What Constitutes a Living Soul?

a. What constitutes the soul? Out of the Book of "The Gospel Foundation OR Ten Cardinal Points in the Doctrine of Christ"

Some claim that the soul is the real being and that the body is only the house it lives in while imprisoned here — that is the belief of the Brahma and Buddha cults. The Buddhists claim it is liberated by death and migrates from body to body until pure enough to go to God. The Christians think that the soul goes to heaven or hell as soon as the body dies. They all believe it is immortal. And they all claim that God gave an immortal soul to Adam, and that it consists of "a God-entity," a "spark of life" being a part of God — the elementary principle of God. Here we certainly meet with two very great absurdities. 1) If that "God-entity" is the real man living in the body, which goes either to God in heaven or, 2) to "the devil in hell" at the death of its man-house, then it is a part of God and not man that goes to heaven and gets "the reward" for the good man has done, or "goes to suffering in hell" for the evil man did do. For how can a part of God do any evil? We will now hear what Jehovah has revealed concerning this much disputed question:

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Gen. 2:7.)

"Breath of life (Pneuma zoes) and man became a living soul, (Psyche zosan)."

God does not say that man became an "immortal soul" but a living soul. Adam was made in the physical likeness of his Creator with ability to develop through intellectual knowledge, and thus become a spiritual being like his Father. Before such development he was simply earth resurrected into a wonderful living image of Him Who made him — a mechanical and a technical wonder, perfecting the many proofs of the creating ability of God.

We cite from the Septuagint — the Greek version of the Old Testament: "And God said, let the waters bring forth reptiles (creeping things) having life (Psychen zosan)." (Gen. 1:20.) Beings and creatures or souls express the same meaning. "And whatsoever Adam called every living creature — (Psychen zosan) — that was the name thereof." (Gen. 2:9.) God called Adam to give names to all living creatures — Eve included — "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." (v. 23.)

In all this not a word is said of any immortal soul having been given to either Adam or Eve — simply stating that the beings that had been formed of clay were made alive. An im¬mortal being or soul cannot die, yet God said to Adam:

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Gen. 2:17.)

And again:

"Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.... Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive." (Ezek. 18:4-27.)

If the soul is immortal, God could not kill it. But He declares He will kill it if it sins.

Now let us hear the great, and learned, and much defamed Reformer and translator of the precious Word of God, and compiler into one book, of the testimonies of the prophets, Jesus and His disciples, Luther:

"In the Scripture the life of the body is called soul, and all the exercises of the five external senses, such as to eat, drink, sleep, wake, see, hear, smell, taste and all that the soul (life) performs through the body." (Translated from Ev. Kyrkopostilla., 1:sta Band. No. 89, §216, sid. 267.)

"The same word (psychen zosan), living soul, as it is called in Hebrew, St. Paul himself explains with natural body.... Thus it is all the same when Moses says a living soul and Paul here mentions a natural body, or a natural man, as I have already accurately shown, that in Hebrew the word soul really and properly is what we call the life of the body or a living being, i. e., a man or a beast that snorts or breathes — has the breath of life." (2 B. 87, §293, sid. 383.)

In a work printed in 1772, called "The Historical View of the Intermediate State," the following statement concerning Luther's opinion of the state of the dead between death and the resurrection is quoted, saying: "that the dead repose in a deep sleep." (Page 348.)

"I," said Luther, "permit the pope to make for himself and his faithful, such articles of faith as that the soul is the substantial form of the body, that the soul is immortal, with all these monstrous opinions found in the filthy pile of decrees." (Luther's work 2:dra Band., fol. 107. Wittenberg 1532.)

William Tyndale, the translator of the English Bible, martyr 1536, said:

"By placing separate souls in heaven, hell or purgatory (the inter¬mediate state), you destroy the argument wherewith Christ and Paul demonstrated the resurrection. The heathen philosophers, who deny the resurrection, assert, that the souls live forever. And the pope united the spiritual doctrine of Christ with the carnal doctrine of the philosophers — things so contradictory that they cannot be united. And because the carnal minded pope sanctioned the heathen doctrine, therefore he corrupted the Scriptures ratifying it.... If the souls are in heaven, then tell me why they are not as well protected as the angels? And of what use is then the resurrection?"

Paul adds:

"For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." (1 Cor. 15:16-18.)

Now we will gather the testimony of the prophets according to Jehovah's command:

"Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples." (Is. 8: 16.)