No, Immortal Souls are Not a “Greek Intrusion”
“Soul immortal? And where do you get that in the Bible? That is exactly the problem. The Bible teaches that only God and Jesus has immortality. Immortality is something we can inherit.”
This is a frequent impression today, no thanks in large part to modern scholars who have followed Harnack and other nineteenth century liberals in their attempt to unhitch Christian orthodoxy from so-called “Greek thought.”
A point of clarity must be made first. It seems that the objector wants to distinguish between what God alone has as opposed to what we can perhaps “inherit” but not “have,” or which is not “our nature.”
The first point of clarification, then, is this: If immortality is something we can inherit, then who or what exactly is this we? Is it a soul-less entity? In other words, in what sense exactly can a soul not be immortal? It makes little sense to talk of a soul “inheriting” immortality without precisely that soul now becoming immortal in some sense.
We can frame the question in a way that makes the problem entirely understandable. If I ask the question in the following way, then the objector will seem to have instantly made his point: At what point can a created soul be immortal?
There it is in plain sight now. It seems that a created soul cannot be immortal, because to be immortal is to have never been “un-alive,” for lack of a better term. But, we must then ask: Is this the only way that the adjective “immortal” can modify the terms life or soul or being or creature? Many have so convinced themselves that the “immortal soul” is an intrusion of Greek speculation, that the problem may run deeper.
Consider a few points—I will call them “premises” only in the most informal sense. They will serve as background for getting one’s whole mind around the problem and its resolution.
Premise 1. Virtually all theologians recognize the distinction between the communicable attributes of God and incommunicable, and (further) that these are not utterly separate categories. In other words, the incommunicable cannot be represented by utterly equivocal terms, or we couldn’t know about them at all; and conversely, the communicable cannot be represented by utterly univocal terms. Thus both intersect in analogous terms. So, the terms infinite, good, just, holy, immense, simple, immortal, etc. vary in how much, if at all, God has made beings to participate in these. However, all of them would at least have in common that some of their predicate terms are common when either God and the creature are the referents.
Premise 2. The Bible frequently attributes to the creature such predicates, either by virtue of participation in being that is the whole fabric of creation (cf. Gen. 1:26-27), or by privation, whether one falls short of the divine archetype by either finitude or sin (cf. Isa. 55:8-9), or by gradual restoration in sanctification (cf. Col. 3:10) and finally perfection (cf. 1 Jn. 3:2). In short, there are many attributes in the creature which may rightly be called communicable.
Premise 3. As to the example of immortality, just as with other attributes, there is always some communicable element. In this case, as in the others, only God has life in Himself (Jn. 5:26), yet He gives it to whomever He wills (Jn. 5:21, 24). But it is crucial to catch the next point about the relationship between the biblical expressions “eternal life” and “everlasting life.” No one would argue that these are all strictly synonymous terms. Even of the eternal life granted to the creature, there is the quality dimension and the duration dimension, which are commonly understood to be distinct. So it is with the related terms “immortal” and “eternal” and “everlasting.” For example, Paul sets forth the promise, “to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Rom. 2:7).
Premise 4. The word “immortal” simply means not-mortal—not subject to death. Such a one who has life in himself cannot die by virtue of His being and essence. That clearly applies to God alone. To attribute immortality to a creature is no more problematic than to attribute eternal life or everlasting life (which God alone also has in Himself).
Note Paul’s use: “this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). In no universe can this word be reduced to any other meaning than “that which cannot die.” It is another matter to discover in what mode the being cannot die. Its non-ability-to-die may be intrinsic (as it is for God alone), or extrinsic.
That is to say, in participation with God’s gracious work, the believer can no longer die (Jn. 11:26). Not because the believer possesses this intrinsic to his being (we possess nothing intrinsic to our being — so immortality is hardly unique on that count), but because God upholds us in His immortality.
Premise 5. The objector friend may have taken too much from modern teachers whose grudge against Plato or the early church fathers (too Platonic for their liking) has become more dear to them than adhering to the simple language of Scripture. Immortality as a term need not mean the same thing as this or that Ancient Greek meant it, any more than words like cause or mind or appetites need to be pinned down to every last pagan meaning. The Christian is free (and in fact, duty bound) to redeem words that have been misused, and concepts that have been misconstrued, so as to bring them more in line with Scripture.
This method is to be preferred to superstition that shudders at words that today’s intellectual lightweights have made into boogey men. The flight from classical thought affects every area of Christianity, and the results have not been beneficial to the mind or those souls that will never die. Then there is that more general principle of wisdom that we should not be forming our doctrine by mere reaction.
