by Vanderhoven7 57 Replies latest jw friends
Hi Revealer,
<<Using the famous or infamous Ezekial 18:4 would suggest that if the "soul" avoids sinning it is not subject to dying.>>
Eze 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Although Eze 18:4 may be used to support conditional immortality, it makes no case for innate immortality; quite the contrary really.
Vander
Yes GLAD, everybody has an immoral soul. Very scriptural! That's why we need to be born again...contrary to WTS thinking.
Vander
Hi Ding,
Neither resurrected life, nor conscious existence immediately after physical death, equates with innate immortality. Your reasoning has built a doctrinal bridge in your mind. Again, I am not looking for human reasoning or human definitions, or additions to scripture to base my faith on...but the Word of God alone.
I'm looking for clear biblical teaching that requires no bridging of gaps...such as:
"And the wages of sin is eternal suffering in hell.
Day and night for all eternity, the wicked will
call out for mercy, but there will be none to save.
Their immortal souls will writhe in endless pain
Their anger will never dissipate. They will weep
and howl in the fires of eternity, aware of their
loss, their endless future, with no one or nothing
to comfort them." Jehosaphat 3:16
I know your beliefs are clear. But is the scripture as clear as your beliefs?
It's so easy to be taken in by tradition...
Vander
You have a flawed premise.
Your question supposes that the Bible is just one book, presenting a consistent viewpoint on all matters from beginning to end.
If instead you view the Bible as it really is, a collection of works detailing an evolving set of Jewish and Christian beliefs, the picture becomes clearer.
If I may rephrase your question:
Q: Within the framework of the collection of books known popularly as the Bible, is the soul immortal?
A: At first, not at all. By the time you get to books written post-Babylonian exile, the idea begins to appear, and is (for the most part) supported in the later books.
Hi Mongolia,
I'm looking for any biblical reference that supports immortality of the soul in any of the books that make up the Bible.
Vander
There is no single passage in the 66-book canon that can establish a doctrine of inherent immortality of the soul. First this is mainly a Greek idea and almost the entire OT was written before the Hellenistic period. Second, the influence of this idea was variable in early Judaism and Christianity and much more pronounced among more strongly Hellenized writers. Often it was assimilated to other Jewish concepts, such as the resurrection of the body. Eschatology in Second Temple Judaism was highly variable and embraced many different perspectives. The books that made it into the NT sample a portion of this eschatological variety but tend to represent a less Hellenized eschatology than many other works of the period. There are elements of Hellenistic anthropology and eschatology here and there (e.g. the body as a "tent", using the word "soul" to denote a dead person in a heavenly postmortem existence, conceiving of the person departing the body at death or able to be out of the body, nakedness as a metaphor, etc.), but no single statement that combines all the elements together, and no notion of immortality without resurrection (Paul for instance sees immortality as definitely corporeal).
But that is again the picture found only in the NT, which came together as a collection long after the books were written. Looking at the individual books in the context of the literature of the time, there are clear unambiguous statements re the immortality of the soul. Whether these or some of these are considered scripture depends on what canon one uses, or one's notion of what counts as scripture. So, for instance, the idea is definitely present in Wisdom, which is one of the most strongly Hellenized works of Second Temple Judaism, and this book has deuterocanonical status in some Bible canons, and it was counted among the NT general epistles in the second-century AD Muratonian Canon. But in the 66-book canon, it does not count. One can also find very clear expressions of the idea in Josephus, Philo, the epistle to Diognetus, and elsewhere, and then there is the Enochic/Essene notion of immortality which differs from Hellenistic ideas by lacking a dualistic anthropology but which has a similar scenario. As a historical question, it is clear that the immortality of the soul was not a "later addition" to the beliefs of apostolic Christianity but was already present in its Jewish substratum. The NT is also not a complete or representative witness to early Christian doctrine (so there are many things alluded to as common knowledge but not spelled out). This means that doctrines constructed on the basis of sola scriptura will necessarily depart from what were held by early Christians, as they strive to reduce or eliminate heterogeneity and they draw only on what happened to be written down in the books later selected to form the NT anthology. But on that basis, there is imo insufficient evidence of the notion of the immortality of the soul in the NT to sustain a doctrine constructed solely from it.
ETA: Here is a handout on the interactions of Judaism and Hellenistic notions of the immortality of the soul: http://www.annettereed.com/RS-3R03/reed3R03_2-17.pdf
Hi Leolaia,
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and research.
I see little evidence of bias in your scholarly analysis.
I'd wager that your approach can be appreciated by all involved in this discussion.
Vander
I still do not see in any of these posts where the Bible says that I have an immortal soul. As for Ezekiel 18:4 since all of us sin, none of us have an immortal soul.
So if someone dies, their soul dies? If I kill someone, have I caused their soul to die?
Matt 10:28 "And do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul..."
Welcome jj123jj123
Jesus says clearly what that the second death entails.
43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 'wheretheir worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.'
Footnotes:
Blessings in Christ,
Stephen
