FUTURE LIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 August 1930, Page 7

FUTURE LIFE

WHAT CAN WE KNOW OF IT? The recent passing of the late Sir Conan Doyle has served to stir public interest in the ever-present question of a future life. Is there such a life? If so, what is it like? Maj’ we have any certain knowledge of it. or a degree of knowledge sufficient to help us to go the better through this present existence, and so. presumably, to fit, ourselves to some extent for whatever a, future life/ may have in store? (writes G. C. Percival, in the “Sydney Morning 1 lerald - ’ i. On this momentous (|iu;dion science, is silent. Perhaps it would lie. well if. men of science would recognise, the limitations of their knowledge by remaining silent, too. That is the logic of the. position. Apart iTmn psychology, which up to the present is accorded on]j r a. doubtful place in the scientific arena, science is concerned wholly with material conditions; and where life slips over the edges of these material conditions, the most intellectually agile of our scientific leaders are powerless to follow. Of what are called in the New Testament Scriptures “the things of the spirit” — than which there is fur them surely no better name—the man in the laboratory knows, necessarily, no more, •‘han the man in the street. The dictum of Sir Arthur Keith, that mind is merely "a manifestation of a complex material organ called the brain,” places in one category two classes of existence which are totallj' distinct in their essential constitution. as they are possibly in their origin. To think of mind, soul, selfhood, personality, as taking its rise in a, few ounces of flesh-tissue, is to display a, credulity beside which Chistian. faith becomes an effortless commonplace. On the question of a future life, science may, therefore, be left, quite' reasonably out of count. What light. Spiritism has so far shed on the subject is very meagre, very doubtful, and in some quarters verj' murky. AVhile the transference of Sir Conan Doyle to the Other Side is being regarded in Spiritist, circles as calculated to give a great lilip to that belief, bj r reason of supposable communications from him to this earthly sphere, it is not feasible to expect that anything dependable or of real value will reach us from such a source. It all seems so woefully out of keeping. On a, subject of such supreme delicacy we need no garish light. Positive, clear-as-day certainty would vulgarise the fineness of Christian faith. Photographs of material or quasi-material appearances of friends and loved ones, even if convincing, impress one as coarse and crude. Better, surely, to await the spiritual realities that linger on the Farther Side. Christ spoke of the greater blessedness of those who had not.seen and yet had believed. This is not said controversially; the matter is only one of taste or preference. Many people would, doubtless, be glad to have it the other way.

THE WORD OF CHRIST. Personally, 1 do not want science or philosophy to tell me, if either could, about a future life. Parables from nature may point encouragingly in that direction. That, certainly, is to the good. We may be fold that the universal desire or feeling tor immortality on man's jiui’t. constitutes an argument that way; yet is it not equally true that to wish very much for a thing affords no certain guarantee of one’s getting it? Disappointment holds too big a place- in human experience to make that so. No, as a man 1 am personally willing to hazard it all on the word of One who knew. If Christ was God —and if not we have no case for a future life at all—if He came to our earth from His Father’s Home, then He was able to speak with a lirst-liaud knowledge which forms the guarantee of all the certainty it is good for us to have. When He said: “Because I. live, ye shall live also,’ that settled the question for Christian people. As for what a future life will consist in, ’we are, once more, beholden to His testimony. And nowhere is tht testimony more clearly or more beautifullj 7 given than in the first few sentences of the 14th chapter of St. John’s Gospel. “In my Father’s house are. maiij- mansions”—or better “places of abode.” The whole universe is the Father’s house —this earth being one of the places of abode within it. This makes it so charmingly familiar ,so “natural,’ using that word in its best sense. Then follows, “I go to prepare a, place, for you.” That is to say, a “sphere’’ for you. One of the meanings of the word here rendered “place,’ both in classical and New Testament Greek, is that of “opportunity, possibility.” “1 go to prepare an opportunity,” a possibility, or better posibilities, “for you.” Could anything much better than that be told us of a future existence?

A congenial task —doing the tiling wo love to do and were made to do, and doing with little fault, and no weariness—to swing free at. last, to attain self-realisation. Io let oneself out amid the bigness and realitj' of tilings —as Kipling has no nobly put. i', in (he language of an artist’s studio and an artist’s soul, to . . . slash at a. three-leagued canvas With a brush of a comet’s hair; and to

paint Hie things as we see them

For the God of things as they art

One may well revel in the- anticipation of such a fulfilment! 'rhe cverincreusing realisation of one’s personality, and (ho continuous expansion of one’s personal powers, together with their unhampered, unlimited expression. with all the universe for space and all eternity for time—the whole of the Father’s house to roam over, without hurrying and without weariness, in pursuit of a perfection for over luring and lor ever elusive — science and philosophical guesses and conjectures are all out-distanced hero!

Another condition of (he future life revealed in this conversation—for il was really a. homely conversation between Christ and 12 of His best friends; though one was presently Io turn traitor by his own volition — is that of congenial companionship. In this conversation there tire no philosophical disquisitions, no abstrm ; propositions; our translations are true to Iho stylo of the original in giving its no word ending with "alit.y.” It is al' ’.'•oil and I.” “I and you.” and “you togethot.” 3’hal. is Hie spirit of il. Next to a congenial task, congenial companionship is one of the greatest joys of existence. The satisfaction accruing from it arises largely out, n[ its suitability to our essential nature-. We, aro at. home with those who understand us. who come Io the near-

est to us in our ways. And the range, so it would well seem, will not be limited to a generation or an earthly lifetime. There will be the congenial souls for all the past and all the future.

The crowning point' of that companionship will be the presence of the Master. “Where I am, there ye shall be also.” In some of our moods we n.ay not relish the idea: but wo do rcallj’ need a master —one who knows the subject—all the subjects—who sets the task and will recognise, appreciate, and reward the performance of it; the recognition and appreciat’en constituting always the best part ol (he reward.

HARPS AND FIRES.

This represents, obviously, the right, hapupy side of life in a future sphere. On what the other side may hold most people nowadays are less ready to pronounce than formerly. 'l’hc old sureness —one maj’ be permitted to say the old “cockstiredness" —about it has rightly disappeared, over at least a very wide field of Christian thought, to-day. Fires and "outer darkness” could not, in any case, exist together in literal fact, apart altogether from the character of an all-powerful Being, who could subject living, sentient beings less than Himself, to such a. condition for evei. There is and there will’be, necessarily, a distinction; but into the detailed conditions of that distinction wo are not. perniited to look. Harps and golden streets belong also to old-world imagery; though suggesting real and valuable realities. Gold, stands for security—what would not Australia give for an adequate gold currency it! the present time? Music is made up of harmony—what would we not give for universal harmony among our people? A wide and noble fellowship, a beautiful abiding co-operation for 'he best and highest ends —this is tin chorus of the stars, this is (he orchestra of Heaven.