Did God create something he can't destroy?

Can a Human Cease to Exist?

In this paper I take on one of the most common Christian teachings, the idea of the immortality of the human soul. I will spend more time in a traditional doctrinal approach (quoting and explaining texts), but I will leave room to express the ultimately satisfying philosophical implications of the interpretation I have chosen.

First, a brief review of the philosophical implications of the traditional teaching, that man's soul is immortal and cannot be destroyed. Number one:

This teaching portrays a relatively powerless God who either created something he can't now destroy or who didn't create the human soul. It is possible that some will teach that God CAN destroy the human soul, and simply chooses not to do so. That leads to number two:

The teaching forces God to punish sin with eternal damnation and torment. At one time nearly all Christianity taught that hell was a literal fire and that the condemned would spend eternity in unspeakable torment. This pictures God as a vengeful being who takes delight in tormenting his creatures. (By the way, philosophically this is an acceptable view. If God created us, he can do what he likes with us. If he choses to create us only to condemn us to unending torment he, as the supremely sovereign being, can do it! If you find that kind of a God distasteful and ultimately evil, you and I stand on the same ground.)

This has led to the common criticism of the skeptic, atheist, and agnostic: any God who would torment beings for eternity as punishment for 100 years or so of malfeasance (or even a relatively small thousand years) is fundamentally evil as most of us define evil.

Many modern Christians have modified their teaching to suggest that the "fire" of hell is symbolic of the torment of eternal separation from God. But that still has God condemning men to an eternity of punishment. By the laws of mathematics eternal suffering is still infinite even if less intense and therefore all intensities of punishment end up being equal! So we still end up with a God who either cannot destroy or who delights in observing the torment of his creatures.

NOTE: This is why much of Christianity dwells long on the physical agony of the crucifixion. If Christ suffered the punishment of the damned, and if that punishment is unspeakable physical torment, then Christ had to suffer unbearable physical torment. If, however, the punishment for sin is death without hope of resurrection, then all we have to portray from the crucifxion is that Satan was allowed to deceive Christ into believing that there would be no further existence for him if he yeilded to death. In that scenario the physical torment of the cross tells us less about the punishment of sin and more about the fundamental weaknesses of humanity.

The question arises, then: Does the Bible teach the immortality of the soul? Clearly, I believe it doesn't. Read my interpretations and see if you agree.

I begin at the beginning, at the description of the creation of man. I turn to the second, less poetic description given in Genesis 2:7.

And the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. (NIV)

The King James translates the word "being" as "soul." The original Hebrew is transliterated "nephesh" and is generally understood to mean "animal, soul." The existence of a sentient being began with the empowering act depicted in Gensis 2 as breathing. The Hebrew word for breath used here is transliterated "neshamah". It is interesting, however, that later passages use both "neshamah" and "ruach" to refer to the "breath of life." The Hebrew word transliterated "ruach" is also translated as "spirit" (232 times in the KJV) and "wind" (90 times in the KJV).

One of the occurrences of the word when it is translated "spirit" is an interesting passage from Ecclesiastes that is sometimes used to support the teaching of the immortality of the soul. When compared to Genesis 2:7, however it says something quite different. Ecclesiastes 12:7 is the conclusion of a fairly long poetic sentence describing the end of humanity. It reads, "...and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." (NIV)

Here we see the same two elements of the living being that are described in Genesis 2, the dust (or the body) and the spirit which was given by God. We cannot say that God pushed a living sentient entity into a body at creation since Gensis says that the combination of body and "breath" BECAME a living being. The event described in Eccesiastes is the reverse of creation. When the body and the spirit (whatever that is) are separated, the being ceases to exist -- it is destroyed!

Another text from the same book further describes the author's belief about the condition of humanity after death. This time I quote from chapter nine, verses five and six:

  For the living know that they will die,
    but the dead know nothing;
  they have no further reward,
    and even the memory of them is forgotten.
  Their love, their hate
   and their jealousy have long since vanished;
  never again will they have a part
    in anything that happens under the sun. (NIV)

I personally believe the "breath of life" or the "spirit" to be the so far unexplained power of life God has given to all living things. I think that when our scientists have finally broken down all the chemical reactions that comprise the functioning of a living cell they will find things that cannot be explained by our finite human understanding of the forces of nature. When we find that, we will have "found" God. But I digress!

Death, then, is the reversal of the creation process which ends the existence. Is this a hopeless outlook for humanity? If you leave out the power of God, it is. But the Bible also speaks of a resurrection of the dead. It is first hinted at in Job 19:25, 26: "I know that my Redeemer [defender] lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;" (NIV) The words "in my flesh" suggest that Job believed in a bodily resurrection. With so little to go on, however, the Jews of Jesus' day were divided on the issue of a resurrection. The Sadducees, who went strictly by the written Torah, did not believe in a resurrection, while the Pharisees, who included the traditions and comments of prominent teachers, did believe. It was a point of contention between them that Paul once used to his advantage.

It remains for the New Testament, which teaches the bodily resurrection of Jesus, to establish the Christian hope of life after death. However, when you teach the immortality of the soul, the resurrection is merely a reuniting of the body to the living being. (Whooptee doo! I say.) Some hope! Personally, I'd rather be free of the constraints of a body -- if that were possible.

One of the most eloquent passages regarding the resurrection also bolsters my idea that mankind is NOT naturally immortal. Paul discusses the resurrection at length in I Corinthians 15. Beginning at verse 35, Paul addresses a question which must have come up -- possibly from some believers who had been Sadducees and who still had trouble believing in a resurrection. "With what kind of body will they come?"

After establishing that there must be both natural and spiritual bodies, Paul addresses the issue of those who will see Christ return while they are still alive, those privileged few who get their reward without seeing death. I quote beginning at verse 50:

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep¹ but we will all be changed -- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." (NIV)

1 Jesus spoke of death as "sleep" (see John 11:11-13). So Paul is saying we won't all DIE.

Note that all this happens at the "last trumpet." Another passage penned by Paul describes the resurrection and uses similar language to place it in time.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that we who are alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. I Thessalonians 4:16, 17 (NIV)

Paul says we will "put on" immortality at the Second Coming of Christ. If we put it on then, it stands to reason that we do not "wear" it now. Now the resurrection really means something. The souls (living beings) who have ceased to exist over the years of human history are miraculously brought back to life.

This teaching has been called "soul sleep." This is because of the link between "sleep" and "death" already noted in the book of John. For those who die in the hope of the resurrection, death is very like sleep. During sleep we are aware of nothing. We have no sense of the passage of time. One moment we lose consiousness to sleep, the next we awake. Death will be similar. One moment we think our last thought, and from our perspective the next moment we awake to the call of the archangel.

But I find the term "soul sleep" misleading, since it suggests a continued existence of the soul. I belive the soul is destroyed, and is brought back with the memories of the previous being only by the miraculous intervention of God. This greatly increases the perceived power of God. He CAN destroy what he has created, and he CAN recreate it.

This also changes the nature of the punishment for sin. Now it's a total end to existence. God is not (gleefully or otherwise) tormenting his creatures, but is putting an end to the suffering of a godless existence. When those who have chosen, for whatever reason, not to become part of an eternal, sin-free life, realize the consequences of their choice, they will welcome the oblivion of total destruction. God simply gives them what they want. Now justice and mercy truly have kissed each other.

I could spend a lot of time explaining any number of texts which seem to teach the eternal torment of the damned, but others have done that. I suggest that you remember that most of them are in symbolic passages such as the book of Revelation. For example, the lake of fire described in that book which many equate with "hell" is populated by some of the symoblic beings of the book (the beast and the false prophet among them). And hell itself is thrown into this lake of fire. Is hell cast into hell? All these mysteries disappear when you understand the symbolic nature of the book. There's still plenty of room to interpret the symbols and leave a loving God intact.

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