Life
LIFE
In the Bible, is either natural, Gen 3:17 ; spiritual, that of the renewed soul, 1Ch 8:6 ; or eternal, a holy and blissful immortality, Joh 3:36 1Ch 6:23 . Christ is the great Author of natural life, Col 1:16 ; and also of spiritual and eternal life; Joh 14:6 6:47. He has purchased these by laying down his own life; and gives them freely to his people, Joh 10:11,28 . He is the spring of all their spiritual life on earth, Gal 2:20 ; will raise them up at the last day; and make them partakers for ever of his own life, Joh 11:25 14:19.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
LIFE
A state of active existence.
1. Human life is the continuance or duration of our present state, and which the Scriptures represent as short and vain, Job 14:1-2. Jam 4:14.
2. Spiritual life consists in our being in the favour of God, influenced by a principle of grace. God, influenced by a principle of grace, and living dependent on him. It is considered as of divine origin, Col 3:4. hidden, Col 3:3. peaceful, Rom 8:6. secure, Joh 10:28.
3. Eternal life is that never-ending state of existence which the saints shall enjoy in heaven, and is glorious, Col 3:4. holy, Rev 21:27. and blissful, 1Pe 1:4. 2Co 4:17.
See HEAVEN.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
life
The perfection in virtue of which an agent is capable of immanent action. Bodies as natural units are found to be possessed of various kinds of activity. Organic or living bodies have an organized structure of heterogeneous parts; inorganic bodies are homogeneous in structure. Organic bodies through the action of the physical and chemical forces inherent in them produce effects which always pass from the agent to some object distinct from it; these activities are called transient. The organized bodies, however, besides exercising transient activities are endowed with other activities never found in the inorganic, e.g., nutrition, growth, and reproduction; some organized bodies are also capable of consciousness and the various local motions arising therefrom; living man is conscious of forming judgments, of reasoning, and of striving for the attainment of non-sensible good. All of these activities are living, vital, and in the corporeal universe are found to be the exclusive properties of bodies which we call living. The definition of life, then, must be found in some quality common to all of these functions and to these alone. Analysis shows that everyone of them results in a term which remains, and must of its nature remain, as a perfection of the natural unitary whole producing it. Hence the name immanent activity, also called self-movement. It involves three essential elements: the unit of activity must be a natural unitary whole, not merely an artificial unit; the efficient cause immediately eliciting the activity must be a power within this unit; the immediate term of the activity must remain as a perfection of the unit. Thus an organism in nutrition by its own active power produces as a term the anabolism within the cells comprising the organism.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Life
(Greek zoe; Latin vita; French La vie, German Das Leben; vital principle; Greek psyche; Latin anima, vis vitalis, German leberzskraft).
The enigma of life is still one of the two or three most difficult problems that face both scientist and philosopher, and notwithstanding the progress of knowledge during the past twenty-three hundred years we do not seem to have advanced appreciably beyond the position of Aristotle in regard to the main issue. What are its characteristic manifestations? What are its chief forms? What is the inner nature of the source of vital activity? How has life arisen? Such are among the chief questions which present themselves with regard to this subject.
I. HISTORY
A. Greek Period
The early Greek philosophers for the most part looked on movement as the most essential characteristic of life, different schools advocating different material elements as the ultimate principle of life. For Democritus and most of the Atomists it was a sort of subtle fire. For Diogenes it was a form of air. Hippo derives it from water. Others compound it of all the elements, whilst some of the Pythagoreans explain it as a harmony — foreshadowing modern mechanical theories. Aristotle caustically remarks that all the elements except earth had obtained a vote. With him genuine scientific and philosophic treatment of the subject begins, and the position to which he advanced it is among the finest evidences of both his encyclopedic knowledge and his metaphysical genius. His chief discussions of the topic are to be found in his peri psyches and peri zoön geneseos.
For Aristotle the chief universal phenomena of life are nutrition, growth, and decay. Movement or change in the widest sense is characteristic of all life but plants are incapable of local movement. This follows on desire, which is the outcome of sensation. Sentiency is the differentia which constitutes the second grade of life — that of the animal kingdom. The highest kind of life is mind or reason, exerting itself in thought or rational activity. This last properly belongs to man. There are not in man three really distinct souls, as Plato taught. Instead, the highest or rational soul contains eminently or virtually in itself the lower animal or vegetative faculties. But what is the nature of the inner reality from which vital activity issues? Is it one of the material elements? Or is it a harmony the resultant of the balance of bodily forces and tendencies? No. The solution for Aristotle is to be found in his fundamental philosophical analysis of all sensible being into the two ultimate principles, matter and form. Prime Matter (materia prima) is the common passive potential element in all sensible substances; form is the determining factor. It actualizes and perfects the potential element. Neither prime matter nor any corporeal form can exist apart from each other. They are called substantial principles because combined they result in a being; but they are incomplete beings in themselves, incapable of existing alone. To the form is due the specific nature of the being with its activities and properties. It is the principle also of unity. (See FORM; MATTER.) For Aristotle, in the case of living natural bodies the vital principle, psyche is the form. His doctrine is embodied in his famous definition: psyche estin entekexeia e prote somatos fysikou dynamei zoen exontos. (De Anima, II, i), i. e. the soul is therefore the first entelechy (substantial form or perfect actualization) of a natural or organized body potentially possessing life. The definition applies to plants, animals, and man. The human soul, however, endowed with rationality is of a higher grade. It is form of the body which it animates, not in virtue of its rationality but through the vegetative and sentient faculties which it also possesses. The union of these two principles is of the most intimate character, resulting in one individual being. The form or entelechy, is therefore not a substance possessed of a distinct being from that of the body; nor in the case of animals and plants is it a reality separable from the body. The human soul, however, seems to be of a different kind (genos etepron), and separable as the eternal from the perishable. Aristotle’s conception of the soul differs fundamentally from that of Plato for whom the vital principle is related to the body only as the pilot to the ship; who moreover distinguishes three numerically different souls in the individual man.
B. Medieval Period
The Aristotelian theory in its essential features was adopted by Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas, and the doctrine of the vital principle as form of the body prevailed supreme throughout the Middle Ages. The differences separating the rational soul from the vital principle of the plant or animal, and the relations between intellectual activity and sensory cognition became more clearly defined. The human soul was conceived as a spiritual substantial principle containing virtually the lower faculties of sensory and vegetative life. It is through this lower organic capacity that it is enabled to inform and animate the matter of the body. But the human soul always remains a substance capable of subsisting of itself apart from the body, although the operations of its lower faculties would then necessarily be suspended. Because of its intrinsic substantial union with the material of the organism, the two principles result in one substantial being. But since it is a spiritual being retaining spiritual activities, intrinsically independent of the body, it is, as St. Thomas says, non totaliter immersa, not entirely submerged in matter, as are the actuating forms of the animal and the plant.
Moreover, the vital principle is the only substantial form of the individual being. It determines the specific nature of the living being, and by the same act constitutes the prime matter with which it is immediately and intrinsically united a living organized body. The Scotist School differed somewhat from this, teaching that antecedently to its union with the vital principle the organism is actuated by a certain subordinate forma corporeitatis. They conceived this form or collection of forms, however, as incomplete and requiring completion by the principle of life. This conception of inferior forms, though not easy to reconcile with the substantial unity of the human being, has never been theologically condemned, and has found favour with some modern Scholastic writers, as being helpful to explain certain biological phenomena.
With respect to the question of the origin of life Aristotle, followed by Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas, and the Schoolmen generally, believed in the spontaneous generation even of organisms comparatively high in the animal kingdom (see BIOGENESIS). The corruption of animal and vegetable matter seemed to result in the spontaneous generation of worms and insects, and it was universally assumed that the earth under the influence of moisture and the sun’s heat could produce many forms of plant and animal life. St. Augustine taught in the fifth century that many minute animals were not formally created on the sixth day, but only potentially in a seminal condition in certain Portions of matter — and subsequently several Catholic philosophers and theologians admitted this view as a probable theory (cf. Summa I:59:2; I:71:1). However, the concurrent agency of a higher cause working in nature was assumed as a necessary factor by all Christian thinkers.
C. Modern Period
In respect to the nature of life as in regard to so many other questions, Descartes (1596-1650) inaugurated a movement against the teaching of Aristotle and the Scholastics which, reinforced by the progress of science and other influences, has during the past two centuries and a half commanded at times considerable support among both philosophers and scientists. For Descartes there are but two agents in the universe — matter and mind. Matter is extension; mind is thought. There is no possibility of interaction between them. All changes in bodies have to be explained mechanically. Vital processes such as “digestion of food, pulsations of heart, nutrition, and growth, follow as naturally from dispositions of the organism as the movements of a watch.” Plants and animals are merely ingeniously constructed machines. Animals, in fact are merely automata. In the “Traité de l’homme” (1664), he applied the language of cogs and pulleys also to human physiology. Thus muscular movement was explained as due to the discharge of “animal spirits” from the brain ventricles through the nerves into the muscles, the latter being thereby filled out as a glove when one blows into it. This tendency to regard the organism as a machine was also fostered by the rapid advances made in physics and chemistry during the eighteenth century and the earlier part of the nineteenth, as well as by the progress in anatomical research of the Italian schools, and even by the discoveries of such men as Harvey, Malpighi, and Bishop Stensen. The earlier crude mechanical conceptions were, however, constantly met by criticism from men like Stahl. If the advance of science seemed to explain some problems, it also showed that life-phenomena were not so simple as had been supposed. Thus Lyonet’s work on the goat-moth revealed such a microscopic complexity that it was at first received with incredulity.
Stahl (1660-1734) himself advocated an exaggerated form of vitalism. Rejecting the mechanical theories of the Cartesian School, he taught that life has its source in a vital force which is identical with the rational soul in man. It is conceived as constructor of the body, exerting and directing the vital processes in a subconscious but instinctively intelligent manner by what he calls logos in contrast with logismos, whilst it rather inhabits than informs the body. Others separated the vital force from the sentient soul and adopted “didynamism”. Notwithstanding the growth of materialism, vitalism achieved considerable success during the second half of the eighteenth century. It was, however, mostly of a vague and inconsistent character tinged with Cartesian dualism. The entity by which the organic processes were regulated was generally conceived as a tertium quid between soul and body, or as an ensemble of the vital forces in antagonism and conflict with those of inanimate matter. This was substantially the view held by the Montpellier school (e.g. Barthez, Bérard, Lordat) and by Bichat. Even to men like Cuvier life was simply a tourbillon, a vortex, a peculiar kind of chemical gyroscope. The Bildungstrieb or nisus formativus of Blumenbach (1752-1840), who judiciously profited by the work of his predecessors, exhibits an improvement — but succeeding vitalists still showed the same want of philosophic grasp and scientific precision. Even a physiologist of the rank of Claude Bernard was constantly wavering between une idée créatrice — whatever that may mean — and une sorte de force législative mais nullement exécutive, and the mechanical organism of Descartes. Von Baer, Treviranus, and J. Muller favoured a mild kind of vitalism. Lotze here, as in his general philosophy, manifests a twofold tendency to teleological idealism and to mechanical realism. The latter, however, seems to prevail in his view as to the nature of vegetative life. The second and third quarters of the nineteenth century witnessed a strong anti-vitalist reaction: a materialistic metaphysic succeeded the idealistic Identitätsphilosophie. Even the crude matter-and-motion theories of Moleschott, Vogt, and Buchner gained a wide vogue in Germany, whilst Tyndall and Huxley represented popular science philosophy in England and enjoyed considerable success in America.
The advent of Darwinism too, turned men’s minds to “phylogeny”, and biologists were busy establishing genetic relationships and tracing back the infinite variety of living types to the lowly root of the genealogical tree. To such men life was little better than the movements of a complicated congeries of atoms evolved from some sort of primitive protoplasmic nebula. The continuous rapid advance both of physics and chemistry flattered the hope that a complete “explanation” of vital processes was at hand. The successful syntheses of organic chemistry and the establishment of the law of the conservation of energy in the first half of the nineteenth century were proclaimed as the final triumph of mechanism. Ludwig, Helmholtz, Huxley, Häckel, and others brought out new and improved editions of the seventeenth-century machine view of life. All physiology was reduced to processes of filtration, osmosis, and diffusion, plus chemical reactions. But with the further advance of biological research, especially from about the third quarter of the last century, there began to find expression among many investigators an increasing conviction that though physico-chemistry might shed light on sundry stages and operations of vital processes, it always left an irreducible factor unexplained. Phenomena like the healing of a wound and even regular functions like the behaviour of a secreting cell, or the ventilating of the lungs, when closely studied, did not after all prove so completely amenable to physical treatment. But the insufficiency of physico-chemistry became especially apparent in a new and most promising branch of biological research — experimental morphology, or as one of its most distinguished founders, W. Roux, has called it, Entwicklungsmechanik. The embryological problem of individualistic development had not been adequately studied by the older vitalists — the microscope had not reached anything like its present perfection — and this was one main cause of their failure. The premature success of the evolution theory too, had led to a blind, unquestioning faith in “heredity”, “variation”, and ‘ natural selection” as the final solvents of all difficulties, and the full significance had not yet been realized of what Wilson styles “the key to all ultimate biological problems” — the lesson of the cell. Recent investigation in this field and better knowledge of morphogenesis have revealed new features of life which have conduced much towards a widespread neovitalistic reaction.
Among the chief of these has been the increased proof of the doctrine of epigenesis. Already in the eighteenth century embryologists were sharply divided as to the development of the individual organism. According to the advocates of preformation or predelineation, the growth of the embryo was merely the expansion or evolution of a miniature organism. This theory was held by ovulists like Swammerdam, Malpighi, Bonnet, and Spallanzani, and by animalculists like Leeuwenhoek, Hartsoeker, and Leibniz. In this view the future organism pre-existed in the primitive germ-ovum or spermatazoon, as the flower in the bud. Development is a mere”unfolding”, analogous to the unrolling of a compressed pocket-handkerchief. Though not quite so crude as these early notions, the views of men like Weismann are really reducible to preformation. Indeed the logical outcome of all such theories is the “encasement” of all succeeding generations within the first germ-cell of the race. The opposite doctrine of “epigenesis”, viz., that the development of the embryo is real successive production of visible manifoldness, real construction of new parts, goes back to Aristotle. It was upheld by Harvey, Stahl, Buffon, and Blumenbach. It was also advocated by the distinguished Douai priest, J. Turberville Needham (171-1781), who achieved distinction in so many branches of science. In its modern form O. Hertwig and Driesch have been amongst its most distinguished defenders. With some limitations J. Reinke may also be classed with the same school, though his system of “dominants” is not easy to reconcile with unity of form in the living being and leaves him what Driesch styles a “problematic vitalist”. The modern theory of epigenesis, however, in the form defended, e.g. by Driesch, is probably not incompatible with the hypothesis of prelocalized areas of specific cytoplasmic stuffs in the body of the germ-cells, as advocated by Conklin and Wilson. But anyhow the modern theory of pre-delineation demands a regulating formative power in the embryo just as necessarily as the epigenetic doctrine. Moreover, in addition to the difficulty of epigenesis, the inadequacy of mechanistic theories to account for the regeneration of damaged parts of the embryo is becoming more clearly recognized every day. The trend of the best scientific thought is clearly evident in current biological literature. Thus Professor Wilson of Columbia University in 1906 closes his admirable exposition of the course of research over the whole field with the conclusion that “the study of the cell has on the whole seemed to widen rather than to narrow the enormous gap that separates even the lowest form of life from the inorganic world” (The Cell, 434). In these words, however, he is only affirming a fact to which the distinguished Oxford biologist Dr. Haldane also testifies: To any physiologist who candidly reviews the progress of the last fifty years, it must be perfectly evident that, so far from having advanced towards a physico-chemical explanation of life, we are in appearance very much farther from one than we were fifty years ago. We are now more definitely aware of the obstacles to any advance in this direction, and there is not the slightest indication that they will be removed, but rather that with further increase of knowledge and more refined methods of physical and chemical investigation they will only appear more and more difficult to surmount. (Nineteenth Century 1898, p. 403). Later in Germany, Hans Driesch of Heidelberg became, perhaps, the most candid and courageous advocate of vitalism among German biologists of the first rank. From 1899 he proclaimed his belief in the “autonomy” and “dynamical teleology” of the organism as a whole. The vital factor he boldly designates “entelechy”, or “psychoid”, and advocated a return to Aristotle for the most helpful conception of the principle of life. His views on some points were unfortunately and quite unnecessarily, as it seems to us, encumbered by Kantian metaphysics — and he appeared not to have adequately grasped the Aristotelian notion of entelechy as a constitutive principle of the living being. Still he has furnished valuable contributions both to science and the philosophy of life.
Side by side with this vitalistic movement there continued an energetic section of representatives of the old mechanical school in men like Hackel, Loeb, Le Dantec, and Verworn, who have attempted physico-chemical explanations; but no new arguments have been adduced to justify their claims. Many others, more cautious, adopt the attitude of agnosticism. This position, as Reinke justly observes, has at least the merit of dispensing from the labour of thinking. The present neo-vitalistic reaction, however, as the outcome of very extensive and thorough-going research, is, we venture to think, the harbinger of a widespread return to more accurate science and a sounder philosophy in respect to this great problem. With regard to the question of the origin of life, the whole weight of scientific evidence and authority during the past half century has gone to demonstrate with increasing cogency Harvey’s axiom Omne vivens ex vivo, that life never arises in this world save from a previous living being. It claims even to have established Virchow’s generalization (1858) Omnis cellula ex cellula, and even Flemming’s further advance (1882), Omnis nucleus e nucleo.
The history of vitalism, which we have thus briefly outlined, shows how the advance of biological research and the trend of the best modern scientific thought is moving steadily back in the direction of that conception of life to be found in the scholastic philosophy, itself based on the teaching of Aristotle. We shall now attempt a fuller positive treatment of the doctrine adopted by the great body of Catholic philosophers.
II. DOCTRINE
A. Science
Life is that perfection in a living being in virtue of which it is capable of self-movement or immanent action. Motion, thus understood includes, besides change of locality, all alterations in quality or quantity, and all transition from potentiality to actuality. The term is applied only analogically to God, who is exempt from even accidental modification. Self-movement of a being is that effected by a principle intrinsic to the nature of the being, though it may be excited or stimulated from without. Immanent action is action of which the terminus remains within the agent itself, e.g. thought, sensation, nutrition. It is contrasted with transient action, of which the effect passes to a being distinct from the agent, e.g. pushing, pulling, warming, etc. Immanent activity can be the property only of a principle which is an intrinsic constituent of the agent. In contrast with the power of self-movement, inertia is a fundamental attribute of inanimate matter. This can only be moved from without.
There are three grades of life essentially distinct: vegetative, sentient or animal, and intellectual or spiritual life; for the capacity for immanent action is of three kinds. Vegetative operations result in the assimilation of material elements into the substance of the living being. In animal conscious life the vital act is a modification of the sentient organic faculty, whilst in rational life the intellect expresses the object by a purely spiritual modification of itself. Life as we know it in this world is always bound up with organized matter, that is, with a material structure consisting of organs, or heterogeneous parts, specialized for different functions and combined into a whole.
The ultimate units of which all organisms, whether plant or animal are composed, are minute particles of protoplasm, called cells. But even in the cell there is differentiation in structural parts and in function. In other words, the cell itself living apart is an organism. The complexity of living structures varies from that of the single cell amoeba up to the elephant or man. All higher organisms start from the fusion of two germcells, or gametes. When these are unequal the smaller one — the spermatozoon — is so minute in relation to the larger, or ovum, that their fusion is commonly spoken of as the fertilization of the ovum by the spermatozoon. The ovum thus fertilized is endowed with the power, when placed in its appropriate nutrient medium, of building itself up into the full-sized living being of the specific type to which it belongs. Growth throughout is effected by a continuous process of cell cleavage and multiplication. The fertilized ovum undergoes certain internal changes and then divides into two cells juxtaposed. Each of the pair passes through similar changes and subdivides in the same way, forming a cluster of four like cells, then of eight, then of sixteen and so on. The specific shape and different organs of the future animal only gradually manifest themselves. At first the cells present the appearance of a bunch of grapes or the grains of a mulberry, the morula stage; the growth proceeds rapidly, a cavity forms itself inside and the blastosphere stage is reached. Next, in the case of invertebrates, one part of the sphere invaginates or collapses inwards and the embryo now takes the shape of a small sac, the gastrula stage. In vertebrates instead of invagination there is unequal growth of parts and the development continuing, the outlines of the nervous system, digestive cavity, viscera, heart, sense-organs, etc. appear, and the specific type becomes more and more distinct, until there can be recognized the structure of the particular animal — the fish, bird, or mammal. The entire organism, skin, bone, nerve, muscle, etc. is thus built up of cells, all derived by similar processes ultimately from the original germ cell. All the characteristic features of life and the formative power which constructs the whole edifice is thus possessed by this germ-cell, and the whole problem of life meets us here.
The chief phenomena of life can be seen in their simplest form in a unicellular organism, such as the amoeba. This is visible under the microscope as a minute speck of transparent jelly-like protoplasm, with a nucleus, or a darker spot, in the interior. This latter, as Wilson says, may be regarded as “a controlling centre of cell activity.” It plays a most important part in reproduction, and is probably a constituent part of all normal cells, though this point is not yet strictly proved. The amoeba exhibits irritability or movement in response to stimulation. It spreads itself around small particles of food, dissolves them, and absorbs the nutritive elements by a process of intussusception, and distributes the new material throughout its substance as a whole, to make good the loss which it is constantly undergoing by decomposition. The operation of nutrition is an essentially immanent activity, and it is part of the metabolism, or waste and repair, which is characteristic of living organisms. The material thus assimilated into the living organism is raised to a condition of chemically unstable equilibrium, and sustained in this state while it remains part of the living being. When the assimilation exceeds disintegration the animal grows. From time to time certain changes take place in the nucleus and body of the cell, which divides into two, part of the nucleus, reconstituted into a new nucleus, remaining with one section of the cell, and part with the other. The separated parts then complete their development, and grow up into two distinct cells like the original parent cell. Here we have the phenomenon of reproduction. Finally, the cell may be destroyed by physical or chemical action, when all these vital activities cease. To sum up the account of life in its simplest form, in the words of Professor Windle: The amoeba moves, it responds to stimuli, it breathes and it feeds, it carries on complicated chemical processes in its interior. It increases and multiplies and it may die. (What is Life?, p. 36.) B. Philosophy
These various phenomena constituting the cycle of life cannot, according to the Schoolmen, be rationally conceived as the outcome of any collection of material particles. They are inexplicable by mere complexity of machinery, or as a resultant of the physical and chemical properties of matter. They establish, it is maintained, the existence of an intrinsic agency, energy, or power, which unifies the multiplicity of material parts, guides the several vital processes, dominates in some manner the physical and chemical operations, controls the tendency of the constituents of living substance to decompose and pass into conditions of more stable equilibrium, and regulates and directs the whole series of changes involved in the growth and the building-up of the living being after the plan of its specific type. This agency is the vital principle; and according to the Scholastic philosophers it is best conceived as the substantial form of the body. In the Peripatetic theory, the form or entelechy gives unity to the living being, determines its essential nature, and is the ultimate source of its specific activities. The evidence for this doctrine can be stated only in the briefest outline.
(1) Argument from physiological unity
The physiological unity and regulative power of the organism as a whole necessitate the admission of an internal, formal, constituent principle as the source of vital activity. The living being — protozoon or vertebrate, notwithstanding its differentiation of material parts and manifoldness of structure, is truly one. It exercises immanent activity. Its organs for digestion, secretion, respiration, sensation, etc., are organs of one being. They function not for their own sakes but for the service of the whole. The well-being or ill-being of each part is bound up in intimate sympathy with every other. Amid wide variations of surroundings the livine organism exhibits remarkable skill in selecting suitable nutriment; it regulates its temperature and the rate of combustion uniformly within very narrow limits, it similarly controls respiration and circulation — the composition of the blood is also kept unchanged with remarkable exactness throughout the species. In fact, life selects, absorbs, distributes, stores various materials of its environment for the good of the whole organism, and rejects waste products, spending its energy with wonderful wisdom.
This would not be possible were the living being merely an aggregate of atoms or particles of matter in local contact. Each wheel of a watch or engine — nay each part of a wheel — is a being quite distinct from, and in its existence intrinsically independent of every other. No spoke or rivet sickens or thrives in sympathy with a bar in another part of the machine, nor does it contribute out of its actual or potential substance to make good the disintegration of other parts. The combination is artificial; the union accidental, not natural. All the actions between the parts are transient, not immanent. The phenomena of life thus establish the reality of a unifying and regulating principle, energy, or force, intimately present to every portion of the living creature, making its manifold parts one substantial nature and regulating its activities.
(2) Morpho-genetic argument: Growth
The tiny fertilized ovum placed in a suitable medium grows rapidly by division and multiplication, and builds up an infinitely complex structure, after the type of the species to which it belongs. But for this something more than the chemical and physical properties of the material elements engaged is required. There must be from the beginning some intrinsic formative power in the germ to direct the course of the vast series of changes involved. Machines may, when once set up be constructed to perform very ingenious operations. But no machine constructs itself, still less can it endow a part of its structure with the power of building itself up into a similar machine. The establishment of the doctrine of epigenesis has obviously increased indefinitely the hopelessness of a mechanical explanation. When it is said that life is due to the organization of matter, the question at once arises: What is the cause of the organization? What but the formative power — the vital principle of the germ cell? Again the growing organism has been compared to the building up of the crystal. But the two are totally different. The crystal grows by mere aggregation of external surface layers which do not affect the interior. The organism grows by intussusception, the absorption of nutriment and the distribution of it throughout its own substance. A crystal liberates energy in its formation and growth. A living body accumulates potential energy in its growth. A piece of crystal too is not a unity. A part of a crystal is still a crystal. Not so, a part of a cow. A still more marvellous characteristic of life is the faculty of restoring damaged parts. If any part is wounded, the whole organism exhibits its sympathy; the normal course of nutrition is altered the vital energy economizes its supplies elsewhere and concentrates its resources in healing the injured part. This indeed is only a particular exercise of the faculty of adaptation and of circumventing obstacles that interfere with normal activity, which marks the flexibility of the universal working of life, as contrasted with the rigidity of the machine and the immutability of physical and chemical modes of action.
The argument in favour of a vital principle from growth was reinforced by the introduction of experiment into embryology. Roux, Driesch, Wilson, and others, showed that in the case of the sea-urchin, amphioxus, and other animals, if the embryo in its earliest stages, when consisting of two cells, four cells, and in some cases of eight cells, be carefully divided up into the separate single cells, each of these may develop into a complete animal, though of proportionately smaller size. That is, the fertilized ovum which was naturally destined to become one normal animal, though prevented by artificial interference from achieving that end, has yet attained its purpose by producing several smaller animals; and in doing so has employed the cells which it produced to form quite other parts of the organism than those for which they were normally designed. This proves that there must be in the original cell a flexible formative power capable of directing the vital processes of the embryo along the most devious paths and of adapting much of its constituent material to the most diverse uses.
(3) Psychical Argument
Finally, we have immediate and intimate knowledge of our own living conscious unity. I am assured that it is the same ultimate principle within me which thinks and feels, which originates and directs my movements. It is this same principle which has governed the growth of all my sense-organs and members, and animates the whole of my body. It is this which constitutes me one rational, sentient, living being.
All these various classes of facts prove that life is not explicable by the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of matter. To account for the phenomena there is required within the living being a principle which has built up the organism after a definite plan; which constitutes the manifold material a single being; which is intimately present in every part of it; which is the source of its essential activities; and which determines its specific nature. Such is the vital principle. It is therefore in the Scholastic terminology at once the final, the formal, and even the efficient cause of the living being.
C. Unity of the Living Being
In each animal or plant there is only one vital principle, one substantial form. This is obvious from the manner in which the various vital functions are controlled and directed to one end — the good of the whole being. Were there more than one vital principle, then we should have not one being but a collection of beings. The practice of abstraction in scientific descriptions and discussions of the structure and functions of the cell has sometimes occasioned exaggerated notions as to the independence and separateness of existence of the individual cell, in the organism. It is true that certain definite activities and functions are exercised by the individual cell as by the eye or the liver; and we may for convenience consider these in isolation: but in concrete reality the cell, as well as the eye or the liver exerts its activity by and through the living energy of the whole being. In some lowly organisms it is not easy to determine whether we are in presence of an individual being or a colony; but this does not affect the truth of the proposition that the vital principle being the substantial form, there can only be one such principle animating the living being. With respect to the nature of this unity of form there has been much dispute among the adherents of the Scholastic philosophy down to the present day. It is agreed that in the case of man the unity, which is of the most perfect kind, is founded on the simplicity of the rational or spiritual soul. In the case of the higher animals also it has been generally, though not universally held that the vital principle is indivisible. With respect to plants and lower forms of animal life in which the parts live after division, the disagreement is considerable. According to some writers the vital principle here is not simple but extended, and the unity is due merely to its continuity. According to others it is actually simple, potentially manifold, or divisible in virtue of the nature of the extended organism which it animates. There does not seem to be much prospect of a final settlement of the point.
D. Ultimate Origin of Life
The whole weight of the evidence from biological investigation, as we have already observed, goes to prove with constantly increasing force that life never appears on the earth except as originating from a previous living being. On the other hand science also proves that there was a time in the past when no life could have possibly existed on this planet. How then did it begin? For the Christian and the Theist the answer is easy and obvious. Life must in the first instance have been due to the intervention of a living First Cause. When Weismann says that for him the assumption of spontaneous generation is a “logical necessity” (Evolution Theory, II, 366), or Karl Pearson, that the demand for “special creation or an ultrascientific cause” must be rejected because “it would not bring unity into the phenomena of life nor enable us to economize thought” (Grammar of Science, 353) we have merely a psychological illustration of the force of prejudice even in the scientific mind. A better sample of the genuine scientific spirit and a view more consonant with actual evidence are presented to us by the eminent biologist, Alfred Russel Wallace who, in concluding his discussion of the Darwinian theory, points out that there are at least three stages in the development of the organic world when some new cause or power must necessarily have come into action. The first stage is the change from inorganic to organic, when the earliest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out of which it arose, first appeared. This is often imputed to a mere increase of complexity of chemical compounds; but increase of complexity with consequent instability, even if we admit that it may have produced protoplasm as a chemical compound, could certainly not have produced living protoplasm — protoplasm which has the power of growth and of reproduction, and of that continuous process of development which has resulted in the marvellous variety and complex organization of the whole vegetable kingdom. There is in all this something quite beyond and apart from chemical changes, however complex; and it has been well said that the first vegetable cell was a new thing in the world, possessing altogether new powers — that of extracting and fixing carbon from the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere that of indefinite reproduction, and still more marvellous, the power of variation and of reproducing those variations till endless complications of structure and varieties of form have been the result. Here, then, we have indications of a new power at work, which we may term vitality, since it gives to certain forms of matter all those characters and properties which constitute Life (“Darwinism”, London, 1889, 474 5). For a discussion of the relation of life to the law of the conservation of energy, see ENERGY, where the question is treated at length.
Having thus expounded what we believe to be the teaching of the best science and philosophy respecting the nature and immediate origin of life, it seems to us most important to bear constantly in mind that the Catholic Church is committed to extremely little in the way of positive definite teaching on the subject. Thus it is well to recall at the present time that three of the most eminent Italian Jesuits, in philosophy and science, during the nineteenth century Fathers Tongiorgi, Secchi, and Palmieri, recognized as most competent theologians and all professors in the Gregorian University, all held the mechanical theory in regard to vegetative life, whilst St. Thomas and the entire body of theologians of the Middle Ages, like everybody else of their time, believed implicitly in spontaneous generation as an everyday occurrence. If therefore these decayed scientific hypotheses should ever be rehabilitated or — which does not seem likely — be even established, there would be no insuperable difficulty from a theological standpoint as to their acceptance.
———————————–
MICHAEL MAHER Transcribed by Tomas Hancil
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Life
(properly , usually in the plur. with a sing. meaning, ; Gr. ), generally of physical life and existence, as opposed to death and non- existence (Gen 2:7; Gen 25:7; Luk 16:25; Act 17:25; 1Co 3:22; 1Co 15:19; Heb 7:3; Jam 4:14; Rev 11:11; Rev 16:3). SEE LONGEVITY. The ancients generally entertained the idea that the vital principle (which they appear to have denoted by the term spirit, in distinction from the soul itself, comp. 1Th 5:23) resided particularly in the blood, which, on that account, the Jews were forbidden to use as food (Lev 17:11). SEE BLOOD. Other terms occasionally rendered “life” in the Scriptures are (ne’phesh, a living creature), (yorn, a day, i.e., a lifetime), (lifetime), (breath, i.e., spirit), (soul, or animating principle).
The term life is also used more or less figuratively in the following acceptations in Scripture:
(1.) For existence, life, absolutely and without end, immortality (Heb 7:16). So also “tree of life,” or of immortality, which preserves from death (Rev 2:7; Rev 22:2; Rev 22:14; Gen 2:9; Gen 3:22); “bread of life” (Joh 6:35; Joh 6:51); “way of life” (Psa 16:11; Act 2:28); “water of life,” 1. living fountains of water, perennial (Rev 7:17); crown of life, the reward of eternal life (Jam 1:12; Rev 2:10). SEE BOOK; SEE BREAD; SEE CROWN; SEE FOUNTAIN; SEE TREE, etc.
(2.) The manner of life, conduct, in a moral respect; “newness of life” (Rom 6:4); “the life of God,” i.e., the life which God requires, a godly life (Eph 4:18; 2Pe 1:3).
(3.) The term “i.e.” is also used for spiritual life, or the holiness and happiness of salvation procured by the Savior’s death. In this sense, life or eternal life is the antithesis of death or condemnation. Life is the image of all good, and is therefore employed to express it (Deu 30:15; Joh 3:16-18; Joh 3:36; Joh 5:24; Joh 5:39-40; Joh 6:47; Joh 8:51; Joh 11:26; Rom 5:12; Rom 5:18; 1Jn 5:1); death is the consummation of evil, and so it is frequently used as a strong expression in order to designate every kind of evil, whether temporal or spiritual (Jer 21:8; Eze 18:28; Eze 33:11; Rom 1:32; Rom 6:21; Rom 7:5; Rom 7:10; Rom 7:13; Rom 7:24; Joh 6:50; Joh 8:21).
(4.) Life is also used for eternal life, i.e., the life of bliss and glory in the kingdom of God which awaits the true disciples of Christ (Mat 19:16-17; Joh 3:15; 1Ti 4:8; Act 5:20; Rom 5:17; 1Pe 3:7; 2Ti 1:1).
(5.) The term life is also used of God and Christ or the Word, as the absolute source and cause of all life (Joh 1:4; Joh 5:26; Joh 5:39; Joh 11:25; Joh 12:50; Joh 14:6; Joh 17:3; Col 3:4; 1Jn 1:1-2; 1Jn 5:20). SEE DEATH.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Life
generally of physical life (Gen. 2:7; Luke 16:25, etc.); also used figuratively (1) for immortality (Heb. 7:16); (2) conduct or manner of life (Rom. 6:4); (3) spiritual life or salvation (John 3:16, 17, 18, 36); (4) eternal life (Matt. 19:16, 17; John 3:15); of God and Christ as the absolute source and cause of all life (John 1:4; 5:26, 39; 11:25; 12:50).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
LIFE
God is the source and controller of all life. He brings it into existence, sustains it, and brings it to an end, all according to his purposes (Gen 2:7; Num 16:22; Deu 32:39; Job 34:14-15; Psa 36:9; Ecc 12:7; Mat 10:28; Luk 12:20; 1Ti 6:13).
Human life is especially sacred, for people exist in Gods image. Israelite law therefore considered that any person who murdered another was no longer worthy to enjoy Gods gift of life and had to be executed (Gen 9:5-6; Num 35:33; see IMAGE). The law required that even when people killed animals for food, they had to carry out the killing with fitting acknowledgment that the life belonged to God (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:2-4; Lev 17:10-14; Deu 12:15-16; see BLOOD).
Human life
In speaking of human life, people often make a contrast between physical life and spiritual life. But Gods intention is that all aspects of a persons life be united harmoniously. God wants people to enjoy their physical life fully, but to do so in a right relationship with himself (Deu 8:1; Deu 8:3; Deu 30:15-20; Psa 16:9-11; Ecc 5:18-20; Ecc 9:9-10). The life that is proper to them is one in which physical and spiritual aspects find their fulfilment as a unity (see HUMANITY, HUMANKIND).
Sin, however, has so changed the character of human existence that life is no longer as it should be. Because of sin, the lives of all people are affected by the power of death. The result is that physically they are doomed to death and spiritually they are dead already (Rom 5:12; Rom 6:23; Eph 2:1; Eph 4:18; see DEATH). They are cut off from God and therefore cut off from true spiritual life, the life that is life indeed, eternal life (1Ti 6:19).
The Bible may speak of human life from both the physical and the spiritual aspects (Gen 25:7; Gen 27:46; Joh 5:40; Joh 6:33), but these two aspects are not opposed to each other. Nor are they completely separated. Life in its physical earthly existence finds new meaning when people are born again. They then receive spiritual life as the free gift of God (Joh 1:13; Joh 3:5-6; Eph 2:5; see REGENERATION). They find life in its truest sense; they begin a new existence (Mar 8:35; Joh 12:25).
Even though physical death is the common experience of all, believers will never be separated from God (Joh 8:51; Rom 8:38-39). Their physical death is viewed as a temporary sleep. At Christs return, God will raise them to resurrection life, where sin and death will have no more power (Joh 11:11; Joh 11:25-26; 1Co 15:20-26; 1Co 15:51-57).
Eternal life
Life in its highest sense is what the Bible calls eternal life (1Ti 6:13; 1Ti 6:15-16; 1Ti 6:19). In referring to this life as eternal, the Bible is emphasizing its quality rather than its length. The word eternal comes from the Greek word for age or era. Eternal life is the life of the age to come. It is the life that belongs to the eternal and spiritual world in contrast to the life of the temporal and physical world (Joh 4:10; Joh 4:13-14; Joh 6:27; Joh 6:35; Joh 6:40). Certainly, that age will be unending (Joh 6:51; Joh 8:51), but more importantly it will be an age when people enjoy the close personal relationship with God for which they have been made. They will enjoy the life that God desires them to live (Joh 6:63; Joh 10:10; Joh 17:3; Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5-6; Php 1:21; see ETERNITY).
This eternal life has its source in God. In fact, it is a characteristic of the nature of God himself. It has been revealed through Christ, made possible through Christ, and is available to all through Christ (Joh 1:4; Joh 5:26; Joh 14:6; Col 3:4; 1Jn 5:20).
People cannot achieve eternal life by their own efforts. It comes solely as the gift of God (Joh 10:28; Rom 6:23; 1Jn 5:11). But God gives this gift only to those who repent of their sins and commit themselves in faith to Jesus (Joh 3:16; Joh 11:25; Joh 17:3; Joh 20:31; Act 11:18; 1Jn 5:12). God wants people to have confidence and assurance in the eternal life that he gives them. Those who have eternal life have salvation; those without it are under condemnation (Joh 3:18; Joh 3:36; Joh 5:24; 1Jn 5:13; see ASSURANCE; SALVATION).
Being part of a world affected by sin and death, believers may have to pass through physical death, but they will never die in the sense that really matters (Joh 11:25-26). They have eternal life now (Joh 5:24; Eph 2:1; 1Jn 3:14), and can look forward to the experience of that life in its fulness in the age to come. When Jesus Christ returns, they will be raised from death to enjoy the resurrection life of glory, perfection, power and immortality (Mat 25:46; Joh 5:28-29; Joh 6:40; Rom 2:7; Rom 6:22; 1Co 15:42-44; 2Co 5:4; 2Ti 1:10; see RESURRECTION).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Life
LIFE ().The term applied by Jesus, alike in the Synoptic and the Johannine records of His teaching, to the supreme blessing mediated by Him to men. Certain elements in the conception are common to the two records, but their differences are so marked that it will be necessary to consider them separately.
1. The idea of Life in the Synoptic teaching is substantially that of the OT, unfolded in all its potential wealth of meaning. Hebrew thought, averse to metaphysical speculation, conceived of life as the sum of energies which make up mans actual existence. The soul separated from the body did not cease to be, but it forfeited its portion in the true life. It either departed to the shadowy world of Sheol, or, according to the later view of Ecclesiastes, was reabsorbed (?) into the Divine Being,returned to God who gave it (Ecc 12:7). Thus the highest good was simply length of days,the continuance of the bodily existence right on to its natural term. Two factors, however, were latent in the OT conception from the beginning, and became more and more prominent in the course of the after-development. (1) The radical element in life is activity. Mere physical being is distinguished from that essential life which consists in the unrestricted play of all the energies, especially of the higher and more characteristic. In the loftier passages of the Psalms, more particularly, the idea of life has almost always a pregnant sense. It is associated with joy, peace, prosperity, wisdom, righteousness; man lives according as he has free scope for the activities which are distinctive of his spiritual nature. God Himself is emphatically the living One, as contrasted with men in their limitation and helplessness. (2) Since God alone possesses life in the highest sense, fellowship with Him is the one condition on which men can obtain it. By every word of God doth man live (Deu 8:3). With thee is the fountain of life (Psa 36:9). In the higher regions of OT thought, life and communion with God are interchangeable ideas. The belief in immortality is never expressly stated, but, as Jesus Himself indicates, it was implicit in this conception of a God who was not the God of the dead but of the living. See art. Living.
Jesus accepted the idea of life as it had come to Him through the OT. To Him also life is primarily the physical existence (cf. Mat 6:25 Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat and drink, etc.), and He advances on this conception along ethical and religious lines, in the same manner as the Psalmists and Prophets. (1) He distinguishes between the essential life and the outward subsidiary things with which it is so easily confused. The life is more than meat (Luk 12:23). A mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth (v. 15). What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his life? (Mar 8:36). (2) Thus He arrives at the idea of something central and inalienable which constitutes the reality of life. This He discovers in the moral activity. The body with its manifold faculties is only the organ by which man accomplishes his true task of obedience to God. Meat, raiment, and all the rest are necessary, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. (3) In this way He is led to the conception of a higher, spiritual life, gained through the sacrifice of the lower. If a man hate not his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luk 14:26). He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it (Mat 10:39; Mat 16:25).
Here, however, we become aware of the difficulty which meets us under different forms throughout our Lords teaching. In His account of the supreme blessing for which lower things must be sacrificed, He seems to pass abruptly from ethical to eschatological ideas. Life is a reward laid up for the righteous in the world to come. It is regarded sometimes as a new state of being (Mat 25:46), sometimes as a sort of prize that can be bestowed in the same manner as houses and goods and lands (Mar 10:30). The precise meaning to be attached to the world to come in which this life will be imparted, depends on our interpretation of the general conception of the Kingdom of God. Our Lord would appear to waver between the idea of a world beyond death and that of a Messianic age or aeon, apocalyptically revealed on earth. In either case, however, He thinks of life as of something still in the future, the peculiar blessing of the realized Kingdom of God.
This future possession is defined more particularly in several passages as eternal life, and the epithet might appear at first sight to imply a distinction. We find, however, on closer examination that the term life itself usually involves the emphatic meaning. This do and thou shalt live (Luk 10:28) is our Lords reply to the inquiry concerning eternal life. So when He says, It is better to enter into life halt or maimed (Mat 18:8, Mar 9:43), or Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life (Mat 7:14), it is evidently the future blessing that is in His mind. There is good ground for the conjecture that Jesus Himself never used the expression eternal life.
Since the ethical and eschatological ideas are denoted by the same word, we are justified in assuming that in the mind of Jesus they were bound up with one another. The life which is projected into the future and described figuratively as a gift bestowed from without, is in the last resort the life of moral activity. This becomes more apparent when we take account of certain further elements in our Lords teaching.
(a) The condition on which the future reward is given is faithful performance of the moral task in the present. Those shall live who keep the commandments. The narrow way that leads to life is the way of obedience and sacrifice. By voluntary loss of earthly things in the cause of Christ, the disciples will gain life (Mar 10:30). The apocalyptic imagery does not conceal from us the essential thought of Jesus, that the promised life is nothing but the outcome and fulfilment of a moral obedience begun on earth.
(b) Life is not only a future fulfilment, but has a real beginning in the present. Thus in the saying, Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead (Mat 8:22 = Luk 9:60), Jesus implies that the disciples even now enter into possession of a new and higher life. They are the living as opposed to the children of this world, who are spiritually dead. The same thought appears in the parable of the Prodigal Son: he was dead and is alive again (Luk 15:32). Life in its full reality is the blessing of the world to come, but it will be different in degree, not in kind, from the present life of true discipleship.
(c) One element is common to the two types of life, and marks their ultimate identity. The future consummation, described by Jesus in vivid pictorial language, is in its substance a closer fellowship with God. In the Kingdom which He anticipated, the pure in heart were to see God (Mat 5:8); those who hungered and thirsted after righteousness were to be satisfied with Gods presence (v. 6). This perfect communion with God is the supreme reward laid up for the believer. It constitutes the inner meaning and content of the future Life. In like manner the present life of moral obedience is in its essence a life of fellowship with God. The aim of Jesus is to bring His disciples even now into such a harmony with the Divine will that they may be children of their Father who is in heaven, resembling Him and holding real communion with Him. The eschatological idea of life thus resolves itself at its centre into the purely ethical and religious. The Kingdom is already come when Gods will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus is Himself the Mediator of the new life. He imparts to His disciples His own consciousness of Gods presence and Fatherhood. He inspires in them a faith and obedience which without Him would have been for ever impossible. Through knowledge of Him and participation in His spirit, they enter into that fellowship with God which is eternal life. See Mediator.
2. In the Fourth Gospel the idea of Life is much more prominent than in the Synoptics. The Evangelist expressly states (Joh 20:31) that he has written these things that believing ye may have life, and this statement of his main intention is fully borne out by the detailed study of the Gospel. The teaching of Jesus, as he records it, centres wholly on the subject of Life.
This in itself need not be regarded as a breach with the authentic tradition. We have seen that in the Synoptics also the idea of Life lies at the heart of our Lords teaching, since life is the peculiar blessing of the Kingdom of God. St. John, after his manner, detaches the essential thought from the eschatological framework. The future kingdom becomes simply life.
The idea of Life as a present possession (already implicit in the Synoptic teaching) becomes in the Fourth Gospel central and determinative. He that believeth on the Son hath (even now) everlasting life (Joh 3:36). He that heareth my word is passed out of death into life (Joh 5:24). The whole purpose of the work of Christ, as conceived by the Evangelist, was to communicate to His disciples, here and now, the eternal life. To those who have received His gift the death of the body is only a physical incident, a falling asleep (Joh 11:11). The true death is the state of sin and privation, out of which they have been delivered, once and for all, in the act of surrender to Christ.
Isolated passages in the Gospel might seem to conflict with this, the characteristic and prevailing view. In the 6th chapter more especially, the conception of Life as a spiritual possession in the present appears side by side with repeated allusions to a resurrection at the last day (Joh 6:39; Joh 6:44; Joh 6:54). These allusions are partly to be explained as reminiscences of an earlier type of doctrine, not completely in harmony with the writers own; such concessions to a traditional belief meet us continually in this Gospel. At the same time, they serve to emphasize a real, though secondary, aspect of Johns own teaching. He anticipates in the future world a full manifestation of the Life which under earthly conditions is necessarily hidden. For the believer, as for Christ Himself, the escape from this world and its limitations marks the entrance into a larger activity and glory (cf. Joh 14:2-3).
The Evangelist nowhere attempts to define his conception of Life. The great saying, This is life eternal, etc. (Joh 17:3), cannot be construed as a definition. It only declares that the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ carries with it the assurance of life (cf. His commandment is life everlasting [Joh 12:50]). The nature of the life is indicated only in vague and half-figurative terms. It is indestructible (Joh 6:58, Joh 11:26), satisfies all spiritual thirst and hunger (Joh 6:35, Joh 4:14), is the source of light (Joh 1:4, Joh 8:12). But, while little is said by way of express definition, the general import of the Johannine conception is sufficiently clear. The Life which Christ communicates is the absolute, Divine Life. As the Father has life in himself, so he hath given the Son to have life in himself (Joh 5:26., cf. Joh 1:4). It is assumed that in God and in the Logos, who is one with Him, a life resides which is different in kind from that of men, and is the real, the eternal Life.
The conception arises from the blending in the Fourth Gospel of Hebrew and early Christian with Greek-philosophical influences. Hebrew thought did not concern itself with questions regarding the ultimate nature of God. He was the living God, who could be known only through His activity in the creation and moral government of the world. The Greek thinkers, on the other hand, tried to get behind His activity to His essential Being. He was the absolute and self-existent, over against the world of phenomena. His Life, so far as Life could be predicated of Him, was an energy of pure thought, abstracted from every form of sensible manifestation (cf. Arist. Metaph. xii. 7). The Fourth Evangelist, carrying out more fully the suggestion of Philo, combines the Hebrew and Greek ideas. He thinks of God as the only true (Joh 17:3), the absolute Being who is eternally separate from the world which He has created. Nevertheless He is a living and personal God. The Life which He possesses is analogous to the life in man, but of a higher order, spiritual instead of earthly.
It follows from this attempt to combine Hebrew with Greek ideas, that the ethical moment falls largely out of sight. The difference between the human and the Divine Life is one of essence. Till man has undergone a radical change, not in heart merely but in the very constitution of his being, there can be no thought of his participating in the life of God. St. John thus involves himself in a conception which may be described as semi-physical. The Divine life is regarded as a sort of higher substance inherent in the nature of God. How can man, who is born of flesh (Joh 3:6), become partaker in this substance, and so experience a new birth as a child of God? This is the religious problem as it presents itself to St. John.
The solution is afforded by the doctrine of the Incarnate Word. Jesus Christ, as the eternal Logos, possessed life in himself, and yet assumed humanity and entered into our lower world. He therefore became the vehicle through which the life of God is imparted to men, or at least to those elect natures who are predisposed to receive it. He not only possesses, but is Himself the Life. To impart His gift He must also impart Himself, since life is inalienable from the living Person. This idea, which lies at the very centre of St. Johns thinking, determines his theory of the communication of Life through Christ.
The subjective condition, apart from which the gift cannot be bestowed, is belief in Jesus as the Son of God. This belief is primarily an act of intellectual assent to the claim of Christ; but such an act implies a religious experience which has led up to it and gives it value. It runs back in the last resort to the drawing by the Father (Joh 6:44), the work of Gods Spirit in the heart. Through the act of belief a man is brought into such a relation to Christ that His power as Life-giver becomes operative.
Three means are indicated by which Christ imparts the gift to those who have believed. (1) It is conveyed through His word, regarded not simply as the medium of His message, but in the Hebrew sense as active and creative. The words spoken by Jesus are of the same nature as the quickening word of God. They are spirit and life, carrying with them some portion of His own being. He can say indifferently, My word shall abide in you and I shall abide in you (Joh 15:7). It is this imparting of Himself through His words that renders them words of eternal life. (2) The gift is conveyed likewise in the Sacraments, more especially in the Lords Supper. The Eucharistic reference in the 6th chapter appears to the present writer unmistakable, and, while the Supper is interpreted in a spiritual sense, its real validity is also emphasized. Ignatius, writing in the same age, describes the Eucharist as the (Ephes. 20), and St. John accepts this current belief, and harmonizes it with his own doctrine of Life: Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you (Joh 6:53). Since Jesus in His own Person is the Life, it can be given only through an actual incorporation of His flesh and blood, and this is offered in the mystery of the Eucharist. The idea of Life as a semi-physical essence here comes to its sharpest expression. (3) In this same chapter, however, we have the indication of another and still more mysterious means by which the Life is imparted. The Eucharist, while it possesses in itself a real validity, is typical of an abiding union of the believer with Christ. He is like the vine (Joh 15:1 ff.), out of which the several branches draw their nourishment. He is united with His disciples in a relation so profound and intimate that they feel themselves to be one with Him. They abide in Him and He in them, and the life which He possesses becomes their life, springing up within them like a perennial well (Joh 4:14). This doctrine of a mystical union with Christ in which He imparts His Divine life to the believer, contains the central and characteristic thought of the Fourth Gospel.
Thus far we have considered the Johannine idea of Life as it is determined by the Logos theory. It becomes apparent, however, the more we study the Gospel, that the writer is working throughout with two conceptions, essentially different from each other and never completely reconciled. The incarnate Logos is at the same time the historical Jesus, who revealed God and drew all men to Himself by the moral grandeur of His personality and life. Doctrines which are presented theologically on the lines of the Logos hypothesis are also capable of a purely religious interpretation. They require to be so interpreted if we are not to miss their underlying and vital import.
Life regarded from this other side bears a meaning substantially the same as in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus was the Living One, inasmuch as He realized in His own Person the love and goodness and holiness which constitute the inmost nature of God. The life He sought to communicate was nothing else than His own Spirit, as it was revealed in the scene of the feet-washing (John 13), and in the subsequent discourse with His disciples. Even in the Eucharistic chapter in which the theological view of Life is expressed most forcibly, we can discern this other view in the background. To partake of Christs flesh and blood is to become wholly conformed to Him, absorbing into oneself the very spirit by which He lived. We cannot read the chapter attentively without feeling that St. John is always passing from the metaphysical conception to this moral and religious one. Both are present in his mind, and he endeavours to fuse them, though such a fusion is in the nature of things impossible.
The cardinal doctrine of union with Christ assumes a new meaning in the light of this other aspect of St. Johns thought. What is elsewhere described as a mystical indwelling becomes a moral fellowship. Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends (Joh 15:15). The disciples are to enter into a perfect harmony of mind and will with their Master. His spirit is not to act on them from the outside, through set commandments, but inwardly and spontaneously. The relation of discipleship thus passes into one of friendship,a friendship so close that they lose all sense of separateness between themselves and Christ. He abides in them, and replaces their will with His own.
To the Synoptic teaching St. John adds one element of priceless value. He perceives that the new Life proclaimed by Jesus was bound up indissolubly with His living Person. In him was life (Joh 1:4), and it is not enough to render some vague obedience to His teaching. There must be a real and personal communion with Christ, so that He may impart His very self to His disciple. In his presentation of this truth, John avails himself of metaphysical modes of thinking which are not wholly adequate to the Christian message. The conception of Christ as Logos obscures the true significance of His Person and of the higher life imparted through Him. But the essential thought of the Gospel is independent of the form, borrowed from an alien philosophy, in which it is expressed. Jesus Christ is not only the Life-giver, but is Himself the Life. He imparts His gift to those who know Him by an inward fellowship, and become one with Him in heart and will. See also Living.
Literature.H. Holtzmann, NT Theol. i. 293 ff. (1897); Schrenck, Die johan. Anschauung vom Leben (1898); Titius, Die NT Lehre von der Seligkeit (esp. the Johannine section, 1900); Grill, Untersuchungen ber die Entstehung des vierten Evang. 206327 (1902); G. Dalman, Words of Jesus, 156; G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 241, 312; P. Brooks, More Abundant Life; B. F. Westcott, Historic Faith, 142; F. J. A. Hort, The Way, the Truth, the Life (1893); E. Hatch, Memorials, 181; J. G. Hoare, Life in St. Johns Gospel, (1901).
E. F. Scott.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Life
LIFE
I. In the OT
The term life in EV [Note: English Version.] is used, with a few unimportant exceptions, as the equivalent of one or other of two Heb. expressions: (1) chai, or mostly in plur. chayyim; (2) nephesh. The LXX [Note: Septuagint.] makes a general distinction between these two, by usually rendering the former as z and the latter as psych. The former term occurs more frequently than the latter. The notion of life and the terms used to denote it belong, like death, to the primitive elements in human thought and speech. Roughly speaking, we may explain (1) as primarily = what is fresh, new, in active existence; and (2) as primarily = breath.
1. Self-originated movement, especially as seen in locomotion and breathing, were naturally the earliest criteria of life. So still, scientists are investigating life as merely a mode of motion. Life, however, has not yet yielded up its secret to human inquiry; not yet has life, by any experiment, been produced from purely inorganic origins. Meantime those who do not stumble at a theistic view of creation hold an entirely worthy and satisfactory position in following the Genesis Creation narratives, and ascribing the origin of all life to God, who giveth to all life and breath and all things (Act 17:25). The mystery of life abides, but it is not in the least likely that any results of scientific investigation will ever really conflict with this position.
Life as a physical phenomenon is pre-eminently associated with animalsthe living creatures of the sea, the land, and the air (Gen 1:21 ff.). Plant-life is hardly recognized as such. OT writers do not go so far as to predicate life of trees in much the same way as of animals, as is the case with some of the early Greek philosophers (e.g. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. i. 7, 12). Still green and dry, as applied to plants, correspond to living and dead. There is the feeling that trees possess a sort of life; and such references to trees as that concerning the fresh sprouting of a stock or root (Job 14:7 ff., Isa 11:1) are very significant. Notice also the way in which the prosperity of man is likened to that of a flourishing tree (Psa 1:3 etc.), and other frequent illustrative uses.
Physical life is not only primitively connected with the breath, but also with the blood. The effect of the draining away of the blood (as from a wound) in the lessening vitality of the body and finally deatha matter of early observationnaturally explains this. A certain sacredness thus attaches to the blood (1Sa 14:33 ff.), and definite prohibitive legislation relating to the eating of flesh with the blood becomes incorporated in the laws of Israel (Lev 3:17; Lev 7:25 etc.). This primitive conception of blood as the seat of life lies at the root of the whole OT system of sacrifices and of all the Scripture Ideas and teachings based thereupon.
The sacredness of life as such is strongly emphasized. The great value ascribed to human life is indicated by the numerous laws relating to manslaughter and to offences which interfere in any way with a mans right to live and with his reasonable use and enjoyment of life. The feeling extends to other creatures. See the suggestive words and also much cattle in Jon 4:11. The beasts are associated with mans humiliations and privations (Jon 3:7 f., Joe 1:18; Joe 1:20); their life is a thing to be considered. We find the ground of this feeling in the view that God is not only the original Creator or Source of life, but directly its Sustainer in all its forms (Psa 36:6, Psa 104:1-35; Psa 145:1-21 passim). This seems also to be the fundamental significance of the very common expression the living God (lit. God of life).
2. Life is predominantly set forth as mans summum bonum. Life and death are respectively the blessing and the curse, and that uniquely (Deu 30:19). Choose life is the appeal pointing to the one desirable boon. Every man should answer to the description in Psa 34:12. The language which disparages life and praises death (e.g. Job 7:16, Ecc 4:1 ff. etc.) is the expression of an abnormal state of feeling, the outcome of mans experience of misery in one form and another. But it is not mere existence that is in itself desirable. As Orr points out, life in its Scripture use has a moral and spiritual connotation (Christian View [1893], p. 393); and it is only the godly and righteous life that is a boon from the Scripture point of view. Such is the burden of the Wisdom books, when they speak of finding life, and describe wisdom as a tree of life (Pro 3:18; Pro 8:35).
3. The idea of a life to come is in many portions of the OT conspicuous by its absence. There is nothing anywhere that will compare with the NT conception of eternal life. The latter expression, it is true, is found in the OT, but only once, and that in the late-Hebrew Book of Daniel (Dan 12:2). It is to be remembered that, though this book is in EV [Note: English Version.] numbered among the Major Prophets, its affinities are not with that group but rather with later post-Biblical Jewish writings. In these writings the use of this expression is best illustrated. Enoch, Ps.-Sol., 4 Mac. furnish examples. See also in Apocrypha, 2Ma 7:9; 2Ma 7:36. Life alone in this later use comes to be used as = life eternal. (See, e.g., 2Ma 7:14; cf. in NT, Mat 7:14; Mat 19:17). Later Jewish use, however, prefers the clearer phrase, life of the age to come: and along this line the genesis of the term eternal life must be explained. (Cf. the last clause in the Nicene Creed: the life of the world to come). Jewish eschatological hopes, first for the nation and afterwards for the individual, contributed largely to the development of this idea.
At the same time, though in some parts of the OT the hope of life hereafter seems expressly excluded (see, e.g., Isa 38:11; Isa 38:18, Ecc 9:5; Ecc 9:10 [Ecc 12:7 is not in conflict, for it embodies the idea of re-absorption, and is not to be read in the light of Christian hope and teaching]), and this world alone is known as the land of the living, the very asking of the question in Job 14:14 is significant, and the language of Psa 16:1-11 concerning the path of life lends itself readily to an interpretation looking to life beyond death.
II. In the Apocrypha.Chs. 15 of Wis. yield much that is of interest relating to contemporary Jewish thought; e.g. God is the author of life but not of death (Wis 1:13 f., Wis 2:23 f.). The wicked live in harmony with the saying, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die (ch. 2). The righteous have immortality as their inheritance, whilst the wicked shall be brought to judgment and shall be destroyed (chs. 35). For an impressive presentment of a foolish appreciation of life, see also Wis 15:7 ff. In Sir 15:17 Before man is life and death, we have an echo of Deu 30:19. The conception of life (soul) as a loan that can be recalled is found in Wis 15:8; Wis 15:18, a close parallel with Luk 12:20. Such phrases as the fountain of life (Sir 21:13) and the tree of life (2Es 2:12; 2Es 8:52) recall their use in both OT and NT. For the former, see Psa 36:8, Pro 10:11, Joh 4:10; Joh 4:14; for the latter Gen 2:9, Rev 2:7; Rev 22:2 etc. 2Es 7:1-70 furnishes a notable and picturesque view of life beyond death, with the judgment of the righteous and the unrighteous. See especially the long passage beginning at v. 75. The return of the spirit to him who gave it, v. 78, has none of the limitations that attend a similar reference to death in Ecc 12:7. (See above.)
III. In NT
The term life is the Eng. equivalent of three terms used in the original(1) z. This is of most frequent occurrence; generally corresponding to chayyim in OT; = life in the absolute: vitality: full, active existence. It is the term capable of embodying all progressive conceptions as to what constitutes life, and so regularly occurring in the phrase eternal life. (2) psych, generally = OT nephesh, but the fluctuation between life and soul (see, e.g., the well-known passage Mat 16:25 f.) as its rendering in English is significant. The primary notion is that of the animating principle (in contrast to the body). It further denotes the specific life or existence of any individual. By an easy transition it comes to stand for a mans self (roughly soul). (3) bios, occurring only a few times. = the present state of existence, this life; as in Luk 8:14, 1Ti 2:2, 2Ti 2:4, 1Jn 2:16; 1Jn 3:17 (z, however, is sometimes used in this sense, with this or the present qualifying it, e.g. 1Co 15:19); also = means of subsistence; and so = living (Luk 8:43; Luk 15:12 etc.).
1. The teaching of Jesus.As regards the present life we gather from the Gospels that Jesus never bewailed its brevity and vanity. The mournful notes of some of the OT Scriptures, the pensive commonplaces of so much of mans thoughts and moralizings, find no echo here. On the contrary, in His own life He graciously exemplifies the joie de vivre. This in one respect was made even a ground of complaint against Him (Mat 11:19). The sacredness of life is insisted on, and the Sixth Commandment is accentuated (Mat 5:21). The preciousness of life, even in its humblest forms (sparrows, Mat 10:29|| Luk 12:6), appears in connexion with our Lords arresting doctrine of Divine Providence, which stands in such unhesitating defiance of the sterner features of the world of life (In Memoriam, lv. f.).
Very conspicuously Jesus condemns over-anxiety about this life and its goods. Simplicity and detachment in regard to these things are repeatedly insisted on (see, e.g., Mat 6:19; Mat 6:31, Luk 12:15). Certainly the accumulation of a superabundance of the goods of life at the expense of others deprivation and want is in direct opposition to the spirit of His teaching. The deep, paradoxical saying (Mat 16:25 f.) about losing and finding ones life is of significance herea saying found not only in the three Synoptics (see Mar 8:35, Luk 9:24), but also in its substance in Joh 12:25.
Eternal life figures conspicuously in the teaching of Jesus. He did not originate the expression: it was already established in the Rabbinical vocabulary. The subject was, and continued to be, one greatly discussed among the Jews. The phrasing of Jesusas when He speaks of inheriting (Mat 19:29), having (Jn. passim), receiving (Mar 10:30), entering into, or attaining (Mat 19:17), eternal life, or life simplyis also that of the Jewish teachers of His own and a later day. (Note even the significance of the wording in Mar 10:17||). Life alone as = eternal life is used in Mat 7:14, Mar 9:43 etc.; also in Johns Gospel (as Joh 3:36; Joh 10:10 etc.). (See above.)
The Johannine Gospel conspicuously gives eternal life as a chief topic of Christs teaching; whilst in the Synoptics the kingdom of God holds the corresponding place. The connexion between the two conceptions is intimate and vital. The primary characteristic of eternal life is that it is life lived under the rule of God. The definition found in Joh 17:3 (with which Wis 15:3 invites comparison) shows how essentially it is a matter of moral and spiritual interests. The notion of ever-lastingness rather follows from this: the feeling that death cannot destroy what is precious in Gods sight. Cf. Tennyson:
Transplanted human worth
Shall bloom to profit otherwhere.
But the life is a present possession, an actual fact of experience (Joh 3:35; Joh 5:24; Joh 6:47 etc.). We have, however, the indication of a special association of eternal life with the hereafter in Mar 10:30 (in the world to come) Mat 25:40. Cf. also p. 490a.
It is the teaching of Christ that has caused the words eternal life to be written, as it were, across the face of the NT. Still more are we to notice the unique claim made as to His relation to that life. The keynote of the Johannine presentation is in him was life (Joh 1:4), and throughout He is consistently represented as giving and imparting this life to His people. Note also, it is eternal life as predicated of these that is principally, if not exclusively, in view in the Evangelical teaching there is little or nothing on human immortality in the widest sense.
2. The rest of the NT.The leading theme of. l Jn. is eternal life, and it is handled in complete accord with the Fourth Gospel.St. Paul is in agreement with the Johannine teaching on the cardinal topic of eternal life. His Epistles throb with this theme, and he conspicuously presents Christ as the source of this life in its fullest conception, or the One through whom it is mediated. See Rom 6:23, and note his strong way of identifying Christ with this life, as in Gal 2:20, Php 1:21, Col 3:3-4. Christ is also presented as author or mediator of life in the widest sense, the life that moves in all created things (Col 1:16-17; cf. Joh 1:3). St. Paul, again, uses life alone as containing all the implicates of eternal life (Rom 5:17, 2Co 5:4, Php 2:16). The supremely ethical value associated with life is seen in the definition given in Rom 8:6, with which cf. Joh 17:3. The new life of the Spirit as a dynamic in the present and as having the promise of full fruition in eternity, is central in the Apostles exposition of Christianity.For the rest, the Apocalypse should be noticed for its use of such images as crown of life, book of life, fountain, river, and water of life, and the book of life (which we also meet with elsewhere)all embodying the Christian hope of immortality.
J. S. Clemens.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Life
This is one of the characters of the Lord Jesus Christ. In him, saith the apostle John, “was life, and the life was the light of men.” (Joh 1:4) And elsewhere Jesus saith himself, “I am the life and the light of men. I am the resurrection and the life. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” It is most essential to our happiness, that we should have clear conceptions of this most blessed truth, so as to see and know from whence and in whom all the springs of life are. It is not, in my view of things, sufficient to understand that Christ gives life to his people, but that he is himself the life of his people. He saith himself, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” So that Jesus is, to the soul of his redeemed, the very life of the soul, as our soul is the life of the body. When the soul departs from the body, the body dies; and could it be supposed that Christ was to depart from the souls of his redeemed, the soul would die also. But this is impossible; for it is said, that he hath quickened them, who were by nature dead in trespasses and sins. And the apostle to the church of the Colossians saith, “Your life is hid with Christ in God; so that when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” What a world of blessedness there is in this one consideration of the Lord Jesus as the life of his people! Precious Lord, I would say, thou art indeed both the life and the light of men! Thou art in thyself the whole of their spiritual and eternal life. Keep alive, I beseech thee, the renewed life thou hast given me in thyself; and cause me to enter into the full apprehension and enjoyment of that most glorious proclamation of thine in which thou hast, said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were deadly, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in, me shall never die.”
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Life
lf (, hayym, , nephesh, , ruah, , hayah; , zoe, , psuche, , bos, , pneuma):
I.THE TERMS
II.THE OLD TESTAMENT TEACHING
1.Popular Use of the Term
2.Complexity of the Idea
III.IN THE APOCRYPHA
IV.IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
1.In the Synoptic Gospels
2.In the Fourth Gospel
3.In the Acts of the Apostles
4.In the Writings of Paul
5.In the Writings of John
6.In the Other Books of the New Testament
LITERATURE
I. The Terms.
Of the Hebrew terms, hayah is the verb which means to live, to have life, or the vital principle, to continue to live, or to live prosperously. In the Piel it signifies to give life, or preserve, or quicken and restore life. The Hiphil is much like the Piel. The noun hayym generally used in the plural is an abstract noun meaning life, i.e. the possession of the vital principle with its energies and activities. Nephesh often means living being or creature. Sometimes it has the force of the reflexive self. At other times it refers to the seat of the soul, the personality, the emotions, the appetites – passions and even mental acts. Frequently it means life, the seat of life, and in this way it is used about 171 times in the Old Testament, referring to the principle of vitality in both men and animals. Ruah signifies wind, breath, principle or source of vitality, but is never used to signify life proper.
II. The Old Testament Teaching.
1. Popular Use of the Term:
The term life is used in the Old Testament in the popular sense. It meant life in the body, the existence and activity of the man in all his parts and energies. It is the person complete, conscious and active. There is no idea of the body being a fetter or prison to the soul; the body was essential to life and the writers had no desire to be separated from it. To them the physical sphere was a necessity, and a man was living when all his activities were performed in the light of God’s face and favor. The secret and source of life to them was relationship with God. There was nothing good or desirable apart from this relation of fellowship. To overcome or be rid of sin was necessary to life. The real center of gravity in life was in the moral and religious part of man’s nature. This must be in fellowship with God, the source of all life and activity.
2. Complexity of the Idea:
The conception of life is very complex. Several meanings are clearly indicated: (1) Very frequently it refers to the vital principle itself, apart from its manifestations (Gen 2:7). Here it is the breath of life, or the breath from God which contained and communicated the vital principle to man and made him a nephesh or living being (see also Gen 1:30; Gen 6:17; Gen 7:22; Gen 45:5, etc.). (2) It is used to denote the period of one’s actual existence, i.e. lifetime (Gen 23:1; Gen 25:7; Gen 47:9; Exo 6:16, Exo 6:18, Exo 6:20, etc.). (3) The life is represented as a direct gift from God, and dependent absolutely upon Him for its continuance (Gen 1:11-27; Gen 2:7; Num 16:22). (4) In a few cases it refers to the conception of children, denoting the time when conception was possible (Gen 18:10, Gen 18:14 margin; 2Ki 4:16, 2Ki 4:17 margin). (5) In many cases it refers to the totality of man’s relationships and activities, all of which make up life (Deu 32:47; 1Sa 25:29; Job 10:1, etc.). (6) In a few instances it is used synonymously with the means of sustaining life (Deu 24:6; Pro 27:27). (7) Many times it is used synonymously with happiness or well-being (Deu 30:15, Deu 30:19; Ezr 6:10; Psa 16:11; Psa 30:5; Pro 2:19, and frequently). (8) It is always represented as a very precious gift, and offenses against life were to be severely punished (Gen 9:4, Gen 9:5; Lev 17:14; Lev 24:17).
Capital punishment is here specifically enjoined because of the value of the life that has been taken. The lexicon talionis required life for life (Exo 21:23; Deu 19:21); and this even applies to the beast (Lev 24:18). The life was represented as abiding in the blood and therefore the blood must not be eaten, or lightly shed upon the ground (Lev 17:15; Deu 12:23). The Decalogue forbids murder or the taking of human life wrongfully (Exo 20:13; Deu 5:17). Garments taken in pledge must not be kept over night, for thereby the owner’s life might be endangered (Deu 24:6). That life was considered precious appears in 2Ki 10:24; Est 7:7; Job 2:4; Pro 4:23; Pro 6:26. The essence of sacrifice consisted in the fact that the life (the nephesh) resided in the blood; thus when blood was shed, life was lost (Deu 12:23; Lev 17:11). Oppression on the part of judges and rulers was severely condemned because oppression was detrimental to life.
(9) Long life was much desired and sought by the Israelites, and under certain conditions this was possible (Psa 91:16). The longevity of the ante-diluvian patriarchs is a problem by itself (see ANTEDILUVIANS). It was one of the greatest of calamities to be cut off in the midst of life (Isa 38:10-12; Isa 53:8); that a good old age was longed for is shown by Exo 20:12; Psa 21:4; Psa 34:12; Psa 61:6, etc. This long life was possible to the obedient to parents (Exo 20:12; Deu 5:16), and to those obedient to God (Deu 4:4; Pro 3:1, Pro 3:2; Pro 10:27); to the wise (Pro 3:16; Pro 9:11); to the pure in heart (Psa 34:12-14; Psa 91:1-10; Ecc 3:12, Ecc 3:13); to those who feared God (Pro 10:27; Isa 65:18-21; Isa 38:2-5, etc.). (10) The possibility of an immortal life is dimly hinted at in the earliest writing, and much more clearly taught in the later. The Tree of Life in the midst of the garden indicated a possible immortality for man upon earth (Gen 2:9; Gen 3:22, Gen 3:24) (see TREE OF LIFE).
Failing to partake of this and falling into sin by partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were driven forth from the garden lest they should eat of the tree of life and become immortal beings in their sinful condition. To deprive man of the possibility of making himself immortal while sinful was a blessing to the race; immortality without holiness is a curse rather than a blessing. The way to the tree of life was henceforth guarded by the cherubim and the flame of a sword, so that men could not partake of it in their condition of sin. This, however, did not exclude the possibility of a spiritual immortality in another sphere. Enoch’s fellowship with God led to a bodily translation; so also Elijah, and several hundred years after their deaths, God called Himself the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, implying that they were really alive then. In Isa 26:19 there is a clear prophecy of a resurrection, and an end of death. Dan 12:2 asserts a resurrection of many of the dead, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Some of the psalmists firmly believed in the continuity of the life in fellowship with God (Psa 16:10, Psa 16:11; Psa 17:15; Psa 23:6; Psa 49:15; Psa 73:24, Psa 73:25). The exact meaning of some of these statements is difficult to understand, yet this much is clear: there was a revolt against death in many pious minds, and a belief that the life of fellowship with God could not end or be broken even by death itself. See IMMORTALITY.
(11) The fundamental fact in the possession of life was vital relationship with God. Men first lived because God breathed into them the breath of life (Gen 2:7). Man’s vital energies are the outflowing of the spirit or vital energies of God, and all activities are dependent upon the vitalizing power from God. When God sends forth His spirit, things are created, and live; when He withdraws that spirit they die (Psa 104:30). In his favor is life (Psa 30:5 the King James Version). He is the fountain of life (Psa 36:9; Psa 63:3). All my fountains are in thee (Psa 87:7). The secret of Job’s success and happiness was that the Almighty was with him (Job 29:2). This fellowship brought him health, friends, prosperity and all other blessings. The consciousness of the fellowship with God led men to revolt against the idea of going to Sheol where this fellowship must cease. They felt that such a relationship could not cease, and God would take them out of Sheol.
III. In the Apocrypha.
A similar conception of life appears here as in the Old Testament. Zoe and psuche are used and occur most frequently in the books of The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclus. In 1 and 2 Esdras the word is little used; 2 Esdras 3:5; 16:61 are but a quotation from Gen 2:7, and refer to the vital principle; 2 Esdras 14:30, Tobit, Judith, Ad Esther use it in the same sense also. Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus use it in several senses closely resembling the use in Proverbs (compare Ecclesiasticus 4:12; Pro 3:18; Pro 10:16). In general there is no additional meaning attached to the word. The Psalms of Solomon refer to everlasting life in 3:16; 13:10; 14:2, 6.
IV. In the New Testament.
Of the Greek terms bios is used at times as the equivalent of the Hebrew hayym. It refers to life extensively, i.e. the period of one’s existence, a lifetime; also to the means of sustaining life, such as wealth, etc. Psuche is also equivalent to hayym at times, but very frequently to nephesh and sometimes to ruah. Thus, it means the vital principle, a living being, the immaterial part of man, the seat of the affections, desires and appetites, etc. The term zoe corresponds very closely to hayym, and means the vital principle, the state of one who is animate, the fullness of activities and relationship both in the physical and spiritual realms.
The content of the word zoe is the chief theme of the New Testament. The life is mediated by Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament this life was through fellowship with God, in the New Testament it is through Jesus Christ the Mediator. The Old Testament idea is carried to its completion, its highest development of meaning, being enriched by the supreme teaching and revelation of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament as well as in the Old Testament, the center of gravity in human life is in the moral and religious nature of man.
1. In the Synoptic Gospels:
The teaching here regarding life naturally links itself with Old Testament ideas and the prevailing conceptions of Judaism. The word is used in the sense of (1) the vital principle, that which gives actual physical existence (Mat 2:20; Mar 10:45; Luk 12:22 f; Luk 14:26). (2) It is also the period of one’s existence, i.e. lifetime (Luk 1:75; Luk 16:25). (3) Once it may mean the totality of man’s relationships and activities (Luk 12:15) which do not consist in abundance of material possessions. (4) Generally it means the real life, the vital connection with the world and God, the sum total of man’s highest interests. It is called eternal life (Mat 19:29; Mat 25:46). It is called life (Mat 18:8, Mat 18:9; Mat 19:17; Mar 9:43, Mar 9:45, Mar 9:46). In these passages Jesus seems to imply that it is almost equivalent to laying up treasures in heaven, or to entering the kingdom of God. The entering into life and entering the kingdom are practically the same, for the kingdom is that spiritual realm where God controls, where the principles, activities and relationships of heaven prevail, and hence, to enter into these is to enter into life. (5) The lower life of earthly relationship and activities must be subordinated to the higher and spiritual (Mat 10:39; Mat 16:25; Luk 9:24). These merely earthly interests may be very desirable and enjoyable, but whoever would cling to these and make them supreme is in danger of losing the higher. The spiritual being infinitely more valuable should be sought even if the other relationship should be lost entirely. (6) Jesus also speaks of this life as something future, and to be realized at the consummation of the age (Mat 19:29; Luk 18:30), or the world to come.
This in no wise contradicts the statement that eternal life can be entered upon in this life. As Jesus Himself was in vital relationship with the spiritual world and lived the eternal life, He sought to bring others into the same blessed state. This life was far from being perfect. The perfection could come only at the consummation when all was perfection and then they would enter into the perfect fellowship with God and connection with the spirit-world and its blessed experiences. There is no conflict in His teaching here, no real difficulty, only an illustration of Browning’s statement, Man never is but wholly hopes to be. Thus in the synoptists Jesus teaches the reality of the eternal life as a present possession as well as future fruition. The future is but the flowering out and perfection of the present. Without the present bud, there can be no future flower.
(7) The conditions which Jesus lays down for entering into this life are faith in Himself as the one Mediator of the life, and the following of Him in a life of obedience. He alone knows the Father and can reveal Him to others (Mat 11:27). He alone can give true rest and can teach men how to live (Mat 11:28 f). The sure way to this life is: Follow me. His whole ministry was virtually a prolonged effort to win confidence in Himself as Son and Mediator, to win obedience, and hence, bring men unto these spiritual relationships and activities which constitute the true life.
2. In the Fourth Gospel:
The fullest and richest teachings regarding life are found here. The greatest word of this Gospel is life. The author says he wrote the Gospel in order that ye may have life (Joh 20:31). Most of the teachings recorded, circle around this great word life. This teaching is in no way distinctive and different from that of the synoptists, but is supplementary, and completes the teaching of Jesus on the subject. The use of the word is not as varied, being concentrated on the one supreme subject. (1) In a few cases it refers only to the vital principle which gives life or produces a lifetime (Joh 10:11, Joh 10:15-18; Joh 13:37; Joh 15:13). (2) It represents Jesus the Loges as the origin and means of all life to the world. As the preincarnate Loges He was the source of life to the universe (Joh 1:4). As the incarnate Loges He said His life had been derived originally from the Father (Joh 5:26; Joh 6:57; Joh 10:18). He then was the means of life to men (Joh 3:15, Joh 3:16; Joh 4:14; Joh 5:21, Joh 5:39, Joh 5:40); and this was the purpose for which He came into the world (Joh 6:33, Joh 6:34, Joh 6:51; Joh 10:10). (3) The prevailing reference, however, is to those activities which are the expression of fellowship with God and Jesus Christ. These relationships are called eternal life (Joh 3:15, Joh 3:16, Joh 3:36; Joh 4:14, etc.). The nearest approach to a definition of eternal life is found in Joh 17:3. Though not a scientific or metaphysical definition, it is nevertheless Jesus’ own description of eternal life, and reveals His conception of it. It is thus more valuable than a formal definition. It is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.
This knowledge is vastly more than mere intellectual perception or understanding. It is moral knowledge, it is personal acquaintance, it is fellowship, a contact, if we may so speak, of personality with personality, an inner affinity and sympathy, an experience of similar thoughts, emotions, purposes, motives, desires, an interchange of the heart’s deepest feelings and experiences. It is a bringing of the whole personality of man into right relationship with the personality of God. This relation is ethical, personal, binding the two together with ties which nothing can separate. It is into this experience that Jesus came to bring men. Such a life Jesus says is satisfying to all who hunger and thirst for it (Joh 4:14; Joh 6:35); it is the source of light to all (Joh 1:4; Joh 8:12); it is indestructible (Joh 6:58; Joh 11:26); it is like a well of water in the soul (Joh 4:14); it is procured by personally partaking of those qualities which belong to Jesus (Joh 6:53).
(4) This life is a present possession and has also a glorious future fruition. (a) To those who exercise faith in Jesus it is a present experience and possession (Joh 4:10; Joh 5:24, Joh 5:40). Faith in Him as the Son of God is the psychological means by which persons are brought into this vital relationship with God. Those who exercised the faith immediately experienced this new power and fellowship and exercised the new activities. (b) It has a glorious fruition in the future also (Joh 4:36; Joh 5:29; Joh 6:39, Joh 6:44, Joh 6:54). John does not give so much prominence to the eschatological phase of Jesus’ teachings as to the present reality and actual possession of this blessed life.
(5) It has been objected that in speaking of the Loges as the source of life John is pursuing a metaphysical line, whereas the life which he so much emphasizes has an ethical basis, and he makes no attempt to reconcile the two. The objection may have force to one who has imbibed the Ritschlian idea of performing the impossible task of eliminating all metaphysics from theology. It will not appeal very strongly to the average Christian. It is a purely academic objection. The ordinary mind will think that if Jesus Christ is the source of ethical and eternal life it is because He possesses something of the essence and being of God, which makes His work for men possible. The metaphysical and the ethical may exist together, may run concurrently, the one being the source and seat of the other. There is no contradiction. Both metaphysics and ethics are a legitimate and necessary exercise of the human mind.
3. In the Acts of the Apostles:
In His intercessory prayer, John 17, Jesus said His mission was to give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him (Joh 17:2). The record in Acts is the carrying out of that purpose. The word life is used in several senses: (1) the vital principle or physical life (Act 17:25; Act 20:10, Act 20:24; Act 27:10, Act 27:22); (2) also the sum total of man’s relationships and activities upon earth (Act 5:20; Act 26:4); (3) Jesus Christ is regarded as the source and principle of life, being called by Peter, the Prince of life (Act 3:15). Also the life eternal or everlasting is spoken of with the same significance as in the Gospels (Act 11:18; Act 13:46, Act 13:48).
4. In the Writings of Paul:
Here also the words for life are used in various senses: (1) the vital principle which gives physical vitality and existence (Rom 8:11, Rom 8:38; Rom 11:15; 1Co 3:22; Phi 1:20; Phi 2:30); (2) the sum total of man’s relationships and activities (1Co 6:3, 1Co 6:4; 1Ti 2:2; 1Ti 4:8; 2Ti 1:1; 2Ti 3:10 the King James Version); (3) those relationships with God and with Christ in the spiritual realm, and the activities arising therefrom which constitute the real and eternal life. This is mediated by Christ (Rom 5:10). It is in Christ (Rom 6:11). It is the free gift of God (Rom 6:23). It is also mediated or imparted to us through the Spirit (Rom 8:2, Rom 8:6, Rom 8:9, Rom 8:10; 2Co 2:16; 2Co 3:6; Gal 6:8). It comes through obedience to the word (Rom 7:10; Phi 2:16); and through faith (1Ti 1:16). It may be apprehended in this life (1Ti 6:12, 1Ti 6:19). It is brought to light through the gospel (2Ti 1:10). It is a reward to those who by patience in well-doing seek it (Rom 2:7). It gives conquering power over sin and death (Rom 5:17, Rom 5:18, Rom 5:21). It is the end or reward of a sanctified life (Rom 6:22). It is a present possession and a hope (Tit 1:2; Tit 3:7). It will be received in all its fullness hereafter (Rom 2:7; 2Co 5:4). Thus Paul’s use of the word substantially agrees with the teaching in the Gospels, and no doubt was largely based upon it.
5. In the Writings of John:
In the Johannine Epistles and Revelation, the contents of the term life are the same as those in the Fourth Gospel. Life in certain passages (1Jo 3:16; Rev 8:9; Rev 11:11; Rev 12:11) is mere physical vitality and existence upon earth. The source of life is Christ Himself (1Jo 1:1 f; 1Jo 5:11 f, 16). The blessed eternal life in Christ is a present possession to all those who are in fellowship with the Father and the Son (1Jo 5:11, 1Jo 5:12). Here is an echo of the words of Jesus (Joh 17:3) where John describes the life, the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. It is virtually fellowship with the Father and with the Son (1Jo 1:2, 1Jo 1:4). Life is promised to those who are faithful (Rev 2:7); and the crown of life is promised to those who are faithful unto death (Rev 2:10). The crown of life doubtless refers to the realization of all the glorious possibilities that come through fellowship with God and the Son. The thirsty are invited to come and drink of the water of life freely (Rev 21:6; Rev 22:17). The river of life flows through the streets of the New Jerusalem (Rev 22:1), and the tree of life blooms on its banks, bearing twelve manner of fruit (Rev 22:2, Rev 22:14). See TREE OF LIFE.
6. In the Other Books of the New Testament:
The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of our lifetime or periods of existence upon earth (Heb 2:15; Heb 7:3), likewise of the power of an indissoluble life (Heb 7:16); James promises the crown of life to the faithful (Jam 1:12). This reward is the fullness of life’s possibilities hereafter. Our lifetime is mentioned in Jam 4:14 and represented as brief as a vapor. Peter in 1Pe 3:7 speaks of man and wife as joint-heirs of the grace of life, and of loving life (1Pe 3:10), referring to the totality of relationships and activities. The all things that pertain unto life and godliness (2Pe 1:3) constitute the whole Christian life involving the life eternal.
Literature.
Articles on Life in HDB, DCG, Jewish Encyclopedia;on Soul, Spirit, etc., ibid, and in Encyclopedia Brit, EB, Kitto, Smith, Standard, etc.; Laidlaw, Bible Doctrine of Man; Delitzsch, A System of Biblical Psychology; cornms. on the various passages; Davidson, Old Testament Theology; Oehler and Schultz, Old Testament Theology; Stevens, Johannine Theology and Pauline Theology; Holtzmann, New Testament Theology, I, 293 ff; G. Dalman, Words of Jesus; Phillips Brooks, More Abundant Life; B.F. Westcott, Historic Faith; F.J.A. Hort, The Way, the Truth, the Life; J.G. Hoare, Life in John’s Gospels; E. White, Life and Christ; Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality; R.J. Knowling, Witness of the Epistles and The Testimony of Paul to Christ; commentaries on the various passages; McPherson, The New Testament View of Life, The Expositor, I, set. v, 72 ff; Massie, Two New Testament Words Denoting Life, The Expositor, II, series iv, 380 ff; Schrenk, Die Johannistische Anschauung yom Leben.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Life
Life is that by which a created being enjoys the place in which the Creator has set it. God breathed into man’s nostrils ‘the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ Gen 2:7. Sin having come in, this life is forfeited and God claims it, saying, “surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.” Gen 9:5. This instituted capital punishment for murder, which law has never been rescinded or altered.
Scripture recognises a difference between ‘life’ in a moral sense and ‘existence,’ as seen in the passage, “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?” Psa 34:12. Here is a man desiring life, desiring to enjoy life. This answers the objection of those who, wishing to deny eternal punishment, say that ‘living for ever’ is only spoken of the Christian, as in Joh 6:51; Joh 6:58. True, but many other scriptures prove that the wicked will have an eternal existence.
Man, in his natural state, is regarded as morally dead in sins, and as needing to be quickened by the power of God; or as living in sins and needing to accept death in order to live in Christ, as in the Epistle to the Romans.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Life
Breath of
Gen 2:7
Called Spirit of God
Job 27:3
Tree of
Gen 2:9; Gen 3:22; Gen 3:24; Pro 3:18; Pro 13:12; Rev 2:7
Sacredness of, an inference from what is taught in the law concerning murder
Homicide
Long life promised:
– To obedient children
Exo 20:12; Deu 5:16
– To those who keep the commandments
Deu 4:40; Deu 22:7
Vanity of
Ecc 1
Hated
Ecc 2:17
To be hated for Christ’s sake
Luk 14:26
What shall a man give in exchange for
Mat 16:26; Mar 8:37
He that loseth it shall save it
Mat 10:39; Mat 16:25-26; Luk 9:24; Joh 12:25
Weary of life:
– Job
Job 3; Job 7:1-3; Job 10:18-20
– Jeremiah
Jer 20:14-18
– Elijah
1Ki 19:1-8
– Jonah
Jon 4:8-9 Suicide
Life of Christ, a ransom
Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45; 1Ti 2:6
Brevity and uncertainty of
– General references
Gen 47:9; 1Sa 20:3; 2Sa 14:14; 1Ch 29:15; Job 4:19-21; Job 7:6-10; Job 7:17; Job 8:9; Job 9:25-26; Job 10:9; Job 10:20-21; Job 13:12; Job 13:25; Job 13:28; Gen 18:27; Job 14:1-2; Job 17:1; Psa 22:29; Psa 39:4-6; Psa 39:11; Psa 78:39; Psa 89:47-48; Psa 90:3; Psa 90:5-6; Psa 90:9-10; Psa 102:11; Psa 103:14-16; Psa 144:3-4; Psa 146:4; Pro 27:1; Ecc 1:4; Ecc 6:12; Isa 2:22; Isa 38:12; Isa 40:6-7; Isa 40:24; 1Pe 1:24; Isa 50:9; Isa 51:8; Isa 51:12; Isa 64:6; Jas 1:10-11; Jas 4:14 Death
Everlasting
– General references
Psa 21:4; Psa 121:8; Psa 133:3; Isa 25:8; Dan 12:2; Mat 19:16-21; Luk 18:18; Mat 19:29; Mar 10:30; Mat 25:46; Luk 18:30; Luk 20:36; Joh 3:14-16; Joh 4:14; Joh 5:24-25; Joh 5:29; Joh 5:39; Joh 6:27; Joh 6:40; Joh 6:47; Joh 6:50-58; Joh 6:68; Joh 10:10; Joh 10:27-28; Joh 12:25; Joh 12:50; Joh 17:2-3; Act 13:46; Act 13:48; Rom 2:7; Rom 5:21; Rom 6:22-23; 1Co 15:53-54; 2Co 5:1; Gal 6:8; 1Ti 1:16; 1Ti 4:8; 1Ti 6:12; 1Ti 6:19; 2Ti 1:10; Tit 1:2; Tit 3:7; 1Jn 2:25; 1Jn 3:15; 1Jn 5:11-13; 1Jn 5:20; Jud 1:21; Rev 1:18 Immortality
From God
Gen 2:7; Deu 8:3; Deu 30:20; Deu 32:39-40; 1Sa 2:6; Job 27:3; Job 34:14-15; Psa 22:29; Psa 30:3; Psa 68:20; Psa 104:30; Ecc 12:7; Isa 38:16-20; Act 17:25-26; Act 17:28; Rom 4:17; 1Ti 6:13; Jas 4:15 Longevity
Spiritual life
Joh 3:3-16; Joh 5:24-26; Joh 5:40; Joh 6:27; Joh 6:33; Joh 6:35; Joh 6:40; Joh 6:47; Joh 10:10; Joh 11:25-26; Joh 14:6; Joh 17:2-3; Joh 20:31; Rom 6:4-5; Rom 6:8; Rom 6:11; Rom 6:13; Rom 6:22-23; Rom 8:10; 1Jn 1:1-2
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
LIFE
Life denotes existence; and since existence may be either moral or political, it thence variously denotes either moral or political existence.
Fuente: A Symbolical Dictionary
Life
zoe (G2222) Life
bios (G979) Lifetime, Livelihood, Living
There is only one Latin word, vita, and one English word, life, for the two Greek terms zoe and bios. If zoe and bios were synonyms, this would not be a problem. But zoe and bios view life from different perspectives and so are not synonymous. Inevitably, by using one word to translate both Greek words, we have concealed the important differences between zoe and bios.
The antithesis of zoe is thanatos, and the antithesis of zen (G2198) is apothneskein. Zoe is closely related to ao, aemi (to breathe the breath of life) a necessary condition of livingand to pneuma, (G4151) and psyche (G5590).
Although zoe refers to intensive life, bios refers to extensive life, the period or duration of life. In a secondary sense, bios also refers to the means by which that life is sustained. And in a tertiary sense, bios refers to the manner in which that life is spentthat is, one’s profession or career. The New Testament includes examples of all three senses of bios.
Bios as the period or duration of life is referred to as chronos tou biou (time of life; 1Pe 4:3, a variant reading). Bios as the means of life, or “livelihood,” is referred to in Mar 12:44; Luk 8:43; Luk 15:12; and 1Jn 3:17. Bios as the manner of life, or life in its moral conduct, is referred to in the passages listed in the accompanying note.
When bios is used to refer to a manner of life, it often has an ethical sense not found in the classical usage of zoe. Aristotle said that the slave is “a partner of zoes”(he lives with the family) but not “a partner of biou”(he does not share in the career of his master). According to Ammonius, Aristotle defined bios as “a rational life,” and Ammonius argued that bios was never, except incorrectly, applied to the existence of plants or animals but only to the lives of men. Although that distinction is made too absolutely, it is a real one that is reflected in our words zoology and biography but not in biology, which as now used is a manifest misnomer. On the one hand, we speak of “zoology,” for animals (zoa) live equally with men and may be classified according to the differences of their natural lives. On the other hand, we speak of “biography” for human beings, not merely because they live but because they lead lives and make moral choices. They not only have “years of existence [zoes],” they also have “ways of living [biou]” (Pro 4:10).
Thanatos and zoe are antonyms only when physical life is contemplated.When life is regarded from a moral perspective as the opportunity for living nobly, thanatos and bios, not thanatos and zoe, are antonyms. Thus compare Xenophon: “Noble death [thanaton] is preferable to shameful life [bion]” with Plato: “Striving soon for a shameful existence [zoen] rather than for an honorable and blessed death [thanaton].” In the last passage the craven soldier prefers the present boon of a shameful life (therefore zoe) to an honorable death. In the former passage Lycurgus teaches that an honorable death is to be chosen, rather than a long and shameful existence, a vita non vitalis (a life not livable) because all the reasons for living are gone. Plato distinguished between the words themselves, as well as their derivatives.
Although bios, not zoe, is used in an ethical sense in classical Greek, in Scripture the opposite seems to be the case. In the New Testament zoe is the more noble word and expresses the highest and best that the saints possess in God. Thus we read of the “crown of life [zoes]” (Rev 2:10); “tree of life [zoes]”(Rev 2:7); “book of life [zoes]”(Rev 3:5); “water of life [zoes]” (Rev 21:6); “life [zoe] and godliness” (2Pe 1:3); “life [zoe] and immortality” (2Ti 1:10); “the life [zoe] of God” (Eph 4:18); “eternal life [zoe]”(Mat 19:16; Rom 2:7); “an endless life [zoe]”(Heb 7:16); and “what is truly life [zoes]” (1Ti 6:19). Sometimes zoe is used by itself (Mat 7:14; Rom 5:17; and often). All of these examples illustrate the highest blessedness of the creature. Contrast the preceding examples with the following uses of bios:”pleasure of life [biou]” (Luk 8:14); “affairs of this life [biou]” (2Ti 2:4); “the pride of life [biou](1Jn 2:16); “the livelihood [bios] of the world” (1Jn 3:17); and “cares of this life [biotikai]”(Luk 21:34). How may we explain these differences?
Only revealed religion relates death and sin as necessary correlatives (Genesis 1-3; Rom 5:12) and consequently relates life and holiness. Only God’s Word proclaims that wherever death exists, sin was there first. And wherever there is life, sin has not existed or has been expelled. Because Scripture reveals that death came into the world only through sin, life is the correlative of holiness. Against this background, zoe assumes profound moral significance and becomes the best way to express blessedness. Absolute zoe is synonymous with absolute holiness. In Joh 14:6 Christ affirmed: “I am… the life [he zoe]”(cf. 1Jn 1:2) and implicitly affirmed that he was absolutely holy. This is also true for the person that truly lives, or triumphs, over death (both spiritual and physical). Such a person has first triumphed over sin. It is not surprising that Scripture should use zoe to set forth the blessedness of God and the blessedness of the creature in communion with God.
Expositors who translate apellotriomenoi tes zoes tou Theou in Eph 4:18 as “alienated from a divine life” or as “from a life lived according to the will and commandments of God” are wrong. Such an alienation exists, but in Eph 4:18 the apostle was affirming the miserable condition of those estranged from the one fountain of life, those who did not possess life because they were separated from the only One who absolutely lives (Joh 5:26) the living God (Mat 16:16; 1Ti 3:15). Only those in fellowship with him have life. Gal 5:25 will always seem to contain a tautology until zoe (and the verb zen as well) receives the force claimed for it here.