"...To dust you shall return...." What about the spirit?

edited February 2012 in Faith Issues
In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were told that they will return to the ground - to the dust from which they were taken - and that they are dust. 

1)  Why did the Lord not make mention in these introductory scriptures to Adam's immortal soul -that it would enter Hades when the body returns to dust. 

These introductory verses in holy scripture sound to some sects as though they are saying that Adam is nothing but dust returning to dust without mentioning the second nature- the immortal soul of man that lives on after death.

When God personally breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life and made Him in His own image and likeness this is understood by most to imply that something immortal from God is also present in Adam.  However when Adam sinned it was only mentioned that he was dust without mention of what happens to his spirit or consciousness after he became dust.  Why?

2) Also, the scriptures say that man became a living soul.  But I think this simply means a living being such that the word soul in this verse may not necessarily referring to the immortal spirit of humans.  Is this correct?

3)  When Abel was murdered, the scriptures say that his blood cried out to God from the ground.  Is this metaphorical?  Does this blood crying out have anything to do with Abel in Hades?  Why is the abode of the dead or Hades not mentioned in these introductory chapters?

Comments

  • According to St Seraphim of Sarov, the spirit was also formed from the dust:

    [quote=The Revelation of St Seraphim]"Many explain that when it says in the Bible: 'God breathed the breath of life into the face of Adam the first-created, who was created by Him from the dust of the ground,' it must mean that until then there was neither human soul nor spirit in Adam, but only the flesh created from the dust of the ground. This interpretation is wrong, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the ground with the constitution which our dear little Father, the holy Apostle Paul describes: May your spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Thess. 5:23). And all these three parts of our nature were created from the dust of the ground, and Adam was not created dead, but an active living being like all the other animate creatures of God living on earth. The point is that if the Lord God had not breathed afterwards into his face this breath of life (that is, the grace of our Lord God the Holy Spirit Who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son and is sent into the world for the Son's sake), Adam would have remained without having within him the Holy Spirit Who raises him to Godlike dignity.

    I also don't believe we should believe in the eternal nature of the soul in that sense.  All that is created lives and is sustained by God.  We can only be eternal if God so chooses to preserve our existence, only God alone is eternal.

    [Quote=St Athanasius On the Incarnation]
    For transgression of the commandment was turning them back to their natural state, so that just as they have had their being out of nothing, so also, as might be expected, they might look for corruption into nothing in the course of time. 5. For if, out of a former normal state of non-existence, they were called into being by the Presence and loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive their being from God who IS, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption. 6. For man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not; but by reason of his likeness to Him that is (and if he still preserved this likeness by keeping Him in his knowledge) he would stay his natural corruption, and remain incorrupt; as Wisdom Wisdom 6:18 says: The taking heed to His laws is the assurance of immortality; but being incorrupt, he would live henceforth as God, to which I suppose the divine Scripture refers, when it says: I have said you are gods, and you are all sons of the most Highest; but you die like men, and fall as one of the princes...

    ...For it were monstrous, firstly, that God, having spoken, should prove false— that, when once He had ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the death, after the transgression man should not die, but God's word should be broken. For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die, man died not. 4. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward non-existence by the way of corruption.

    Note, emphasis is mine.

    Please pray for me,

    LiD
  • Greetings in our Lord!

    I will not write an extensive response at the moment, but will let the Fathers words speak for themselves. As this topic is invariably related to a number of other issues, not the least of which is the image and likeness of God, soteriology, purification, illumination, and deification, it would take quite a long discourse to explain. For now, I hope this will suffice:

    The Breath of God Mixes with Dust. Gregory of Nazianzus: The soul is the breath of God, a substance of heaven mixed with the lowest earth, a light entombed in a cave, yet wholly divine and unquenchable…. He spoke, and taking some of the newly minted earth his immortal hands made an image into which he imparted some of his own life. He sent his spirit, a beam from the invisible divinity. Dogmatic Hymns 7.10

    How Adam Became a Living Soul. Chrysostom: It was pleasing to God’s love of humanity to make this thing created out of earth a participant of the rational nature of the soul, through which this living creature was manifest as excellent and perfect. “And he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” that is, the inbreathing communicated to the one created out of earth the power of life, and thus the nature of the soul was formed. Therefore Moses added “And man became a living soul”; that which was created out of dust, having received the inbreathing, the breath of life, “became a living soul.” What does “a living soul” mean? An active soul, which has the members of the body as the implements of its activities, submissive to its will. Homilies on Genesis 12.15.11

    Origin of the Soul. Tertullian: The soul has its origin in the breath of God and did not come from matter. We base that statement on the clear assertion of divine revelation, which declares that “God breathed the breath of life into the face of man, and man became a living soul.” On the Soul 3.4.12

    Pray for my weaknesses,
    childoforthodoxy
  • [quote author=LookingInDesire link=topic=12889.msg151637#msg151637 date=1328841095]

    I also don't believe we should believe in the eternal nature of the soul in that sense.  All that is created lives and is sustained by God.  We can only be eternal if God so chooses to preserve our existence, only God alone is eternal.

    [Quote=St Athanasius On the Incarnation]
    For transgression of the commandment was turning them back to their natural state, so that just as they have had their being out of nothing, so also, as might be expected, they might look for corruption into nothing in the course of time. 5. For if, out of a former normal state of non-existence, they were called into being by the Presence and loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive their being from God who IS, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption. 6. For man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not; but by reason of his likeness to Him that is (and if he still preserved this likeness by keeping Him in his knowledge) he would stay his natural corruption, and remain incorrupt; as Wisdom Wisdom 6:18 says: The taking heed to His laws is the assurance of immortality; but being incorrupt, he would live henceforth as God, to which I suppose the divine Scripture refers, when it says: I have said you are gods, and you are all sons of the most Highest; but you die like men, and fall as one of the princes...

    ...For it were monstrous, firstly, that God, having spoken, should prove false— that, when once He had ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the death, after the transgression man should not die, but God's word should be broken. For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die, man died not. 4. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward non-existence by the way of corruption.

    Note, emphasis is mine.

    Please pray for me,

    LiD


    These quotes must be referring to the body, not the soul/spirit because numerous times St. Athanasius explicitly states that the soul is immortal and does not die.

    Souls are immortal according to most Fathers.  They are not eternal as they have a beginning.  By God's will and grace, human souls/spirits are immortal and do not die and are not made of physical matter.

    To believe otherwise is to fall into heresies of soul sleep, which the Church condemns.


  • The Soul is immortal, whether to everlasting salvation, or to Everlasting Condemnation. The Belief that the Soul sleeps at death is a heresy of modern Protestantism.
  • What of the 3 questions asked at the beginning of this thread?
  • [quote author=metouro link=topic=12889.msg151801#msg151801 date=1329115691]
    What of the 3 questions asked at the beginning of this thread?


    Something not being mentioned in a certain part of the Bible does not mean its not true. We do not believe in sola scriptura.
  • I have published a podcast on the soul at orthodoxfaith.podbean.com
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