@enoughisenough
The Satanic claim "you will not surely die" (Genesis 3:4) has nothing to do with the immortality of the soul. God proposed here that if they break His command, then "in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die." From this, it is apparent that here "you will die" did not refer to the literal, physical death, but the consequence of it, that man will die, or (his body) will return to the dust. Here, the word "death" does not refer to physical death but spiritual death, separation from God, and loss of grace.
"In the day that you sin, you will die" - When you sin, I will take away my grace, eternal life, and you will die.
When Satan says, "you will not surely die," he means, "Just go ahead and sin; God will not fulfill His threat (he's just bluffing)."
Then the "dispute" with Satan was not about the immortality of the soul but whether humanity will lose God's special privilege that the human body is free from the compulsion of death. God warned Adam not to eat from 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil', or he would die on that day (Gen 2:17). Adam and Eve ate from it anyway, but did not die a biological death >on that day<, as they lived much longer (Gen 5:5). Adam, however, lost fellowship with God (he was driven out of Eden) and eternal life (he could no longer eat from the tree of life, Gen 3:23-24). Adam's (man's) death on "that day" was spiritual-religious death (cf. Eph 2:1), which led to biological death. So the "death" with which God threatens man is twofold: the death of supernatural life (i.e., loss of sanctifying grace) and [as a result] the mortal transformation of the body: before the Fall, man could have not died; since then, man cannot not die.
This of course is avoided by the Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretation, and they want to explain away the "day" here as exactly a thousand years. But why would it be a thousand years "on that day"? I know there's a biblical statement, "With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (2 Peter 3:8), but that doesn't make it applicable here (this is a leap in logic), so this is entirely a leap of logic. Also, we know that this is metaphorical language, illustrating that God is outside time, and before Him, a day is not literally exactly a thousand years but eternity.
The Peter's part (which I say again, they arbitrarily tie together with the Moses' part using biblical leap logic) is obviously only symbolic: especially since the context does not explain how Adam "died" >that day<, but why the Last Judgment day is delaying in human terms, the answer: because in God's view our "time" is just a moment. "A thousand years" is an ancient analogy: a very long time.
And then, as I mentioned, the subject of the debate was not whether man has an immortal soul but whether he will die physically (i.e., whether God will carry out the threat, or be afraid that man has become like God, autonomous, or self-legislating).
So if we insist on taking the bodily death on that day literally, as Jehovah's Witnesses do, but rule out the false excuse, then Satan would be right: man did not die that day but lived much longer.
Also, since this is relevant to the topic, I'll mention that Jehovah's Witnesses often point out that why death would be a punishment if their souls would live on in heaven. But the question is inherently flawed, since we don't say that. Even then, it wouldn't be a punishment, a shame that this hypothetical scenario has nothing to do with what we teach. Just at first glance:
- The first human pair's soul did not go to heaven, THEN when they died. So this is about the Old Testament, the deceased before Christianity. Before Christ's redemption, heaven was closed; then the deceased were all together in the underworld (in Sheol) in a joyless, sad existence, even if they were chosen for eternal bliss. Though separate from the damned (cf. Ez 32:17-32), this place - like a vestibule of hell - was not a place of joy but of silent sorrow, where they did not even praise God. This differs entirely from heaven, which only Christ opened through His death on the cross. From then on, death became joy, and from then on, the dead saints praise God, and from then on, they can intercede for us. So it did not yet happen that Christ "ascended on high, leading a host of captives" (Eph 4:8)
- We do not say that the role of heaven is that man lives there eternally without a body, like a spiritual being. Because heaven here does not mean a spiritual realm but a state of cosmic glorification.
- We also confess the resurrection of the body. Immortality and resurrection relate to each other as shell and core, beginning and end. The resurrection can only be imagined if life beyond death can be envisioned at all.
- However, resurrection does not mean that man "comes out" of heaven (since as I wrote above, it's not a place), but that the body also rises and is glorified and unites with the already glorified soul.
Attributing continued existence to man after physical death does not eliminate the crisis of death. Even one who now goes directly to heaven in spirit after death does not "skip over" death. Another reason is that, as I explained in my previous comment, Adam could not have gone to a "good" place after his death; at best, he went to Limbo Patrum, which, though better than hell, was still a joyless, sad existence, one of hopelessness - who knew then, for millennia, that there would be redemption, especially extended to them?
It also belongs here that the idea that the body is the prison of the soul, like a garment, is a belief of Platonism; however, Catholic theology does not hold this but that the two form a close unity, and the state of the soul outside the body is not a "normal" state but a vis maior.
