# Arguments for the soul's immortality



## cih1355 (Jun 15, 2008)

I went to the following website maintained by the LCMS,The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod - Christian Cyclopedia, and I found the following arguments for the soul's immortality:


"Arguments for immortality include (1) the ethical, which rests on the premise that evil is not adequately punished or virtue adequately rewarded in this world and that God's justice must be satisfied in some other world; (2) the hist.: since all nations at all times have believed in immortality, the idea of immortality must be founded on fact; the testimony of man's conscience to immortality is the witness of Him who gave man a conscience and a moral nature; or, we may say, man's belief in immortality is part of the divine Law written in man's heart; (3) the metaphysical, which operates with the thought that since man's soul is absolutely simple, and not compounded or material, it cannot be destroyed by death, which essentially is separation of body and soul; the soul, pure spirit, cannot be annihilated, as the body perishes, returning to dust; hence the soul must live on in some other world; (4) the teleological: since man, as a religious, moral being does not attain the goal of his existence on earth, his development here being imperfect, there must be a greater and better world, where man's religious and moral being may come into its own. JTM"

Do you have any thoughts about these arguments?

I disagree with the second argument. Just because all nations believe in the immortality of the soul does not mean that this is a fact.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 15, 2008)

The Christian doctrine of Resurrection of the Body is superior.


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## Whitefield (Jun 16, 2008)

cih1355 said:


> I disagree with the second argument. Just because all nations believe in the immortality of the soul does not mean that this is a fact.



The inclusion of the second point is pretty common in the attempt to be exhaustive. Turretin does it regularly in his Institutes. I don't think it is supposed to present the definitive proof, but is more used to show the reader that all angles to the argument have been considered.


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