Immortal Soul? Impossible!

by wannabe 114 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Mary

  Wannabee's tunnel vision on what the bible means as "death" seems to be the problem. He/she takes the narrow viewpoint that when the bible mentions "death", it automatically must refer to all cessation of life with absolutely no allowance made for anything spiritual afterwards. Yet Witnesses teach that the act of baptism is a sort of "live - die - live" process: You are alive, then the act of getting put under water represents "death" as to your former way of life, and then the coming back out of the water represents your new life as a follower of Christ.

  Would anyone try to say: "well, when you go under the water, that represents 'death' so therefore nothing can come after that'? Of course not. So in a figurative sense, baptism can also be seen as 'something beyond death---a new creation'; yet Witnesses will not make the same connection with the physical body.

  Another example of them not working on all thrusters.
• 

  PSacramento

  There is no mention in scripture of the spirit dying. The spirit goes back to the God who gave it. Thus the spirit and soul are not always together. The bible does speak of the soul being destroyed, or separated from the presence of God.

  What happens to the spirit in that case?
• 

  isaacaustin

  It goes back to God, while the soul goes to hell or heaven, awaiting a reuniting with body and spirit...or to the final destination of gehenna with the spirit remaining with Gid.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  In Christian theology, the souls of the dead before the death of Christ were in a place. Sheol was that place. They waited there until Jesus descended in death and opened the doors of heaven for them to leave.

  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+3:18-19&version=NIV

  For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison

  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%204:6&version=NIV

  For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

  Another reference:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell

  BTS
• 

  Leolaia

  Too bad that Revelation refers to the "souls" (Greek psukhés) of the dead in heaven (6:9-11).

  The lowdown on the subject (be prepared for an in-depth discussion):

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/173215/2/Question-for-our-scholars#3209377
• 

  PSacramento

  FYI:

  9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.
• 

  elder-schmelder

  The bible is just a book of stories that you can argue about all day long.

  elder-schmelder
• 

  Blue Grass

  Isaacaustin says "It goes back to God, while the soul goes to hell or heaven, awaiting a reuniting with body and spirit...or to the final destination of gehenna with the spirit remaining with Gid."

  Wow! Where did you read all of that? Can you show what part of the Quran you got that from?

  Leolaia says "Too bad that Revelation refers to the "souls" (Greek psukhés) of the dead in heaven (6:9-11)."

  Most theologians and serious Bible student agree that the book of revelation isn't inspired but even assuming that it is one would just say it's using symbolic language there.
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  Blue Grass

  Mary there are so many errors in your post but I don't have the time to correct them all. I'll just say a few things. Don't ever let a theologian or any serious bible student hear say Sheol is a prison for spirits, you will get laughed off the first of the earth. You are the first person I EVER heard make such a claim. ALL Jews, theologians, and most Christians agree that Sheol simply means grave. I also like how you take 1 Peter 3:19 out of context by not quoting the following verse "19through whomalso he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built." In Peter's next letter he makes it clear as to what spirits in Noah's days he was talking about. 2 Peter 4:"4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to Tartarus, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;" It's obvious you know very little about the Bible, such as the difference between Sheol and Tartarus, but I won't hold that against you because you don't believe in the Bible, it's those who applauded your post as if anything you said made sense who should be the ones who are ashamed of themselves because they know very little of the book they claim to live by.
• 

  Leolaia

  one would just say it's using symbolic language there.

  That is frequently given as a fall-back position in discussions on apocalyptic books, but it is methodologically specious. Not everything in an apocalyptic book is "symbolic," indeed because it is intended to reveal things unseen, the revelation is aimed at explaining and showing things. This is the case throughout apocalyptic literature; the Book of Parables in 1 Enoch contains a detailed description of the geography of the world and the Book of Luminaries similarly purports to explain the dynamic workings of the heavenly luminaries in heaven. More to the point, what is God symbolic of in Revelation? Or what is Jesus Christ a symbol of? Similarly, what are the "souls of those slain" supported to be symbolic of, if they are not the "souls of those slain"? The reference to these souls in ch. 6 anticipates the later reference to the "great crowd" in ch. 7 (which are innumerable, whereas the souls must wait until the full number is reached) and the "souls of those beheaded" in ch. 20 who are resurrected in the first resurrection. So if these souls are only symbolic of something else, then the resurrection itself is symbolic and ch. 20 thus does not really have anything to with a literal resurrection. This is the slippery slope that results from an ad hoc attribution of apocalyptic statements as symbolism; whether something is intended to be figurative is sometimes established through the context and sometimes it is ambiguous. But there is no ambiguity here because Revelation discusses the slaughter of martyrs at many points in the book and the "tribulation" is certainly one that has lethal effects, as its description in ch. 13 entails. The gathering of the elect in heaven is a prominent theme, as is their later resurrection. What we have in ch. 6 is a reference to the intermediate state between death and resurrection, and one would have to be hard-pressed to say what that scheme is supposed to be symbolic of, if not literally referring to martyred Christians and their waiting for their vengeance. Moreover, another apocalyptic book, 4 Ezra, was written around the same time, and it similarly refers to the souls of dead waiting for the end, in rather similar language to what is in ch. 6 of Revelation.