I saw a particularly stupid comment on social media asking where the Bible even says that humans have an immaterial component called a soul, the comment responding to a post highlighting how someone the poster knows claimed that God cannot destroy the soul because of its immateriality, in order to argue for eternal conscious torment over annihilationism. Of course, God cannot destroy the soul if the soul doesn't exist, and I cannot have a soul if there is nothing immaterial about my being.
Because God cannot destroy an immaterial soul unless that soul exists, I want to continue by first reexplaining the differences between the mind and body, and then I will show how the soul and mind at the very least overlap, and next show that the Bible does teach both that humans have immaterial souls and that God can destroy the souls of the unsaved.
I've proven elsewhere that a mind is objectively distinct from a body [1], regardless of whether or not a mind dies with its body or whether or not a mind will exist apart from a body in actuality--I say in actuality because it is logically possible for a mind to exist by itself with no body or senses. The two are different, the mind being the seat of consciousness that perceives, thinks, reasons, and wills, with the body being a physical structure made of matter, with the body also being entirely inanimate without the mind and its consciousness. Mind is nonphysical and consciousness and conscious experiences (qualia) are intangible. In Christian theology the soul, at the very least, is a part of consciousness that survives or can survive the death of the body. For the purposes of this post, I will from now on use the words mind and soul interchangeably.
And God can destroy both a body and the mind that animates it. Firstly, to say that God can destroy a body but not a mind because it is immaterial is not only an unbiblical and illogical assertion, but it also could follow from this that God cannot torment a mind/soul. This is one of the most asinine arguments for eternal conscious torment I have ever seen [2]! If the soul is untouchable by even God, then it follows that God cannot interact with it in ways that inflict torment that does not eventually annihilate it. Secondly, the Bible clearly says that God can destroy both body and soul.
Matthew 10:28--"'Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.'"
God cannot destroy what does not exist, and thus if the Bible says God either can or will destroy the soul of any being then it follows inescapably that the Bible teaches that at least some beings have souls that are immaterial. Matthew 10:28 is not the only passage in Scripture that clearly distinguishes between the physical body and the soul. For another example, see James 2:26:
James 2:26--"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."
So logically and Biblically speaking, it is totally asinine to deny a difference between mind and body, to say or imply that the Bible never says humans have an immaterial component to their being, or to claim that God cannot destroy the soul. To deny any of these things is to deny things that the Bible clearly teaches and that logic proves to either be infallibly true or entirely possible. I honestly am still surprised that someone would challenge the idea that the Bible says humans have immaterial souls!
As dumb as it is, the argument that God cannot destroy a soul because of its immateriality is just one of the many examples of fallacious, contra-Biblical arguments defenders of ECT (eternal conscious torment) must resort to in order to deny the Biblical truth that God will annihilate unsaved humans in hell.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-immateriality-of-consciousness.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/examining-meditations-part-6-mind-body.html
[2]. Here I present the logical and Biblical verification of annihilationism:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html
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