Folk Religion -- what's the harm?

We can use body, soul, spirit when we are talking about different aspects of life and experience. Physical. Mental. Emotional. But to suggest that body, soul, spirit are independent and separable entities is a far different matter.

What we are is exactly what God created. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7). We don't have souls. We are souls.

Body-soul dualism is a pagan/heathen idea that finds no legitimate place in the biblical view of the nature of man. Rooted in the teachings of classical Greek philosophers, it was promoted among Christians by Greek converts who became big-name theologians in the early church. Today it is wildly popular, even among secular people.

Today's traditionalist theologians make it a core teaching, perhaps because without it they lose doctrines like the worship of saints, purgatory, eternal torment, and more.

People love the immortal soul idea because it lets them imagine that loved ones who have died are with Jesus. It's comforting, but not biblical. It's folk religion. Death is an unconscious state, without awareness of time. (See Eccl. 9:5). You die. Next thing you know is the resurrection.

What's wrong with believing the immortal soul doctrine? Will God judge us based on whether or not we believe it? Certainly not! It's not a salvation issue.

Then why I do object to it? Because as long as you believe that souls are immortal – that people who have died are still alive in some other form – you may think there is the possibility of communicating with the dead.

I'm not just talking about spiritists and mediums. I'm talking about the danger to ordinary people who think they have contact with a deceased friend or loved one.

This opens up a channel of communication with demons who can impersonate the dead and deceive the living. Satanic lies are hard to resist when they appear to come from a beloved father, mother, sibling, or friend who is supposedly bringing a message from "the other side."

Our only protection against such deceptions is the Word of God.