No Greater Love: THE ESSENTIAL IMMORTALITY OF MAN

​

The Apostles’ Creed ends with the belief in “life everlasting”. What does this mean? Professor Joseph Ratzinger lays out for us the meaning of this last article of the Apostles’ Creed in Part III of Introduction to Christianity. The foregoing reflections may have clarified to some extent what is involved in the biblical pronouncements about the resurrection: their essential content is not the conception of a restoration of bodies to souls after a long interval; their aim is to tell men that they, they themselves, live on; not by virtue of their own power, but because they are known and loved by God in such a way that they can no longer perish. In contrast to the dualistic conception of immortality expressed in the Greek body-soul schema, the biblical formula of immortality through awakening means to convey a collective and dialogic conception of immortality: the essential part of man, the person, remains; that which has ripened in the course of this earthly existence of corporeal spirituality and spiritualized corporeality goes on existing in a different fashion. It goes on existing because it lives in God's memory. And because it is the man himself who will live, not an isolated soul, the element of human fellowship is also part of the future; for this reason the future of the individual man will only then be full when the future of humanity is fulfilled. As Professor Ratzinger says, we need to understand our immortality as the immortality of the whole person and not just part of us even if the whole is restored “later”. Since we live our life here on earth in communion with others and with all humanity, this will continue.

​

A whole series of questions arises at this point. The first is this: Does this view not make immortality into a pure grace, although in reality it must fall to man's lot by virtue of his nature as man? In other words, does one not finish up here with an immortality only for the pious and, thus, in a division of human fate that is unacceptable? To put it in theological terms, are we not here confusing the natural immortality of the being "man" with the supernatural gift of eternal love that makes man happy? Must we not hold fast, precisely for the sake of the humanity of the Christian faith, to natural immortality, for the reason that a continued existence conceived in purely Christological terms would necessarily slide into the miraculous and mythological? This last question can indubitably be answered only in the affirmative. But this is by no means at variance with our original premise. It, too, entitled us to say decisively: The immortality that, precisely because of its dialogic character, we have called" awakening" falls to the lot of man, every man, as man, and is not some secondary "supernatural" addition. But we must then go on to ask: What really makes man into man? What is the definitive distinguishing mark of man? To that we shall have to answer: The distinguishing mark of man, seen from above, is his being addressed by God, the fact that he is God's partner in a dialogue, the being called by God. Seen from below, this means that man is the being that can think of God, the being opened onto transcendence. The point here is not whether he really does think of God, really does open himself to him, but that he is in principle the being who is in himself capable of doing so, even if in fact, for whatever reasons, he is perhaps never able to utilize this capacity. Perhaps we can say that we are immortal because God exists, God has created us, and God has given us the capacity to have relationship and even union with Him. Furthermore, He desires intensely this union because He is Love.

​

Now one could say: Is it not, then, much simpler to see the distinguishing mark of man in the fact that he has a spiritual, immortal soul? This definition is perfectly sound; but we are in fact at this moment engaged in the process of trying to elucidate its concrete meaning. The two definitions are not in the least contradictory; they simply express the same thing in different modes of thought. For "having a spiritual soul" means precisely being willed, known, and loved by God in a special way; it means being a creature called by God to an eternal dialogue and therefore capable for its own part of knowing God and of replying to him. What we call, in substantialist language "having a soul" we will describe in a more historical, actual language as "being God's partner in a. dialogue". This does not mean that talk of the soul is false (as is sometimes asserted today by 'a one-sided and uncritical biblical approach); in one respect it is, indeed, even necessary in order to describe the whole of what is involved here. . But, on the other hand, it also needs to be complemented if we are not to fall back into a dualistic conception that cannot do justice to the dialogic and personalistic view of the Bible. Professor Ratzinger is pointing out to us the danger of seeing the “spiritual soul” as something which exists independently of God. The “spiritual soul” is incomprehensible without the God who loves and desires union with Him. Therefore, the atheist cannot grasp immortality.

​

So when we say that man's immortality is based on his dialogic relationship with and reliance upon God, whose love alone bestows eternity, we are not claiming a special destiny for the pious but emphasizing the essential immortality of man as man. After the foregoing reflections, it is also perfectly possible to develop the idea out of the body-soul schema, whose importance, perhaps even indispensability, lies in the fact that it emphasizes this essential character of human immortality. But it must also be continually put back in the biblical perspective and corrected by it.in order to remain serviceable to the view of man's future opened up by faith. For the rest, it becomes evident once again at this point that in the last analysis one cannot make a neat distinction between "natural" and "supernatural": the basic dialogue that first makes man into man makes a smooth transition into the dialogue of grace known as Jesus Christ. How could it be otherwise if Christ actually is the "second Adam", the real fulfillment of that infinite longing that arises from the first Adam---from man in general? Reading the Old Testament, we can see in many places that there was a vague hope for immortality with God, with relationship with God. This hope was made concrete by Jesus Christ who tells us that this is what God wants for us and gives to us. How we use this gift is going to be decided by our free will, which is also God’s gift. Much of our modern world has lost sight of or does not understand this gift. Yet we need to keep this gift in mind at all times.

 

--Jim Nugent, CFP