This concept of an immortal soul was introduced into man’s thinking at the beginning of human history. God told Adam and Eve if they sinned they would die (Genesis 2:17; 3:19). Satan then insinuated God was lying. He assured them they wouldn’t die (Genesis 3:1-5), and thus introduced the unscriptural teaching of the immortality of the soul into human thought.
According to This Believing World, by Lewis Browne, the ancient Egyptians “…believed that on death the soul of a man set out at once to reach a Judgment Hall on high… and stood before the celestial throne of Osiris, the Judge. There it gave account of itself to Osiris and his forty-two associate gods” (p. 84). If the soul could satisfy the gods, “the soul was straightway gathered into the fold of Osiris. But if it could not…then it was cast into a hell, to be rent to shreds of the ‘Devouress.'” (pp. 86-87).
Belief in the immortality of the soul was also espoused by the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Plato (ca. 428-348 B.C.) “… reasoned that the soul, being eternal, must have had a pre-existence in the ideal world where it learned about the eternal Ideals” (William S. Sahakian, History of Philosophy, 1968, p. 56).
The doctrine of the immortal soul caused much controversy in the early Catholic Church. Origen (ca. 185-254), an admirer of Plato, believed the soul was immortal and would depart to everlasting reward or punishment at death (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, 1995, p. 240). Augustine (354-430) also believed the conscious soul would continue to live on after death in either a blissful state with God or an agonizing state of separation from God (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, 1995, p. 245.)
Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225-1274) in ‘The Summa Theologica’ taught the soul is conscious intellect and cannot be destroyed. A few centuries later the leaders of the Protestant Reformation generally accepted these views, entrenching them in traditional Protestant teaching.
The Hebrew Scriptures state plainly the soul can and does die. “The soul [nephesh] who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). The Bible confirms that “no one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven [Jesus Christ]” (John 3:13). Even righteous King David, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), was described by Peter as being “dead and buried” (Acts 2:29), not alive in heaven or some other state or location (Acts 2:34).
The Bible plainly teaches the dead lie in the grave, knowing nothing and possessing no consciousness. The Old Testament describes death as an unconscious state, and in the New Testament the Apostle Paul describes it as ‘sleep’ (1 Corinthians 15:51-58; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Although Scripture does not speak of the soul as being immortal, it has much to say about immortality. Paul told the congregation in Rome to ‘seek’ immortality (Romans 2:5-7) stating that eternal life is a ‘gift’ from God (Romans 6:23), and he taught Christians at Corinth they must be changed and ‘put on’ immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-55).
Although mankind is subject to death God promises a resurrection to eternal life to those who repent, obey God and accept Jesus as the Messiah. The most powerful words on this subject come from Jesus Himself: “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).
