Q&A Home > S > Soul

• At the moment of death, is the soul conscious of the disembodiment from the body?
• In Mighty Arrows Magazine, on page 18, it says that the soul is black, but her Savior is white. I don't understand how that could be always true.
• Is it possible for one to sell his soul to the demons?
• Is it the soul or spirit that will be judged on judgment day?
• Is the soul and spirit one or two separate entities? When we receive the Holy Spirit, does it mingle and become one with our spirit or does it remain separate and distinct?
• Is the soul still conscious during the moment of death? What about afterward? If death is solely the separation of the soul from the body, what does the person feel at the moment of death? Is there any pain?
• It seems that St. Aphrahat along with many Arabic Christians in the early Church believed in the heresy of soul sleep.  Aphrahat, and it seems to some extent Ephraim the Syrian, and Tatian the Syrian and many of the Syriac speaking Christians believed that "the soul is buried along with the body." Are these individuals, particularly Aphrahat, considered Saints in the Coptic Orthodox Church?  If so, how and why since even Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists quote Aphrahat to support their claim that human souls are unconscious when they depart from the body. St. Ephraim the Syrian also says that the soul is unconscious and does not enter Paradise since it has no consciousness when it is outside the body: That blessed abode is in no way deficient,.for that place is complete and perfected in every way, and the soul cannot enter there alone, for in such a state it is in everything deficient—in sensation and consciousness; but on the day of Resurrection the body, with all its senses, will enter in as well, once it has been made perfect.... When Adam was in all things complete, then the Lord took him and placed him in Paradise. The soul could not enter there of itself and for itself, but together they entered, body and soul,.... (Hymns on Paradise VIII: 7,9). There seems to be evidence that many Arab Christians, particularly Syriacs, believe such things in the early Church. How can this be? Also, why do we, during the First Litany of The Compline Prayer in the Agpeya, say, "...O my soul.... inside the grave, dust does not praise. And among the dead, no one remembers, neither in hades, does anyone give thanks." This is partly from the Psalms but the fact that dust does not praise, why is this a threat to the soul?  Is the soul unconscious in the dust like the above Syriac Fathers like Aphraht teach?  Why do we repeat this?  Why do we also say that among the dead, no one remembers, since the rich man remembered Lazarus, Abraham, and even his brothers who were still on earth even while he was in Hades according to the Gospel of Luke? These Syriac teachers seem contrary and completely at odds with other saints who state that: St John Cassian: The souls of the dead not only do not lose consciousness, they do not even lose their dispositions – that is, hope and fear, joy and grief, and something of that which they expect for themselves at the Universal Judgement they begin already to foretaste… They become yet more alive and more zealously cling to the glorification of God. And truly, if we were to reason on the basis of the testimony of the Sacred Scripture concerning the nature of the soul, in the measure of our understanding, would it not be, I will not say extreme stupidity, but at least folly, to suspect even in the least that the most precious part of man (that is, the soul), in which, according to the blessed Apostle, the image and likeness of God is contained, after putting off this fleshly coarseness in which it finds itself in this present life, should become unconscious – that part which, containing in itself the power of reason, makes sensitive by its presence even the dumb and unconscious matter of the flesh?" (First Conference of Abba Moses) St John Chrysostom: Do not say to me, 'He who has died does not hear, does not speak, does not see, does not feel, since neither does a man who sleeps.' If it is necessary to say something wondrous, the soul of a sleeping man somehow sleeps, but not so with him who has died, for [his soul] has awakened. Does the soul of regular believers sleep unconsciously until the resurrection with a few exceptions like the saints? There are many, including some Easter Orthodox, who teach that is what happens, whether we are conscious or not after death until the time of the resurrection is pure speculation. This thought can seriously weaken someone's faith and joy because it means we are basically cut off from feeling God's love immediately after physical death, weakens one's resolve and bravery in the face of martyrdom, and basically one is an atheist, without God between death and the resurrection since he is unconscious.
• When does the soul come into existence? Is it the second the sperm and the egg unite? Is it okay to use the "morning after pill"--basically a high dose estrogen pill to cause shedding of the endometrium to prevent implantation/pregnancy IF fertilization actually did occur?