Principal Point of Faith #3:
The Nature of Man
Why I Don’t Believe I Have an Immortal Soul …
1. Popular Christianity says only that “the Bible assumes the belief in the immortal soul” —because it is not stated anywhere
2. The idea came from the Greeks
Plato said the “soul” was “self-moving and indivisible” … that it exists before the body, and survives the body.
What was Jesus’ source of knowledge?
3. The first century church did not hold this belief.
But as the church grew people who admired Greek philosophy began to come into the church, bringing their ideas with them.
Why were the teachings changing during the early centuries after Christ?
4. The Bible uses the same original word “soul” to describe animals and humans! See Gen. 2:7 (Adam became a “living soul”); Gen. 1:20-21 (of sea creatures); Gen. 1:30 (of birds); Gen. 1:24 (of animals and “creeping” things)
If humans have an immortal soul, so do birds and animals and fish!
5. The Bible says souls can and will die
“The soul that sins shall die.” Ezek. 18:4, 20.
6. The Bible says the dead are not conscious. Eccl. 9:5; Job 14:1-2; Ps. 146:3-4; 115:17; Isa. 38:18-19
7. Both Jesus and Paul said the end of the wicked is destruction and death
If we have an immortal soul that cannot die, what is God’s big problem? (Matt. 7:14; Rom. 6:20-21, 23:; Gal. 6:8; Phil. 3:18).
Eternal life is a conditional gift — something God chooses to give, not something we are born with.
“Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor and immortality” (Rom. 2:7);
“The gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 6:23).
9. The righteous “put on” immortality after the resurrection — they could not put it on if born with it (1 Cor. 15:50-54)
10. As of now, only Christ has immortality (1 Tim. 6:16)
If we all had it by nature, this would not be true