Free said:
The two deaths are distinguished, by the very verses you give and are therefore, not the same. And you admit this - the second death is annihilation, the first is not.
Of course, I agree.
Free said:
So it really is no stretch to say that the first death is merely physical while the second is much more. I believe that Luke 12:4-5 supports this idea.
It is indeed a stretch, precisely because it does such violence to the meaning of the word "death".
My view about the "first death" admittedly does involve a small departure from the nominal sense of "death". Why? Because on my view, the first death is not the "end of the story" as
true death would be understood to be, although it is
otherwise true to the nominal sense of "death", having the absence of consciousness and all self-awareness that would be normally be implied by the word "death".
However the view that death = "full conscious existence with only the loss of a physical shell" veritably pounds the nominal sense of the word "death" into a pasty mess that is beyond recognition. Death, to we humans, is all about
loss of conscious experiences of the world, not about the status of the "house" in which that consciousness dwells (to use a dualist view that I reject, by the way).
If Fred's consciousness were somehow pried free of his body (again using the dualist conception that you guys embrace) and he could fly around the Universe and commune with Jesus, having lost only his body, would we consider Fred to be dead? Hardly. In fact we would consider him to much more alive than we who are constrained from such freedoms by this earthly mantle of flesh.
As for Luke 12:4-5, I cannot emphasize enough how this verse is entirely consistent with the view that I am defending here. The only reason that it is held to preferentially support the "immortal soul" position is that people bring this dualist conception
to the text.
Here is Luke 12:4-5
I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him
This text works in no way supports the notion that the first death is merely physical. It is
consistent with such a view, but that accomplishes nothing because it is equally consistent with the view that I am advocating for.
Some of us have been saying, the "soul / spirit" is not an immortal "thing" but rather a
descriptive term variously used to refer to the "life spark", or the "breath of God" that animates us. To quote guibox:
guibox said:
The term 'soul' was used to describe man as a functioning being both spiritually and cognitively. It was not a separate existence of a 'soul' that makes man a 'nephesh', it is the Hebrew anthropological way of describing what we now know as brain function, synapses, feelings and emotions.
With this in mind, lets proceed. If man kills the body, God can still resurrect that person, because God "knows" who that person was (before they were killed) and can certainly reconstitute him at the time of the general resurrection by
re-animating the person - by using knowledge of the
essence of who that person was, knowledge of his thoughts, feeling, and memories.
In fact, I suggest (I just had this thought) that this process parallels what we read in Genesis 2 - God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life". When the redeemed die, we sleep, but we "live on" in the mind of God, awaiting the re-animation when God calls us forth from the grave. I would deign to suggest that this "remembering in anticipation of re-animation" is what Job is referring to in Job 14 when he writes:
If only you would hide me in the grave
and conceal me till your anger has passed!
If only you would set me a time
and then remember me
The overall point in relation to Luke 12: man can only kill the
body, he cannot "erase" the "life-spark" information that God holds about that person.
God, on the other hand,
can indeed utterly do away with a person, by electing to "erase" or "blot out" that person in his / her totality - by doing away with both body and "soul". On this view, the destruction of the soul is God's judgement that the wages of sin is indeed death (non-existence) as His word clearly teaches in Romans 6:23 and elsewhere. God does away with that person by erasing the "life-spark" information along with the body - the Luke text abive works perfectly well with this.
The problem with the "traditional" conceptualization, on the other hand, is that it requires a dramatic re-interpretation of the meaning of the word "destroy" as per Matthew 10 ,where we are told that the soul is
destroyed in hell. Again, we need to let Scripture interpret Scripture, the Luke text does not refer to destruction of the soul in hell, leaving the "eternal torment" postion at least provisionally open. Matthew 10, however, closes the door on that possibility.
Unless of course, one wants to re-define destroy to mean to "preserve eternally". If one is willing to do this,
any position can be justified
How does a "destroyed" soul continue on in conscious torment? This is overly awkward. On the other hand, the view that I have expressed does indeed honour the sense that we normally accord to the word "destroy".
