The state of the dead and the destiny of the wickedSmith, Uriah
Religion
The state of the dead and the destiny of the wicked
Smith, Uriah
Annihilationism; Death -- Biblical teaching; Intermediate state; Seventh-Day Adventists -- Doctrinal and controversial works
Then it is further objected that if persons come up in the resurrection
as they went down in death, we should have a motley group, bloated with
dropsy, emaciated with consumption, scabbed, scarred, ulcered, maimed
and deformed; which would be both unreasonable and disgusting. And this,
it is claimed, is a necessary consequence from the view that the same
matter is raised that went into the grave, and so far re-organized
according to its previous arrangement as to constitute identity of
being. But when we speak of the re-arrangement of the particles of the
body, is it not evident to all that there are fortuitous and abnormal
conditions which are not to be taken at all into the account? and that
the essential and elemental parts are only to be understood? Who would
imagine that the body might not differ in the resurrection from what it
was before, as much at least as it differs at one period in its earthly
history from its condition at another, and yet its identity be
preserved? But we are sometimes in health, sometimes in sickness,
sometimes in flesh, and sometimes wasted away, sometimes with diseased
members, and sometimes entirely free from disease; and in all these
changes we are conscious that we have the same body. Why? Because its
essential elements remain, and its organization is continued. Whatever
change can take place in our bodies during our earth life, and our
identity be continued, changed to the same degree may be the body when
raised from the dead, and yet it be the same body. But a missing member
might be instantly replaced, a diseased limb healed, the consumptive
restored to the bloom of health, or the body, swollen with dropsy,
reduced to its natural size, and the individual still be conscious that
he was the same person.
It is said still further by way of objection, that the matter of one
body, after being decomposed by death, is absorbed and taken into other
bodies, and becomes constituent parts of them; so that at the
resurrection the same matter may have belonged to several different
bodies, and cannot be restored to them all; therefore the doctrine of
the resurrection of the body is unphilosophical.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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