>Where does the Bible preclude Adam's parents (Mr.
>and Mrs. Dust) from having an eternal soul or spirit?
I don't say that they didn't. There is an ancient Jewish custom about
the nature of animals: that some have a soul and some do not. The
soulish animals are those that relate to man easily, are easily
domesticated, or that have demonstrable intelligence or emotive
capacity. By this definition, a gorilla would be a soulish animal but
an alligator would not. Kitten: yes; snake: no. Yorkie: yes;
salamander: no.
This means that there could be up to three classes of creatures:
Man (the highest form)
Soulish animals (including proto-hominid species perhaps)
Non-soulish animals
Although I have pretty definite ideas, I do not pretend to know the mind
of God. I do find, however, a natural curiosity at work in my mind--I
suspect that I am not the only one who has this. That curiosity: that
asking of Who? What? When? Where? How? and mostly Why? leads me to
believe that the asking of these questions is what leads me (and perhaps
others) to God--that I do not offend him to wonder, to speculate, and to
dream. He gave us clues in His Word and in His Work. To interpret
those clues and try to draw conclusions from them does not offend Him no
matter how far we may stray at times. As long as we keep up the search
and keep asking the questions.
Russ
-- Russell T. Cannonrcannon@usa.net