Unconditional immortality is the pagan transmigration of souls. Augustine and other partly converted "church fathers" that knew more of the teaching of Plato than they did of Christ and they rewrote reincarnation to fit Christianity. The doctrine of an immortal soul that is not dead replaced the resurrection, and made it both useless and impossible.
Transmigration of souls:
Reincarnation:
Ancient Egyptian belief was that the soul had a gloomy existence in the underworld (transmigration). The Greeks and Romans believed about the same with some changes. Oriental and Pythagorean philosophy, Buddhists, Hindus, and Grand Lama all believed in some form of reincarnation. All believed the "soul" of the evil had some punishment, but not all believed the soul had the same punishment. With most the punishment of the soul after it had left the person it had been in was only some kind of gloomy existence in the underworld that would end when it was reincarnated, not endless torment as it is taught today. With most, the more evil a person was the lower his soul would have the capability to reincarnate. Some would come back as a person, the more evil as a plant or insect. This punishment was believed to be under or down in the earth by most. Hell was and is still believed by some to be under the earth. This is the nearest thing to today's Hell in heathen philosophy, and in any writing unto after the New Testament. The "church fathers" borrowed from the heathens (mostly Greek and Romans), and invented unto by the time of the Dark Age they had invented Hell, Limbo, Purgatory, worship of Mary and saints, the Pope declared to be God in the flesh, and much more. God was made into a cruel and sadistic being. Those who worshiped him truly became like the god they invented. Millions who believed the world was round, or in any way did not believe all the Church taught, were put to death as heretics. It put some to death for having the Bible in their own language-not in Latin. It was one of the bloodiest times of history, and continued into the Protestant Reformation (The Crusades, bloody Mary, witch-hunts, and much more). Some of the cruelest ways of torment the world has ever known were invented and used, and all in the name of their god; after Calvin burned Servetus to death he wrote a book with a long title, “A Faithful Account Of The Errors Of Servetus, In Which It Is Proved That Heretics Ought To Be Restrained By The Sword.” It would take many books to tell of all the bloody deeds of the Dark Age by the so-called "church." The reasons for them are summed up in the words of bloody Mary. "As the souls of heretics are hereafter to be eternally burning in Hell, there can be nothing more proper than for me to imitate the divine vengeance by burning them on earth." In the Dark Age, the "church" was a mixture of Christianity, Judaism, Paganism, and their own inventions, but mostly the last two. Before the Protestant Reformation there was more heathen philosophy in the Dark Age Church than true Christian teaching. It had apostatized into a satanic cult.
Different characteristics of a person, not different parts of a person that can live without each other, but a person looked at from different points of view.
Ashley S. Johnson, founder and president of the Johnson Bible College: “Generally the world ‘soul’ in the ordinary version should be life,” “The Resurrection And The Future Life,” page 336, 1913, Knoxville Lithographing Company.
"MAN BECAME A LIVING BEING" Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, 'Let Us make MAN in Our image,'" not "Let Us make a soul in Our Image and put this soul in MAN unto the death of the MAN it is in." Genesis 2:7 "Then the Lord formed MAN of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; (not breathed into the body an immortal undying no substance soul, but breathed into “man” the breath of life, which both men and animals have), and MAN became a living being." Not a body + an immortal soul, but "a living being." Not two beings, a body being (a person) with an invisible soul being living in the person. How can the breath of life in your nose (breathing) be an immortal something that dose not breathe? The same “man” that was created “in the image of God” is the same “man” that was created “male and female.” It is “man” that was created “male and female,” man that is in the “image of God,” not only an immaterial something in “man” that is in the image of God.
The body of dust + the breath of life = a living soul (a living being-nehphesh), Genesis 2:7. The breath of life without the body would not be a person or animal. The breath of life without the body would not be an immortal living being, not a nehphesh. All living creatures, whether they are animals or sea-dwelling creatures are souls (nehpheshs–living beings).
DEATH OF MANKIND—CREATION IN REVERSE
Creation—body made of dust—breath of life from God = a living person (Genesis 2:7).
Death—breath of life returns to God—body returns to dust = a dead person (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
God formed Man, not merely the body of man; it was MAN that was formed from the dust of the ground. Man is in the image of God; it is MAN, not an invisible something that was put in the MAN but is not the MAN, not something that has no substance that is in the image of God. After Adam was put out of the garden he was still in the image of God, mankind is still in the image of God. If Adam was created innate immortal, then what was the purpose of the tree of life? If Adam had an immortal soul that was created not subject to death, then the tree of life could have had no purpose; an immortal soul would live forever with or without it; if Adam had a deathless soul, his deathless soul would not have died if he did or did not eat of the tree of life; it was Adam that could and did die for eating of the tree, not a deathless soul that could not die, therefore; could not be what was to die for eating of the forbidden fruit.
Summary: The Bible says, “Man became a living soul” is changed to, “Man was given a soul,” or “Man had a soul put in him.” There is a world of difference in a person being a living soul and a person having a soul. Both man and animals are a living soul, neither one have a soul. If the breath of life in his nostrils in Genesis 2:7 makes a person have an immortal part (spirit) living in him or her that cannot die, then "all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life" in Genesis 7:22 would also prove all beasts, birds, and fish have an immortal part (soul) living in them that cannot die.
GOD IS A LIVING BEING (Not God has a soul in Him)
1. “Moreover, I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul (nehphesh) will not reject you” (Leviticus 26:11).
2. “I then will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and heap your remains on the remains of your idols; for My soul (nehphesh) shall abhor you” (Leviticus 26:30).
· I know of no one that believes God has “an invisible, no substance” something in Him that can exist apart from Him. His soul (nehphesh) is His person, His being—life, not an immortal soul living in the immortal God, just as the soul of a person or animal is the life (the living being) of the person or animal, not an immortal being in them.
ANIMALS ARE "SOULS" nehphesh– a living creature
Animals ARE souls–a living being, not animals HAVE souls–an immaterial, invisible, no substance, deathless something. In Genesis 1:20; 1:21; 1:24; 1:30, most translations try to hide this. WHY? Why is it translated "living creature" when used referring to animals, and the same word is changed and translated "soul" when used referring to a person? There is no excuse or defense for it; it is a deliberate attempt by the translators, who did not believe God's word as it is, to mislead there readers; all Bible teachers should point this out to all they teach (James 3:1). If "the living soul" (nehphesh) is the immortal part of a person, then bugs, all sea creatures, all birds, and all animals have an immortal soul. In Genesis "Living soul" is used more of these creatures than it is of man.
Passages in which soul (nehphesh) is speaking of animals being souls but is deliberately hid from the English readers that the word nehphesh—souls is used.
Many believe, "The living soul" in Genesis 2:7 is the one distinctive thing that makes a person different from an animal, but if this makes a person have an immortal soul in them, there is no way around all living things having immortal souls in them. In these passages bugs, birds, fish, persons, are all a nehphesh, a "living beings," not a deathless, immaterial something.
John T. Willis: "The last two lines of verse 7 affirm that a person's life is God-given. God enables a person to breathe, and thus, to be alive, as he does other creatures (see Genesis 7:22). Some have tried to justify a threefold division of man into flesh (or body), soul, and spirit from Genesis 2:7. They equate dust with flesh or body, breath with spirit, and insist that the last phrase of the verse must be translated as 'a living soul.' However, this understanding reads more into the biblical text than it really says. (1) The Hebrew words for 'flesh' or 'body' and 'spirit' do not occur in this passage. (2) The Hebrew expression nehphesh chayyah, which some insist on translating 'a living soul,' is used of fish and marine life in Genesis 1:30; and beasts and birds in 2:19. If 'soul' means the eternal part of a person or the sum total of man's 'body' and 'spirit' in Genesis 2:7, it must mean the eternal part of a fish or the sum total of a fish's 'body' and 'spirit' in Genesis 1:20, 21; etc. (3) The flow of the context in Genesis 2:7 indicates that the word translated being in RSV (nehphesh) means the whole person. The author's emphasis is on the gift of life" "The Living Word Commentary On the Old Testament – Genesis," page 103-104, Sweet Publishing Company, 1979, church of Christ.
Erdmann Dictionary of the Bible: "Far from referring simply to one aspect of a person, 'soul' refers to the whole person" page 1245.
Holman Bible Dictionary: "A human being is a totality of being, not a combination of various parts and impulses. According to the Old Testament understanding, a person is not a body, which happens to possess a soul. Instead, a person is a living soul...Because of God's breath of life; the man became 'a living being' (Gen. 2:7). A person thus is a complete totality, made up of human flesh, spirit (best understood as "the life-force'), and nephesh (best understood as "the total self' but often translated as 'soul')" page 61.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: "There is not dualism in the sense of separation, as though there could be full man either as body alone or as soul alone...together they make up the one man" Volume 1, page 134.
Hastings Bible Dictionary: “Soul is throughout the great part of the Bible simply the equivalent of ‘life’ embodied in living creature.”
T. Pierce Brown: "A consideration of EVERY passage in which these terms are used leads us to the consideration that the term 'soul' is a term that was applied in the Bible to every being that normally has sensory capacities (life), whether or not they have that capacity when the term is used referring to them. For example, one might see a body of a dead person and say, 'That poor soul is dead.' The Bible uses the term that way, even as we do, and it has nothing at all to do with the immorality or mortality of the soul. It simply means that the PERSON (the one who HAD life-soul-sensory capacity) is dead." "Soul and Spirit" Gospel Advocate, June 14, 1979, church of Christ.
(1) Nehphesh (soul): When nehphesh is used referring only to animals, it is translated nine different ways in the King James Version.