“seek … immortality” (Rom. 2:7, KJV)
The mystery we discussed in the previous teaching prompts us to start the conversation about the distinction between soul and spirit, as this will place in perspective many questions we may have about regeneration or becoming born again, the afterlife and eternity, and thus also that which is before time.
Firstly – body and soul are linked to the notion of mortality. This is clearly seen in the gradual degeneration of the body and of the mind occurs as one ages. If 2 Cor. 4:16 thus says, “even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day”, the inner man is just the spirit, and does not include the soul.
Different from what the religious tradition espouses, the soul dimension is not eternal. This false notion is especially rooted in the thought of Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, long before the Christian era came to pass. Plato (428-348 b.C.) argues that man’s existence is rooted in the material world and the spiritual or ideal realm. He argues that because the soul is eternal, it had to have a certain pre-existence as part of the ideal spiritual realm. Through what he refers to as the transmigration of the soul, a way in which the physical realm moulds itself to those spiritual ideals, the soul again becomes what it originally was. The goal of life is to, through this process of transmigration, revive the original good of the soul (William S. Sahakian, in his History of Philosophy, p. 56). This is unfortunately not true, but has had an immense impact on Western thought. For this reason there has been, for centuries, a very stubborn attempt to substantiate Plato’s secular thought.
One of the Catholic Church’s most important theological founders, Origen Adamantius (185-254 b.C.), was one of Plato’s followers and widely propagated the immortality of the soul, and proclaimed that the soul receives after death either eternal glory as reward, or eternal punishment. In Origen De Principiis he writes, “The soul, having a substance and life of its own, shall after its departure from the world, be rewarded according to its deserts, being destined to obtain either an inheritance of eternal life and blessedness, if its actions shall have procured this for it, or to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishments, if the guilt of its crimes shall have brought it down to this …” (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, p. 240). He thus taught that the human soul exists before the body comes into being, but is contained within the body as a type of punishment. Physical life is a process of purification to allow fallen people to return to a spiritual state.
With his systematising of the Platonic ideal, Augustine (354-430) continued to build on this deception. The immense influence of these secular philosophers has played a large role in Christian though. Richard Tarnas, in his excellent book The Passion of the Western Mind, points out this influence: “It was Augustine’s formulation of Christian Platonism that was to permeate virtually all of medieval Christian thought in the West. So enthusiastic was the Christian integration of the Greek spirit that Socrates and Plato were frequently regarded as divinely inspired pre-Christian saints.” (p. 103). Please selah about this.
This framework of thought is later established by Thomas of Aquinas (1225-1274 a.C.) in his The Summa Theologica. A few centuries later the pioneers of the Protestant reformation embraced this view as a traditional truth, and it became part of Protestant dogma, and over the course of years it worked its way through to general Pentecost and Charismatic thought.
Let us have a look at what Scripture has to say on this matter, after all, “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.’” (Matt. 22:29).
The Hebrew for soul in the Old Testament is nephesh. The BDB defines it as simply: “that which breathes, the breathing substance or being, soul, the inner being of man, living being”. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words translates it as “the essence of life, the act of breathing, taking breath”, but also makes clear that there is a problematic element around the translation of the word: “The problem with the English term ‘soul’ is that no actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is represented in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew system of thought does not include the combination or opposition of the ‘body’ and ‘soul’ which are really Greek and Latin in origin.” (pp. 237-238).
In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible we find the following entry under the lemma “Soul” about the word nephesh: “The word ‘soul’ in English, though it has to some extent naturalized the Hebrew idiom, frequently carries with it overtones, ultimately coming from philosophical Greek (Platonism) and from Orphism and Gnosticism which are absent in ‘nephesh.’ In the OT it never means the immortal soul, but it is essentially the life principle, or the living being, or the self as the subject of appetite, and emotion, occasionally of volition.” (Vol. 4).
That nephesh does not refer to an immortal soul is clearly seen in how the word is used in the Old Testament. According to Gen. 2:7 man receives the breath of life (nephesh), but so do the animals in Gen. 1:24. Nephesh is translated as “body” in Lev. 21:11 (KJV), but it is qualified as a dead body – “Neither shall he go in to any dead body …”, in reference to a cadaver.
The most clear Scripture on the immortality of the soul is Ezek. 18:4b – “The soul who sins shall die.” The Old Testament notes that the soul that dies returns to a state of existence that is known as she’ôl [in our translations translated as realm of the dead, hell or grave, or pit]. Ecc. 9:5b-6 explains what this state of oblivion entails: “But the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun.” David also makes it clear: “For in death there is no remembrance of You …” Also note what Ecc. 3:19-20 presents as the nature of the soul: “For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust.”
Cleary the concept of the immortal soul is not part of the Old Testament thought framework at all, but it did in the time of the New Testament – especially because of the Hellenistic (Greek) culture in which the new covenant is embedded – become a pressing philosophy that consistently bordered up against the gospel. In the first century the Jewish philosopher Philo – a contemporary of Jesus – really established the Platonic understanding of the soul, and said the following: “The death of a man is the separation of his soul from his body …” (The Works of Philo, p. 37). Philo makes it clear that the soul is released in death, and either gains eternal life, or eternal doom. Luckily the New Testament writers managed to escape this influence.
More on this in the next teaching.
- Selah: Explain to someone what the Old Testament says about the soul.
- Read: 70-75.
- Memorise: 72:19.
- For a more in-depth understanding: Read Richard Tarnas’s The Passion of the Western Mind.
