Body without spirit


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Is it possible to have a "live" body without a spirit? Such as what happens when someone is on life support and there is a general feeling that the person has already passed and so it is time to stop life support. Is it possible that there could be an alive body without the spirit present? Yes, we would call it "dead" in terms of the body without the spirit is dead. (James 2:26) But the tissue is alive, artificially alive just like there can exist faith (momentarily) without works. Or does it mean by definition that when the body is alive, even if it is in a very primitive way, such as heart rate, blood pressure and brain waves are present but no purposeful activity or interaction observed that the spirit has to be there?

This was of course apply to the other end of life which is if the zygote is alive, the spirit is there?

And also when God formed man before breathing in life, the body was "dead" or live tissue?

It could also apply to recent threads pertaining to the flood and what is deemed "dead." (i.e. - the spirits were taken from all those animals left on land during the flood and yet the body remains, ready for the next generation.)

Or, do we take that in a strict sense, with any hint of life there has to be a spirit present for that individual.

everything that is physical has spirit. It's certainly possible to have living organs with a dead brain under certain circumstances... no idea if the spirit of the person is still there at that time or not tho.

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I think if you read through what I wrote again, I don't think I made mention of Adam's parents. Only that there could be enough of an evolutionary process of human like creatures to have enough of a substrate to sustain a "man" and then Adam and Eve could be introduced. Then there would be evidence of bodies around and yet those bodies never had individual spirits. So, there could be no "death" without an individual spirit for those bodies before there was actually a "man" with both body and spirit. That could be possible if life forms could be sustained with the light of Christ alone.

I honestly don't understand what you mean then. How is there any "evolutionary" process without successive generations? Successive generations imply parents and children. If Adam was born, he had parents. If Adam was the first man, and he is the result of evolution, then his parents are not mankind. That would be pretty absurd.

It's more likely that Adam's body was born to human parents somewhere else, and that it was placed into the garden. "Dust of the earth" simply means physical element. We help create human bodies all the time, from the "dust of the earth", my wife and I have produced five.

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.

True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man. (LDS.org - Ensign Article - The Origin of Man)

Regards,

Vanhin

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everything that is physical has spirit. It's certainly possible to have living organs with a dead brain under certain circumstances... no idea if the spirit of the person is still there at that time or not tho.

Has spirit or a spirit? I think it is important to distinguish that. I think some LDS believe there is a separate spirit for the weed that popped up through the pavers in my driveway that was created before the world began. Seriously, God knew that I would want pavers in my driveway instead of concrete? And that the workers who sealed the pavers accidentally missed an area so the weed was able to come up?

Or how about the red blood cell floating in an IV bag donated by someone? Or the thousands of bacteria and viruses in the body, do they all have spirits? And if so, the the spirits of those viruses can somehow mesh with the spirit of person, they can occupy the same space, like the herpes virus that lives inside cells. I thought spirit matter was still matter, so how can it occupy the same space as other spirit matter? Or maybe not every living thing has a spirit, like a virus. Unless, you really did mean just that everything has spirit and not "a" spirit.

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Has spirit or a spirit? I think it is important to distinguish that. I think some LDS believe there is a separate spirit for the weed that popped up through the pavers in my driveway that was created before the world began. Seriously, God knew that I would want pavers in my driveway instead of concrete? And that the workers who sealed the pavers accidentally missed an area so the weed was able to come up?

Or how about the red blood cell floating in an IV bag donated by someone? Or the thousands of bacteria and viruses in the body, do they all have spirits? And if so, the the spirits of those viruses can somehow mesh with the spirit of person, they can occupy the same space, like the herpes virus that lives inside cells. I thought spirit matter was still matter, so how can it occupy the same space as other spirit matter? Or maybe not every living thing has a spirit, like a virus. Unless, you really did mean just that everything has spirit and not "a" spirit.

that's a good question and one the scriptures do not provide much of an answer for. If they'd explain how a spirit is organised then that would solve about half of it, but they do not. And likewise with howw the spirit is connected to the body - however we know that more than 1 spirit can be in a body or be affecting a body.

In fact i can't find enough to know whether having spirit is the same or different than having a spirit. Personally i'd be inclined that having spirit and having a spirit would be synonymus.

All I know is that God commands and the elements obey him.

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In Mormon Doctrine, Elder McConkie writes that "Intelligence or spirit element became intelligences after the spirits were born as individual entities. Use of this name designates both the primal element from which the spirit offspring were created and also their inherited capacity to grow in grace ..." (p.387). This view seems to consider intelligence, or pure element, as collective and not individual in its nature, and is consistent with the views expressed by President Penrose. If this is true, then we have not always existed as individual entities, but only as a collective something.

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You mean they (evil spirits) abide by the eternal laws, which even they cannot cross the line...but, even GOD abide by (celestial) eternal laws.

Would I call it honor HIM? No! Honor HIM is the action of one’s agency. We CHOOSE to honor our FATHER and not by compelling the spirit.

In John 5:22-24, the Savior taught a simple principle here:

22 For the Father judgeth no man; but hath committed all judgment unto the Son;

23 That all should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father who hath sent him.

24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He who heareth my word, and believeth on him who sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death into life.

Simply put, the evil spirit do not give honor to both GOD and HIS beloved Son. Edited by Hemidakota
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You mean they (evil spirits) abide by the eternal laws, which even they cannot cross the line...

I do not know about that.

but, even GOD abide by (celestial) eternal laws.

yes.

Would I call it honor HIM? No! Honor HIM is the action of one’s agency. We CHOOSE to honor our FATHER and not by compelling the spirit.

In John 5:22-24, the Savior taught a simple principle here:

22 For the Father judgeth no man; but hath committed all judgment unto the Son;

23 That all should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father who hath sent him.

24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He who heareth my word, and believeth on him who sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death into life.

Simply put, the evil spirit do not give honor to both GOD and HIS beloved Son.
I believe I stated that they did not.... If one does not HOnor one they do not Honor the other. yet when commanded by God's power/authorityto leave bodies tthey have taken posession of, or to leave, they have always complied. And i doubt it was by their will that they did so.
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Regards to exercising evil spirits of possessed bodies, why don't we use the term “In the name of - - - GOD --- or Elohim --- or Lord ---- or Jehovah? It is an interesting coloration between two points, the title ‘Jesus Christ’, and the authority itself is based on. But, that is another topic…

Let me redirect the question to not mince eternal terms, what is this power comprised of and why it is obeyed by all intelligences - both good and evil? How GOD does receive HIS power? What was the point of Lucifer asking for GOD's honor?

I do understand the problems we face in church with eternal volnocalry usage with today’s writings, these terms are often mixed back and forth, as with the usage of spirit and intelligence, another common twisting of wordage in our corrupted English language.

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In Mormon Doctrine, Elder McConkie writes that "Intelligence or spirit element became intelligences after the spirits were born as individual entities. Use of this name designates both the primal element from which the spirit offspring were created and also their inherited capacity to grow in grace ..." (p.387). This view seems to consider intelligence, or pure element, as collective and not individual in its nature, and is consistent with the views expressed by President Penrose. If this is true, then we have not always existed as individual entities, but only as a collective something.

Yes and we can say the same things about our current body. The materials to make this body existed before it was formed into this body. I can call all the carbon atoms that went into making my body a collective, "physical matter" but in reality they were probably scattered and came from various places before joined together to form my body. My mom may have eaten a banana from Costa Rica and a pineapple from Hawaii and some mango from Brazil, etc. and formed the body from some collective "physical matter" but that wouldn't make me say that I had a separate unit of physical matter that I could call my body before it was made. I agree with you there.

Still, there are some LDS, 'off the record' discussions that seem to suggest that they believe every live creature, plant or animal had a separate spirit entity created for it before this life began. Either one strictly believes that a body cannot exist without a spirit across the board and for every creature which may include viruses and even a fetus etc. or that statement only applies to "man" or it only applies to "intelligent" beings, whatever that could mean.

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that's a good question and one the scriptures do not provide much of an answer for. If they'd explain how a spirit is organised then that would solve about half of it, but they do not. And likewise with howw the spirit is connected to the body - however we know that more than 1 spirit can be in a body or be affecting a body.

In fact i can't find enough to know whether having spirit is the same or different than having a spirit. Personally i'd be inclined that having spirit and having a spirit would be synonymus.

All I know is that God commands and the elements obey him.

I don't think they are synonymous as 'spirit' just implies some life giving force and 'a spirit' suggests an identifiable unit that maintains its identity as different from other spirits.

How spirits are made is a wide open discussion, especially if one believes every living organism has one. Because I think most LDS would say that we are literal spirit children of God, as Gospel Principles suggests. That seems easy to believe for me but then how were all the spirit creations for all the other living organisms in this world made? Are they also spirit children of God, in the same fashion? The spirit of my cat is also a spirit child of God? If not a spirit child than what would you call my cat's spirit? and how was it made? Or how about the bazillion bacteria that have come and gone that live in the human colon .... all those were created individually taking into account the knowledge of when someone would forget to take their antibiotic any given day etc.? (too many variables affected by free agency it seems)

Interesting things to think about. The topic is important because we choose to somewhat describe the spirit as it relates to us and that's it.

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