Humanity is the crowning work of Creation, made in God’s image “both in outward resemblance and in character” ( Gen. 1:26 , 27 ; PP 45; GC 645). Believing in Creation, Seventh-day Adventists reject the theory that human beings evolved by slow degrees from the lower forms of life. They hold that the evolutionary philosophy “lowers the great work of the Creator” to the level of humanity’s “narrow earthly conceptions” and that evolutionists degrade humans, and defraud them of the dignity of their origin ( PP 45).
In their original state, man and woman possessed the possibility of unending life and continuous advancement. Their natural tendency was to live in harmony with the Creator’s will and purpose for them. But human beings fell from their high estate and became mortal and sinful. Thenceforth, their natural tendency was contrary to God’s will and purpose. Jesus Christ came to restore what had been lost as a result of sin ( Luke 19:10 ). At His first advent Christ provided for the restoration of humanity’s character; and at His second advent He will bestow upon those whose characters have been thus transformed the gift of immortality and the privilege of once more living in the divine presence.
George Storrs, a well-known Millerite preacher, advocated the doctrine of the mortality of humanity among his fellow Millerites, though it did not become a majority view among them until after 1844. Early in their history Seventh-day Adventists adopted the view that humans, when created, were given the opportunity of living forever, but that sin made them mortal (for the development of this view, see Death ).
The Sept. 26, 1854, issue of the Review and Herald (7:53) printed a letter from John Byington of Buck’s Bridge (near Potsdam), New York, who was later to become the first president of the General Conference. In it he described a conversation with a man concerning the question of spiritism, whether it was from the devil. This letter contains a fair summary of what was to become the Seventh-day Adventist view on humanity’s nature and destiny: “God was infinitely holy and happy and it would be benevolent and good in Him to make a being capable of enjoying this blessedness. This goodness was manifest in creating [humanity] in His own image, capable of knowing and holding communion with . . . God.” But, Byington maintained, since humans were “created, dependent” beings, they were therefore under their Maker’s government; thus, God gave them His law, which “embraced all His will” concerning them. “Law given to a being possessing liberty and intelligence implies power to obey or disobey. To [humanity’s] existence, therefore, is attached probation; and this implies a day of settling accounts, or a day of judgment.”
Here Byington links the image of God with being “capable of knowing and holding communion with God,” and affirms that humanity was endowed with free will “to obey or disobey.” The letter closes with a typical description of the final, blessed state that human beings are to enjoy: “The devil and all his works [will] have an entire destruction. The curse is now removed from the earth, and God has a clean universe and a race of intelligent beings for ever to praise and glorify Him; which He would not have had, had He not have made [humans]” ( ibid. ).
Seventh-day Adventists believe that humanity inherited a sinful nature with a propensity to sin, and their writings either reject or fail to stress the idea that human beings inherit the guilt of Adam’s transgression.
SDA s point out that the concept that holds men and women to be a combination of mortal body and immortal soul arose from the speculations of pagan philosophers, and is contrary to the teachings of the Bible. A letter from R. F. Cottrell to the Sabbath Recorder (Seventh Day Baptist), quoted in the Review and Herald for Nov. 22, 1853, declares: “The Romans had the doctrines of purgatory and immortality of the soul before they ever heard of the Christian religion. Those who doubt this have only to consult Virgil and other ancient writers to be satisfied of it. . . . We know that heathen philosophers taught, very anciently, the immortality of the soul. I cannot say positively, but it was probably taught as long ago as the days of Solomon” ( p. 157).
Seventh-day Adventists reject the view that men and women are merely or only or simply animals. This is shown by SDA s vigorous opposition to Darwin’s views on the descent of humanity, which, as stated earlier, degrades humans, who were made in the image of God. They do not believe that men and women differ from animals only in having more highly organized bodies. On the question whether human beings are material or spiritual, SDA s would say that, in ordinary language, they are both. Their intelligence and conscience are not usually understood as material functions, and the SDA Church has never taught that they should be so labeled. These functions are sometimes called “spiritual,” and SDA s understand and accept this adjective in this sense. Seventh-day Adventists do not equate the biblical terms soul and spirit with the metaphysical concept of spirit, insisting that this technical term is foreign to both OT and NT and belongs in the realm of speculative philosophy rather than biblical theology.
The desire to impose the Aristotelian (matter–form) metaphysics on scriptural statements concerning humanity is not shared by SDA s. They prefer to retain biblical usage.
The terms spirit and soul are used in the Bible with different meanings and in many different scriptural contexts. In their use of the biblical terms, Seventh-day Adventists prefer to confine themselves to the meanings clearly intended in these passages, none of which ever speaks of “immortality” as being humanity’s innate possession.
The mind-body or matter–spirit philosophical controversy, which teaches that body or matter is evil, and mind or spirit is good, is foreign to the thought world of the Bible. According to the Bible, God is the Creator of all things, and He called everything He made “good.” These good things can all be used for evil purposes, however, because human beings, who were given dominion over creation, were also given the power of choice. Thus, because humans chose evil, both their material bodies and their spiritual intellects or consciences have come under the dominion of sin.