Paidion wrote:... I'm still not certain that your position qualifies as a monism...
i'm not sure why, but this made me laugh. matt, maybe it's how i've come to see you since i've been at this forum: fair, balanced, strong in faith and filled with Christ, but sometimes you're like trying to nail jello to the wall.
I believe that there is no intermediate state — only our present life and our future life after we are raised from death. I do NOT believe that "the soul sleeps" — for there is no "soul" apart from the body TO exist in an intermediate state.
i would say precisely as you've described it. i use the term soul sleep sometimes, maybe that's unwise since i imagine that phrase has a lot of baggage. but i don't at all mean to affirm a soul is in anyway sleeping. and i usually make that clear, it's just the closest point of reference a lot people who see otherwise have.
i think what needs to be closely examined is how the bible consistently speaks about the death of humans. not just that the dead are asleep in the dust of the earth, but more importantly how the scriptures do not make such precise qualifications as do many modern interpreters. most notably something like,
we will be reunited with our bodies at that time. or filling heaven with souls. it seems to me generally what happens is we start with this culturally imbibed notion of cartesian dualism (yes i know desCartes was not the first to imagine such a thing), then read this into passages like 2 cor 5:8, to live is Christ to die is gain, ...depart and be with Christ,...them will God bring with him,and a few others. finally we're left with the theological necessity to reinterpret otherwise clear abounding descriptions of death as when we stop breathing, we are dead. this seems backwards to me. why not start from the clear descriptions which to my mind speak of the dead just as if they spoke of a person: those that sleep in the dust of the earth, concerning the dead that they rise, them which sleep in Christ, those who have fallen asleep, and our friend lazarus sleeps to name a few. and then the perceived wind I can be held back from the sails of the other far less frequent passages to begin to see they can quite really be understood without reading an immaterial person into them.
i too desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. i too must say, to live is Christ and to die is gain. and also believe that to be clothed upon with my house which is from heaven, that mortality may be swallowed by life is what God has prepared me for, i walk by faith in this hope, and am confident and well pleased though not seeing it now, i look forward to being away from the home of the body, and to be at home with the Lord. i just think the only vehicle to that end ever promised to us, is the resurrection at the last day. consider jesus' words in john 6:
"...And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day."
this whole chapter has been imo, hijacked in some ways by my calvanist brothers. i think the "losing nothing" is trying to communicate the same elsewhere abounding promise that though we may die, we can die knowing God will not leave us in the grave, but raise us up to the resurrection of life on the last day. so then,i think the resurrection can be made clear to be our only hope of life beyond the grave. just as jesus is the resurrection and the life now, so he is our only hope of resurrection from the grave of sin, which thank God, has no hold on us now.
i perfectly understand that many here at this forum hold the resurrection no less dear than i do. i fully appreciate this fact and hope nothing i say in any spirited exchanges is ever taken to denigrate that in anyway.
grace and peace
Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work.
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