Can Souls Die?

[IamCarl]

“Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Eze 18:4

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” Eze 18:20

“let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” Jam 5:20

“And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead [man]: and every living soul died in the sea.” Rev 16:3

Can a soul die?

 

[06convert]

Yes, a soul without grace is essentially dead…

 

[IamCarl]

Yes, a soul without grace is essentially dead…

But if you take soul to mean as the Jews meant it then it should simply means life or a living being.

If you know about Hebrew poetry, the Israelites wrote in a rhyme that compared two ideas rather than sounds. They would write one idea and then rewrite the same idea in a different way.

Compare:
“So that my soul chooseth strangling, [and] death rather than my life.” Job 7:15

“Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.” Job 33:22

“To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.” Psa 33:19

“he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence” Psa 78:50

“What man [is[COLOR=“blue”] he that] liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” Psa 89:48

If the meaning of soul is life or a living being, then can a soul die as I mean it (to be no more)?

 

[06convert]

Ok, I suppose it would depend on the definition of a soul. Of course it can mean simply life. How many souls are on board the ship? And of course the physical person at some point will cease to exist and die.

But if you mean a soul to be the immaterial spiritual part of a human being that gives them life that is part of what makes that person who they are. In that sense, a soul needs nourishment to survive. Grace it’s it’s nourishment. Without it, it dies.

 

[IamCarl]

Ok, I suppose it would depend on the definition of a soul. Of course it can mean simply life. How many souls are on board the ship? And of course the physical person at some point will cease to exist and die.

But if you mean a soul to be the immaterial spiritual part of a human being that gives them life that is part of what makes that person who they are. In that sense, a soul needs nourishment to survive. Grace it’s it’s nourishment. Without it, it dies.

But where is that definition in Scripture. I see souls dying but I do not see immortal souls anywhere in Scripture. If “soul” means “life” as I can find in Scripture, then it can die and be no more. But if “soul” means how the Catholics take it, I cannot find that anywhere.

Where does it say that souls go to Heaven? Where does it say that we have immortal or eternal souls? Solomon says we all die. Christ died but did not perish. The wicked shall perish or be destroyed eternally. The righteous shall be raised from the dead and be given eternal life. But in the Bible, it says that this life is here on earth. The inheritance is the earth.

 

[James_S_Saint]

Regardless of so much that has been said for so very many centuries;

The words “soul” and “spirit” have been conflated throughout history by those who didn’t really know the difference but liked to preach anyway.

Soul == your fundamental and essential identity and purpose, who/what you really are.

Spirit == your behavior, energies, efforts,…

Mind == your planning and calculating mechanism.

Your soul CAN be eternal merely by keeping it perfectly recorded or known (MUCH easier said than done). As a soul, there are no feelings, no good or bad, nothing. It is just a pattern that is the real you much like a computer program that is stored on a CD.

Your spirit is the actual efforts that your soul instigates, much like that same program that has been loaded into the computer to run. The word “sole” in reference to a shoe means the same concept in that the sole (soul) is the foundation upon which the rest of the shoe is built.

Your spirit can certainly die and does so regularly as it learns, gets defeated, or changes much between directions or levels of hope toward any target. The soul can be said to “have life” as long as it is actually being exercised. This is what the Scriptures were referring to as the soul dieing. When life is removed from the soul (the pattern that instigates an effort or life), then the soul can be said to be dead in the same sense that a computer program can be said to be dead even though the “soul” of the program still remains eternally on the CD and can be restored.

I’m not trying to imply that a person is merely a computer program, but many concepts are similar between the two entities.

 

[Karmartia]

But if you take soul to mean as the Jews meant it then it should simply means life or a living being.

If the meaning of soul is life or a living being, then can a soul die as I mean it (to be no more)?

Actually this may be an oversimplification of the Jewish concept of the soul at the time of Jesus. As a Jew your concept of soul would have depended on whether you were a Sadducee or a Pharisee, the former denying both immortality and spiritual existence, and the latter accepting these in addition to pre-existence and transmigration of the soul.
In Jewish scripture there are three terms used for the soul: nephesh (the animal nature), nuah (the ethical principle), and neshamah (pure spiritual intelligence). The idea that soul means “life” as you appear to use it seems to me to be more of Greek origin, a sort of self-subsisting vital principle, like a fusion of psyche and pnuema.

 

[IamCarl]

Regardless of so much that has been said for so very many centuries;

The words “soul” and “spirit” have been conflated throughout history by those who didn’t really know the difference but liked to preach anyway.

Soul == your fundamental and essential identity and purpose, who/what you really are.

Spirit == your behavior, energies, efforts,…

Mind == your planning and calculating mechanism.

Your soul CAN be eternal merely by keeping it perfectly recorded or known (MUCH easier said than done). As a soul, there are no feelings, no good or bad, nothing. It is just a pattern that is the real you much like a computer program that is stored on a CD.

Your spirit is the actual efforts that your soul instigates, much like that same program that has been loaded into the computer to run. The word “sole” in reference to a shoe means the same concept in that the sole (soul) is the foundation upon which the rest of the shoe is built.

Your spirit can certainly die and does so regularly as it learns, gets defeated, or changes much between directions or levels of hope toward any target. The soul can be said to “have life” as long as it is actually being exercised. This is what the Scriptures were referring to as the soul dieing. When life is removed from the soul (the pattern that instigates an effort or life), then the soul can be said to be dead in the same sense that a computer program can be said to be dead even though the “soul” of the program still remains eternally on the CD and can be restored.

I’m not trying to imply that a person is merely a computer program, but many concepts are similar between the two entities.

You are right in your understanding of spirit and soul. However, the spirit does not die but the soul does die. Spirit is breath and it is the breath breathed into the nostrils of Adam which allows you and all of man to live. All things are maintained and live by the spirit. This spirit belongs to God. When the soul dies, the spirit returns to Him. But the spirit is not a consciousness. The mind is consciousness. Usually in the Bible, the heart is the seat of intellect and the kidneys are the seat of emotion. The mind is coupled with the soul. The spirit however is an energy or power that drives everything in the universe.

“Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me [with thy] free spirit.” Psa 51:12

‘The answer is, by the spirit, self-named Yahweh or Yah, whose sons, messengers, and servants they are. Spirit radiant from the eternal centre of light and power embodied itself in them; and from them as secondary focal organisations, radiated into the substance of the earth and waters; by which radiation a collateral connection was established with “the free spirit” directly emanating from the Focal Centre of the Universe, permeating and pervading all atoms. Holding such a relation to all things, and energized by such a power, they could move heaven, earth and sea, and elaborated the six days’ work of power with all imaginable ease.’ (Phanerosis)

Our spirit is God’s spirit and it is by His energy we live.

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Col 1:16-17

He has given us free will and thus we can bend his spirit for our purposes.

 

[IamCarl]

Actually this may be an oversimplification of the Jewish concept of the soul at the time of Jesus. As a Jew your concept of soul would have depended on whether you were a Sadducee or a Pharisee, the former denying both immortality and spiritual existence, and the latter accepting these in addition to pre-existence and transmigration of the soul.
In Jewish scripture there are three terms used for the soul: nephesh (the animal nature), nuah (the ethical principle), and neshamah (pure spiritual intelligence). The idea that soul means “life” as you appear to use it seems to me to be more of Greek origin, a sort of self-subsisting vital principle, like a fusion of psyche and pnuema.

The Greek philosophy is actually that of the Gnostic philosophy of an immortal soul as presented by Plato. It is possible that this is the doctrine Christ hated of the Nicolatians in Revelations. The Greeks believed through their mythology that all “souls” went to Hades, the God of the Underworld. Plato believed that all souls are immortal and eternal.

 

[James_S_Saint]

You are right in your understanding of spirit and soul. However, the spirit does not die but the soul does die.

Well I guess technically you can look at it that way. The thing that had the spirit is really what dies by having the spirit removed. Then you could say that the spirit merely changes form rather than saying that it “dies”. Another point of view might be that it can be called dead when it no longer seeks in that same direction or that goal, but rather has been “reborn” to seek a different goal. To me it is all just semantics. We would have to define “dead”. The reality doesn’t change.

 

[IamCarl]

Well I guess technically you can look at it that way. The thing that had the spirit is really what dies by having the spirit removed. Then you could say that the spirit merely changes form rather than saying that it “dies”. Another point of view might be that it can be called dead when it no longer seeks in that same direction or that goal, but rather has been “reborn” to seek a different goal. To me it is all just semantics. We would have to define “dead”. The reality doesn’t change.

It is the Physics Law of Conservation of Energy. Energy (spirit) cannot be created or destroyed but merely transformed into something else. The sentient consciousness ceases to be as the body breaks down and deteriorates into dust. The energy used by our bodily systems via electron transport chain, nerve firings etc. is thus altered into other forms to become energy for all things. You might say that the mind or consciousness is a collection of electrical firings. If the brain dies, the mind fails. But electrical energy is still energy which transforms, yet not sentient.

As per the computer analogy. The hardware would be the body. The programming would be the mind. And the electrical (name removed by moderator)ut would be the spirit. Without electricity or spirit, the body would cease to operate and all programs would be shut off permanently.

“the body without the spirit is dead” Jam 2:26

Electrical impulses and energy have no sentient consciousness. It is but power operating a system.

 

[John7]

Energy (spirit)

so let me get this straight…Energy (spirit), or energy is spirit, or energy = spirit.

Since God is spirit (John 4) therefore God = energy.

And since e=mcc, therefore God = mass times the speed of light squared,
or another way, mass = God/cc, or even better c = God/(mc)

if I have a 1kg mass, then God = 1kg x 300,000,000 m/sec x 300,000,000 m/sec
or rather God = 9^16 Nm…So if I have a 1 kg mass I have 9^16 J of God…wow I can quantitate God!! how cool is that. And not only that but God varies depending on the initial mass I choose.

…chapter and verse please

These are some of the things Christadelphians believe:

1. 
   *]You must become a Christadelphian and be baptized by them in order to have a chance at salvation.
   *]Jesus was the son of God, but not God in the flesh (denying the Trinity)
   *]The Holy Spirit is the radiant energy/power of God, not 3rd person of the Trinity, and he does not indwell the believer.
   *]Jesus was not born sinless. But we must achieve sinless perfection, like Christ did in order to save ourselves. This is referred to as the “God Manifestation”.
   *]Baptism and other works are necessary for salvation.
   *]Hell is not eternal. The wicked are annihilated. Except for the resurrection there is no type of life after death.
   *]They are not to fellowship with any who do not hold to their doctrines.
   *]Jesus Christ was just an human being. His death on the cross was not substitutionary, does not atone for are sins, and is not sufficient for our salvation. He only died so that we could have an opportunity to be like him, he was only a representative, not a savior.
   *]The soul is not immortal, it ceases to exist after death.
   *]The Devil, fallen angels, and demons are not real. They are just a euphemism for sin and evil men.

 

[JeanneH]

so let me get this straight…Energy (spirit), or energy is spirit, or energy = spirit.

Since God is spirit (John 4) therefore God = energy.

And since e=mcc, therefore God = mass times the speed of light squared,
or another way, mass = God/cc, or even better c = God/(mc)

if I have a 1kg mass, then God = 1kg x 300,000,000 m/sec x 300,000,000 m/sec
or rather God = 9^16 Nm…So if I have a 1 kg mass I have 9^16 J of God…wow I can quantitate God!! how cool is that. And not only that but God varies depending on the initial mass I choose.

…chapter and verse please

These are some of the things Christadelphians believe:

1. 
   *]You must become a Christadelphian and be baptized by them in order to have a chance at salvation.
   *]Jesus was the son of God, but not God in the flesh (denying the Trinity)
   *]The Holy Spirit is the radiant energy/power of God, not 3rd person of the Trinity, and he does not indwell the believer.
   *]Jesus was not born sinless. But we must achieve sinless perfection, like Christ did in order to save ourselves. This is referred to as the “God Manifestation”.
   *]Baptism and other works are necessary for salvation.
   *]Hell is not eternal. The wicked are annihilated. Except for the resurrection there is no type of life after death.
   *]They are not to fellowship with any who do not hold to their doctrines.
   *]Jesus Christ was just an human being. His death on the cross was not substitutionary, does not atone for are sins, and is not sufficient for our salvation. He only died so that we could have an opportunity to be like him, he was only a representative, not a savior.
   *]The soul is not immortal, it ceases to exist after death.
   *]The Devil, fallen angels, and demons are not real. They are just a euphemism for sin and evil men.

1. 
   Thanks, I was wondering what a Christadelphian was. They sound pretty much like a JW.
   Jeanne

 

[IamCarl]

so let me get this straight…Energy (spirit), or energy is spirit, or energy = spirit.

Since God is spirit (John 4) therefore God = energy.

And since e=mcc, therefore God = mass times the speed of light squared,
or another way, mass = God/cc, or even better c = God/(mc)

if I have a 1kg mass, then God = 1kg x 300,000,000 m/sec x 300,000,000 m/sec
or rather God = 9^16 Nm…So if I have a 1 kg mass I have 9^16 J of God…wow I can quantitate God!! how cool is that. And not only that but God varies depending on the initial mass I choose.

…chapter and verse please

These are some of the things Christadelphians believe:

1. 
   *]You must become a Christadelphian and be baptized by them in order to have a chance at salvation.
   *]Jesus was the son of God, but not God in the flesh (denying the Trinity)
   *]The Holy Spirit is the radiant energy/power of God, not 3rd person of the Trinity, and he does not indwell the believer.
   *]Jesus was not born sinless. But we must achieve sinless perfection, like Christ did in order to save ourselves. This is referred to as the “God Manifestation”.
   *]Baptism and other works are necessary for salvation.
   *]Hell is not eternal. The wicked are annihilated. Except for the resurrection there is no type of life after death.
   *]They are not to fellowship with any who do not hold to their doctrines.
   *]Jesus Christ was just an human being. His death on the cross was not substitutionary, does not atone for are sins, and is not sufficient for our salvation. He only died so that we could have an opportunity to be like him, he was only a representative, not a savior.
   *]The soul is not immortal, it ceases to exist after death.
   *]The Devil, fallen angels, and demons are not real. They are just a euphemism for sin and evil men.

1. 
   E=MC^2
   
   E/M = C^2
   
   sqrt(E/M) = C
   
   sqrt(E) / sqrt(M) = C
   
   C is constant so Mass only effects the amount of energy. Mass cannot be negative so Energy cannot be negative. Thus, the squareroot may be taken away to establish the relationship as mass decreases, energy increases to ensure a constant speed of light as Mass approaches 1. We see a correlation thusly of energy and light.
   
   “God is light” 1 John 1:5
   
   “God is spirit” John 4:24
   
   “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” 1 Tim 6:15-16
   
   Compare:
   
   “walk in the light, as he is in the light” 1 John 1:7
   
   “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Gal 5:25
   
   Are we walking in two things: spirit and light? Or are we walking in one thing: the spiritual light?
   
   “by the power of the Spirit of God” Rom 15:19
   “For the kingdom of God [is] not in word, but in power.” 1 Cor 4:20
   
   Compare:
   
   “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.” 2 Cor 13:4
   
   “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.” Rom 8:11
   
   It says that the power of God raised him in one and it says the spirit of God raised him in the other. Was it both power and spirit or is the spirit His power?
   
   “our God [is] a consuming fire.” Heb 12:29
   
   Light = Fire = Spirit = Power = Energy
   
   What sustains all things in the universe? Energy.
   
   Power (in Physics terms) is the amount of energy converted over time.
   
   Here is the wikipedia article on energy.
   
   Incidentally, spirit in the Greek when broken down is pneu (air) and ma (action), which means movement of air or power of air. We use the word today in pneumatic. The correct translation (though spirit in its true sense is good) is breath or wind. The same goes for Hebrew ruwach. It quite literally means wind or breath. It comes from the root word meaning to sniff or to smell. It is considered the power in which we live. We live by the breath breathed into our nostrils.
   
   “All in whose nostrils [was] the breath (neshamah ruwach) of life (chay), of all that [was] in the dry [land], died.” Gen 7:22
   
   “And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (neshamah) of life (chay); and man became a living (chay) soul (nephesh).” Gen 2:7
   
   “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living (chay) creature (nephesh) after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast (chay) of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” Gen 1:24
   
   Thus, nephesh or soul is a life or creature or beast, etc. and the spirit is the breath or power from God in which the soul lives.

 

[Karmartia]

The Greek philosophy is actually that of the Gnostic philosophy of an immortal soul as presented by Plato. It is possible that this is the doctrine Christ hated of the Nicolatians in Revelations. The Greeks believed through their mythology that all “souls” went to Hades, the God of the Underworld. Plato believed that all souls are immortal and eternal.

Again, an apparent oversimplification, this time of the Greek conception of the soul. There were many schools of thought, such the Epicurian which denied the immortality of the soul, and the Stoic which considered the soul to be a higher directing principle not necessarily separate from the body. Even Plato’s arguments in both “Timaeus” and “Phaedo” required refinement from later thinkers before there was a coherent concept of a transcendent, immortal soul. As far as the condemnation of the Nicolations, it is today largely understood as an objection to the manner in which they exhalted the clergy and denigrated the laity, not to any particular doctrinal dispute.

 

[Gertabelle]

Regardless of so much that has been said for so very many centuries;

The words “soul” and “spirit” have been conflated throughout history by those who didn’t really know the difference but liked to preach anyway.

Soul == your fundamental and essential identity and purpose, who/what you really are.

Spirit == your behavior, energies, efforts,…

Mind == your planning and calculating mechanism.

Your soul CAN be eternal merely by keeping it perfectly recorded or known (MUCH easier said than done). As a soul, there are no feelings, no good or bad, nothing. It is just a pattern that is the real you much like a computer program that is stored on a CD.

Your spirit is the actual efforts that your soul instigates, much like that same program that has been loaded into the computer to run. The word “sole” in reference to a shoe means the same concept in that the sole (soul) is the foundation upon which the rest of the shoe is built.

Your spirit can certainly die and does so regularly as it learns, gets defeated, or changes much between directions or levels of hope toward any target. The soul can be said to “have life” as long as it is actually being exercised. This is what the Scriptures were referring to as the soul dieing. When life is removed from the soul (the pattern that instigates an effort or life), then the soul can be said to be dead in the same sense that a computer program can be said to be dead even though the “soul” of the program still remains eternally on the CD and can be restored.

I’m not trying to imply that a person is merely a computer program, but many concepts are similar between the two entities.

Wow, thanks for those ideas from the religion of “none of the above” Now here’s what the Catholic Church teaches (seeing as how this is the Catholic answers forums, I thought this might be apropos).

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly”, with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming.236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.237 “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.238

368 The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one’s being, where the person decides for or against God.239