Rene' Descartes is credited with saying, "I think, therefore I am." Because comatose patients don't seem to think, are they truly alive? Obviously, because their bodily systems still function at some elemental level there are still productive brain activity, but consciousness. though, is not required for the operation of the autonomic nervous system which operates in stealth, or beneath the level of consciousness. Thinking requires cognizance - the reception and processing of information to create some type of order which creates understanding. Thus, Descartes statement is better said, I understand, therefore I am. That implies existence depends on some type of intelligence. Those lacking in intelligence would not fully exist! I believe that they do because unless there is a false reality, I can validate their existence. Doctors can go one step further, and operationalize their degree of existence by measuring brain waves and responses.
At one time, people were assumed dead if their heart beats and breathing stopped. Usually, because order was unimportant, death was considered when the heart quit pumping. Now we understand by validation that is not death because many revive. Resuscitation is not resurrection, so the person's whose heart is revived are not restored to life; they just never died. By measurement, doctors have discovered there is a lapse in time in the order of two minutes between heart stoppage and the cessation of brain activity. That interval may be a time of high anxiety for the dying person. They feel the "sting of death" (1 Cor 15:56).
Sin, then, is the root cause of physical death (Greek: Thanatos) which is "that separation (whether natural or violent) of the soul and the body by which the life on earth is ended with the implied idea of future misery in hell. (Strong's Lexicon, Greek θάνατος). It seems that scientists and theists have a different viewpoint on what death is! For science, death is evidence of the cessation of life. Life in their viewpoint is the ability to function naturally... er that was the case. Now people are still considered alive even if there is no cogition which is "brain dead." What I am getting to is that the idea of what death and life has changed with the times. Some have even been buried alive, as others who could not validate their existence, deemed then dead enough to bury.
Perhaps scientists will eventually realize that physical death as we know it, is just a transition from one state to another - a separation from of the body from the soul. The soul is an "immaterial essence" (Merriam Webster Dictionary) which is the permanent most elemental part of being. The philosophical question of, What is life? is always circular because there really isn't a starting point; life is just existing, but existing can never be explained!
Scientists' viewpoint of death is dynamic because they continually advance with technology to measure what cannot be detected by the human senses. I'm sure they have even sought evidence of the human soul. If so, even they doubt their own hypothesis that their is no Creator God. I'm sure, if they could detect the soul with instrumentation, it would become just a permanent elementary essence, sort of a personal Higgs Boson; perhaps they would call it Higgs Persona or such.
Neither can anyone seem to agree when life begins. Those who propagate abortion, fantasize that it begins at birth if the product of conception is wanted or normal? That raises other questions? (1) Wanted by whom? and (2) What is "normal?" Sane people should speculate that most babies outside the womb are wanted by someone, although perhaps not the mother.
The existence of another person inside the mother is just a little inconvenient for them. The slogan reproductive freedom promotes the woman to a type of godhood. They decide who is to live and to die. Satan warned mankind about that back in the beginning (Gen 3:5) when the Serpent told Adam and Eve a truth, but not to regulate them, but to free them from God's authority. A little knowledge is still truth, but deception is based on falsely presented "knowledge." The Serpent also said, "You shall surely not die" (Gen 3:4).
Therein, we have Eve discussing death with the Serpent, seeking the advice of a cunning animal who should not even be cunning for the mysteries of life and death. They should have asked, Why is this animal speaking? rather than getting life and death advice! At that time, they were innocent, they didn't know what death "is". I have to use "is" for death because there seems to be no end to death for those who truly die. Therefore, all of mankind are appointed once to die... unless... unless they do something about it, remembering that physical death is just one cross-section in time in theology. (Noting that science is just learning about death.)
Women are born with all the eggs which they will ever have when they are developing in the womb. It doesn't happen after they are born, but commences at conception. Eggs are half the requirement to develop a person. Of course, the other half are the spermatozoa from the males which are produced commencing with puberty. At a minimum, half of anyone exists in the mother's womb. Guess what? God said that before science discovered that; the Lord told Jeremiah not only of his existence in the womb but also his purpose in life:
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.(Jer 1:4-6).Jeremiah wasn't peculiar. Everyone, even in the womb, exists and has a ;purpose in life. As Christians are "peculiar people" our lives have a purpose: "You should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Pet 2:9). The purpose of everyone is to know truth, and praise God for its revelation. The reason people kill people is to eliminate their purpose in life.
Of course, praise is not merely for this life but eternally; "in Earth as it is in Heaven" (Mat 6:10). All known existence is the Heaven and the Earth (Gen 1:1). Hence, God's will is that His will be done throughout existence, which is both time and place dependent. We find from scripture, that purpose pre-existed the Creation. Jesus said that about himself with, "Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24).
Because mankind was created in the image of God, we all were loved before the foundation of the world. All people pre-existed the origin of the Heaven and the Earth. Like the "space" in which the cosmos was placed, the human soul must be the "space" or "void" in which people pre-exist. Personhood, then, does not commence at birth or even conception, but in the beginning before time itself.
I must say, my revelation does make me question birth control. Catholics believe that is playing God. Perhaps that should be considered as well! (Save that for another time.)
From before the beginning until death is the life process, it seems. Each personhood with a purpose was established long before Adam was created. He became the source of human life, and Eve was the mother of "all living" (Gen 3:20). That means that Eve was the element or "dust" from which personhood came about, and Adam's element was the provider of the seed to make a person a person. "Multiplication" was fulfilling God's purpose for each person. Pleasure was merely a device for pro-creation. (It may be that the original sin was pleasuring without the intent of pro-creating which birth control provides. That may be because both male and female covered their genitals, and those reproductive tools have been our downfall since that time!)
Adam had the potential to seed all the "soil" or eggs from Eve. As the mother of all, eggs are all of her lineage. Males and females, from the creation, have specific characteristics. In the last century, science discovered the human genome; men have a "y" chromosome but women do not. Males are always male, and females are always female. That is gender identification; anything less is gender confusion, and Satan is the author of all deception.
Because everyone was in their mother and was an egg prior to birth, everyone's physical life was already in God's plan. Your soul already had it's egg merely waiting to complete your identity. What's more, because of that, you were potentially there in your grandmother's womb when your mother was conceived. Your human potential is serial. God knew you in Eve's womb because he loved you even before she was created! That human potential is the sanctity of life for which Christians should be concerned!
The soul of Adam, at the time of creation, was the container for God's Holy Spirit. Having God's Spirit imbued within the soul is sanctification. That's what Jeremiah was before he was born. He was not born in iniquity as David reasoned for himself, but born to be sanctified. We are all born to be set apart for God's purpose, but being made alive provides personal "wills." That is the cognitive process of making decisions for ourselves. Cognition, then, is indeed a requirement for life, but there remains life even after physical death. Thinking continues after death. That is known from the Bible story of Lazarus and the rich man. Science has not yet been able to measure that, because they believe it ceases at death. That is biased methodology.
There were witnesses to a young girl dying:
And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat. (Luke 8;52-56)Jesus overcame death healing Jairus's daughter. Her spirit left her then returned when he healed her from physical death. Her soul - the cup for her spirit - never died, it just moved on without the body until the time it returned. That event was a pre-rapture and is indicative of Jesus's power to snatch our bodies away from death at the general resurrection.
Those who trust Jesus for resurrection, the restoration of the body and soul, there will be eternal life. That is the reward for merely trusting God to save us from death.
On the other hand, eternal death is best defined as "eternally dying." It is no longer a mere "sting" but a continual eternal process.
My conclusion is that life is pre-existent and eternally existing. There is no beginning and end for what God created. Men care about saving their physical lives when eternal life is paramount. There was always pre-existence and there will always be post-existence. We merely get to choose how we exist; as alive or as if dead! For me, I choose life! Why is that such a difficult decision to make? Because of the cunning of the Serpent of old.
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