Do humans have a non-physical soul? (And how does modern science affect the question?)

Faith & Science Conversation
167

As you might have fathomed from other comments of mine, I do not buy the doctrine that God needed the sacrifice of Jesus to make him forgive us for Adam and Eve’s problem of puberty, like you would not get satisfaction from the death of anyone because your children rejected your authority over them. When God states that they are going to become mortal, when eating from that tree as a sign of realizing their self, it is not a threat but a statement of fact. Thus in my eyes, when Jesus died for us, he did not do it to make God happy but to demonstrate that one can endure the worst of the suffering if one trusts God and accepts his authority. That he took the sting out of death refers to him being the evidence of faith in showing us that we can live like him in God and live in every heart that has been touched by Gods love. To me this is not about material immortality as only a fool would want it to be about that. Material immortality is a wish of the selfish. Whoever loves is happy to give their material existence for thyselves to allow them to live through the metamorphosis of becoming human to pass into the next dimension. As much as some might dislike Harry Potter, Dumbledoor expresses it so nicely in the thoughts of his friend Nicholas Flamell: "“to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure”, a bit like Peter Pan.
Our fear of death and all the suffering involved comes from our self-materialisation and the inability to imagine an existence with God that is uncoupled from our material existence. To suffer death is the lack of faith in God and the world to come. If we manage to sing a psalm praising God when going into death, like Jesus did, we can also demonstrate that death has no power over us. Jesus had authority over death as he did not demand authority over it, as those who demand authority over something only show not to have it.

The whole point of the cross is that Jesus did not die and showed us that the physical death is not the end of existence. I understand that not sacrificing innocent humans to God was the bit that distinguished the Jews from their contemporary cultures thus to look at the death of Jesus as the sacrifice of God to God himself makes no sense at all. To die for me so I can see that one can endure any suffering when with God is a much more coherent interpretation of Jesus on the cross. He did not go through all that suffering to please God but to show me the power of Gods love.

So let us leave the claim that Jesus got himself killed to please himself to those who do believe God to be irrational and thus deny his existence as a God of wisdom and love. Christ, like Socrates, could not be killed by destroying their physical body as they did not let themselves be defined by their physical body. As Christians we should be able to understand that if we understand Jesus to live in our hearts - not just as a physical body.

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I think this is a bit of hair-splitting that gets us nowhere.

Enoch or Elijah are believed to have been translated to some divine realm. Can one or the other be immune from getting an infected toenail? Who can say Yes or no with any degree of definitiveness?

When the angels visited Lot… were those bodies of spirit? Or of flesh? Or of some combination? Who is to say?

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I agree that the idea that God needed the sacrifice of Jesus to make God forgive us is not true, because it does not exist. God the Father so loved the world, humanity, that the Father sent the Son the show the Way of Life to humanity, so that whoever believes in the Son will have Eternal Life.

The Son came not to force the Father to do something the Father did not want to do. The Son came in order that humans might do something that they could not do on their own, know ins experience God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus was born, therefore He had to die, so just coming for us meant He died for us.

However, as the Messiah Jesus was caught on the horns of a dilemma. If He fulfilled the hopes and desires of the Jews, God’s people, which was to set us His Kingdom as Israel, that would have meant a long and very ugly war with Rome. See the Jewish rebellions which took place shortly after His death.

On the other hand Jesus came as the Messiah or Savior not only for the Jews, but for the Romans, Greeks, and other Gentiles. Therefore Jesus died on a Roman cross as the Messiah of all humanity, Who came to save us all from sin, hatred, and spiritual death. This is why His death is important and not what you want to say.

To me this is not about material immortality as only a fool would want it to be about that. Material immortality is a wish of the selfish.

I am not certain I understand you here, but I think I do. It is very important that Christians assert that life is three dimensional, body, mind, and spirit, because it is important to know that saved humans live eternally as body, mind, and spirit with Jesus Christ in heaven.

It is not selfish to want to be comfortable, though it is selfish to be comfortable at the expense of others. It is not selfish to want to know the Truth, but not to look down at others. It is not selfish to try to be good, but not again to look down at others.

God wants humans to be fulfilled, physically, mentally, and spiritually. That is why the Father sent the Son to save us through the Holy Spirit. Salvation is fulfillment of the Image of God that God created us for, not its denial. Salvation is the found in the denial of human half truths and the acceptance of Gods Love as found in Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to reconcile people to God, Who is the Source of Love and Eternal Life. I think you got than right. However this has little to do with Socrates except he knew like most of us know that there is more to life than the physical.

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170

@Relates, @marvin

The Hebrews did believe in some type of spiritual nature that survives the death of the body. This can be seen in the I Book of Samuel Chapter 28, where Saul goes to the witch of Endor. It is quite plain that Samuel appears since the Bible calls that entity Samuel. It was not the spirit of a demon; it was definitely the great prophet himself. This, however, does not represent the Greek immortality of the soul. Plato believed that the soul preexisted the body: The body represented matter, which was considered evil. Death was a release for the Platonic Entity. This was not at all the case for the Hebrew spirit. The only place one finds the Greek immortality of the soul is in the Apocrypha, in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon. As you know, a Greek influenced Jew wrote this around 200 to 100 BCE. It is not biblical. Resurrection is our ultimate goal. When the Second Coming takes place, the spirits of the dead return to their glorified bodies. I do not accept the immediate resurrection or soul sleep either. I would say that many Methodists accept the immediate resurrection whereas Seventh Day Adventists would believe in soul sleep until the Second Coming.

Edward Miller, BA, Old Dominion University; MM, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary
Baptist Deacon

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@Edward

Indeed! A great many American Christians believe in an immediate resurrection as a spiritual entity … but still awaiting the End of Days.

See the work called “History of the Rechabites”.

If the above analysis is generally correct, then it is possible that the ancient core and the core, because of their Semitic flavor and concern for Jerusalem, were written somewhere in Judaea. This suggestion is corroborated, but of course not proved, by the superscription in a British Library Syriac Manuscript of the work (B. M. Add. MS 12174, f. 209v); “But it was translated from Hebrew into Greek, and then from Greek into Syriac by the Holy Mar Jacob of Edessa.” It is difficult, therefore, to agree with K. Kunze (no. 1475), who claims that this work was composed in Greek in the sixth century. We can be relatively certain that the original is Jewish and has been redacted by Christians (so also G. Graf, Geschichte, p. 214; J.-C. Picard, no. 1476; Nau, RevSem 6 [1898] 265; L. Ginzberg, Legende, vol. 6, p. 409).

The above hypothesis may be outlined as follows:

V. Testament of Zosimus (chps. 1 and 22)
IV. Jesus’ Conquest of the Devil (chps. 19-21)
III. Christian Additions (chps.2,15b-18)
II. Apocalypse (chps. 3-6, 10-15a)
I. Rechabite Text (chps. 7-9)

An unexpected confirmation of some of this hypothesis comes from the Syriac tradition. This version ends with chapter 16 and is entitled “The History of the Blessed Sons of the Rechabites” (B. M. Add. MS 12174, f. 209v).

James Charlesworth writes: "The date of the History of the Rechabites is the crucial issue, and it is related to the Jewish or Christian character of the various sections. In its present form the work may date from the sixth century A.D., as M. R. James contended. Comparison of the Syriac manuscripts reveals that the document, like many pseudepigrapha (viz. 4Ezra), has received interpolations by Christians; the same observation results from a mere cursory examination and comparison of the Greek manuscripts, and by the recognition that the Greek is expanded by chapters 19 through 23, which are certainly Christian.

The Ethiopic, moreover, has been extensively expanded by scribes who were obviously Christian. Some of the present document is Christian, but the Christian interpolations—sometimes found in only one manuscript—raise the possibility that 12:9a-13:5c and 16:1b-8 are not original but a Christian insertion into an earlier document. This hypothetical earlier writing could be a Christian revision of inherited Jewish traditions, or it could be a Christian expansion of an original (partly preserved) Jewish document.

James, A. Zanolli, Nau, G. Graf, L. Ginzberg, J.-C. Picard, and B. McNeil have perceived evidence of a Jewish original behind the present Christian document. Nau even used such terms as ‘the Christian translator,’ ‘the primitive text,’ ‘the Hebrew text,’ and ‘the Hebrew author.’ Working with only the Greek document generates the impression that the beginning and end are Christian and that the central chapters, 3-15, are originally Jewish.

Focusing upon the Syriac document leaves the impression that only 12:9a-13:5c and 16:1b-8 are clearly Christian and appear to be interpolated, because they interrupt the flow of thought and contain intrusive ideas. The mention of the name ‘Zosimus’ in the latter section (16:8) suggests that perhaps all passages connected with this name may be from a later stratum, hence chapters 7:12-16:1a, which do not identify the traveler as ‘Zosimus,’ would be earlier and possibly Jewish. It is only in these chapters, and specifically in 8-10, that mention is made of the Rechabites and their history in Jerusalem during the days of Jeremiah.

At this stage in our work it is best to suggest only that sections of this document are Jewish or heavily influenced by Jewish traditions, and that they may antedate the second century A.D." (The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, pp. 444-445)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Here is another link with a different angle…

http://www.jewishchristianlit.com/Texts/OT/Rechabites.htm

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172

I will have your references.

Edward

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@Edward, Thank you fore your response.

I guess I did not make my statement clear. Jesus came not to save Christians from death, but to reconcile us to the Father, which is Eternal Life.

We need to stop fixating on the outward form of salvation (heaven) and pay more attention on the substance of salvation, life with God, which is present at conversion…

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174

@Edward

Is this a fancy way of saying you will look at the links I have provided?

Or are you asking for additional links? If so, which part of the general topic are you most interested in? The Essene view of immediate “resurrection”? Or something else?

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No. I am not asking for any help. I have attended seminary and have much of the knowledge already. I am a Virginian and was trying to be friendly. Also, I like Wikipedia and use it to do research on my family. You see, I am a Williams Wynn and a Tudor. I descend from Catherine Tudor of Berain. I have books that I have purchased; however, I like the Wiki too. I also give information and corrections to them. One correction had to do with the Virginia Governor’s Race of 1969. Wiki had that Gov. John S. Battle ran for that office in 1954 and 1969. That was not correct. John was governor in the 50’s and his son William Battle, a Democrat, ran against Rockefeller Republican Linwood Holton. Lin won and became the first Republican to occupy the governor’s office since Reconstruction.

Edward Miller, BA, MM
Baptist Deacon
Former Officer, Bank of America

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I understand where you are coming from. You are a good man of the Gospel and I respect that.

Your Brother in Christ,

Edward

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Also, Norman Vincent Peale held the view of Instantaneous resurrection. I, too, once held this view. Biblical study has convinced my differently. I must admit, however, that 1 Corinthians 35-58 hold to a spiritual body where as the Gospels of Luke and John along with some Epistles of Paul hold to a physical resurrection. I believe in a body, soul, and spirit. My parents are in heaven until the Second Coming when their physical bodies will rise.

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@Edward,

Huh? I don’t understand the relevance of your mini-biography.

I descend from Kings of England, and from Charlemagne, like approximately 25 million other people do.
And I descend from John Alden (Mayflower), beer barrel maker to the religiously independent!

All I was asking you is what did you mean, or intend to mean, by the phrase “I will have your references.”
It’s going to be a very long discussion if I can’t get a straight answer on such a simple question.

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179

good to see you are still going strong.
As reality is what we can see in it I favour the idea that the body in which I will rise again is not the physical body I had in my old age, nor the physical body that I had when I was younger. Either of them would be far to much of a constraint once you were freed from it.
I take it that it is only in suffering or in love that you appreciate the freedom of not being constraint by a physical body as it holds you in a cage. You can never be independent of time and space any more.

It is when you see your life to reflect God and therefor to see your life reflected in those who follow him that you can learn to ride the wave and learn how to live forever. If you cannot feel the love of Jesus and of your parents live in yourself you will remain separated from them. If you succeed, you will become one spirit from the one flesh with no desire to be a “self” any more. If you still want to be yourself when you go you will be trapped, especially when you think of a material self.

I think I said it before:
To live forever is the art
to learn to live in every heart.

Like Jesus lives in mine it makes me happy to know him to live in other peoples hearts, as where he lives I live in him. Why would I want to will things different from him and want to be a separate self?

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181

You are a good Christian brother Marvin. It is good to hear from you.

Edward

182

It appears there has been a misunderstanding. In your statement to me earlier, it appears that you mention two links. I know there are a lot of us, but does not matter. Dr. Alf Mapp of Old Dominion University is related to both of us. He is a direct descendant of King Alfred the Great of Wessex. His grandfather, Rev. Ralph Mapp of Craddock Baptist Church, was my father’s first cousin. Why can we not be fellow scholars and friends seeking the truth about how God made this wonderful creation. I would like to see your response if you wish to give one.

183

My father used to be in a gospel trio that sang at various churches in the local area, and one of the members tended to forget that their audience may have different theological views than the one he had. This resulted in some awkward situations, such as them singing a song about the rapture at a Seventh Day Adventist church. Whenever someone talks about the rapture of resurrection, I almost immediately picture my dad chuckling about his days in that trio.

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184

I must say that this is really funny. We do have to watch theological differences, don’t we?:laughing:

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@Edward

Is English your native language?

I mention two links… and they are in the article… I quote sections from at least one of them.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

See the work called “History of the Rechabites”. http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/rechabites.html1

Here is another link with a different angle… Zosimus and the Rechabites

Are you not able to recognize what a link is?

And as I offered earlier… if you specify what part of what I discussed most interested you, I can find more links that cover the part you are most interested in.

Please think out what you want to say before you start wandering all over the page about your distant relations…

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@Jon_Garvey

I live in Virginia, so I would say that English is my first language. I also know other languages since I was educated partially in mainland Europe. It seems that we cannot come to an agreement. Therefore, I must assume that you wish to end our conversation. May God bless you in your quest. Also, if you must known, I am a British, Irish, and Dutch American. My branch of the family has lived here since Jamestown, Virginia when my ancestral uncle, Sir William Williams, sent my ancestor George Wynne to Virginia. What is your intent? I thought this was about heaven and the afterlife. What does my family background have to with the topic?

Edward

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@Edward

oh for goodness sake…

What is it that we need to agree upon?
You wanted my citations… and mentioned 2 links. I produced them again.

What is my intent? I offered to find you more information of what you wanted to know more about.
As soon as I asked … your desire for more information seemed to fly out the window…

And now you are implying that I am the one going on digressions?

Yep… I’m flagging you … I’m not sure you should be left alone.