and Augustine, that Paul is referring here to the final resurrection, and not to the continual operations of the Spirit in us here and now. See Cranfield, C. E. B., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, I (Edinburgh, 1975), 391.Google Scholar
page 14 note 3 I prefer this old fashioned term to modern translation like ‘pledge’ or ‘guarantee’, since it is closer to the meaning of the original Greek word, arrabōn. The phrases ‘first instalment’ or ‘down payment’ are also closer in meaning (though some people may dislike their connotations of buying washing-machines, etc.!).
page 14 note 4 Midrash Rabbah, III, Exodus, ed. Freedman, H. and Simon, M., trans. Lehrman, S. M. (London, 1939), 551.Google Scholar See Wis. 6: 18–9 for wisdom bringing assurance of immortality.
page 15 note 1 Trans. Walsh, G. G., in Fathers of the Church, VII (New York, 1949), 52.Google Scholar Other examples I have found are: Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. V. vii. I f., xiii. 4; Epideixis42; Theodore of Mopsuestia, On Baptism, in Woodbrooke Studies, VI, ed. Mingana, A. (Cambridge, 1933), 54, 56, 75.Google Scholar
page 15 note 2 C.D.IV. i. p. 308. I am not sure that all the New Testament passages which he quotes bear the sense he wishes to give them, e.g. Rom. I: 4, I Tim. 3: 16 and I Pet. 3: 18.
page 15 note 3 The Conception of Immortality (Boston and New York, 1900), pp. 84 ff.Google Scholar
page 16 note 1 Transcendent Selood (New York, 1976), p. 80.Google Scholar
page 16 note 2 The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953), p. 148. Cf. also p. 364.Google Scholar
page 16 note 3 Adv. Haer. V. xiii. 4, trans. Roberts, A. and Rambaut, W. H. in The Writings of Irenaeus, ii (Edinburgh, 1869), 90.Google Scholar
page 17 note 1 Though it has been argued that some religious statements can be verified in this life or the next: see Hick, J., ‘Theology and Verification’, in Mitchell, B. (ed.) The Philosophy of Religion(Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar and Price, H. H., Belief, (London, 1969) pt. II, lecture 10.Google Scholar
page 18 note 1 See further Achinstein, P., Law and Explanation(Oxford, 1971),Google Scholar especially chs.VI—VIII for this kind of argument.
page 20 note 1 ‘Religions of the East’, in Toynbee, A. (ed.) Life after Death(London, 1976), p. 93.Google Scholar
page 21 note 1 Something of this idea survives in Kant' view of immortality as endless progress towards the complete accord of the will with the moral law (loc. cit.)Google Scholar
page 21 note 2 See Lightfoot, J. B., Notes on the Epistles of St Paul(London, 1895), pp. 323–4.Google Scholar
page 22 note 1 I agree with Cullmann that art is the most suggestive medium here. See his remarks at the end of his ‘Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead’, in Stendahl, K. (ed.) Immortality and Resurrection(New York, 1965), P. 53.Google Scholar
page 22 note 2 See Badham, Paul, Christian Beliefs about Life after Death(London, 1976), chs. 4–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 22 note 3 See ‘A Theory of Disembodied Survival and Re-embodied Existence’, in Religious Studies XIV (1978), 15–26.Google Scholar
page 23 note 1 See his ‘Survival and the Idea of “Another World”’, in Smythies, J. R. (ed.), Brain and Mind(London, 1965);Google Scholar and Essays in the Philosophy of Religion(Oxford, 1972), pp. 105–16.Google Scholar
page 23 note 2 See further Perry, M., The Resurrection of Man(London and Oxford, 1975), ch. XI.Google Scholar
page 23 note 3 See his The Tragic Sense of Life, especially ch. x.Google Scholar
page 23 note 4 Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (trans. Kaplan, S., New York, 1972), p. III.Google Scholar Much of his chapters on ‘The Holy Spirit’ (VII) ‘Immortality and Resurrection’ (xv) are relevant to my argument.
page 23 note 5 St Paul envisages that gifts like prophecy and speaking in tongues will pass away, for they belong to an imperfect state (I Cor. 13: 8). Aquinas holds that the gifts of the Spirit mentioned in Isaiah xi. 2 will remain in Heaven in their essence, though with a different operation (S. T. 1a, tae. lxviii. 6). Thus, for instance, fortitude will remain as confidence, rather than courage in the face of adversity; and counsel will still be needed to make the mind full of reason, though not to prevent impetuosity (ibid., ad 2).
page 23 note 6 A further consideration is introduced by John Morreall, who argues that belief in the resurrection of the body is superfluous if one believes in the Beatific Vision, for such a resurrection could add nothing to the perfect happiness to be enjoyed in the latter (‘Perfect Happiness and the Resurrection of the Body’, Religious StudiesXVI (1980), 29–35).Google Scholar But even if this is true, it fails to give any account of what is in question here, of how the Communion of Saints could be realized without a bodily resurrection.moyen sensuel.
page 24 note 1 de PrincipiisIII. vi. 4; contra Celsum VII. 32. See also de PrincipiisII. xi. 6 for his suggestion that the saints who die will remain in a place on this earth called Paradise for further instruction after which they will ascend to a place in the air and reach the kingdom of heaven, passing through the spheres and globes (which Scripture calls heavens). Such passages show that science-fiction-like descriptions of the future life are not a modern invention!
page 24 note 2 See Moule, C. F. D., ‘Paul and Dualism: the Pauline Conception of Resurrection, in New Testament Studies XII (1966), 108.Google Scholar
page 24 note 3 See Sider, R. J., ‘The Pauline Conception of the Resurrection Body in I Cor. xv. 35–54’, New Testament Studies XXI (1975), 428–39.Google Scholar
page 24 note 4 See also Augustine, St, The City of GodXIII. 20 for a similar interpretation.Google Scholar