A Time Magazine article, in July 1995 – “Glimpses of the Mind”, reduced the mind to processes of the brain. This is to the chagrin of most Christians who belief that if there is no metaphysical mind, then there is also no metaphysical soul. And to them, it means the end of the Christian religion.
One reader replied in the next August issue as follows: “You do not mention the profound religious consequences of the scientific investigation of consciousness. If it turns out to be true that consciousness, the soul, is not a separate reality, but a consequential phenomenon of the material world, then a fundamental truth of Christianity is shown not to be true because the concepts of heaven, and hell, and eternal life are based on the immateriality and indestructibility of the soul. The scientific demonstration of the material basis of consciousness would seem to mean the end of Christianity.”
I disagree with the reader on two major points. Firstly, Christianity is not centred on the innate immortality of the soul (and heaven, hell and eternal life do not hang on this idea) and secondly, the innate immortality of the soul is not truly Christian. The innate immortality of the soul is not of Scriptural origin, but of pagan origin – or worse yet, of Satanic origin! It was the Snake that said: “You shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4).
The Scriptural view of the soul is one that is not innately immortal.
Body + Breath = Living Soul
The Bible teaches that God formed man from the dust, breathed life into him, and he became a living soul: “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
God did not implant him with an immortal soul. No, the body plus the breath-of-life became a living soul. A living soul is therefore the combination of a body, plus life.
A Soul Can Die
This entity (a living soul) is not innately immortal. The Bible is very clear that a soul can die.
“The soul that sins, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20).
“And the second angel poured out his vial on the sea. And it became like the blood of a dead one, and every living soul died in the sea” (Revelation 16:3).
A soul is not innately immortal. If it were, it would not be able to die.
When the person dies, his life energy (breath) returns to the Life-Giver, and the body returns to the earth, and his consciousness cease: “His breath goes forth; he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalms: 146:4).
Scripture and science agrees that there is no separate soul, apart from the living body. This idea of an innate immortal soul that survives the deceased body is unbiblical. God alone is innately immortal (1 Titus 6:16). Everlasting life in the Bible is a conditional gift, given to people only at the Second Coming of Christ.
Immortality is only imparted at the Second Coming
“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes on Him should have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).
“For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall ever be with the Lord” (1 Th 4:16-17).
“Behold, I speak a mystery to you; we shall not all fall asleep [die], but we shall all be changed; in a moment, in a glance of an eye, at the last trumpet. For a trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).
The Bible is very clear on this teaching – immortality is a conditional gift: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This gift of everlasting life, though we can accept it now in faith, is only truly received at the Second Coming of Christ. In the meantime those that die, stay dead (or symbolically asleep) until that day when the “trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible…[with] immortality”.
Heaven and Hell
Mainstream Christianity erroneously holds on to the unbiblical doctrines that when a person dies his or her soul immediately transcends from this physical plain to another metaphysical plain – either heaven or hell (or limbo / purgatory).
The Bible teaches that the person stays dead (or “asleep” as the Bible refers to it), until the Second Coming of Christ. My dead mother is not at this moment being tortured in hell, or pampered in heaven. On the day she died her breath went forth, her thoughts perished and a few days later we returned her body to the earth.
Those that are dead “in Christ” will stay dead and unconscious, soulless as it were, until the Second Coming, when the dead in Christ will be raised with incorruptible bodies and with the gift of eternal life (immortality). God will again form their bodies and breathe the breath of life into them as he did with the very first man. And God whom knows everything and remember perfectly will reinstall into them their characters – network of synapses.
The doctrines of Heaven and Hell do not falter before the truth that we do not have an soul, but that we are a soul – and a soul that is not innately immortal. Instead the clear Biblical teaching of Heaven and Hell comes to the fore with this understanding of the human soul.
Science and Scripture in Agreement
Science is confirming Scripture. We are, in fact, bodies that are alive. This does not diminish us, nor does it take away the mystery and wonder of life and consciousness. Rather it enforces that we are holistic beings. Unlike the unbiblical teaching of Dualism, that tries to separate body and soul.
Science and Scripture are in agreement that I do not have a soul, I am a soul, and when I die, I’ll be a corpse.
Ultimates
There is probably a fear that if we do not have some separate soul, then all metaphysical truths will disappear. Whether or not I have a separate immaterial soul does not affect true metaphysical phenomena. “1 + 1 = 2” is still just as logically sound, and philosophically viable as ever. The great morals of not stealing, killing, and so on are still just as sensible as before. These “truths” are true regardless of humanities soulfulness or soullessness. These truths are seated not in the human soul, but in God.
Can a mind exist without a brain?
Scientifically speaking, a mind cannot exist without a brain, because a mind needs the matter of the brain to act as the hardware, whereupon the mind can run like software. The mind is the network of electric pulses acting according to a program. Once the electricity is cut, the program ceases – so too, once life is cut, the mind ceases.
The greatest problem with this understanding does not really involve how our minds work, but how God’s mind work. Are we to understand that God has a physical brain? And if not, does God have a mind? The question is liken to ask if God needs to eat, or sleep?
The answers are “no”. God does not need to function in the same way as we do. God does not need a brain as we do. His mind is different from ours. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, says Jehovah” (Isaiah 55:8). God is self-sufficient and not limited to our physical limitations. We, on the other hand, are not self-sufficient. For instance we need to eat and drink to live.
Just because we are physical does not mean God needs to be physical as well. Similarly, just because we are not metaphysical, does not mean that God has to be similarly reduced from supernatural to natural. He is the Creator and we are the creatures. Pretending that we are of the same stuff as God is pagan – not Christian.
1 comment:
Again we are in a position to decide what is given and what is lacking. Indeed, if we are god beings, originally and transcending, we have no needs,we just are Immortals, divine, perfect.
Therefore to accept a creed which only accepts us as Immortal by their perfect decency, lacks higher knowing. A Messianic being who is claimed by others as the only one able to bring each individual Physical Immortality, is of course an error, in the fact that being Immortal is all we can be - ever. This Human form is an expression of self, higher self, and self punishment only occurs through neglect of this high knowing, and subsequent abuse of an immortal form, given to us as an expression, by ourselves - God being.
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