Quick Answer: Yes, both the body and soul can die. But death has different meanings for
each. The body dies physically. The soul can have a spiritual death.
Key Passage:
Mt 10:28 –
Jesus refers to "those" (presumably human enemies; maybe satan) who
can kill the body but not the soul. And
then He refers to "one" (presumably God) who can “destroy” both soul
and body in hell. This establishes that
both the body and the soul can "die", but that they do not have to
die simultaneously. Further, it implies
that the "death" of your soul is a more serious consequence than the
death of your body, because you should fear the one who can destroy your
soul.
A
different word is used in reference to "destroying" only the body
<apokteino> when compared to the word used for "destroying"
both body and soul <apollumi>. To
me, this implies that there is likely a distinction between what it means for
the body to die and what it means for the soul to die. This makes sense to me based on the fact that
the soul is spiritual [see here]: spiritual
death is different than physical death.
By the way
- how could a monist who accepts sola scriptura read this verse and still be a
monist???
Caveat:
None - as
long as you understand that the body and soul don't die in the same way.
Related Scriptures and Thoughts:
James 5:19-20 James says that when you help someone become
a believer, you "save a soul <psuche> from death
<thanatos>". This is a
different action than saving a body (or physical flesh) from death. There are many who save bodies from death or,
I suppose more properly stated, delay the death of another, since eventually
all bodies die. Clearly, this verse
implies that saving a soul from death is of greater importance than saving a
body from death.
I
Jn 3:16 "He laid down his <psuche>
for us…" This could be a difficult
passage, because it may seem odd to think that both Jesus' body and soul died on the cross. Did Jesus’
soul die? You could say that the term
"laid down" refers to a sacrifice of his <psuche> but not the
death of his <psuche>, but doesn't really fit the context, in my
opinion. Instead I think it is helpful,
and consistent with other relevant new testament scriptures, to think of the
death of the soul as being the same as the soul being “in the state of condemnation.” Thus, when we think of Jesus soul dying, it
is equivalent to saying that His soul was in a state of condemnation. Through His death on the cross, we are told
that He "bore our sins". To
take our sins upon Himself involves being in a state of condemnation. Yet He escaped. He "regained" His soul, meaning
that His soul is (obviously) no longer in a state of condemnation but in a
state of life.
Discussion:
I don't
see how it is possible to read Matt 10:28 and still be a monist. If the soul is one with the body, and
especially if the soul is one with the body and
is all material, how is it possible to kill one without the other? I know that some people love their monist
ideas such that they will do all sorts of gymnastics to work around a verse
like this. In the end, by the time their
gymnastics are done, they have pretty well redefined monism to be dualism!
With
respect to the death of the soul, the following seems true to me: human beings all start with a dead soul – a
soul in the state of condemnation.
Through faith in Jesus they can change that state – they can have a soul
in the state of forgiveness and a state of eternal life. Their soul is saved. Jesus started with a living soul, which He
freely gave over to death – to condemnation [I John 3:16]. But His resurrection overcomes that
soul-death and He is now living – eternally living. Man was dead but can become alive. Jesus was alive, was dead, and is alive
again.
I don't
know how much science has to say about life after death. It's tough to experiment with. There are certainly "near-death
experiences", and those seem very interesting. They can be studied for reliability and the
facts of the cases can be verified. But,
in the end, I don't personally put a lot of weight on those experiences as
being evidence for life after death. I
believe that there is life after death because Jesus taught that there is, but
I don't feel that I, personally, can verify that until my body dies.
Of course,
the <sarx> certainly dies and decays.
That is clear in scripture and observable by science, since we can
examine a dead body and observe its decay over time. But science is outside of its realm if it
claims that there is no non-material soul that survives beyond the death of the
fleshly, physical body.
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