Paul's Subtle Soul Sleep Theology In 1 Corinthians 15

In Paul's words, "If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die'" (1 Corinthians 15:32).  What does this sentence convey about his philosophy of the afterlife without actually saying it?  In reality, it is quite important in showing that Paul does not disagree with the doctrine of soul sleep obviously taught, when you look in the right places without making assumptions, by the Old Testament.  First, there is the emphasis Paul places throughout the chapter on bodily resurrection, of which Christ's resurrection is a foreshadowing.  This, of course, is incomplete on its own despite being more adjacent to the concept that the dead are unconscious than some might suppose.  Largely, it is what Paul presents as the metaphysical consequences of there being no eventual resurrection that indirectly establish that, for his worldview to be logically consistent with what he is saying, he would have to hold to soul sleep.

Without an intermediate period of conscious experience, the next experience of a person after death would be at the resurrection even if numerous millennia pass in between.  Paul is very clear that without the resurrection, there is no pragmatic reason to not live for whatever present pleasure can be obtained.  There would be no incentive, on one level, for not indulging in pleasure (sinful or nonsinful) as if each day is one's last.  This, if true, would exclude a punitive afterlife ahead of the resurrection, or else there would indeed still be pragmatic reason not to live hedonistically aside from any moral reason not to.  The difference between the two is that if something is immoral, one should not do it because this is its very nature, while if there is a punishment for moral error, a person would have an additional, pragmatic reason to avoid it.

Of course, the punishment must be morally valid to be justice; it is absolutely not logically possible for just any form of punitive treatment to be legitimate as long as it is imposed on evildoers, but without punishment, it is still true that there would be no ultimate pragmatic consequence to sinning other than potential arbitrary levels of disapproving attitudes from people in this life.  1 Corinthians 15 very subtly brushes up against many of these truths without stating them.  Again, if there is no punitive afterlife or any afterlife before a future resurrection, though, there is only the unconsciousness of death.

Soul sleep is very directly taught in the Old Testament and less directly in the New [1].  That the dead sleep until their resurrection (Daniel 12:2, Job 14:10-12), that death brings an end to all suffering of both the righteous and wicked because all are unconscious (Job 3:11-19), that the dead perceive and do literally nothing (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10), that not even the righteous have the ability to praise God while dead (Psalm 6:5), and so on are all straightforward claims.  While some assume that in saying Christians are with Christ after death (Philippians 1:21-24), Paul must mean they go to an immediate afterlife in heaven while the living on Earth continue on, he does not state this.  A person who dies and is resurrected in Christ's presence would be with Christ after death, and this would be their next experience.  They simply would not be conscious in the meantime.

Logic is what dictates truth and necessity, consistency (with logical axioms and other necessary truths) and thus possibility.  It is possible for Paul's statement about departing "the body" and this life to be with Christ to be fully compatible with him adhering to soul sleep in the manner described above.  After all, independent of what anyone believes or wants, there is no logical contradiction between one life ending and another beginning in the presence of Jesus and the Christian dead really being dead like all the rest until then.  What is not possible is a lack of future resurrection to be reason enough to eat and drink without regard for the future when there is still be an immediate, painful afterlife for those who pursue illicit pleasures.  Paul very clearly would appear to not believe/expect an afterlife of torment for anyone between death and the resurrection, even as he would fiercely reject the heresy of eternal torture in hell after the resurrection (Romans 6:23, Philippians 3:18-19).

[1].  One passage like this is John 14:

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