Does the Soul or Spirit Carry Consciousness?

I think we need to remember that the correct question to ask is not

"Is there any possible way, even one that is awkward, to fit a Scriptural text into my present view?"

but instead should be:

"What interpretation best makes sense of all the relevant texts, my present view or another view"

One can always muck about with word meanings and stretch things to the point of silliness to force-fit texts into a theology that is brought to the text.

In this and other posts, I offer my take on how a set of texts have to be seen by, on the one hand, the "traditionalists" - those who believe we go straight to Heaven in a conscious state when we die and, on the other hand, by the "soul sleepers" who believe that we enter an unconscious state at death.

"Oh that You would hide me in Sheol,
That You would conceal me until Your wrath returns to You,
That You would set a limit for me and remember me!
"If a man dies, will he live again?
All the days of my struggle I will wait
Until my change comes.
"You will call, and I will answer You;
You will long for the work of Your hands.." (Job 14:13-15).

Traditionalist: has to argue that "remembering me" refers to "remembering to give me a body to wrap around an already fully conscious soul that has been praising Me (God) for hundreds or thousands of years". This really stretches the sense of "remembering" - if the believer has been consciously in God's presence, it makes little sense to talk of God remembering a person He is in intimate active relationship with. Do you say "I remember you" to your wife who you see every day? Same thing with longing, except here the force-fit is even more awkward. It makes absolutely no sense to long for a creature that has been in your presence worshipping you (God) for hundreds or thousands of years.

Soul-Sleep: this position honours the nominal sense of "remembering" and "longing". One only longs for something that has been absent from us and we certainly do not need to remember something that is immediately present to us.

"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know nothing..." (Ecc 9:5)

Traditionalist: Since this view requires that the believing dead are already in heaven in full flower of knowledge and consciousness, one needs to invent a different category of "knowing" - things the body knows and are lost at death. And of course, these things cannot be known to the soul / spirit since that entity maintains its knowledge after death. Never mind the fact that the text never mentions whether it is "body" knowledge or "spirit" knowledge that is addressed here. We have to read that in. And of course, there is no clear sense of what is "known" to the body and not known to the spirit.

Soul-Sleep: Interprets the text as it reads - the believer is in an unconscious state and therefore indeed knows nothing.

More soon...

 

More examples comparing a "traditionalist" perspective to a "soul sleep" perspective:

"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)

Traditionalist: Even though we all know that the distinctive characteristic of "awaking" is the regaining of consciousness, this is fatal to the traditionalist view. So we need to re-interpret "awaking" away from its common sense meaning and embrace a view where such awaking involves absolute no increase to the fully awake state we are already experiencing in Heaven. And we have to agree that it is the flesh house that enters eternal life - not our spirit which already has it.

Soul-Sleep: Interpret the text according in a manner that is consistent with what it means to "awaken" - everybody is called forth from an unconscious "sleep" state and the redeemed only begin to experience eternal life after that awaking - just as the plain sense of the text asserts.

In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. (John 14:2-3)

Traditionalist: I have no idea how the traditionalist makes sense of the temporal order here. The text clearly has Jesus' return preceding the "receiving of the saints unto Him". I suppose they need to argue, yet again, that it is simply the bodies of the saints are will be received unto Jesus after his second coming - the spirits having already been with Jesus for hundred or thousands of years. And yet again, this important qualifier has to be read into the text.

Or, perhaps, to avoid the above problems the traditionalist has to beleive that "coming again" refers to Jesus' immediate resurrection, not his return at the end of this present age. At least this would not force one into the awkward position of explaining how it makes sense to "receive unto Jesus" someone whose conscious essence is already in Jesus' presence. But that doesn't make sense either since this would imply that all these people will have to drop dead at Jesus resurrection so that they can indeed be received into His presence in heaven.

Soul-Sleep: Take the text as it reads - when Jesus comes again, the redeemed dead indeed are received into Jesus' presence. Being unconscious, they are not in any concscious sense in his presence already. So there is no need to perform backflips to explain anything.

 

Do you think that you do not need to actually critique the content of my argument rather than simply claim that it is incorrect?

And I suppose that "the dead know nothing" as in Eccl 9:5 is to be read as "their spirits know lots and only the bodies know nothing even though this distinction is not made in the text".

I, on the other hand, take the text as it reads:

The....dead.....know.............nothing.

To show I am a sporting fellow, I think that the best way for the traditionalist to approach Eccl 9:5 is to actually claim that Solomon is here expressing his "uninspired" view and is not expressing the factual truth about life after death. If Solomon's words are to be taken as the word of God, they pretty much speak for themselves...the dead know.........nothing.

 

Perhaps I have been less than 100 % precise. When I say "soul sleep", it is my shorthand way for asserting that the dead, redeemed and non-redeemed alike, are in a state with zero consciousness between the time of physical death and the time, at Jesus' 2nd coming, when they are called forth.

So my position aligns perfectly with what Solomon writes: "the dead know nothing". I believe that you think that consciousness continues after death. How, then, can the dead know nothing?

Of course there is an advantage to being alive. This is because Solomon sees the afterlife as being a state of no consciousness as he states - the dead know nothing. If Solomon believed that the redeemed go to a blissful conscious state after their death, why would he be arguing that there is an advantage to being alive? It would be far better to die and go to Heaven.

You also seem to be twisting the statement "the dead know nothing" into "the dead cannot contribute to the living". This is a fundamental change in meaning.

I will let Solomon's words speak for themselves:

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know nothing.

I am taking these words simply as they are written: the dead have zero knowledge. It is you who appear to want this to read "the dead cannot interact with the living and yet they still know things since they are in Heaven".

 

Here is some material from NT Wright that addresses this (as well as addressing other relevant issues):

The whole text of Rev 6 is so charged with symbolic imagery that it is difficult to see it as expressing literal truth - references to a lamb, a horse whose rider is named death, star falling to the earth even the strange notion of disembodied souls resting under a physical altar.

I think one might be stretching things to see, in this obviously symbollic and allegorized context, the cry of these souls as evidence that the redeemed dead go to a conscious state immediately upon death. I suggest that it is an allegorical device, not intended to express the actual state of affairs of the redeemed dead. After all, if this is literal, and one believes the souls of the redeemed dead in Heaven are immaterial, what are they all doing crammed under a material altar?

 

Readers will judge which argument is correct (if either is).

 

Let the reader judge the content of the respective arguments - I ask no more from them.

 

As usual, you are engaging in circular reasoning, presuming the very matter at issue. Here you invoke the existence of a "defintion" that death = separation of physical body from consciousness-bearing spirit. Where, and I want specific verse please, is that "definition" to be found?

Just list one verse that unambiguously shows that the spirit bears consciousness.

 

Let's see if Paul's treatise in 1 Cor 15 makes sense if people's conscious spirits are already in Heaven when Jesus returns.

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him

The traditionalist has to insert "body" into the "will be made alive" statement, since many people are already otherwise alive and fully conscious in Heaven when Jesus returns, and have been for hundreds rot thousands of years.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death

if people have been in Heaven for hundreds or thousands of years, death seems to have already been destroyed. If Fred is happily in heaven in spirit form, death has already been destroyed for him unless one wants to re-define death to have the concept apply only to the flesh house that the spirit inhabits and not to the very essence of the person - their consciousness-bearing spirit. The objective reader is invited to consider the reasonableness of such a re-definition.

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."
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"

Again, to believe that saints are presently in full flower of glorious conscious existence is to suggest that death has already been swallowed up in victory, despite Paul's claim that this only occurs after bodily resurrection.

This entire passage of 1 Cor 15 is so full of drama, so full of a sense of a future victory over death (remember, this is all about what happen when Christ returns to raise the dead). Look at the language - Jesus hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power, He has put all his enemies under his feet, and the last enemy to be defeated is death.

This all sounds like overblown fanfare if all that is happening is that fully conscious spirits are lining up to get new "suits".

I suggest that Paul's inspiring language communicates that what is going is a real victory - a victory where death is transformed into life, not one where already full and glorious lives are merely handed a body.