SOUL AND SPIRIT by Wm. Penniman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 21, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 25.

SOUL AND SPIRIT.

By Wm. Penniman

WEBSTER defines substance as follows: "In a general sense, being something existing by itself; that which really is or exists, equally applicable to matter or spirit. Thus the soul of man is called an immaterial substance, a cogitative substance, a substance endued with thought." The soul of the Bible and the theological soul seem to be quite two different things. Soul is defined in theology as a "simple essence uncompounded, indivisible, indestructible, and hence immortal."

If the soul is immaterial, how can material fire burn it, as is represented in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?

Again, if the soul is indestructible, what is the force of the words of Christ (Matt. 10:28), "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell"? Here, then, is positive proof that the soul can be destroyed, and one "thus saith the Lord" (and many texts can be given) is worth more than all the man-made theology in the world.

In "Smith's Dictionary of the Bible" we find soul defined as follows: "Heb. nephesh, Gr. psuche (ψυχή), one of the three parts of which man was anciently believed to consist." The word psuche is sometimes used to denote the vital principle or seat of the senses, desires, affections, appetites, passions. Gesenius, the standard Hebrew lexicographer, defines nephesh as follows: "(1) Breath. (2) The vital spirit, as the Greek psuche, and Latin anima, through which the body lives, that is, the principle of life manifested in the breath. (3) The rational soul, mind, animus, as the seat of the feelings, affections, and emotions. (4) Concr. living thing, animal in which is the nephesh, life."

We must necessarily be brief in definitions, as one good, positive definition by a standard author is just as good as a dozen, and more especially as they do not materially differ.

Robinson, in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, defines πνεῦμα (pneuma) to mean primarily: "(1) A breathing, breath, breath of air, air in motion. (2) The spirit of man, i. e., the vital spirit, life, soul, the principle of life residing in the breath breathed into men from God, and again returning to God." Grumpell, Parkhurst, Bagster, and others give similar definitions, and none of them prove the natural immortality of the soul.

As there are a great variety of meanings attached to the words "soul" and "spirit," in both the Old and the New Testaments, it seems that the only reasonable way to dispose of them is to give them that definition which the sense of the context requires.

The Hebrew and Greek words from which the words "soul" and "spirit" are translated occur in the Bible seventeen hundred times, but in this large number the soul is not once said to be immortal or the spirit deathless.

Webster defines soul as "the spiritual, immortal part of man, life." But as Webster says that "in theology death means perpetual separation from God and eternal torment," it is no wonder that he agrees with many of the modern theologians in putting immortality into the definition of the soul. A word may mean one thing in theology, and quite another in the Bible. In theology Sabbath means Sunday, or the first day of the week; baptism means sprinkling; eternal death means eternal life, and so on. Therefore the words "death" and "soul" must be defined to correspond to modern theology.

To prove this point in respect to the warping of definitions, we can not do better than to quote from an article in the Christian Union of January 30, 1878, having the signature of Clericus. In the article we find the following significant language: "The words psuche and zoe, two distinct words in the original, the former referring to the natural life of man and which is defined to be transitory, and the other referring to the higher life given in the new birth and declared to be eternal, are both translated by one and the same word, 'life,' and both considered as being equally permanent, and inextinguishable. . . . The great object and end of Christ to a dying world was not by suffering to save us from suffering; by dying, to save us from death; not to bring eternal happiness to immortals, but eternal life to dying men."

In referring to the Hebrew and Greek lexicons, compiled for the purpose of aiding us in interpreting the Scriptures, to ascertain the true meaning of such words as ahvad, thanatos, appollumi, signifying death and destruction, on the one hand, and zoe and soteria, signifying life and salvation on the other, after giving the true literal meaning, the author tells us they have a peculiar, unusual meaning in the Scriptures. And why so?—Simply because that meaning has been put into them to make them confirm this dogma, and then transferred to their lexicons. For example, referring to Rom. 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death [thanatos], but the gift of God is eternal life [zoe aionios], through Jesus Christ our Lord," I am informed in the theological lexicon, under "thanatos," that the word here means an unchanging eternal state of wretchedness and misery, and under "zoe aionios" I am told that everlasting happiness is the meaning! And so it is with every important word bearing on the question.

Referring to the word "soul" in Webster's great dictionary, I find the first meaning to be the "spiritual, rational, and immortal principle in man," as though the author would estop all inquiry as to the question in hand by making its immortality enter into the definition of the word; and then in other editions he gratuitously informs us that the immortality of the soul is a fundamental article in the Christian system. And so he would close the doors of the church against all who may venture to call his psychology in question. If he means by the immortality of the soul the eternal life which is given through Christ, it is indeed a fundamental article, and can not be too strongly emphasized; but if he means the immortality of the soul of the soul of the natural man, as an inheritance from Adam, so far from admitting it to be a fundamental article of the Christian system, we demand in the name of truth by whose authority it has any place whatever in the Christian system.

The preceding quotation from Clericus is a truthful and forcible representation of the perversion of Scripture terms.