[size=85]Luqa (Luke) 23:43 -Aramaic “Peshitta” (the New Testament in the Aramaic language)[/size]
Jeshu saith to him,
[Amen I say to thee, That to-day with me thou shalt be in Paradise.]
[Amin omar-no lok, d’yaumono ami tehve be-paradiso.]
I will not soulsleep.
Hi Lefein,
You wrote:
Yes, but it is also an indisputable fact that we begin our existence as mortal beings, and that we will not “put on immortality” until Christ returns to abolish death. Until then, one important aspect of our “being” will remain quite different from God’s (as well as from Jesus’ and the angels’).
Except what we’re told is that Adam - not merely Adam’s body while Adam (or Adam’s “being”) went somewhere else - returned to “the dust that is God’s dust.” Nowhere are we told that the breath of life/spirit that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils was Adam’s “being.” “Adam” refers to a personal being, but the “breath of life” breathed into Adam’s nostrils (and which made him a “living soul”) was an “it” not a “he.” Your breath - the “spirit” from God which you share with the animals and which is in your nostrils (Gen 2:7; 6:17; 7:15, 22; Job 27:3; 34:14-15; Ps 104:29; 146:4; Eccl 3:19) - is not your being, and you, as a human being, are not constituted by your breath. You are constituted by your body - i.e., that wonderfully designed organism which James says is “dead” without the “spirit” (which here refers to the “breath of life”).
But what about the “spirit” within us which can be “troubled” or “broken” or “haughty” or “lowly” or “provoked,” and which is said to “know a person’s thoughts” (etc.)? Well first, this “spirit” within us isn’t the “spirit” or breath that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils, and which is in the nostrils of all living, breathing things (both animal and human). While the word “spirit” in both cases refers to some invisible force, the same thing is not being referred to. But does it refer to our “being?” No. When the word “spirit” is used in this secondary way it’s referring to our mental disposition or to some dominant feeling that moves us to action. It’s something that I believe is inseparable from being alive. That is, in order for humans to even have such a “spirit” within us we must first, I believe, already possess the other “spirit” (i.e., the breath of life in our nostrils). When the “spirit” that is the “breath of life” from God departs from us, all mental activity ceases and we can no longer have thoughts, feelings or a state of mind. Whatever plans we had formulated in our mind perish when we die. The dead know nothing. Only the living - whether we’re talking about God, angels or man - can think and feel. The dead can’t do anything but remain dead until they are restored to a living existence.
How in the world does it follow that God has forgotten someone and will never remember them again just because they’ve stopped breathing and all mental activity has ceased due to the fact that their brain has stopped functioning? To be consistent you should also believe that human persons never even enter God’s mind - and are never thought of by God - until we first come into existence! But that’s obviously not true. God was thinking of us and “knew us” before we were even born. I think your reasoning is flawed and your worries and concerns are unfounded. Just because we cease to exist as living, conscious beings when we die doesn’t mean God has “forgotten us.” It simply means our existence as living, conscious persons has been temporarily suspended and put on hold until a future time. He loved us before we began to exist as living, conscious persons and he will continue to love us after we die. It is only a permanent loss of living, conscious existence - not a temporary one - that would be inconsistent with God’s unfailing love for us.
When did Christ say his disciples would join him in Heaven (his Father’s house), Lefein? When they breathed their last and died? No. He said they wouldn’t be able to follow him to where he was going until after he comes again to take them to himself (John 13:33; 14:1-3) - i.e., when he comes in the same way as they watched him go into heaven (Acts 1:11). And when, according to Paul, will we get to be “always with the Lord?” When we breathe our last and die? No. It’s after Jesus has descended from heaven “with a cry of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thess 4:13-18). But does the fact that we “sleep” until Christ returns to take us to himself mean God hates us? Of course not. Again, your concern is unfounded. Death’s being a temporary cessation of living, conscious existence does not mean God hates us.
I don’t believe death in and of itself is something we’re supposed to “like,” Lefein. Considered by itself, death is not supposed to bring a smile to our face. Death is an enemy that I believe exists primarily for the purpose of contrast. Death highlights life. That which makes death so undesirable and unappealing to us is what makes life even more desirable and appealing to us than it would be otherwise. Death also helps manifest God’s character in that it gives God the opportunity to work redemptively on behalf of those who are dead and dying, just as the blindness of the man referred to in John 9:1 gave God the opportunity to heal the man through Jesus. It’s about contrast and God’s giving himself the opportunity to bring about a greater good than would’ve been possible had there been nothing from which to save and heal us.
You seem troubled that God would allow or ordain something to be a part of our present existence that we aren’t supposed to like (such as a loss of conscious existence when we die). But the fact that certain aspects of our existence are not meant to make us feel good does not mean God hates us. Adopting your reasoning an agnostic could complain, “I cannot believe in a God who would hate us enough to allow anyone to suffer in any way during this life, or who would allow all of the ambiguity and heartache and loss that makes life so hard sometimes. I cannot believe in a God who would hate his human creatures enough to give us such a wicked stone when so many have asked him directly for bread. I refuse to believe in such a hateful God.” That’s what I hear you saying when you speak of “soul sleep” as if it meant God hated us. Similarly, a single Christian who desperately longed to be married and have children could say (adopting your reasoning), “God does not hate me enough not to give me a spouse and children; he cannot give me such a wicked stone when I have directly asked him for bread.” But would they be correct just because they felt so strongly in this way? Of course not.
The fact that death entails a loss of life and conscious existence is not something that, in itself, produces in me any warm or pleasant feelings. It’s not supposed to; we were created ultimately for life, and long for a time when we will be free from all pain and sorrow and death. But the fact that our conscious existence temporarily ceases at death doesn’t mean God hates us any more than the fact that we are exposed to pain and sorrow in this life means that God hates us. While we would often prefer that God did things differently or chose not to allow certain things, neither “fact of life” is inconsistent with God’s love for us. And while I don’t think our having to die is inconsistent with God’s love for us, I think a person adopting your reasoning could make a better argument for this being less consistent with God’s love than the fact that our conscious existence ceases when we die. Some have a greater aversion to and fear of dying than of simply ceasing to consciously exist after they’ve died, and someone who had adopted your reasoning could say (even if such a belief was ultimately delusional), “I do not think I will die. God does not hate me enough to do that, he cannot hate me enough to give me such a wicked stone when I have directly asked him for bread.” You would probably respond to this person by saying that our having to die does not mean God hates us at all. God may not be “safe” (in the sense that God has ordained or allowed certain aspects of our existence that we would prefer he didn’t), but he is still good because he has not ordained (or does not allow) anything to happen to us that is inconsistent with our ultimate happiness. Like dying itself, being dead is only temporary. God is not going to let death have the last word for anyone. God did not forget Adam after he died and returned to the dust, and he has not forgotten anyone else who has died, either (except perhaps in a figurative sense, as he is said to “remember” Israel after her exile). He is one day going to “swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all people, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces…”
Your words seem to betray a disdain for the physical and material, and a refusal to see anything that is fundamentally physical and material as being in any way sacred or spiritual. I disagree with your view. I don’t see the spiritual as being in any way in conflict with the physical and material. I don’t think a being which is constituted by a physical, material body is “unspiritual” merely by virtue of its being a physical or material being. Contrary to what you seem to think, “physical” or “material” is not the opposite of “spiritual.” “Spirit” simply refers to something’s being an invisible force (such as a current of air or a mental disposition), and in most places in the NT, “spiritual” refers to something’s being inspired by or under the governing influence of the Holy Spirit, and has nothing to do with whether they are wholly material, physical beings or not. Paul refers to some persons as “spiritual” and others as “natural” (or “soulish”) not because the former are immaterial, non-physical beings and the latter aren’t, or because the former have a “spirit” or breath that departs from them at death and the latter don’t. That’s obviously not Paul’s meaning here. He’s talking about people who are taught by the Spirit and who set their minds on the things of the Spirit, and those who don’t.
Are you saying that the only reason I’m not existentially bankrupt or haven’t sunk into existential despair is because I don’t really believe that my existence as a living, conscious being is going to temporarily cease at death and then be restored to me at the resurrection? I’ve thought a great deal about this subject over the years, and even if I’m wrong I think it would be pretty ungracious of you to claim I don’t really believe what I claim to believe, or that I would be going through some existential crisis if I really did believe it. Temporary cessation of life and consciousness is certainly not something for which I’m “groaning” (my desire is to be further clothed at the resurrection, assuming Christ doesn’t return before I die), but it’s not something that troubles me a great deal, either. That there will be a “gap” in my existence as a living, conscious being is not something that makes me think God hates me. It’s not like I’ll be aware of being dead, and since it won’t trouble me then it doesn’t trouble me now. From my perspective, as soon as I close my eyes in death I will be opening them again on the morning of the resurrection. What does trouble me is the same thing that troubles those who don’t believe in “soul-sleep”: the thought of dying before my wife and “leaving her behind,” or the thought of my wife dying before me (but even then, I’m confident that we’ll see each other again!).
To interpret the Psalmist as saying he would never experience the death that is referred to in (for example) Psalm 6:5 or 13:3 or 30:9 would mean the Psalmist believed himself to be immortal and “equal to the angels.” That’s obviously not his meaning: “What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah” (Ps 89:48). But if by “not dying” the Psalmist means he had been delivered by God from a premature death (and this was occasionally a cause for thanksgiving in the Psalms), this Psalm becomes consistent with the rest of Scripture. Adam Clarke (who did not believe in “soul-sleep”) interpreted the Psalmist’s words in v. 17 as follows: “I was nigh unto death; but I am preserved, - preserved to publish the wondrous works of the Lord.”
The Peshitta is a translation. As such, it is no more authoritative than any other translation. All that one need say in response to your quote of the Peshitta is that the translators of the Peshitta either didn’t recognize that Jesus was using a noted Hebrew idiom, or the translators knew it but chose to translate the verse in a way that revealed their bias that humans don’t really die, or that the dead aren’t really dead (and I say that because I think everyone knows intuitively that consciousness and life are inseparable). Also, another Aramaic translation of the NT (the Curetonian Syriac) translates Luke 23:43 in a way that does recognize the idiom I think Jesus was using, and reads, “Amen say I to you today that with me you will be in the garden of Eden” (a point I argued in the following post:
Should we form universalist congregations?).
So if it’s true that you “will not soulsleep,” I don’t think it’s because of what Luke 23:43 says. But that you will, in fact, “soulsleep” after you die is evident to me from the following two Scriptural facts:
You’re a “soul.”
The dead “sleep.”
Hence, “soulsleep.”
I have nothing good to say to you, and even less anything good to say of your worldview, after that statement.
“May Materialism be damned with a violent damning.” Is about as close as I can even get to even a nice thing to say about it.
This conversation is over.
I’m sorry you view my belief as being as offensive and “damnable” as we both view ECT, but I’m not going to apologize for simply stating what I believe to be the clear teaching of Scripture. “May any teaching that is inconsistent with Scripture be damned with a violent damning.” And while I was hoping our conversation might continue, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m writing more for the benefit of those who aren’t already hostile to what I think Scripture teaches and science confirms.
I do apologise for my bluntness, but I do not apologise for my honesty.
I do have respect that you believe, and are a believing being, but what you believe cannot be mine; and that is the issue behind our differences.
Lefein; CAREFULLY re-read 1Cor. 15, particularly toward the end, where Paul is talking about the resurrection.
I did, in several translations, and I see the resurrection being equated very much to clothing, I am not my clothing.
It does not convert me to soul sleep, it only strengthens my resolve that my being is not my raiment, and that my raiment is not my being; as it should be, as it is, as it will be - for me at the very least.
You mean the parts of this chapter where Paul refers to a certain category of human persons as “the dead,” refers to these persons as having “fallen asleep,” says that “we shall not all sleep,” talks about how essential the resurrection is to our having a future, post-mortem existence, refers to Adam as being the “man of dust,” and speaks of the mortal as putting on immortality and the perishable as putting on the imperishable at the “last trumpet?” 
Yeah, I think this whole chapter is pretty devastating to the belief that human persons are really immortal souls or spirits that go to heaven at death.
We don’t have to be “immortal souls” that exist in a conscious, disembodied state after death in order for our body to be figuratively spoken of as “clothing” or as a “building.” But we shouldn’t stretch the metaphor too far. Even for those who believe we are really “immortal souls,” there is much that is true about our relationship to our bodies that is not true of our relationship to our clothes or where we live. And one big difference, I believe, is that, while we aren’t identical with our bodies, we are constituted by our bodies and cannot consciously exist without a body of some sort (a good book in which the “Constitution View” is defended is Rethinking Human Nature by Kevin J. Corcoran). Because we are constituted by our bodies, when a person’s body dies, the person is said to die as well. And when a person’s body is buried or entombed, the person is said to be buried or entombed as well.
Saying that we are more or less our clothing is what stretches the metaphor, not equating bodies to clothing when clothing is something we as beings wear.
Clothing is something worn by a person who can be naked. Buildings are indwelt by persons who are capable of being outside of it. Clearly it is not a stretch by far at all, but is common sense given the context. That you say it is a stretch of metaphor - is in my opinion, without any significant power; a forceless assertion.
You say “we don’t have to be…” - well I say thus, we don’t “have” to cease to exist after our bodies, our clothing, our tent, is left either in order for bodies, clothing, and tents to be bodies, clothing, and tents.
You are welcome to believe as you believe, your belief however is not welcome to insist that it be my belief when I am already quite pleased to believe I’m going immediately to Heaven when I leave this world, and quite pleased to believe that I am much, much, much more (and that God has made me much, much, much more creatively) than what you suggest the human being is (and what you suggest God has made).
You may believe that you cannot exist without your body, that is your choice. I do not believe that I cannot exist without my body, nor do I have any sufficient reason to believe such, especially since I am not a Materialist by any stretch of the word.
I’ll be blunt, to me, that is violently offensive in a great many ways…
Heres the way I see this issue right now.
It doesn’t matter. What I mean by that is that we won’t know either way. Once we die if soul sleep is correct we will not know, when we wake up 10,000 years could have passed and we wouldn’t have known. The dead know nothing (if thats what that passage is talking about). Once we die I believe we step out of time as time its tied to space, its part of the natural realm. Time is irrelevant (I believe) from God’s point of view, to Him its instantaneous, from me the dead guy its instantaneous, to the people back on earth a bagillion years may have passed (and they have no way of knowing whats going on anyway).
Either way I think when we die its like we blink, the eyes close, then just that quickly (from our and Gods perspective) as a blink our eyes open at the same time as the rest of our order, whether we be part of the first fruits, those who are his at his coming, or at the end when he has delivered up every rule, power, and authority.
blessings
It is not that simple for me.
This is an existential issue…not whether or not I’m bored waiting for the afterlife. Aaron and the others simply do not understand the inexpressible slap to the face it would be for me, existentially even in “glory” if soul sleep were true, true that is, for me and my existence (I don’t care two ways or three whether or not it is true of them).
I would be an abomination to my very self, even and especially in glory, and would have no recourse but to rid Creation of that very abomination; and I would effectively end, or exist in perpetual torture trying to end the unendable.
I mean it will happen instantly for all parties except those on earth where time is relevant. Your physical body will undergo decay and 10,000 years. You will wake up instantly at the resurrection, because as die you are freed from the bonds of time.
That isn’t the issue I am having. That is a given. The issue is that at the very core of my being, the very existential root - the being of my being, I am not as I must be, in order for me to enjoy or appreciate who I am, or my existence - and by extension God who made me, and existence itself.
It is just as existentially bad to me, as what the militant Atheist’s idea of a human being is to a Christian, and in fact is almost the same exact thing; the only difference being that it is a theistic version of it.
If the militant Atheists, like Richard Dawkins were proven correct - would you really want to exist anymore? I would not, and it is the same, for me, with soul sleep.
The denial of Heaven (my inhabitance in a conscious, blissful, fulfilling, wonderous intermediate state with God), and the denial of my being as a spirit independent of material expression for existence; is as equivalent to the feeling a staunch and happy Theist has when a militant Atheist denies the existence of God, and insists it upon a person. For the Theist to accept that Atheist’s view, would be existential bankruptcy. The same it is for me regarding my being, and my Heavenly destiny; which does not dis-include a resurrection when the material world is remade and all existence is united in an All-Heavenly expression, and exists in an All-Heavenly state of being.
This is why my reactions to the doctrine are so violent, because they express that very sentiment to me, and very bluntly as well.
Again, I don’t believe we are identical with our bodies. We are constituted by our bodies, not identical with them. I don’t think you yet appreciate the difference. It’s subtle, but important. Because I am not identical with my body, I can be conscious of having a body. And because I am not identical with my body but rather constituted by it, my body can undergo a radical change (essentially becoming a different body) without fundamentally changing who I am as an individual person. And that’s what I believe Paul’s trying to convey by his “clothing” and “building” metaphors. Figuratively speaking, the “building” in which we presently “dwell” is going to be “destroyed” and replaced by another one, and the “clothes” we are presently “wearing” are going to be “changed.” By this imagery Paul is simply emphasizing the fact that our individuality - what make us essentially who we are, and what must continue post-resurrection if we are to continue) will be restored, while that by which we will be constituted will be different than it is now. Our first-person perspective (which includes our self-awareness and memory) will continue even after the body by which we are constituted has undergone a radical change.
But consider this: just as we can’t be identified with our body (although we are constituted by it), neither can we be identified with that which Scripture sometimes refers to as our “spirit.” David and Isaiah, for example, referred to their “spirit” as an “it” that is within them (e.g., Ps. 51:10; 143:4; Isa 26:9). I, too, can refer to my “spirit” as an “it” and as being “within me.” And so can you. Like your body, your “spirit” (whether it refers to your “breath” or your mental disposition or the seat of your emotions) belongs to you, but it is not identical to you.
Except we don’t die when the literal building in which we dwell is demolished, or the clothing we’re wearing doesn’t fit us anymore. And while we can design and make our own clothes or build our own dwellings to live in (whether it be a tent or a brick house), we can’t make our own bodies (at the most we can only modify them somewhat, and even then it’s a relatively superficial change). And while we may inhabit several different dwelling-places in the course of our life and change clothes countless times, we only get one body in this life. And while we don’t come into this world wearing clothes or dwelling inside a tent or building, we do come into this world embodied, and we were created to be embodied both now and in the future. So what’s my point? There are limits to the metaphors to which you’re referring, and I think you’re pressing the metaphors to convey something they were never intended to convey. You’re assuming the very thing that first needs to be proved (i.e., that we consciously exist after death in a disembodied state) and reading it into the Scriptural metaphors. While I will certainly be “found naked” if my mortal body is “destroyed,” I see no reason to believe I will be consciously aware of my “nakedness.” And there is no suggestion that I will be “with the Lord” while I’m “naked” and “unclothed.” No, I expect to be “with the Lord” after “what is mortal” has been “swallowed up by life,” and I have been “further clothed” with my “building from God.”
Again, your words seem to betray your disdain for the physical body. You seem to absolutely hate the fact that we might actually be constituted by something that Scripture teaches God actually took the time to “form” (Gen 2:7 Ps. 139:13-14). What Scripture actually says about who and what we are as human beings is, it seems, not enough for you. You must make up something that you see as “superior” to the human body and then call this “superior” thing by which we are supposedly constituted a “spirit” or “soul,” while the actual Scriptural words translated “spirit” or “soul” mean something else entirely.
“But we’re not just our bodies! We are more than our bodies!”
That’s true; we will both, I believe, be raised with different bodies than the bodies which will be “sown” when we die, while we will yet remain who we essentially are as unique individual persons. I will still be uniquely myself and you will still be uniquely yourself. But this doesn’t mean either of us will consciously exist without a physical, material body, anymore than we could be alive now without “spirit” or the “breath of life” in our nostrils.
You mean the intermediate state of “nakedness” for which Paul was so desirous, and for which he groaned while in his mortal body? Oh wait, Paul was groaning for a conscious, blissful, fulfilling wondrous existence with God after the mortal had put on immortality and the perishable had put on the imperishable - i.e., after Christ has come to take us to himself so that we may “always be with the Lord.”
Which “spirit” are you referring to? The “spirit” or “breath” that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and which makes all living humans and animals “living souls,” or the spirit that David and Isaiah spoke of as being “within” them? Either way, this “spirit” is not “you,” but rather something that you have.
<edited; I have taken this [my] response down in order to answer, if I so choose, in a different medium to my disagreements with the above, and with your worldview>
Dangit…just after I’d finished my response to you, too! 
I guess I’ll try and incorporate some of what I wrote into a response for your most recent thread.
Yeah, that makes sense.