Soul Sleep in Luther's writings

[Humble_Disciple]

The doctrine of soul sleep is significant today for reasons other than in Luther's time. While Luther sought to counter the Catholic doctrines of purgatory and prayer to the saints, soul sleep today counters the suggestion of neuroscience that human consciousness ends at the moment of death.

Neuroscience is a large interdisciplinary field founded on the premise that all of behavior and all of the cognitive processes that constitute the mind have their origin in the structure and function of the nervous system, especially in the brain. According to this view, the mind can be regarded as a set of operations carried out by the brain.[1][2][3][4][5]

There are multiple lines of evidence that support this view. They are here briefly summarized along with some examples...
Consciousness after death - Wikipedia

If God is beyond space and time, then the promise of resurrection on the last day has already been fulfilled. We have not experienced it yet, because we are still bound by the spacetime dimension. Our resurrection on the last day has been sealed by Jesus' resurrection on the third day.

 

[Humble_Disciple]

It's also worth noting that some of the early church fathers explicitly taught the doctrine of soul sleep:

The earliest unambiguous instance of Christian mortalism is found in Tatian's Address to the Greeks from the second half of the second century. Tatian writes: "The soul is not in itself immortal... If, indeed, it knows not the truth, it dies, and is dissolved with the body, but rises again at last at the end of the world with the body, receiving death by punishment in immortality. But, again, if it acquires the knowledge of God, it dies not, although for a time it be dissolved."[78] Tatian's contemporary Athenagoras of Athens came close to mortalism by teaching that souls sleep dreamlessly between death and resurrection: "[T]hose who are dead and those who sleep are subject to similar states, as regards at least the stillness and the absence of all sense of the present or the past, or rather of existence itself and their own life."[79]...

Some Syriac writers such as Aphrahat, Ephrem and Narsai believed in the dormition, or "sleep", of the soul, in which "...souls of the dead...are largely inert, having lapsed into a state of sleep, in which they can only dream of their future reward or punishments."[83] John of Damascus denounced the ideas of some Arab Christians as thnetopsychism ("soul death"). Eustratios of Constantinople (after 582) denounced this and what he called hypnopsychism ("soul sleep").[84] The issue was connected to that of the intercession of saints...

Mortalism evidently persisted since various Byzantine writers had to defend the doctrine of the veneration of saints against those who said the saints sleep.[86][page needed] John the Deacon (eleventh century) attacked those who "dare to say that praying to the saints is like shouting in the ears of the deaf, as if they had drunk from the mythical waters of Oblivion."[87]
Christian mortalism - Wikipedia

This is more from Athenagoras of Athens:

For although the relaxation of the senses and of the physical powers, which naturally takes place in sleep, seems to interrupt the sensational life when men sleep at equal intervals of time, and, as it were, come back to life again, yet we do not refuse to call it life; and for this reason, I suppose, some call sleep the brother of death, not as deriving their origin from the same ancestors and fathers, but because those who are dead and those who sleep are subject to similar states, as regards at least the stillness and the absence of all sense of the present or the past, or rather of existence itself and their own life. If, therefore, we do not refuse to call by the name of life the life of men full of such inequality from birth to dissolution, and interrupted by all those things which we have before mentioned, neither ought we to despair of the life succeeding to dissolution, such as involves the resurrection, although for a time it is interrupted by the separation of the soul from the body...

But it is impossible for him to continue unless he rise again. For if no resurrection were to take place, the nature of men as men would not continue.
CHURCH FATHERS: On the Resurrection of the Dead (Athenagoras)

The teaching of soul sleep was ultimately condemned because it contradicted praying to the saints. Martin Luther was a very educated person, and I assume he was aware of this early church history.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

I actually checked 5 different Dogmatics books on this, and interestingly, none of them talks about Luther's views on this in any extensive way. There's one reference to Luther saying something along the lines that there is a beauty in that Scriptures sometimes refer to death as sleep, in that it is a divinely revealed promise of an awakening — a resurrection.

There is a LCMS CTCR statement:
https://files.lcms.org/wl/?id=hBnxO7eyPsVv2Y2P1jnW4UmHLGNnM4Vd

6. The Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions compel us:
f. To reject the teaching that the soul "sleeps" between death and the resurrection in such a way that it is not conscious of bliss.

 

[Daniel9v9]

There is a LCMS CTCR statement:
https://files.lcms.org/wl/?id=hBnxO7eyPsVv2Y2P1jnW4UmHLGNnM4Vd

6. The Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions compel us:
f. To reject the teaching that the soul "sleeps" between death and the resurrection in such a way that it is not conscious of bliss.

Yep, that’s what I wrote above what you quoted

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Yep, that’s what I wrote above what you quoted

Sorry Pastor, missed that completely! That's what I get for skimming ahead.

 

[Humble_Disciple]

True to the doctrine of soul sleep, when Saul visited the necromancer, she conjured up a demon rather than the real Samuel:

The fact that the spirit rises “out of the earth” is a telling detail. The Bible consistently indicates that spirits that come from the earth are not from God, as His messengers come from Him in heaven (see Galatians 1:8; Revelation 10:1; 14:6, 17; 15:1; 18:1; 20:1; etc.). Spirits associated with the earth are demons, who come from Satan, the god of this world (II Corinthians 4:4; see Job 1:6-7; 2:1-2; Luke 4:5-7; Revelation 12:9; 13:1-2, 11; 16:13-14). The writer of the book is indicating that this spirit is not Samuel but a demon impersonating him.

In Hebrew, the woman describes this being as elohim. She may have meant that the spirit was one of the “strong ones,” which is the meaning of its root, el, but that is unlikely. Here, the word is accompanied by a plural verb, so her actual words are, “I saw gods ascend out of the earth.” When elohim is paired with a plural verb, it is a scriptural indication of pagan gods (see Psalm 96:5; 97:7). Most likely, several spirits rose with the one she thought was Samuel. Would not the great prophet be accompanied by a retinue of angels?
1 Samuel 28:13 (KJV) - Forerunner Commentary

That the devil, by the divine permission, should be able to personate Samuel is not strange, since he can transform himself into an angel of light! nor is it strange that he should be permitted to do it upon this occasion, that Saul might be driven to despair, by enquiring of the devil, since he would not, in a right manner, enquire of the Lord, by which he might have had comfort.
1 Samuel 28:13 - Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary - StudyLight.org

The Lutheran confessions may say one thing, but I'd rather look to the writings of Luther himself, and the scriptures which led him to his conclusions.

 

[Humble_Disciple]

For me, the most compelling reason to question the doctrine of soul sleep is the possibility that humans become angels when they die.

When the believers thought that Peter had died, they said it must have been his angel waiting at the door:

Acts 12:15
“You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

Also, Jesus may have suggested that children become angels when they die:

Matthew 18:10
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

Acts 12:15 and Matthew 18:10 might refer to humans having guardian angels, rather than becoming angels. But here's another interesting passage:

Acts 23:8
For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection—and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.

Is Acts 23:8 distinguishing angels and spirits from each other or saying that they are two ways of describing a departed human?

The Sadducees only accepted the Books of Moses as their Old Testament canon, which include references to the angels that pre-existed the creation of man. So when Acts 23:8 says that the Sadducees denied the existence of angels, it might have meant the angels of departed humans.

Second, I agree with N. T. Wright (Resurrection) that the use of angel elsewhere in Acts points to angel here potentially relating to the dead prior to some future resurrection event (the "intermediate state"). When Peter showed up at the door of the prayer meeting, they wondered if it might be his angel (Acts 12:15), meaning that an angelic form for Acts can be an after death/pre-future resurrection event form.
Common Denominator: Acts 23:8 and Resurrection

23:8, however, is a very significant verse, even though hard to understand. It says that the Sadducees do not believe in resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. This verse has sometimes been taken to mean that Sadducees did not believe in angels (and, anachronistically, people used to associate them with modern liberals who didn't believe in the supernatural--a good example of how easy it is to infect our interpretation with our own context).

But this would be the only evidence anywhere to suggest Sadducees didn't believe in angels. (the idea that Sadducees only followed the Law and not the other parts of the OT is similarly based on the contested interpretation of a single statement in Josephus. By the way, there are angels in the Law). And what is worse, the "no angels" interpretation of this verse seems wrong.

If you look at the structure of this verse, it seems to go something like the following:
Sadducees do not believe in resurrection...
Neither in the angel form nor the spirit form...
But Pharisees confess both types of resurrection

So the question becomes, what is angel resurrection and what is spirit resurrection? This is a good example of how we read our categories into the biblical texts and say we have a biblical worldview. The distinction between material and immaterial, that we generally apply to these issues, comes from Descartes in the 1500s and not from the Bible. The lines they drew around reality were different in biblical times.

So the difference between embodied/corporeal and disembodied/incorporeal for them was not the same as the Cartesian difference between material/immaterial. Spirits were thinner material for them but still material. Spirit was breath and wind. To be embodied might mean a different material or a thicker material but still material.

So what is the difference between angels and spirits? Some thought of angels as spirits (e.g., Heb. 1:14). But it's possible that Luke thought of angels as more embodied than spirits. NT Wright (Resurrection of the Son of God) has suggested that Acts 23:8 is talking about the intermediate state of the dead. When the house church thinks Peter is dead, they wonder if it is his angel at the door (12:15).
Common Denominator: Sadducees believed in angels (Acts 22b-23a)

 

[Thatgirloncfforums]

This is why I appreciate the doctrine of 'soul sleep' even though, I do not personally ascribe to it. It also hits the platonic division of soul and body square between the eyeballs.

Personally, I believe that the saints are alive 'to' God, but this is a profound mystery. They are not alive because the soul is immortal or because it can be divided from the body.

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL - JewishEncyclopedia.com

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, there is no concept of the immortality of the soul in the Old Testament. In the Book of Genesis, for example, the word translated for soul means "breath," and is given to both animals and humans.

The Old Testament's hope for an afterlife, like in the writings of Martin Luther, is in the resurrection on the last day.