On the Soul

[JTC]

22 hours ago, GandalfTheWise said:

My own opinion is that this is a non-essential.   I think it's one of those things that simply has the weight of so much theological inertia behind it that no one ever bothers to even question it and it sounds shocking when someone hears it for the first time.   In the grand scheme of things, it's probably a blessing that so few people ever think about this or it would be one more non-essential that churches and denominations split over.

 Granted.

    The back story is this. I'm one of the older members here & I always heard my relatives use the phrase "your immortal soul". Usually this was said when someone was living as though being human is all we are. The rub is I grew up in a basically Catholic Italian type family. I split with all that at 18 and then became an intellectual atheist. But God had other plans for me. God came after me, He doesn't just let Himself lose one of us, we are all of a special value to the Sovereign Lord. (even when we can't imagine it)  At 28 a stranger handed me The Gospel of John in the NIV which was brand new at the time. I did not even know there were modern translations of the Bible. How would I, Catholics were discouraged from reading the scriptures. (I think that has changed a bit) But even as a 5 yr old kid I remember questioning my father on the Catholic practice of confession because I already had heard that our sins are forgiven due to Jesus. It did not make sense, and I don't like it when things don't make sense. I was probably a very unusual nominal Catholic kid especially back in the 1960's. Like others have also done, I started reading the Bible expecting to get proof that God is not real. I wanted to finally put the issue of God away. (I'm laughing at this now, but I was grimly serious at 28) The more I read, the more I became unsure of all I had been taught. I did notice early on that almost all the Catholic practices I had been taught had no basis of truth in the scriptures. I never went back to Catholicism, I simply could not. But I want to state unequivocally that there are many sincere Godly Catholic people. Some put us to shame. For some reason God didn't want me to be part of them any longer. To this day I don't understand how the serious ones don't see the errors they are making. But I do know God is bigger and more magnanimous than anything we can imagine. We should never look down on Catholics because some of them are in front of us. This is no surprise since even 2000 yrs ago Jesus said those we think are last will be first.

  I was taught that when a human dies our soul (or spirit) continues to exist, some in punishment and others in heaven. Maybe this is true. Scripturally I mean. What I saw is that a soul will die, ie. cease to exist, unless that soul is given eternal life by Lord Jesus, who paid the ultimate price for this privilege. I also might as well say I'm not so sure the unsaved will be tormented forever & ever. The reason is emotional in that I don't believe our all loving magnanimous God is going to torture His creatures forever. So what I'm saying is the unsaved who go into the lake of fire are all totally burned up. They will no longer have any existence. This is also nonessential doctrine and we need not be concerned with it. But an unsaved person might still ask us about this and that's why I want it all clear and making sense.

(I know an unsaved man from my generation who also left Catholicism long ago. He thinks he knows God as he says he met God. But everything about this man says he's wrong. We know that spiritual beings go to the unsaved and claim they are Yahweh just so that person won't call to Jesus. I'm convinced Jesus will answer anyone who calls Him. I'm pretty certain this unsaved man might bring up the lake of fire, every other ex-Catholic I know did. As it stands now, I know this man believes in the ancient astronaut theory. I'm just thinking on the board)

   My conclusion is we do not have an immortal soul, I was taught a fallacy as a child. But I think most Catholics still believe this. The Bible doesn't support this idea and it never did.

   I am not going to disagree with king Solomon by saying there are new things today, no. However, we are starting to remember some of them and to many people they seem new. I always knew other spirit beings exist, I also knew to leave them alone. But many people find the divine council to be shocking, it is not.

   I hope you enjoyed this. Remember that my goal in writing this is to make what we do know about God make more sense than it does now. Keeping in mind that as humans we can never fully understand the mind of God.

Amen

[lovethelord]

17 hours ago, JTC said:

I also might as well say I'm not so sure the unsaved will be tormented forever & ever. The reason is emotional in that I don't believe our all loving magnanimous God is going to torture His creatures forever.

Hi JTC,

Because God is loving, it does not mean that he loves everything—God tells us the Bible what he hates. Pride, lies, selfishness, abuse etc…. God would not be loving if he didn’t hate these things and do something about it which was send his son Jesus to take our punishment. I didn’t know this until it was brought to my attention, but Jesus mentions hell more than anyone else in the whole Bible. No one likes to think of people we may know and love who are unsaved being sent to live eternally in hell but that is what God tells us.  He calls the shots since he created us.

John 5:24, “whoever hears my word and believes… has passed over from death in hell to life in God’s kingdom”

 

[JTC]

40 minutes ago, lovethelord said:

Hi JTC,

Because God is loving, it does not mean that he loves everything—God tells us the Bible what he hates. Pride, lies, selfishness, abuse etc…. God would not be loving if he didn’t hate these things and do something about it which was send his son Jesus to take our punishment. I didn’t know this until it was brought to my attention, but Jesus mentions hell more than anyone else in the whole Bible. No one likes to think of people we may know and love who are unsaved being sent to live eternally in hell but that is what God tells us.  He calls the shots since he created us.

Hey lovethelord,

    Most people need the threat of hell to help them avoid sin. But with spiritual maturity comes a time when we don't sin because we hate them almost as much as God does. We all get there. I'm not saying there's no hell of course there is. I say that the 2nd death or lake of fire, is something that will annihilate those of us who are put in. Since the lake of fire was actually created for Satan and his angels it wasn't meant for us. I always assumed the devils would burn forever. However, lately I'm aware of Psalms 82 v: 6 & 7. Depending on the translation you use, this makes it sound like the devils can also die. Maybe this means that ultimately God will destroy all evil in the lake of fire. This makes sense since all things are to be new again. I hope this is true but I don't know. I do know that I obey the Lord because I love what He loves. Scripture often says to fear the Lord. I say if a person cannot obey God because of love then you better obey Him out of fear. But it's much better when it's motivated by love.

[lovethelord]

6 minutes ago, JTC said:

I do know that I obey the Lord because I love what He loves. Scripture often says to fear the Lord. I say if a person cannot obey God because of love then you better obey Him out of fear. But it's much better when it's motivated by love.

Hi JTC

I agree that obeying out of love is the best motivator.  Speaking for myself, i dislike being forced or pressured to do something, but when it is out of love it makes a difference in obedience and positive attitude.  When i think of all God has done in my life, I can say I try to obey Him as much as I can out of my grateful heart! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.