vvart wrote:Kurieuo I'm convinced you maybe right, but what would be the purpose of having a bunch of dead souls hanging around?
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with calling souls "dead" without bodies, as they are simply disembodied, and still have potential to be resuscitated into a body. Yet, there seems Scriptural reason to assume that upon the death of a physical body, a person's souls is given, or has, some sort of spiritual body.
August wrote:This would explain why Jesus had to die, and could not merely suffer torture to His physical body to atone for our sins, and be able to be with God. When one of the 2 entities, namely the body dies, the soul will be able to pass to the next dimension, to be with God in His dimension. It would still have to able to function, because did Jesus not tell the robber on the cross that he would be with God, together with Jesus? If the soul is not able to perceive that it is with God, that statement from Jesus would not be true.
Before answering, I first believe an important semantical issue needs to be touched upon that I have realised might be causing confusion. There are two senses of "spirit" people generally understand. One sense of "spirit" is to refer to our "spiritual
body" (emphasis on "body"), which is what I've been consistently using "spirit" as throughout my posts here, and which is how I believe Paul uses it in 1 Cor 15:44-46. Yet, "spirit" can also be used in another sense to represent our essence (what I have consistently referred to as the "soul" throughout my posts). Therefore the sense in which I use spirit should never be understood in the way I use "soul." Rather when I use "spirit," I always mean a bodily substance separate from our soul through which we perceive spiritual things, like our physical bodies allow us to perceive physical things.
Now you say the soul would still have to be able to function to experience God, and you are correct. Yet, in order to function in a way God can be perceived, I believe the soul needs to be given a spiritual body of some sort with the capacity to experience God. This is why I previously stated above that "I'm more inclined to believe that Christians are given spiritual bodies with faculties that allow God to be experienced" and non-Christians "who haven't been born of the spirit I believe may still be given a limited spiritual body upon death" with which they can still function to some extent as the rich man was able to (Luke 16:22-26).
August wrote:The question then arises, why did God bother with all of this, body and soul? Why did He not just create souls? well my thinking is He sort of did, but man chose to become mortal through sin.
Hopefully what I've explained above has helped to understand further that the "soul" cannot function, or perceive, by itself (at least, this is my belief). It requires a body (whether of spiritual nature, or physical nature) in order to perceive spiritual or physical things, and so the soul couldn't just be created by itself. Thus, the soul represents our essence and self, and a spiritual or physical body is simply a vessel by which we interact with the world.
I recommended this article elsewhere, but I will recommend it here as well. It is called "
I'd like to know God, but why do I need Jesus?" by Dr. Alan Scholes, and should help to clarify the soul, spirit, and physical body in a similar manner I understand them.
Kurieuo.