This is The Faith Debate, a theological roundtable gab fest, a free-for-all forum with faith community leaders wrestling over the truth. In less than one half hour, learn more about what really matters than what most others learn in a week. The Faith Debate is on the World Wide Web at WFMD.com, keyword faith. Are you ready for the clash of ideas? Are you ready for the sound of freedom? Let's get ready to rumble in this corner. Weighing in with a master of divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary, the Faith Debate Master of Ceremonies, Troy Skinner. Question. Is the human soul mortal or immortal? What do Christians believe about this? What does the Bible say about it? Does the answer change depending on whether a person is saved or lost? These are just some of the questions we'll seek to address in the coming weeks on The Faith Debate. And on the panel today, Morgan Kochenauer, who is pastor at Frederick's Seventh-day Adventist Church. You might recall his predecessor, Robert Quintana, who was a friend of the program, guest panelist several times on the show. You might also recall Jonathan Schweitzer as pastor of Crossroads Valley Church, a very frequent presence on the program over the years. And we're going to begin this dialogue with the question, generally speaking, is the human soul immortal or not? We're going to start with kind of a broad question there and then drill down on what the implications to an answer to a question such as that might be. By the way, I encourage you to check us out online at wfmd.com, keyword faith. There you'll find access to past shows via podcast and a listing of the upcoming shows, kind of a program guide of what you can expect in the coming weeks on The Faith Debate. So, and as the announcer was so kind to let you know, my name is Troy Skinner. Thanks for joining our dialogue. So, human soul, immortal or not? John, what do you think? I think I'm in a different place from where you think I might be. Like, I've grappled pretty extensively with this topic. Well, do you disagree with me? Well, I don't know. I'm not sure exactly where you're at at this point. So I might be not where you think I am either. Yeah. So I'm increasingly doubtful that outside of Jesus Christ that the soul is eternal. Hmm. Okay. So, there's a conditional immortality. For those that are saved, the soul would be immortal. But for those who are lost, it is... Yeah, the concern in the garden was whether or not a wicked man would eat of the tree and live forever. So that would be you're beginning to grapple with and maybe lean in the direction of an annihilist position, right? Yeah, I'm grappling with it. But there's a lot of passages that grapple with it. And we might end up there. I don't want to go there at this stage. So you're saying there's at least conditional immortality. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'd say that. What do you think, Morgan? Do you think that there's conditional immortality, absolute immortality, or no immortality whatsoever? And this is like a game of The Matrix, the movie The Matrix, and we're all living a dream. You know, first of all, I want to thank you, Troy, for having me on. It's a pleasure to meet you as well, John. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I guess for me, annihilation sounds a little harsh in my mind, but if we want to look at the condition of the soul, I don't know if, once again, we use these terms, so I guess absent of the labels we're going to put on them, I would say wholeheartedly that our life depends on our relationship with Jesus Christ. John 3.16 says that for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So one of the most used verses we have in the Bible lays it out pretty plainly that eternal life you can have by believing in Jesus Christ. And if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, there is no alternative, per se. So I would just start off by saying that I believe all life depends on whether or not you are connected to the source of life, which is Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, that passage has been a passage that has been interpreted for many years in the context of, you know, the immortality of the soul for both those that are saved and those that are not saved. You know, the idea being that there would be eternal death Opposed to eternal life, you know, which is not necessarily in the passage, but that is read into the passage from other directions So that's that that that's an interesting passage. I think it's helpful to think about it from a different perspective But I feel like we need Biblically a more solid basis, you know, we got to identify which passages would be like the the crux passages You know to to make a difference Now, everybody in the room on the show today is, you know, professing Christ. But let's, for a half a second, let's try to broaden it, look at a larger bush and get out our shears and start to prune it back a little bit. So, what would you say is a biblical response? That's kind of a loaded question, because if I disagree with you, I'm going to... But if somebody were to say, hey, what does the Bible teach about these sorts of things? What would you say if they said, before a person came into existence through their mother's womb and was born, did they have a soul? Is there an eternal soul in that sense, meaning a soul that predates your existence as John Switzer? I would say no. I would agree. I'd say no. It's a Mormon idea that the soul existed before birth. Right, among other traditions, right, or reincarnations. So we're not talking about an eternal soul that keeps coming back in different, that'll be a different show with a different panel. But for our context, we're talking about a soul that comes into existence, I'm going to assume you're both going to say at conception, that there's a human soul at conception. Or at least at birth. Well, I'd say at conception. I would too. Where would you say that the soul starts? I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to wrap my head around that for this conversation on this one. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. But there is a beginning point. Yeah. Okay. So there's a beginning. And then, so then the question is, if it's conditional, for some, there's an end point when the soul would cease to exist. At least that's something you're grappling with, John. Right. Or does, once it begins to exist, does it exist forever? Yeah. All right. And what's your, John's a little on the fence and unsure. Can I tell you why? Because the passage in Revelation 14 says that it describes those that receive the mark of the beast will drink the wine of God's fury. that they're going to be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb. So there's a pretty dramatic picture, without a doubt. We just went from being family-friendly to not-so-friendly. Good morning! Happy Sunday to you! That's right, yes. Good morning, everyone. And then it says, in the smoke of their torment, Rises forever and ever, and the phrase there, of course, is for an aeon, for an age. So there's a couple key words in there that are important to define, and as you dig into the definition, you realize that there's a little bit of space in the original Greek. you know, to grapple with, you know, okay, what exactly is it referring to? But the idea seems to be that it's a never-ending smoke of the torment. And so that's the question. So that would be an argument against what you said at the very beginning of the show. That's right. That would go in the direction. That's what I'm trying to grapple with is, is this speaking to an eternal torment? In which case, the soul is immortal, Immortal did I say immortal is immortal and will go on forever Okay, but some one of the arguments that I've heard against that that that frustrates me is an argument that That the Bible doesn't ask And it's a very modern argument, and that is, how could 70 years of rejecting God result in an eternity of torment? Right? Meaning, it seems like the punishment doesn't fit the crime. And because I don't see the Bible directly address that in particular I'm I'm less willing to grapple with that particular argument because it feels like an argument that's imposed by By our our reason and our rationale and I'm just of the opinion that that in those places where my reason seems to conflict with revelation that I need to say not my will be done, but thy will be done meaning My you know, I don't know how God thinks and and even though I might want him to handle things differently I need to trust that that his justice is justice. And so anyways, um That that particular argument isn't enough to deter me from thinking that the passage I just read really does refer to Eternal torment, but I'm still trying to grapple with it. What exactly that means now. What's the Seventh-day Adventist position on? the Not the eternal state of the human soul, but the eternal existence or non-existence of the human soul. Well, I think, I know that John jumped Revelation. I think I want to go to Genesis to kind of look at creation. And so when we look at Genesis, and especially at Seventh-day Adventist, everything for us begins at creation. I mean, some of our biggest beliefs, founding, fundamental beliefs are in creation, whether it's the Sabbath, whether it's marriage, whether it's gender. I mean, that's a whole other conversation that I've thrown out there in these topics. But the other one is life and death. And so when you look at Genesis, I mean, all, I mean, it's powerful. And creation itself is a powerful story just because that's even being called into question. I mean, we know what evolution, what evolutionists believe, but there are some Christians who are beginning to really question and have questioned for a while, you know, how long did creation take? Was it a seven literal days? As Adventists, we believe in a literal seven-day creation week. And in that day on the sixth day, The Bible says God came down. I mean, the Bible says that God rolled up his sleeves and he didn't say a word. He just started playing in the dirt. And he made Adam and Eve out of the dust of the ground. He made mankind out of the dust of the ground. And then after that, all he did was breathe into their nostrils the breath of life. And he essentially, he gave this clay the ability to breathe. And out of that comes the ability to reason, to live, to enjoy, to love, to experience and adventure, and then also companionship. And so, when he puts him down in the garden, the Bible says that after he gets done with everything, he says, you know what, it's good. It's good. So for me, I don't- So what part of that speaks to the immortality of the soul? Okay, so it speaks to this, and that God said in the garden, you're gonna have two trees. Yeah. He says there's a tree of life. Now, if you're immortal, there's no reason to have a tree of life. because you've already got life. So you're not dependent on life for anything else. You don't need anything else for life. You got it. then there's a tree of knowledge of good and evil. And God said, you can eat from any tree. I give you everything except this one. In the day, and it says here in Genesis chapter two, verse 16, the Lord God commanded the man saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. So that's Genesis two. And then the Bible says that God calls all the animals to come before him, and puts them to sleep, creates Adam, or creates Eve, and then we get to Genesis 3. And the very first... So could we hit Genesis, that passage real quick? Sure. Just in terms of like asking what it does say and what it doesn't say. Okay. Right, so before you do that really quick, that's Jonathan Schweitzer, co-founder of the Faith Debate Show. The other voice you heard right before that, Pastor Morgan Kokenauer from the Frederick Seventh-day Adventist Church. I'm Troy Skinner. This is the Faith Debate on 930 WFMD. So, you were saying? Right, so the passage that you just read speaks to, like there's two key things there. One, there's a tree of life, right? And so it introduces the question, then why do you need a tree of life if you've already got it? Which I think is an important question to ask. It's logical to ask that question. But then the death didn't come until they ate of the other tree, which also begs a question, which is an important question. And that is, if they had never eaten of the other tree, meaning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, if they never ate from that tree, would they have had any reason to expect that there would be an end to their life? Good question. So essentially what we believe is, is when that tree's put in there, and it's righteousness by faith. I mean, it's really faith. I mean, you have to look at God's telling Adam and Eve something, one thing. He's saying, this is the way it is. He created them on the sixth day. How do they know that was the seventh day? For them, that's the first day. When they come to life, they have to believe everything that's coming out of God's mouth. Even if an angel comes and says, listen, I saw God create everything. They've got to believe it because they weren't there to see it themselves. So everything is based on, I have to believe what this guy's saying. So the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation is, do you believe what God's saying? Well, not I have to believe, but why shouldn't I? Well, why shouldn't you? That's the point many people have chosen to not. You can believe whatever you want. But what's in God's word is what I believe is truth. And so for this particular test, it's a tree. Do I think it's a tree for all of us? No, I don't think it's a tree for all of us. But for Adam and Eve, it's these two trees. And it's interesting that he didn't say, don't eat of the tree of life. He says you can eat from any tree. Any tree of life was open game. So for God, the one thing is people say, well, God says I can't have any fun. God says I can't do this. But God's pretty much saying you have liberty. You have freedom. I'm giving you everything. And so now when you have these two trees, it's not a matter of this tree is somehow the fountain of youth. If Indiana Jones can go find this tree and the raiders of the lost tree, then we can eat from it, we can live forever. It's a matter of, do you believe what God's saying? It's essentially, it's faith. Do you have faith in God? So, in saying that... Wait, what's faith? You're saying the tree of life is faith? I'm believing, by eating the tree, that I'm trusting God. That I'm believing Him. It's an act of faith. It's an act of obedience, saying, hey, I'm putting these two trees in the middle, do you believe me? Or, as we look in chapter three, do you believe the devil? And so the devil comes in and says, listen, did God really say you can't eat from any tree? So immediately he flips the question. God said you can eat from any tree, flips the question. Then he says, no, I'm telling you, you will not die. So God explicitly says, in the day you eat of it, your fate is sealed. You're going to die. Now, we obviously know the Bible says that Jesus Christ is a lamb which was slain from the foundation of the world. So even before this decision comes into play, there's already been a decision made on God's behalf saying, I'll fix this if it goes south. And so the devil comes in though and says, did God say you would die? No, no, no. You will not die. So for us in the garden, the very first lie, because what's the lie in what the devil said? If you believe in an immortal soul, then essentially you're saying, yeah, you won't die. You'll never die. Whether you believe in God or not, you're either going to live in heaven or you're going to live in hell. Right. So that's interesting twist on what you're saying. You're saying that even the belief In an immortal soul then is part of the original satanic lie. Yeah I've never heard it put that way. Have you ever heard it put that way? So that's the answer. That's the question. So you better be careful. The Seventh-day Adventist position is that there's not an eternal human soul. Oh yeah, of course. And we don't believe in the eternal burning hell. And so starting in Genesis, we'll finish in Revelation. So wait a second. So the classic evangelical position of eternal torment has a very clear definition of death that they associate with what happened on the day that they ate of the tree that is that they were separated from God that seems to be backed up in Ephesians where it says that that you also were dead in your sins and trespasses Right, and so he made you you were made alive with Christ right that is by grace. You've been saved through faith This is not of yourselves. It's the gift of God and that you know, which raises its own questions about You know faith in other studies, but my point is just that That death as defined in the New Testament, happened that day. And so if that's the case... When you say that day, you mean in Genesis and the Creed? When they ate of the tree. Meaning so death happened. Meaning full spiritual death happened that day. According to... May I ask what you mean by spiritual death? by spiritual separation from God, meaning the thing that changed when you passed from death to life by accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior. And so my point is just that if that's death in the New Testament, then we could say that there was death and physical life at the same time, that the soul lived while the spirit was dead. And so all the evangelical world has done, and I'm not convinced that they're wrong at this point, is they've said that that spiritual death is something that can remain for eternity. uh... because we've already seen that you could have spiritual death and physical life you know where the soul remains and so so that's not a dichotomy that is a problem in any way okay so i want to make sure understanding everything you're saying correctly so for good help me because i'm not sure i understand it well for me well i say for me and i gotta be careful because evidently i'm speaking on behalf of my whole denomination right now on this radio station so no pressure not at all is that you even brought a friend with you Do we get to introduce him? We're not allowed to even say that he's here? Sorry. This is the guy that brought the popcorn tonight, so, you know, we gotta know that he's here. Yeah, I'm Greg, and I'm with or without except the Adventist Church. Yeah, Greg's the popcorn guy. And he's helping out with a big play we're putting on, which we'll talk about in a little bit, because Lazarus has something to do with this. So for me, when it comes to Adam and Eve, yeah, they ate the fruit, but before them, there was no death. Can we agree on that? Right, well that's the key evolutionary distinction, that evolution requires death in life and death in life. And so if there was all that evolution happening ahead of time, then it wasn't Adam where the death started. So death is spiritual death primarily that we're dealing with. Now I'm using the term spiritual death. What would you call that? I would call it death. Like the breath leaves your body. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, the dead know nothing. They don't have emotion. They don't love. They don't hate. They have no idea of what's going on in the land of the living. They are dead. So for instance, going back to John 3.16. So did all men die in Adam? Well, I want to make sure we're clear on this in that, before Adam and Eve, before the sin, before they ate the fruit, does the body die? Does the breath leave? Is there a point where they get old age and they die? Let me jump in before you try to answer that. There is, because Peter says, a day is a thousand years and a thousand years is a day. I think that next week's show is probably going to grapple with this kind of question more on the death side. We're talking about the eternal life question this week. I think we're going to talk about the death question next week. So macabre. At least it's springtime we're talking about. Now, we've got just a little bit of time left. We kind of get a teaser. In a few weeks, there's going to be a musical taking place at your church. The dates on that are the 5th and 6th, is that right? 6th and 7th of April. 7 o'clock both days, correct? That's a Friday night and a Saturday night? Okay, so, working on the Sabbath, okay. Hey, Jesus said the priests work all over the Sabbath and are exempt because their work is ministry. So, this show is called Glorious Unfolding. And if somebody wants to find out more, they go to the church's website. Is that the idea? Yeah, the website is ariseforgod.org. And so they can go there and under the events section, they can look it up. Please get tickets. You need a ticket to get through the doors. But there's two showings. They are free. But yeah, it's a great show. This is the second year we've done it, and I'm really proud of them. They do a phenomenal job. Ariseforgod.org? Ariseforgod.org. Not .com, .org. And again, to clarify, there's no cost for the ticket. Exactly. But you must have a ticket. Correct. i guess that's a lot you have some crowd control you know when you can put the announcement a sold-out no more tickets going out anybody we want to make sure we've got a very happy right so that's coming up in about what three weeks or something like that so uh... check that out it's uh... i understand it's a big production it's going to have uh... like elephants and camels now but they don't work hard they they had a drive no i don't think it's going to be around so you know if they had a run at it last year of and they were and they and they worked at the kinks in this year they know it's going to be spectacular and i like and i trust Right? Okay. It'll bring you eternal life. Such an emotional word. Thanks for listening to the Faith of Faith. Thank you, John Schweitzer and Morgan Kokenauer for being on the show. Thank you for listening. We're online at wfmd.com keyword faith. Until next week, 167 and a half hours from now. God bless.