I think the problem with many is we go to an inspired book that is so written to make a case for even opposing doctrines and views. You can make that book say just about anything as 30,000 denomination prove. I don’t come by soul sleep or the alternative by the verses or by intellect, but instead by a knowing that has been Divinely sowed into my heart. It is a simple knowing, “He will never forsake me.” My life is built upon that knowing.
Sometimes I tell other’s get away from the book for awhile to learn His voice. Find His Word in your heart.
The Catholics make an idol of the church. The Protestants retort by making an idol of the Bible. I have known both idols in my lifetime.
John,
While I certainly understand you and sympathize, it hardly follows that people will really listen; and that can be very painful. Communication is vital to us as people and when we’re misunderstood or percieved as crazy, well it’s down right awful. I can appreciate listening to the still small voice but as you well know, everyone claims to hear it. And everyone has heard something different (30000000 denominations).
But if the human mind is dependent on a functioning brain (which all of our modern advances in neuroscience seem to suggest), then it would be impossible for our mind to continue after death. Moreover, it is my view that the word “spirit” (when referring to humans) does not refer to some ethereal substance (or what have you) that leaves the body at death, but to either 1) the attribute or property that is common to all living creatures and visibly manifested in breathing (i.e., what is commonly referred to as “life”) or 2) some aspect or process of a person’s mind, such as their thought pattern or mental state/disposition. In either case, it refers to some kind of unseen influence, but in both cases the influence is dependent on a person being embodied.
Because the dead couldn’t be consulted (at least, not without God’s miraculous intervention!), and thus people attempting to do so would only be deceiving themselves, or being deceived by others. Plus it was a pagan practice, and God did not want his people engaging in anything that would lead them into paganism.
Well, first, I don’t believe the Bible teaches the actual existence of “fallen spirits,” so the question of whether or not they are embodied is, to me, an irrelevant one (I do think angels are embodied, though). Second, I understand the “spirits” in 1John 4 that the apostle tells us to “test” refer to teachers/prophets, and not to disembodied beings. I believe John is equating (by the figure of speech, metonymy) a person’s mental disposition/thoughts (which could be governed by truth or error - 1John 4:6) with the person themselves.
Again, according to my understanding what a person’s “spirit” is, Paul would simply be saying (in 1Cor 14:32) that the aspect of the prophet’s mind to which God communicates a prophecy is under the prophet’s control, so they can restrain themselves from speaking if necessary and thus maintain order in the church instead of creating confusion.
The only way I could believe that some conscious part of us survives death is if it were revealed by God, either directly or via written revelation. I can’t speak for others, but my experience of consciousness/rational self-awareness does not suggest to me that it will continue after I die (i.e., prior to my being resurrected by Christ). My consciousness seems very much dependent on my working brain (i.e., whether I am awake or asleep, etc.). My grandmother has late stage Alzheimer’s; although she used to be a very sharp and intelligent woman, she can’t take care of herself anymore, or recognize anyone she once knew. And based on what I think Scripture reveals, I don’t think there is some conscious part of her that has remained unaffected by the disease that will leave her body when she dies and go somewhere. My hope is in the resurrection, when my grandmother’s mind and health will be perfectly restored (and not just restored, but enhanced more than I can imagine!). That’s where our hope should be grounded - not in the pagan idea of a disembodied state following death. Christ did not come to bring that to light; that’s not why he died and was raised. Moreover, I think sleeping is the closest thing to death that we can experience prior to death itself (hence the repeated references to death as being sleep in Scripture), and this experience certainly doesn’t lead me to believe that I maintain a conscious existence after death.
Maybe, with the discoveries of Quantum Physics, we realize things can be in two places at the same time. Often I wonder if Heaven on Earth isn’t just another place and we in our resurrected body, are already moving about and having our being there, while in another time and place we sleepily tread the earth. It seems we are bound to the earth by the vaporous reality of the material realm until the seed of Christ within, is enlivened and we slowly come to see another world and live in it.
It is said of the Christian mystics, they live more in the next world than this one. Lay your studies down men, come and join me.
Isn’t that the debate. If the human mind is not dependent on a function brain (which the bible seesme to validate), then it would be possible for our mind to continue during death. I highly doubt that modern science will be able to prove if there is mind that continues in spirit any more that it will be able to prove that there is a spirit at all.
As for “Ethereal substance”, no one knows what exactly to make of it because it seems it’s beyond physical comprehension. Again, no proofs either way but I would argue scripture suggests that spirit is unlike physical (flesh and blood) and penetrates this molecular universe.
Or perhaps the warning is because it’s somewhat of a dimented act to dialogue with the dead. If Pagans did not practice it would God be ok with it? I hardly doubt warnings come because pagans do it. If Martians did not exist and God warned us of communicating with martians, what kind of warning would that be? The story of Sauls discussion with the witch seems to indicate she in fact did talk with Samuel and Sam’s words were not so deceiving were they. He could have said…“Kill David, for the devil is trying to place him on your throne”. Instead the illusion or demon flat out stated “you sinned, God’s pissed, you’re done!”
Whether the spirit is fallen is irrelevant to the point. It appears to me the question of whether or not they are embodied HAS to be irrelevant because if a spirit is not embodied and has a mind, then the question of the spirit of a person will have great weight on whether the mind can exist outside of a lifeless body. So back to the point. I believe CLEARLY spirits (demons) can posess a person of which the person loses control of their own body. I also clearly believe humans have spirits. Now the question still remains can the human have a spirit apart from their body.
I notice you forgot to comment on spirits which posess humans.
Like the burning bush which has NOTHING to do with resurrection, Jesus pulls a rabbit out of the hat on the Saducees…“See here guys, theres the ressurestion”. I tend to think if the question was asked if minds require a phyisical brain in order to operate he would simply do the same…point us to passages where Demons (spirits) are operating without brains. I also tend to think he would point us to the very scriptures I’ve pointed out to you; warnings of consulting the dead, demon posession, spirits which RETURN to the person upon their ressurection. I have a hard time believing he would say, the spirit of the person actually in annihilated upon death and then reborn upon resurrection. Perhaps that’s why he says “she’s not dead, but sleeping” and then scripture declares “her spirit returned to her” as it had LEFT her body.
Now I realize no one has a corner on how to explain what a spirit is or what it’s like, but there is enough boundaries placed in scripture to say, they operate without bodies as we do and even will move into the body and infiltrate the very BRAIN of the person. So it seems clear at least, perhaps some common ground, A brain can host several spirits.
I think quantum physics is used as a catch-all by the religious as a means for the miraculous to somehow be possible. Unfortunately they normally start applying the quantun effects that operate at micro levels to the macro world - so for instance Jesus could have really walked through walls by making his atoms do something at the ‘quantum’ level - well sorry it doesn’t work like that at the macro level.
No, I don’t think God would have been ok with it, because, again, they still would have been engaging in something that was based on a falsehood. But I think the seriousness of the sin was due to its association with paganism.
Concerning Saul and the medium, I do believe that Samuel actually made an appearance; I just don’t think he appeared in a disembodied state: “Them Which Are Asleep”
Jeff you are probably referring to this paragraph of mine quoted below. First of all let me apologize for not being clear with my use of Quantum Physics. I hope to explain better my use of the subject, following the quoted paragraph.
I agree with you and even cringe when I see the term “quantum” used as a “catch all” often by New Age types. I am far from those, as I use what little I know of Quantum Physics, as I do other things in nature. That being, nature is a shadow or reflection of the heavenly.
Now as far as the relationship of the micro to the macro, I believe you sell the relation short. Discoveries into the workings of the micro are the discoveries of the workings of the universe. Quantum Physics is tied closely to Cosmology.
In my message, I used the “shadow” of nature’s quantum to reflect the continued workings of God toward man in another time and another space. Quantum discoveries show us that particles can move backwards as well as forwards in time and appear in all possible places at once. That is the shadow or type I use to give support of the Cross having process in other times and in other places, IE at deaths occurrence or even in heaven itself. Throw in the scientific evidence that in the universe there is faster-than-light transfers of information and we see the shadow of a thousand years being realized as a day. What may seem as an instant work in one realm may be a thousand year work in other realm.
I have asked a number of times with regard to those that promote an instant resurrection, “do you have time and events in your heaven? Do you have time and events occurring after your resurrection?”
I ask that, because I propose heaven is full of times and events which demonstrate process and goal. I also see resurrection being a process far from instant. As I have said before these that, carry an “instant rapture type mentality” want to circumvent the process of the cross, which is the process of resurrection. They are wonderfully bound together. In the passage of time, we die a little(cross) and that same little is like wise made alive(resurrection). Our crucifixion and resurrection is a process. With the term resurrection, I speak of the carnal soul(seat of the flesh) being reconstituted and reconciled with the mind of Christ. Further more, I do not see the breathing of our last breath, as the end of this process, as some allude by their doctrines of “soul sleep” or “instant resurrection meeting our last earthly breath.” There must be the experience of the cross realized and that takes time. That cross-time would surely to be missing, with regard to the unrepentant soul breathing his last breath and being whisked away into mindless soul sleep or instant resurrection. Some time and in some place after man’s physical demise man’s soul must have it’s time for the experiencing of the cross which proportionally births our resurrection. Time, is even part of the cross, thus I believe as long as their is a time and events, there will be the workings of the cross. Does heaven have both time and is it a place? Surely it has both for that gives the very meaning and substance to the term “body” whether resurrected or mortal. Let’s go further with those that believe the substance of our mortal mortal bodies are reconstituted and made immortal. Seems to me with that concept, the mortal body has to have Christ’s immortal resurrection life in in from the git go. Matter is spiritual, and I have argued that for a many years.
So much with regard to rightly dividing the truth , it is always about perspective and depends on who is doing the observing. Which takes us further into the discoveries of the quantum, where it has been shown our consciousness affects the behavior of particles of matter. As I said, it is important to know who is doing the looking and what is being thought with regards to man relationship in God?
I also deduce and have seen with my own eyes, all forum discussions on the subject of “resurrection” become lengthy, as with no end in sight, while also demonstrating a propensity to split into other a plethora of new discussions. Maybe such strange behavior has it’s shadow in quantum theory that proposes the universe is splitting, every Planck-time (10 E-43 seconds) into billions of parallel universes.
Yes, out there or better said, "within us, is already a place, to be later realized, called “heaven and earth met”. This inward place must surely contain our resurrected body, whether you realize it or not.
In closing, I can consciously imagine in another world, in another time RanRan will instantly take this, which I have written, and stick it up his arse and chew on it, and then pronounce it “worthy!” In this present disordered world I can only expect his customary derogatory comment. Please also note, if my message is ignored and ridiculed here, I am splitting for another world which I am sure, is filled with a people that will esteem and love me greatly after reading my thoughts.
Such are the thoughts and life of the suffering mystic,
John
PS Interesting enough, many physicists with the recent discoveries in the quantum are arguing that reverse time travel is what actually happens in reality. That might make sense of all the “re” words that fill ourTheology.
Aaron,
I see that JP has already raised the issues I have (and more). I also noticed that no one persued Pratt’s arguments. Seems a bit like my posts that the spirits or demons which have mental capacity without a body (thus needing to posess a body) was not addressed.
Pratt wrote:
and
Now I’m not near as well spoken as Pratt but I would like to see you tackle this one Aaron. JP alludes the to very point in his first sentence (2nd quote).
Well, I don’t believe in “disembodied” beings (and God is not disembodied because he never had a body; he’s an uncreated, self-existent, infinite Spirit, who I think belongs in a different category of Being entirely). I believe all finite beings are embodied in some way - even angels (and I believe all non-human angels are holy). As for “demons,” I don’t think they have any real existence; I see them as having their origin in the minds of pagans, and that views concerning them were adopted by the Jewish people during the intertestamental period. When Christ and his apostles spoke of demons and unclean spirits and people being “possessed” by them I believe they were simply using the vernacular of the day to speak of that which the “demons” were thought to produce (i.e., insanity and other health abnormalities that were largely unexplained at that time). Some of my views concerning this topic can be read on this thread:
I disagree with Jason’s understanding of “the spirits in prison.” I understand the word “spirits” in 1Pet 3:19 just as I understand it in 1John 4 - i.e., I undersand the word to literally stand for a person’s mental disposition or thinking (see 1Cor 2:11; Eph 4:23; Phil 1:27; 1Pet 3:4), but here refers to the persons themselves (by the figure of speech metonymy). Peter is not talking about “disembodied spirits,” but mortal people who were in bondage to sin (Isa 42:6-7; 61:1) - i.e., the depraved people of Noah’s generation (v. 20). Jesus didn’t personally preach to these people; it was the “spirit of Christ” in Noah which preached to that generation many years before the birth of Christ (see 1Pet 1:11; 2Pet 1:21; 2:5). It was by means of the Holy Spirit given to people that they were able to speak as though Christ were actually present (cf. Eph 2:17, where Christ is represented as having preached to people to whom he didn’t personally preach).
To say that the Ultra-universalist does not believe in hell is a mischaracterization IMO. I don’t believe in post-mortem punishments, but I do believe in “hell.” Hell occurs for the unbeliever in this life when he endures the consequences of his sins. Shame, contempt, anxiety, fear, broken relationships, distrust, tribulation, anguish, etc. are all things suffered by the sinner on this side of the grave. This is what Christ and the Apostles were warning of.
Show us from the Word of God where Jesus and the Apostles taught that hell was on earth for the unbeliever. So, if Hell is on earth does that mean that all born again children of God endure Hell with the unbeliever? Biblical Hell is makes this fallen world we live in look like disney land. It really amazes me of the doctrines that are being pushed on this board. There is so much non-sense that is going on between people who claim to be a born again child of God. ( Not aimed directly at you Todd, but in general in the body of Christ).
I certainly don’t share your stance with regard to soul sleep, however that was nicely done Aaron! That is the best rendering of what I believe, the correct view and I have copied it to file. It drives me nuts, to see Universalist argue with the ET-ers by using the 1Pet 3:19,20 scriptures the way they do. It is as if they are confirming the existence of a Hell, by Christ going to Hell to preach. What a mess!
Jesus did go to hell, but not to preach to the unbelieving in Noah’s day. There is a literal hell regardless if you don’t believe it. You unbelief does not change the truth being true.
