Professor Dr. J. Agar Beet wrote:

'His arguments (Plato's) move us to pity.  For they are the painful

efforts of a good man straining his eyes, in the twilight and

uncertainty of Greek philosophy, to catch a glimpse of a ray of light

from beyond the grave: and for us walking in the light of "the promise

of life in Christ Jesus" they have no practical value.  In these

arguments we find the phrase "The soul is immortal"; it occurs ... not

less than 20 times in the whole dialogue (the Phaedo).  Moreover, its

meaning is indisputable.  Plato uses the phrase to assert that every

human soul, by its very nature, will continue in existence for endless

ages.  This teaching is put to noble moral uses' (The Immortality of

the Soul: a protest pp. 6,7).

The Rev. H. A. Barnes concludes as follows:

'Some of the consequences of the infiltration of the Platonic tradition

into Christian teaching are:

The theory of the inalienable immortality of every human soul is

treated as an axiom of orthodox belief.

It teaches that the embodied state is one of humiliation, that

the body is a prison of the soul, something to be rid of.

It introduces the idea of a purgatory.

It teaches the doctrine of eternal torment (in Gehenna).

Although it uses the same terms as those of Scripture for

destruction, etc., it teaches in opposition to Scripture that the

wicked are not destroyed, and causes the perversion of the true

meaning of important Scriptural terms.

The strange confusion of mind regarding souls that have never

died, could not possibly die, living on in an unseen world, and

then at a given time returning to a body, is a result of Platonic

teaching, i.e. that the soul cannot die, and that the body is a

mere "prison" or "tomb" of the soul, which results in the modern

disregard of, and unbelief in the resurrection'.

The reader will realize from these quotations and the summary already

given, that the doctrine of the Resurrection raises many controversial

issues.  These are by no means academical or doctrinaire, but vital.  No one

can ever accuse the martyr Tyndale of trifling, one who sealed his testimony

with his blood.  Among other evidences of his recognition of the supreme

importance of the resurrection, can be cited his refutation of the opinions

held by Sir Thomas More.

'And when he proveth that the saints be in heaven in glory with Christ

already, saying, "If God be their God, they be in heaven, for He is not

the God of the dead": there he stealeth away Christ's argument,

wherewith he proveth the resurrection: that Abraham and all saints

should rise again, and not that their souls were in heaven: which

doctrine was not yet in the world.  And with that doctrine he taketh

away the resurrection quite, and maketh Christ's argument of none