And yet they’re stuck sharing the same Wikipedia Page.
Soul Sleep and believing the Soul is just as dead as the body between physical death and physical resurrection have a lot in common, both reject the Platonist/Pythagorean/Essene/Origenist view of The Soul that has become the mainstream popular view. One definitely does and the other still could involve a lack of any concise state between death and resurrection.
But Soul Sleep allows more wiggle room, it could allow Souls in Sheol/Hades/The Grave to be in a sort of Dreamlike state, same with the Martyrs under the Altar in the Throne Room in Revelation 6 at the 5th Seal and later washing their robes in chapter 7. Which gives me flexibility in how to deal with passages that seem to imply a pre resurrection afterlife.
But more importantly the idea that the Soul is just dead is what Annihilationists tend to believe.
What Jesus says in Matthew 10:28 is important here.
“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Annihilationists like Lex Meyer seem to think this verse proves their position even though it contradicts it. If the Soul simply dies when the body dies then anyone who can kill the body can kill the Soul. Instead killing the Soul is something only God can do, and Jesus goes on to assure us God never would do that. And in John 11:26 Jesus promises us that we will NEVER die.
The New Testament refers to the dead as asleep multiple times. That’s why I consider Soul Sleep the face value Biblical View and the burden of proof is on those who reject it. And the verses they most cling to I've already addressed here.
It’s also the most ancient traditional view being implied in Justin Martyr and explicitly taught by Athenagoras. It was also the View of the Smyrna-Lyon tradition of Polycarp-Irenaeus and possibly compatible with what Tertullian taught. Some who actually believe in Soul Sleep may have unwittingly used more Mortalism based language, so I remain unsure what to think of Tatian, Octavius or Marcus Minucius Felix.
The fact that so many mainstream Christians now treat Soul Sleep as a damnable heresy shows how far we’ve fallen into Platonist Error.
And so Soul Mortalism is still closer to the Biblical Truth then the mainstream view, but I do want the difference to be known as well as that Soul Sleep is where I stand.
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