Great uncertainty broods over the human race, generally, with regard to immortality. This is shown in the anxiety of mortals as to the future, in their dread of possible extinction. Some live in constant fear of death, wondering if it will mean the last of them. The question of immortality, however, has occupied the thoughts of men throughout human history, for the desire, almost without exception, is that they should continue to live. Extinction is abhorrent to thinking beings. They feel that it is reasonable that they should continue to live, retaining consciousness, and expressing intelligence and the other spiritual qualities which made happy their existence on earth.
Many arguments have been put forward in favor of immortality. It is held, for instance, that the fact of the general desire of mortals to live eternally is itself proof of immortality. Another is an argument from analogy. Physicists maintain that physical energy—such as heat, light, and electricity—is indestructible, that the form of the energy can be changed, but that the energy cannot be destroyed. This theory is called the law of the conservation of energy. Some of them have reasoned that if energy is indestructible, energy which is associated with non-intelligent matter, why should not consciousness, intelligence, life, be indestructible also? This argument has gone a long way to satisfy, if not convince, some natural scientists of the immortality of man.
Now, such arguments, while they may satisfy some people, cannot be said to meet the universal appeal. And the reason is that they are based on a consideration of the human or the material. No correct deduction regarding the eternal or immortal can be drawn from premises which are finite. Correct conclusions cannot be reached regarding immortality unless through reasoning which has as its basis an understanding of the infinite, that is, of God Himself. That God can be known, that we can have an absolutely correct understanding of Him, may be denied; but Christian Scientists are convinced, through the Christianity of Christ Jesus and Christian Science, that we can possess this knowledge, and that we can also have the assurance of immortality.
