What’s amazing is that the doctrine of the immortal soul cannot be found in Scripture. The “Immortal Soul” is Not Taught in the Bible It is this belief in unconditional human immortality that propels the traditional view of hell as perpetual torture and prevents people from taking the Bible literally on the subject. The fact that the Bible continually warns that ungodly people will die, be destroyed, suffer death and be consumed by raging fire is rendered completely irrelevant because of the doctrine of the immortal soul. If this is the case, their Statement of Faith will usually read something like this: “We believe in the immortality of the soul, that the righteous shall receive eternal life in communion with God and that the ungodly shall suffer eternal separation.” Some may say “eternal punishment” rather than “eternal separation” but, regardless, what they really mean by these words is “never-ending torment in the lake of fire.” You see, because these people believe human beings inherently possess undying souls they have no choice but to conclude that every person will end up either living forever with God in eternal bliss or living apart from God in eternal torment. If they believe in “the immortal soul” they consequently must believe in eternal torture as well. For instance, simply scan the “Statement of Faith” of various Christian organizations - whether it’s for a church, denomination, magazine, college or website - and you’ll quickly be able to determine if they officially adhere to the doctrine of eternal torture. Supporters of eternal torture cannot very well take such words as “die,” “death,” “destruction,” “destroy” and “perish” literally if they believe that it is impossible for people to cease living.Īnytime you hear or read of “the immortal soul” spoken of as an unquestionable truth it indicates that the person speaking is an adherent of eternal torment. Perhaps the strongest reason is that they foundationally adhere to the doctrine of “the immortal soul,” the teaching that every human being once created can never cease to live (a less common name is “the eternal spirit”). See Chapter Nine for more details on this.Īctually there are a number of reasons why they refuse to take the Bible literally on human damnation, such as the influence of religious tradition, denominational allegiance, job security and pride (we’ll address these reasons in Chapter Seven’s How Could So Many be Wrong for So Long?) (scroll down). Everlasting destruction is the true literal view. NOTE: Interestingly, adherents of eternal torture often refer to their doctrine as “the literal view,” but it’s not really a literal view at all because, as we’ve seen, they fail to take the Bible literally on the subject of human damnation. Let’s discuss the great lie of the “immortal soul.” In light of the colossal amount of scriptural evidence for literal everlasting destruction that we’ve amassed so far, how could anyone who knows how to read possibly adhere to the theory of eternal torment? What is it that prevents adherents of this position from accepting all this evidence for everlasting destruction literally? After all, don’t they generally adhere to a literal view of the Bible?
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