Does the human soul consciously exist following death

[Oscar3]

First and foremost, The truths of the Bible MUST...be presented, regardless of what anyone thinks.......
Eternal LIVES, ARE AT STAKE !
33:8 When I say unto the wicked, O wicked [man], thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked [man] shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
33:9 Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

wHAT chapter of the bible are you refering to here?

 

[Jay T]

Jay T
While I am no expert on this stuff you are talking about I do know a hypocrite when I see one..

When you joined this forum you agreed with the foollowing statements, and this is only a small part of the statement of faith. While I believe that seeing these other guys like drew, gubox, cp, sput are also breaking this very rule, they are here as outsiders causing trouble and keeping the real Christians from posting. Most people don't like to argue and everything that they do turns into an argument against what most people believe.

You on the other hand are a moderator. As a moderator you are a part of the leader ship here on this board, as the statement of belief says.

By being a leader, you are supposed to be above reproach.

I am no leader, as the majority of leaders, will lead you astray from the truths of God !

Just look at the Pope (in every century), they claim to lead the religious world in doctrine as to what one is to believe.
And, as the Bible says....the whole world follows their lead (Revelation 13).

You talk about a HOLY GOD, in your post , yet you are commiting the sin of lying to us by agreeing that you believe that hell is an eternal place of torment forever and then with your other face you say it is not.

There is no such thing a hell, being a place of eternal torment....as the Bible does not teach that !!!

 

[Oscar3]

There is no such thing a hell, being a place of eternal torment....as the Bible does not teach that !!!

Institute of Biblical Knowledge lol

41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.

44 "Then they also will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You? 45 Then He will answer them, saying, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Jesus was telling a lie right ?

 

[Jay T]

Institute of Biblical Knowledge lol

41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.

44 "Then they also will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You? 45 Then He will answer them, saying, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Jesus was telling a lie right ?

Do you know the difference between 'punishment' and 'punishing' ?

 

[Oscar3]

Do you know the difference between 'punishment' and 'punishing' ?

Eternal punishment
Eternal Punishing.

If both are eternal, what differance does it make?

 

[SputnikBoy]

Eternal punishment
Eternal Punishing.

If both are eternal, what differance does it make?

Once a person has received his/her punishMENT it is eternal in duration. They were punished, they were destroyed PERMANENTLY for ever and ever.

 

[Drew]

Once a person has received his/her punishMENT it is eternal in duration. They were punished, they were destroyed PERMANENTLY for ever and ever.

I agree. It is entirely sensible to see the "everlasting punishment" as saying that the state of their non-existence is the thing that will last forever. And this interpretation makes sense especially in light of the fact that God could have arranged things otherwise.

I think that the "traditionalist" may be bringing a kind of circular logic to this text. Already believing that "everlasting punishment" means eternal conscious torment, they simply ignore the possibility that a state of non-existence can also have the property of being everlasting.

So the quoted texts can be seen as consistent with both views. However, when combined with other Scriptural evidence, I think the case for annihilation is stronger than that for eternal torment.

 

[guibox]

The same situation could be used for the biblical phrase 'everlasting redemption'. Nobody thinks we are being actively redeemed for eternity. The redemption provided lasts for all eternity.

Somehow, traditionalists refuse to even see that such a valid meaning can be used with 'everlasting punishment'. Never mind that the bible clearly explains itself. 'The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life'

Opposites compared. 'punishment is death'. Somehow the traditionalist desperately wants us and everybody else to believe that we are going to be in a continual 'state of action' of thanatos, a noun.

Is it a process or a state? How can two texts saying the same thing be both a process and a state. Oh, I wish you guys would recognize the inconsistencies and downright contradictions with your arguments instead of blindly clinging on to them for no reason but to make God look like a cruel tyrant.

 

[jgredline]

Hi Folks
Ok, define punishment for me?
What does the bible say punishment is ?

 

[guibox]

Hi Folks
Ok, define punishment for me?
What does the bible say punishment is ?

What you are basically asking is, what is the penalty for sin? Sin is what Christ came to save us from by suffering its cost. So what does the Bible say that sin brought?

Wherefore by one man sinned entered and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned - Romans 5:12

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive - 1 Corinthians 15:22

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life - Romans 6:23

The ultimate problem is the necessity you feel that sinners NEED to be punished. That the 'wages of sin' is not enough. That sinners will be punished automatically is biblical, but it is secondary. Sin is to be destroyed and its effects eradicated. The wicked are merely caught in the crossfire spoken of in 2 Peter 3:10.

The wicked don't need an 'extra' punishment to satisfy a blood thirsty God's need for vengeance. Eternal torment is not the 'punishment'. It is not something extra that God needs. Torment is an automatic thing due to the 'cleansing' and 'destroying' fire. Because the wicked are still mortal and sinful, they must still suffer the full wages of sin. When they do, then shall come to pass the saying that the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death'.

How did this turn into another argument on annihilation vs eternal torment?

I thought it was about the 'conscious soul'?

 

[jgredline]

Guibox
Still you did not answer the question.
What did Jesus mean when he said eternal punishment?
What is punishment?
Here is the definition from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment
So what is your definition? What does the bible define as punishent?

 

[guibox]

I hope you are not going to try and get into a semantics argument over the English word 'punishment'.

In Matthew 25:46 the Greek word is 'kolasis' which Young's translates as 'restraint'. We cannot get the full picture of what this 'restraint' is. Restraint could apply to death as well as eternal torment.

So we look elsewhere...

2 Peter 2:9 uses the word 'kolazo', 'to restrain', 'to punish' to say

"To reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished"

This same word is usd in Acts 4:21. Do we assume that the Pharisees wanted to punish Peter and John with 'eternal torment'?

Let's look at 2 Thessalonians 1:9.

The word for 'to be punished' is dikentio' which means 'to pay justice'

"Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction"

So this punishment as is spoken of in Matthew 25, though a different word, describe the same event.

The everlasting punishment' is the same as the 'everlasting destruction' in the which does the 'dikentio'.

Are you going to say that they are experiencing a continual process of destruction?

 

[jgredline]

I hope you are not going to try and get into a semantics argument over the English word 'punishment'.

In Matthew 25:46 the Greek word is 'kolasis' which Young's translates as 'restraint'. We cannot get the full picture of what this 'restraint' is. Restraint could apply to death as well as eternal torment.

So we look elsewhere...

2 Peter 2:9 uses the word 'kolazo', 'to restrain', 'to punish' to say

"To reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished"

This same word is usd in Acts 4:21. Do we assume that the Pharisees wanted to punish Peter and John with 'eternal torment'?

Let's look at 2 Thessalonians 1:9.

The word for 'to be punished' is dikentio' which means 'to pay justice'

"Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction"

So this punishment as is spoken of in Matthew 25, though a different word, describe the same event.

The everlasting punishment' is the same as the 'everlasting destruction' in the which does the 'dikentio'.

Are you going to say that they are experiencing a continual process of destruction?

Youngs has the wrong Greek word for punishment...;as I had already explained in the previous page...My question is not a trick question...If you don't want to answer it cool, lets move on....
My point is that eeven in the english language it still proves my point.

 

[guibox]

Youngs has the wrong Greek word for punishment...;as I had already explained in the previous page...My question is not a trick question...If you don't want to answer it cool, lets move on....
My point is that eeven in the english language it still proves my point.

How about quit with the rhetorical questions then and 'inform' us exactly what the bible says the punishment is. I'm tired of playing games with you. :roll:

 

[jgredline]

Guibox
Your answer is founf in here...

Matt 25 :31-46
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.
37 "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? 40 And the King will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.
41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting (αἰώνιος )fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.
44 "Then they also will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You? 45 Then He will answer them, saying, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. 46 And these will go away into everlasting (αἰώνιος ) punishment, but the righteous into eternal (αἰώνιος ) life."

This section of scripture uses the exact same greek word (αἰώνιος ) This word means 1 without beginning and end, that which always has been and always will be. 2 without beginning. 3 without end, never to cease,

So the next questions that comes up is where does this everlasting punishment take place? Jesus tells us that also…
This next section od scripture describes the Judgment of the Nations, which is to be distinguished from the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Judgment of the Great White Throne.
The Judgment Seat of Christ, a time of review and reward for believers only, takes place after the Rapture (Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 3:11–15; 2 Cor. 5:9, 10). The Judgment of the Great White Throne takes place in eternity, after the Millennium. The wicked dead will be judged and consigned to the Lake of Fire

Rev. 20:11–15. 11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. 14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

So the next question that comes up is what is eternal punishment…
Lets take a look at what this passage says in the Greek…..
Here is Matt 25:46
και απελευσονται ουτοι εις κολασιν αιωνιον οι δε δικαιοι εις ζωην αιωνιον

The Greek word for Punishment is (κόλασις) This word simply means Torment…
Now what is torment. Well, I would say being cast into the lake of fire is torment.
Certainly torment would not be anything les that what Jesus went through on his way to the cross… None the less it is for ''ALL ETERNITY''

Now if you would like a complete A GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS of this passage, I would be happy to do it for you. I took Greek for 2 1/2 years and understand well enough to read and write it.


The Judgment of the Nations, or Gentiles (the Greek word can mean either), takes place on earth after Christ comes to reign, as Matt 25:31 clearly states: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him.†In identifying it with Joel 3, the location is the Valley of Jehoshaphat, outside Jerusalem. The nations will be judged according to their treatment of Christ’s Jewish brethren during the Tribulation (Joel 3:1, 2, 12–14; Matt. 25:31–46).
It is important to notice that three classes are mentionedâ€â€sheep, goats, and Christ’s brethren. The first two classes, over whom Christ sits in judgment, are Gentiles living during the Tribulation. The third class is Christ’s faithful Jewish brethren who refuse to deny His Name during the Tribulation in spite of towering persecution……..
The King places the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. He then invites the sheep to enter His glorious kingdom, prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The reason given is that they fed Him when hungry, gave Him drink when thirsty, welcomed Him when a stranger, clothed Him when ill-clad, visited Him in sickness, and went to Him in prison. The righteous sheep profess ignorance of ever showing such kindnesses to the King; He had not even been on earth in their generation. He explains that in befriending one of the least of His brethren, they befriended Him. Whatever is done for one of His disciples is rewarded as being done to Himself. The reason this is important and I went so far back is to capture the context of what Jesus is saying here……
OK, the unrighteous goats are told to depart from Him into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels because they failed to care for Him during the terrible Time of Jacob’s Trouble. When they excuse themselves by saying they had never seen Him, He reminds them that their neglect of His followers constituted neglect of Himself.
Thus the goats go away into everlasting punishment, but the sheep into eternal life .

Three other points should be mentioned. First, the kingdom is said to have been prepared for the righteous from the foundation of the world , whereas hell was prepared for the devil and his angels . God’s desire is that men should be blessed; hell was not originally intended for the human race. But if people willfully refuse life, they choose eternal torment…In closing I feel I need to mention this again…The Lord Jesus spoke of eternal (same word as â€Âeverlastingâ€Â) fire (v. 41), eternal punishment (v. 46), and eternal life (v. 46). The same One who taught eternal life taught eternal punishment (eternal torment). Since the same word for eternal is used to describe each, it is inconsistent to accept one without the other. If the word translated eternal does not mean everlasting, there is no word in the Greek language to convey the meaning. But we know that it does mean everlasting because it is used to describe the eternality of God (1 Tim. 1:17).
This is a good place to stop for now… Your turn.

:wink:

 

[guibox]

I'm sorry, jg. You cannot take the bible and make 'punishment' mean 'eternal torment'. Especially when eternal torment means 'eternal life in misery'. The Bible contrasts the two the further apart they are, the better.

- Life is contrasted with death
- Life is contrasted with perishing
- Everlasting life is contrasted with everlasting punishment (not punishing)
- Eternal/everlasting life in any form is given only to the righteous
- The righteous are given immortality at the resurrection
- Nowhere does the bible say the wicked are immortal or receive 'life' in any fashion whether it be to live in happiness or torment

Try and allow the Bible to interpret itself instead of trying to disect and twist one scripture while ignoring all the evidence that contradicts your one scripture.

And BTW, I sure would like you to finally show that the wicked receive immortal bodies to burn for eternity. Try finding that instead of assuming it and reading it into Matthew 25 and Revelation 14.

And it would be nice to remind yourself that the 'wages of sin' is not 'eternal torment' but that the wages of sin is thanatos of the whole person.

 

[Jay T]

Does the human soul consciously exist following death

The soul requires the physical human brain.

Because the soul, is made up of the human body + God's Breath of life.

There is no such thing as a soul, without a human physical brain.

Genesis 2:7 " And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul".

Did you get that ?

The soul is made up of 2 elements......body + breath of life = soul.

There is no soul...without the human body !

 

[jgredline]

And it would be nice to remind yourself that the 'wages of sin' is not 'eternal torment' but that the wages of sin is thanatos of the whole person.

θάνατος, ἀθάνατος [thanatos /than·at·os/]
1 the death of the body. 1a that separation (whether natural or violent) of the soul and the body by which the life on earth is ended. 1b with the implied idea of future misery in hell. 1b1 the power of death. 1c since the nether world, the abode of the dead, was conceived as being very dark, it is equivalent to the region of thickest darkness i.e. figuratively, a region enveloped in the darkness of ignorance and sin.

2 metaph., the loss of that life which alone is worthy of the name,. 2a the misery of the soul arising from sin, which begins on earth but lasts and increases after the death of the body in hell.

3 the miserable state of the wicked dead in hell. 4 in the widest sense, death comprising all the miseries arising from sin, as well physical death as the loss of a life consecrated

Enhanced strongs lexicon

 

[Solo]

The soul requires the physical human brain.

Because the soul, is made up of the human body + God's Breath of life.

There is no such thing as a soul, without a human physical brain.

Genesis 2:7 " And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul".

Did you get that ?

The soul is made up of 2 elements......body + breath of life = soul.

There is no soul...without the human body !

Wrong according to the truth of God's word!

1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight: )
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

 

[Drew]

From 2 Corinithians:

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

This text does not really add any more evidence to one side of this debate than the other. If taken as a technical 3rd person description of things, it suggests that a believer continues to exist in a disembodied state after death. This is what a "traditionalist" believes.

However, if taken as a first person narrative - a "what will be experienced by me when I die" account - it is entirely consistent with the following view: when a believer dies, their body is destroyed and they enter a state of consciouis non-existence (no "soul") until they are resurrected bodily and their "soul" re-appears.

Now to be fair to other parts of the 1 Cor passage, the following text might be more problematic to those who believe in a "no body means no soul" position:

If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked

This text suggests that if it were not for God's grace we could be found in a "naked" state without our bodes. This in turn implies that the body is not needed in order to experience conscious existence - a naked state does not sound like a "consciously non-existent" state. This supports the "traditional" view.

This argument has, I believe, been made by Free in the past. I hope to return to it in a future post.