Nature of the Soul

[Tania11]

This is not a thread about eternal punishment. This is about the nature of the soul.

I have a curiosity (just a theory),

Besides having moral characteristics from God, does being made in the image of God also mean the soul can never ever be destructible?

Makes sense why He doesn't want His name defamed by the devil and sent His son.

Isaiah 48:11 For my own sake, for
my own sake, I do this.
How can I let myself be defamed?
I will not yield my glory to another.


Your thoughts?

 

[Tra Phull]

Sumpn bout "Fear Him who can destroy body and soul in hell"

So I dunno about indestructible souls

 

[Tania11]

Sumpn bout "Fear Him who can destroy body and soul in hell"

So I dunno about indestructible souls

This article answered this verse.
Annihilationism and Matthew 10:28, destroy both body and soul in hell | CARM.org

 

[Tra Phull]

Not a huge fan of Matt Slick, but those are good points. He seems to use the word "Conditionalist" for "Anihilationist"

I TOO, think the soul is "eternal"
I don't think it winks out of existence when the silver cord of Ecclesiastes is clipped
Word studIEs on NEPHESH are ambiguous, even animals have a NEPHESH

 

[Tra Phull]

I don't think Christians are in agreement about when the soul begins and when (if ever) it ends.

Maybe it does neither.

 

[Tra Phull]

I think the soul goes on forever, but I have no way to prove it.

 

[Andrewn]

A thread addressing the same topic was started this morning:

Which part of us the soul is?

 

[Tania11]

A thread addressing the same topic was started this morning:

Which part of us the soul is?

Weird ok. I was thinking about this last night.

 

[Tra Phull]

We got SOUL !!

Everywhere - NEPHESH, nefesh, psuche, psyche...

 

[Andrewn]

Weird ok. I was thinking about this last night.

.

 

[RaymondG]

This is not a thread about eternal punishment. This is about the nature of the soul.

I have a curiosity (just a theory),

Besides having moral characteristics from God, does being made in the image of God also mean the soul can never ever be destructible?

Makes sense why He doesn't want His name defamed by the devil and sent His son.

Isaiah 48:11 For my own sake, for
my own sake, I do this.
How can I let myself be defamed?
I will not yield my glory to another.


Your thoughts?

I do not link the soul to the image. In Gen, God created male and female in His image.......before forming mankind, then breathing into Him the breath of life, making them living souls.

"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."

I do not believe, that the image dies..

 

[JIMINZ]

I think the soul goes on forever, but I have no way to prove it.

Then the question is.

So, if you can't prove it, what then makes you believe, the soul goes on forever?

 

[Tra Phull]

I can't "prove" that Jesus rose from the dead, either, but I believe it. Don't you, JIMINZ ?

 

[JIMINZ]

I can't "prove" that Jesus rose from the dead, either, but I believe it. Don't you, JIMINZ ?

Your right on that one.

The thing is, Belief in Jesus Christ takes Faith, producing (Salvation).

John 20:29
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Mark 16:16
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

You want to exorcise your faith to believe that the "soul goes on forever," not quite the same is it?

But then again, it's all about what makes you happy, regardless of whether or not you can prove it.

Does it make your walk with Jesus any deeper to believe such a thing?

Scripture says

Eze_18:20
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

A soul that can die imagine that, doesn't sound like a "soul goes on forever," after all does it?

 

[Tra Phull]

"The soul that sinneth, it shall die"

I think the context of the Ezekiel passage there is that people are not responsible for their parents' sins, but their own.
It's not all cut and dried, we have a sin nature through Adam, but we have our own choices nonetheless.
I cannot even comprehend my soul not lasting forever. It would mean I had ceased to be a believer. I don't believe in OSAS, as near as I understand Arminius about this, it is not possible for a BELIEVER to perish, but it might be possible for a person to cease being a believer. There are warnings about that in scripture. If I ever cease to be a believer, I would be in Deep Kimchi.

"THIS IS THE WORK OF GOD, THAT YE BELIEVE IN HIM WHOM HE HATH SENT"

So faith and works blend together in that verse, but no one ever talks about it. "Faith is not a work!" is the continual cry, despite what Jesus Himself said in that verse.

My soul goes on as long as I believe and confess. Should I ever walk away from Faith, I'm toast, whether annihilation occurs, or Eternal Conscious Torment, why spend time trying to figure out which one is true - all that matters - to me, to you, to all believers - is that we CONTINUE TO BE BELIEVERS !!
If so, we can sing BLESSED ASSURANCE all day long.

 

[Credos4Christ]

I think Socrates's explanation of the soul is best. For anyone who wants an in-depth knowledge, I'd recommend a Platonic dialogue called Phaedo.

Socrates believed that birth is the unification of body and soul; death is the separation of body and soul. But the soul is eternal in these processes. Interestingly, he saw the soul as more of a scientific fact than a religious belief.

We know in the Bible that God breathed life into Adam (Gen 2:7). We also know, though, according to John the Baptist, that this "breath of life" or "divine breath" is more than just giving humans life. It's actually the Holy Spirit, a unique property of humans that does relate to humans being made 'in the image of God' (Gen 1:27), as we find out reading John's gospel (Jhn 20:22-3). Similar descriptions are made in the book of Ezekiel too.

As such, man is a composite of body and soul (circling back to Socrates's thoughts): we are given a soul by God, and it is eternal—whether it lives in eternal punishment or eternal peace is up to the choices we make in our mortal life (what Socrates called the 'visible world').

To Summarize
-Humans are composites of soul and body
-Birth is the conjoining of body and soul
-Death is the disunion of body and soul
-The soul lives beyond a mortal capacity eternally

 

[SarahsKnight]

A soul that can die imagine that, doesn't sound like a "soul goes on forever," after all does it?

It doesn't sound like that at all, in any context, unless the phrase "the soul that sins shall die" were immediately denounced by the book's writer (speaking for God, of course) as any kind of evil saying or untrue line of thought that only the unsaved or demons believe. Of course that does not happen here in Ezekiel 18, nor do I see anywhere in the entirety of the Bible where it is made plain that the soul naturally endures or lives eternally regardless of its status with Christ, so I really have no choice to believe that Ezekiel 18:20 means exactly what it says. While 90% of Christianity continues to believe the exact opposite (or skirt around the plain wording by attaching some romantic meaning to the word "death") as obviously Biblically sound doctrine due to centuries of spoken tradition from the pulpit.