The title and subtitle of the 1542 Strasbourg 1st edition read: Vivere apud Christum non-dormire animas sanctas qui in fide Christi decedunt.
[28] The title and subtitle of the 1545 2nd Latin edition read: Psychopannychia – qua repellitur quorundam imperitorum error qui animas post mortem usque ad ultimum iudicium dormire putant.
The 1558 French edition was a translation of that of the 1545 2nd edition: Psychopannychie – traitté par lequel est prouvé que les âmes veillent et vivent après qu'elles sont sorties des corps; contre l'erreur de quelques ignorans qui pensent qu'elles dorment jusque au dernier jugement.
[36] Theological arguments which contended that the continued existence of the soul was not taught in the Bible were made by mortalists such as Francis Blackburne,[37] Joseph Priestley,[38] and Samuel Bourne.
Mortalist writers, such as Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, have often argued that the doctrine of natural (or innate) immortality stems not from Hebrew thought as presented in the Bible, but rather from pagan influence, particularly Greek philosophy and the teachings of Plato, or Christian tradition.
[51][52] These groups may claim that the doctrine of soul sleep reconciles two seemingly conflicting traditions in the Bible: the ancient Hebrew concept that the human being is mortal with no meaningful existence after death (see שאול, Sheol and the Book of Ecclesiastes), and the later Jewish and Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead and personal immortality after Judgment Day.
And at that time also a synod of considerable size assembled, and Origen, being again invited there, spoke publicly on the question with such effect that the opinions of those who had formerly fallen were changed.
[92] John the Deacon (eleventh century) attacked those who "dare to say that praying to the saints is like shouting in the ears of the deaf, as if they had drunk from the mythical waters of Oblivion.
This document defined the Church's belief that the souls of the departed go to their eternal reward immediately after death, as opposed to remaining in a state of unconscious existence until the Last Judgment.
[94] Soul sleep re-emerged in Christianity when it was promoted by some Reformation leaders, and it survives today mostly among Restorationist sects, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
[98][99]Morey suggests that John Wycliffe (1320–1384) and Tyndale taught the doctrine of soul sleep "as the answer to the Catholic teachings of purgatory and masses for the dead.
[103] Martin Luther (1483–1546) is said to have advocated soul sleep, though certain scholars, such as Trevor O’Reggio, argue that his writings reflect a nuanced position on the subject.
[107]Jürgen Moltmann (2000) concludes from this that "Luther conceived the state of the dead as a deep, dreamless sleep, removed from time and space, without consciousness and without feeling.
For the reveler [in that parable] confesses that he is tortured; and the Psalm says, “Evil will catch up with the unjust man when he perishes.” You perhaps also refer this either to the Day of Judgment or to the passing anguish of physical death.
[168][169] From this point it is possible to speak in terms of entire groups holding the belief, and only the most prominent individual nineteenth-century advocates of the doctrine will be mentioned here.
Others include: Millerites (from 1833),[d] Edward White (1846),[170] Christadelphians (from 1848),[171] Thomas Thayer (1855),[172] François Gaussen (d. 1863),[173] Henry Constable (1873),[174] Louis Burnier (Waldensian, d. 1878),[175] the Baptist Conditionalist Association (1878),[176] Cameron Mann (1888),[177] Emmanuel Pétavel-Olliff (1891), Miles Grant (1895),[178] George Gabriel Stokes (1897).
[186][187][188][189] According to James Tabor this Eastern Orthodox picture of particular judgment is similar to the first-century Jewish and possibly Early Christian[190] concept that the dead either "rest in peace" in the Bosom of Abraham (mentioned in the Gospel of Luke) or suffer in Hades.
A. Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and Louis Berkhof also taught the immortality of the soul, but some later Reformed theologians such as Herman Bavinck and G. C. Berkouwer rejected the idea as unscriptural.
We decree that all those who cling to erroneous statements of this kind, thus sowing heresies which are wholly condemned, should be avoided in every way and punished as detestable and odious heretics and infidels who are undermining the catholic faith.
Moreover we strictly enjoin on each and every philosopher who teaches publicly in the universities or elsewhere, that when they explain or address to their audience the principles or conclusions of philosophers, where these are known to deviate from the true faith — as in the assertion of the soul’s mortality or of there being only one soul or of the eternity of the world and other topics of this kind — they are obliged to devote their every effort to clarify for their listeners the truth of the christian religion, to teach it by convincing arguments, so far as this is possible, and to apply themselves to the full extent of their energies to refuting and disposing of the philosophers’ opposing arguments, since all the solutions are available.”The idea that the spirit continues as a conscious, active, and independent agent after mortal death is an important teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
6 For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.Like many Eastern Orthodox and Catholics, the LDS Church teaches that the prayers of the righteous living may be of help to the dead, but the LDS Church takes this one step further with vicarious sacraments (called "ordinances" but with a sacramental theological meaning).
[197] As such, a great deal of LDS doctrine and practice is tied to the idea of the continued existence and activity of the human spirit after death and before judgment.
As early as 1917 Harvey W. Scott wrote "That there is no definite affirmation, in the Old Testament of the doctrine of a future life, or personal immortality, is the general consensus of Biblical scholarship.
"[198] The scholarly consensus of the 20th century held that the canonical teaching of the Old Testament made no reference to an immortal soul independent of the body in at least its earlier periods.
[208][209] According to Stephen Cook, scholars "now hotly debate the older, commonplace position that the idea of a soul, separable from the body, played little or no role in preexilic Israel" and that "recent approaches to Israelite religion that are increasingly informed by archaeological artifacts are defending the view that Israel’s beliefs in an afterlife were much more vibrant than many scholars have been willing to admit.
The reason for this is that, as we noted at the beginning, the Hebrew Bible does not present a theory of the soul developed much beyond the simple concept of a force associated with respiration, hence, a life-force.
"[219] The mortalist disbelief in the existence of a naturally immortal soul,[1][220] is affirmed as biblical teaching by a range of standard scholarly Jewish and Christian sources.
"[203] The Encyclopedia of Christianity, 2003 says "The Hebrew Bible does not present the human soul (nepeš) or spirit (rûah) as an immortal substance, and for the most part it envisions the dead as ghosts in Sheol, the dark, sleepy underworld".
[230] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2005 says, "there is practically no specific teaching on the subject in the Bible beyond an underlying assumption of some form of afterlife (see immortality)".
), 2009 says "It is this essential soul-body oneness that provides the uniqueness of the biblical concept of the resurrection of the body as distinguished from the Greek idea of the immortality of the soul".