Global InformationChristian mortalism information
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Christian mortalism is the Christian belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal[1][2][3][4][5] and may include the belief that the soul is "sleeping" after death until the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment,[6][7][8][9][10] a time known as the intermediate state. "Soul sleep" is often used as a pejorative term,[11][a][14] so the more neutral term "mortalism" was also used in the nineteenth century,[15] and "Christian mortalism" since the 1970s.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Historically the term psychopannychism was also used, despite problems with the etymology[b][c] and application.[24] The term thnetopsychism has also been used; for example, Gordon Campbell (2008) identified John Milton as believing in the latter.[25]
Christian mortalism stands in contrast with the traditional Christian belief that the souls of the dead immediately go to heaven, or hell, or (in Catholicism) purgatory. Christian mortalism has been taught by several theologians and church organizations throughout history while also facing opposition from aspects of Christian organized religion. The Catholic Church condemned such thinking in the Fifth Council of the Lateran as "erroneous assertions". Supporters include eighteenth-century religious figure Henry Layton, among many others.
- ^ Garber; Ayers (2003), The Cambridge history of seventeenth-century philosophy, vol. I: Volume 2, p. 383,
But among philosophers they were perhaps equally notorious for their commitment to the mortalist heresy; this is the doctrine which denies the existence of a naturally immortal soul.
- ^ Thomson (2008), Bodies of thought: science, religion, and the soul in the early Enlightenment, p. 42,
For mortalists the Bible did not teach the existence of a separate immaterial or immortal soul and the word 'soul' simply meant 'life'; the doctrine of a separate soul was said to be a Platonic importation.
- ^ Eccleshall; Kenney (1995), Western political thought: a bibliographical guide to post-war research, p. 80,
mortalism, the denial that the soul is an incorporeal substance that outlives the body
- ^ Kries 1997, p. 97: 'In Leviathan, soul and body are one; there are no "separated essenses" [sic]; death means complete death – the soul, merely another word for life, or breath, ceases at the death of the body. This view of the soul is known as Christian mortalism – a heterodox view held, indeed, by some sincere believers and not unique to Hobbes.'
- ^ Brandon 2007, p. 65-1: 'Mortalism, the idea that the soul is not immortal by nature'
- ^ Hick (1994), Death and eternal life, p. 211,
christian mortalism – the view that the soul either sleeps until the Day of Judgment, or is annihilated and re-created
- ^ Horvath (1993), Eternity and eternal life: speculative theology and science in discourse, p. 108,
Thus the so-called Ganztodtheorie, or mortalism, states that with death the human person totally ceases to be.
- ^ Pocock (2003), The Machiavellian moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic Republic Tradition, p. 35,
doctrines of mortalism or psychopannychism, which asserted that the being or the experience of the soul were suspended during the remainder of secular time
- ^ Fudge & Peterson 2000, p. 173 -1: 'the belief that according to divine revelation the soul does not exist as an independent substance after the death of the body'
- ^ Almond 1994, p. 38: …'mortalist views – particularly of the sort which affirmed that the soul slept or died – were widespread in the Reformation period. George Williams has shown how prevalent mortalism was among the Reformation radicals.'
- ^ de Greef 2008, p. 152 -1: "In the foreword of 1534, Calvin says that at the insistence of friends he had given in to the request to dispute the 'heresy of soul sleep.'”
- ^ Hoekema, Anthony A (1963), The four major cults: Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism, p. 136
- ^ Martin, Walter Ralston (1960), The truth about Seventh-Day Adventism, p. 117
- ^ The Rainbow, a magazine of Christian literature, 1879, p. 523,
the term 'soul-sleeper' is used today only as a term of reproach
- ^ Gardner, Rev. James (1858), The faiths of the world: an account of all religions and religious sects, p. 860,
Soul-sleepers, a term sometimes applied to Materialists (which see), because they admit no intermediate state between death and the resurrection.
- ^ Burns, Norman T (1972), Christian mortalism from Tyndale to Milton
- ^ Overhoff, Jürgen (2000), Hobbes's theory of the will, p. 193,
The term 'Christian mortalism,' which I have borrowed from the title of Norman T. Burns's masterly book on that topic
- ^ "The tradition of Christian mortalism", The Mennonite Quarterly Review, Goshen College, 1969
- ^ Johnston, Mark (2010), Surviving Death, p. 24,
The same dynamic can be found in John Milton's Christian Doctrine, another spirited defense of Christian mortalism
- ^ Kries 1997: 'Christian mortalism is thus a convenient "middle ground," which, by not departing wholly from possibly genuine... The advantage Hobbes's change to Christian mortalism appears to bring to his teaching is that it attenuates the cord that...’
- ^ Wright, Leonard Napoleon (1939), Christian mortalism in England (1643–1713)
- ^ Force, James E; Popkin, Richard Henry (1994), The books of nature and Scripture: recent essays on natural Philosophy, Theology, and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands, p. xvii,
Force then goes on to show how Newton's Christian mortalism fits with Newton's core voluntarism, ie, his essentially… Force finds Newton's adoption of Christian mortalism clearly stated in Newton's manuscript entitled "Paradoxical…"
- ^ Parker, Robert (2007), Polytheism and Society at Athens, p. 166,
The mood of a pannychis was often one of gaiety, but this was also a form of religious action... The pannychis was marked, according to one charming definition, by 'la bonne humeure efficace' (Borgeaud)
- ^ Williams 1962, p. 581: "It will be recalled that we have allowed the etymologically ambiguous word 'psychopannychism' to serve as the generic term for the two variants 'soul sleep'...”
- ^ Campbell, Gordon; Corns, Thomas N; Hale, John K (2007), Milton and the manuscript of De doctrina Christiana, Oxford University Press, p. 117, ISBN 978-0-19-929649-1,
The belief that the soul dies with the body but is resurrected at the last judgment is known as thnetopsychism; the belief that the soul sleeps from the moment of death until the last judgment is known as psychopannychism
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