Article October 6, 1906 Issue

THE PERMANENCE OF UNSEEN THINGS

M. G. KAINS.

We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.—Paul.

The professing Christian is frequently perturbed by the seeming victories in arguments of atheists and agnostics. When the line of reasoning is particularly astute and its fallacies not apparent, he may be tempted to abandon his own ground and sally forth—only to meet discomfiture. Usually these discomfitures are due to the unfamiliar weapons with which the believer tries to fight. Instead of iterating David's declaration to Goliath, "I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts . . . whom thou hast defied," he cumbers himself—as David refused to be cumbered—with material armor. Unwittingly he casts aside his all-adequate spiritual mail, forsakes his spiritual stronghold, and tries to vanquish the foe on, to him, an uncharted battlefield and with pointless weapons,—those furnished by sense testimony. By taking such a course he forgets that "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds."

Atheism bases its arguments on the evidence of the physical senses, the carnal mind which testifies oppositely to God. It ignores the fact that these senses do not and cannot declare truth, and accepts only such sense dicta as may tend to confuse the Christian opponent. On its own basis, sense testimony leads to annihilation, for not one sense can testify of any but "temporal things." Is it smell? Odors are the most evanescent of all physical compounds. Is it taste? Flavors are nearly as volatile as odors, with which they are closely associated. Hearing, sight, touch—what do these record but fleeting experiences? Every item of sense testimony is thus proved transient; and since the sum of like things is of the same denomination as the units, the aggregate of sense items is transient. So is everything connected with them. Even the body in which they seem to be resident fails at length to experience any of those vaunted sensations which were expressed as pleasure or the reverse. Nay, further, the material body itself vanishes in dissolution, leaving only a memory of the so-called sentient being. But this memory is not dependent upon sense testimony; it is purely mental, whatever its quality may be. The only permanent thing about an individual, then, paradoxical as this may seem, is that which exists in spite of the body, which exists after the body is destroyed; in other words, that which never had anything to do with a material body.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

LOVE'S OMNIPRESENCE