From: "Terry M. Gray" <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu>
> I wanted to piggy-back on David's post with a bit of a typology on this
issue:
Terry has given a farily even handed description of the SDA position. I'd
just like to add a few additional comments.
>
> I. The Anthropological Monistic/SDA view
>
> As David has pointed out what Allen has been advocating is standard
> SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) teaching. There is a cluster of beliefs in
> SDA theology that includes "body/soul monism", "soul sleep" (or better
> yet, soul non-existence except in the mind of God) and annhilationism
> (the total destruction to non-existence of the wicked after they are
> resurrected for the final judgment and punished for a period).
Some claim that SDAs invented the idea of death being like sleep. However,
when Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha died, Jesus told his disciples
that Lazarus was asleep. They thought he meant that the sickness had broken
and Lazarus was going to get better after sleeping for a while. But Jesus
said, "Lazarus is dead." He later raised Lazarus from the dead. So, it is
Jesus who has said that death is like being asleep. When we sleep we loose
consciousness and are unaware of anything around us until we gain
consciousness and wake up. Death is like that. When a person dies, he/she
looses consciousness and doesn't know anything. In the resurrection,
consciousness returns and the person awakes from the dead. A person who
dies may be dead for hundreds or thousands of years. Yet, at the
resurrection it will seem to them as but a moment, because their last
thought was as they were dying and their next thought happens as they come
back to life.
> You'll notice that I've not included any Biblical proof-texts here.
> That is deliberate--each group has it's favorites and my main point
> here is a simple typology for the sake of informing our discussion a
> bit, not to pursuade anyone one way or the other.
Good idea.
> Personally and presently, I'm in the dualist camp. I've given the SDA
> position some serious consideration and have been nearly convinced.
> It seems to me that the NT does describe some intermediate
> disembodied state of consciousness. I'll be quick to assert that the
> created norm for human existence is as a body/soul whole and that
> that will be our state following the resurrection and for eternity.
Just exactly what texts do you believe describe some intermediate
disembodied state of consciousness in the NT?
Allen
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jul 19 2002 - 09:42:17 EDT