LIFE AFTER DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21503, 29 May 1933, Page 11

LIFE AFTER DEATH

ARGUMENTS CUMULATIVE IMMORTALITY INEVITABLE CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE That it was not unscientific to think that personal consciousness survived the cessation of the body was the view expressed by the Rev. Dr. H. Ranston, principal of Trinity Methodist College, at the lown Hall concert chamber yesterday afternoon, when giving the fourth 0} the series of addresses arranged by the Auckland Council of Christian Congregations. Sir George I'owlds presided over a large attendance.

To himself personally, said Dr. Ranston, the resurrection of Jesus Christ made faith in personal immortality a triumphant certainty; yet his business there was to argue the matter 011 other grounds. The term "immortality" was often misapplied. It should mot be used for belief in the survival only of inJluenee after death, nor for the idea that merely the personal values achieved were preserved in the final perfection of the race or nation, nor for the belief that one lived on in one's posterity, nor for the idea of final absorption in a sea of Deity, or the Infinite.

AH these views denied that survival of individual personality which was the essence of true immortality. Neither was? the doctrine of rebirth or reincarnation satisfactory; for hero it was less a person with a personal memory that survived than a something which had little vital connection with the present life. Scientific Authorities Divided Dr. Ranston said he confessed himself puzzled on the subject of spiritism. The scientific authorities themselves were divided. Some claimed that experimental investigation had proved human survival after death, while others accepted the various explanations of deception, the workings of subconscious or unconscious mind, telepathy and clairvoyance. The evidence certainly grew stronger for such survival, but the sort of life portrayed was a poor substitute for that of the Christian hope. Sir James Frazer's researches had proved the universality of belief among primitive peoples in some form of future life. This consensus was rather one of experience than due to rational deduction. Men held the view before they reasoned about it. The invariable and universal agreement was of no small importance. With the Christian doctrine of God and its estimate of man, immortality was inevitable. If God were love He could not deny Himself by allowing His children to perish, and if man were not mere clay but a creature of immense moral and spiritual potentialities, his nature demanded fuller opportunities than were afforded here of expression. Since there was no perfect justice in this life another was demanded for the reversal of human judgments and the vindication of goodness.

Life and the Brain The finest ideals and noblest desires were unsatisfied now. Immortality was demanded if goodness, beauty and truth were to be conserved. Jf this world were to be ultimately a frozen, lifeless world, then, without personal survival, all human values of intellectual achievement, moral and spiritual discipline, and loves, were wasted, and man was a shadow pursuing shadows in a universe which was but a slaughterhouse. This was to make nonsense out of life. As one grew older one was just becoming fit to live. The one vital objection to personal immortality was a common belief that science held that all consciousness depended upon the brain and that it completely ceased when the body But this was the unproved dogma ot some men only, and was vehemently opposed by many of the greatest scientists. Since telepathy had shown that mind could communicate to mind, apart from the usual bodily channels, it was not unscientific to think that personal consciousness survived the cessation of the body. The destruction of the brain could have no more effect on the existence of the mind than the breaking of a violin on the genius of the musician, said Dr. Panston. The arguments were cumulative and found their confirmation and added assurance in the revelation of Christ Himself in the New Testament.