We are presenting the following comments from Raymond Franz's book, In Search of Christian Freedom, which includes some interesting quotes from Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr.'s book Christian Doctrine.

The common view among many about the human soul is described aby S. C. Guthrie, professor at Columbia Theological Seminary (a Presbyterian institution), in this manner:

According to this doctrine only my body can die, but I myself do not really die. My body is only the shell of my true self. It is not me; it is only the earthly-physical prison in wich the real "I" is trapped. My true self is my soul, which, because it is spiritual and not physical, is like God and therefore shares God's immortality (inability to die). What happens at death, then, is that my immortal soul escapes from my mortal body. My body dies, but I myself live on and return to the spiritual realm from which I came and to which I really belong.

Having said this, this respected theologian then goes on to state:

If we hold to the genuinely Biblical hope of the future, we must firmly reject this doctrine of the soul's immortality for several reasons.

He then proceeds to detail those reasons from Scripture. Before doing so, however, he discusses the origin of the belief he first described, stating:

This doctrine [of the soul's inherent immortality] was not taught by the Biblical writers themselves, but it was common in the Greek and Oriental religions of the ancient world in which the Christian Church was born. Some of the earliest Christian theologians were influenced by it, read the Bible in the light of it and introduced it into the thinking of the church. It has been with us ever since, influencing even the Reformed confessions (see the Westminster Confession, XXXII; the Belgic Confession, Art XXXVII)

The quotation is from pages 706 and 707 of Franz's book, which quotes pages 381-383 of Guthrie's book. Franz's footnote (page 707) reads:

Christian Doctrine, Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., (John Knox Press, Atlanta, 1968), pages 381-383. The author is professor of systematic theology at Columbia Theological Seminary, with doctorates from Princeton Theological Seminary and the University of Basel, Switzerland.

<><><><><>

This document may be photocopied or otherwise reproduced for non-profit purposes. Please do not put our email address online except as part of graphic.