Modern scientific discoveries put reductionism on the ropes.

A "Mechanical" Philosophy for the 21st Century
Evolution News & Views November 8, 2015 4:51 AM

In Francis Bacon's day, it was easy to oversimplify nature. Elizabethan scientists began to conceive of a world that ran like a machine. Robert Boyle was a strong proponent of the mechanical philosophy. Soon, Isaac Newton's clockwork heavens reinforced the notion that all the Creator had to do was wind it up, and let it run all by itself. From Boyle to Babbage, the Newtonian revolution showed the way for scientific progress: just uncover the natural laws that make the universe run.

By the late 18th century and into Victorian times, mechanical philosophy was sufficient unto itself. An original Designer could be conceived of, perhaps, but as science progressed, the Prime Mover had less and less to do. Some argued that it was an insult to the Watchmaker to suggest he needed to intervene and fix the watch.

Then molecular biology arrived, and we found out the clocks are real. Literal machines made of molecules make life run. Simultaneously, the computer age dawned and we learned a bit about programming. Now, robotics is here. We're going to need a new philosophy: one that can handle realities the Elizabethans and Victorians could never have imagined.

It's important to note that we're not speaking of mechanistic or reductionist philosophy. See Jay Richards's clarification. We seek an explanation for how natural machinery can operate without continuous intervention.

Real Clocks

Paley's "watch on a heath" was only an analogy in 1805. Now, we can see real biological clocks of amazing design and precision in the cells of life. Current Biology talks about "unexpected biochemical cogs" in a cyanobacterium, freely using the word "clock" as well as "oscillator," "regulator," and "switch." The circadian clock runs on a much slower schedule than most cellular reactions. It's calibrated to the 24-hour day-night cycle, and keeps constant time even when the temperature changes. It would have been astonishing to Paley or Bacon to learn that a three-protein oscillating machine is found in such a tiny organism. In higher vertebrates, biological clocks are even more elaborate.

Real Engines

Is this the little engine that could? Penn State News finds that "little engines" of kinesin (see our animation) can do more than thought on their microtubule tracks. These little walking robots, one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, not only walk the tracks but help them grow. When kinesin-5 pauses at the end of a microtubule, it "generates pushing forces, which slide the microtubules apart and essentially allow the motor to grow the microtubules." [Emphasis added.]

Real Solar Panels, Quality Control, and Recycling

The Salk Institute calls chloroplasts "solar panels" and reveals how the cell monitors them with a "quality control check" that can "recycle" the parts of damaged chloroplasts. Notice the mechanical word: they uncovered "how plants thrive using a natural mechanism to recycle chloroplasts."

Real Stress Management

Another "fundamental biological mechanism" is described by bioscientists at the University of Heidelberg. In a common lab plant, they found that proteins are "further adapted" after they are manufactured "for their specific jobs." In one case they studied, chemical tags regulate the stress response to drought by closing the stomata and lengthening the primary root.

Real Coordinated Timing and Assembly

Scientists at Virginia Tech found that, during development, "timing is indeed everything." They use music as an analogy:

Everyone who has played in a band or orchestra knows that playing in time creates music, while playing out of time creates cacophony. In an orchestra, each player may be out of tune when warming up, but eventually, all players must reach the same pitch, rhythm, and timing to produce a viable piece of music.

They found something similar in dividing cells. Just as live musicians can compensate for other players' changes in tempo, "cells modulate the exact timing of when crucial cellular events happen, slowing down or speeding everything up to make sure everything is playing its proper part at the right time." They were "astonished to see how greatly the starting conditions for each cell could differ and still lead to the same outcome," the article says.

Is it just an analogy to call a ribosome a "protein-making factory"? Ask the researchers at Rockefeller University, who think "factory" is an appropriate description:

Ribosomes, the molecular factories that produce all the proteins a cell needs to grow and function, are themselves made up of many different proteins and four RNAs. And just as an assembly line must be built before it can manufacture cars, these tiny factories must be constructed before they can put proteins together.

Real Mobile Factories

Rockefeller is not alone in using the word factory -- only the one they found escaped detection till now. "Salk Scientists Discover Protein Factories Hidden in Human Jumping Genes," a news item from Salk Institute says. Researchers found a third Open Reading Frame (ORF0) in certain jumping genes known as LINE-1 elements.

"Jumping genes with ORF0 are basically protein factories with wheels," they said. The fact that they consider "evolution" to be the driver of the bus does not negate the fact that they are real machines that must function properly, otherwise it could cause disease. And there are 3,500 of these "factories with wheels" in the human genome.

Real Repair Stations

The nuclear membrane gained new respect from scientists at the University of Southern California when they found that it's a lot more than "just a protective bubble" around the nuclear material. A team at USC has documented "how broken strands of a portion of DNA known as heterochromatin are dragged to the nuclear membrane for repair." At the inner wall of the nuclear membrane, "a trio of proteins mends the break in a safe environment, where it cannot accidentally get tangled up with incorrect chromosomes." (The discovery was made in fruit flies.)

As for heterochromatin, this "mysterious part of the genome" composed of repetitive elements has been promoted from "junk DNA" to superhero (watch the word "mechanism"):

The reason why we don't experience thousands of cancers every day in our body is because we have incredibly efficient molecular mechanisms that repair the frequent damages occurring in our DNA. But those that work in heterochromatin are quite extraordinary.

Real Repair Machines

We see "mechanism" also used to describe a "new class of DNA repair enzyme" found by researchers at Vanderbilt University. This adds to the same work that earned a Nobel Prize earlier this year. This enzyme has some "remarkable properties," they said, such as the ability to find damage indirectly without actually contacting the lesion, and the ability to fix bulkier lesions than other repair mechanisms can.

"Our discovery shows that we still have a lot to learn about DNA repair, and that there may be alternative repair pathways yet to be discovered. It certainly shows us that a much broader range of DNA damage can be removed in ways that we didn't think were possible," said Eichman. "Bacteria are using this to their advantage to protect themselves against the antibacterial agents they produce. Humans may even have DNA-repair enzymes that operate in a similar fashion to remove complex types of DNA damage.

Real Shaping Machinery

Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is described in Nature Reviews: Molecular Cell Biology as "an intricate machinery that shapes transcriptomes." The abstract mentions "intricate steps" in this process, "cellular quality control," and the ability of NMD to "dynamically adjust their transcriptomes and their proteomes to varying physiological conditions."

Real Packaging

A grad student at MIT is studying how cells pack two meters' worth of DNA into a cell nucleus. It's like "trying to fit 24 miles of string into a tennis ball," Abe Weintraub says. He's intrigued by the fact that "DNA gets packed tightly in organized loops, rather than being haphazardly crammed into cell nuclei." The specific 3-D organization appears to affect its functionality, because mistakes cause cancer and other diseases.

Philosophical Implications

Those are a few recent examples of the "machine talk" pouring out of labs around the world. This is not just metaphorical language for "nature" like the Victorians used. It's observation and description of realities the early mechanical philosophers could not have imagined. And it's everywhere. Machine talk is driving an explosion of discovery in science.

The old mechanical philosophy is hopelessly inadequate for these realities. The reason? We know from our experience that unguided natural law does not produce machinery, factories, and quality control. Something else is required: information.

The Santa Fe Institute identifies this critical part of the new 21st century philosophy. A working group met to discuss the question, "What physical principles predict life?" They put the question into stark perspective:

We are immersed in life here on Earth, but life isn't found on the Moon. Nor has it arisen, so far as we know, anywhere else in the solar system. Why do some physical environments precipitate life, and why don't others?

It's not enough to say that the moon has no water:

If the Earth really does use sunlight to convert a disorderly lump of mass and energy into organized living things, why can't the Moon, Earth's nearest neighbor, do something similar using different mechanisms?

This implies that "natural laws" alone are insufficient to account for the difference. David Wolpert was on hand to share an important suggestion:

One part of the answer, Wolpert says, might lie in information theory. In addition to being central to modern biologists' understanding of evolution, information theory overlaps heavily with thermodynamics, the area of physics concerned with how the different kinds of internal energy of a system (such as heat and stored chemical energy) might be affected by the outside world.

In a video clip Wolpert elaborates on this theme. Apparently many others in the working group felt it was a promising avenue of thought.

"In many talks and discussions, the nature of information flow between different scales of organization emerged as an important theme and open question," says O'Dwyer. "We look forward to future collaboration on each of these ideas."

Willaim Dembski's latest book, Being as Communion, would serve as a fine discussion starter. Wolpert comes so close, but is still so far from explaining what he set out to explain: why the moon differs from the earth. He talks about information flow through the system, but the moon gets exactly the same sunlight the earth does. And he never defines what information is, or where it comes from. Here is where intelligent design can offer real, substantive insight.

Information is the key to a "mechanical" philosophy for the 21st century. We know, because we have a great deal of experience producing information and imposing it on matter. We build computers. We make robots. We make clocks and trucks and factories. Indeed, we can even make machines that make other machines, and robots that increasingly look and act like us.

Our machines can run like clockwork, not because we shined sunlight on a "disorderly lump" and waited for natural laws to take their unguided course, but because we infused the lumps with information. And since we know that intelligence was the true cause that resulted in those lumps of raw material becoming Steinway pianos, Toyota robotic assembly lines, and New Horizons spacecraft, it's a fair inference that intelligence is the true cause behind atoms that become kinesins, ribosomes, and circadian clock proteins.

An example of Darwinlsm's immunity to falsification.

Family Size in Affluent Cultures: Another Failed Prediction of Darwinian Theory

David Klinghoffer 

If natural selection really is the creative driving force behind the evolutionary development of species, you ought to find it programming creatures to maximize the number of their descendants. But this prediction of Darwinian theory is foiled by research newly reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Scientists in Sweden and the UK studied a cohort of 14,000 Swedes born between 1915 and 1929, plotting the relationship between family size, social and biological success ("Low fertility increases descendant socioeconomic position but reduces long-term fitness in a modern post-industrial society").

I take this subject personally since, with five kids, my wife and I consider ourselves as having a packed house. However, that's only relative to the culture around us -- Seattle -- which competes with San Francisco for the title of America's most childless city. In other places our family would be considered modest in size. My brother-in-law and his wife in Jerusalem, for example, have 18 (eighteen) kids.

The so-called demographic transition describes the way that as societies become more affluent, people have fewer kids. In Seattle, instead of children, people have dogs. The seeming evolutionary anomaly -- as folks find they can afford to support a larger family, they in fact curtail their reproduction -- has traditionally been explained as a longterm strategy of natural selection. You have fewer kids but you can care for them better so that in the long run you in fact ensure the spread of your genes to future generations. It's a tradeoff, quantity for quality.

That rationalization turns out to be wrong. Smaller families and their descendants are wealthier and more successful in social and educational terms. Measured for "descendant reproductive success," though, the strategy is at best a wash and at worst a flat contradiction of what natural selection is supposed to be selecting for.

From the Abstract:

Adaptive accounts of modern low human fertility argue that small family size maximizes the inheritance of socioeconomic resources across generations and may consequently increase long-term fitness. This study explores the long-term impacts of fertility and socioeconomic position (SEP) on multiple dimensions of descendant success in a unique Swedish cohort of 14,000 individuals born during 1915-1929. We show that low fertility and high SEP predict increased descendant socioeconomic success across four generations. Furthermore, these effects are multiplicative, with the greatest benefits of low fertility observed when SEP is high. Low fertility and high SEP do not, however, predict increased descendant reproductive success. Our results are therefore consistent with the idea that modern fertility limitation represents a strategic response to the local costs of rearing socioeconomically competitive offspring, but contradict adaptive models suggesting that it maximizes long-term fitness. This indicates a conflict in modern societies between behaviours promoting socioeconomic versus biological success.

The study's lead author, Anna Goodman of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, puts the difficulty for Darwinian theory in these terms:

Under natural selection, you would expect organisms to use their resources to produce more genetic descendants, and so increase their Darwinian fitness. The demographic transition is a puzzle because at first sight it doesn't look like people are doing this. One adaptive explanation for the puzzle is that there exists a quantity-quality trade-off, such that having more children leads to those children being less able to reproduce in turn -- i.e. higher "quantity" leads to lower biological "quality." However our study found this quantity-quality trade off only applied to descendants' socioeconomic success, not their reproductive success.

Given natural selection, you would expect one thing. What you get is the opposite. That's called a failed prediction and Darwinists have a variety of strategies for dealing with those, as Cornelius Hunter writes at Darwin's Predictions:

Evolutionists argue that evolution is a fact, and that we ought to focus on evolution's successful predictions rather than its false predictions. The tendency to seek confirming evidence over contrary evidence is known as confirmation bias. One consequence of confirmation bias can be that confirming evidence is viewed as correct and typical whereas disconfirming evidence is viewed as anomalous and rare. Not surprisingly the confirming evidence is more often retained and documented. Rarely are the many false predictions found in evolution texts. Confirmation bias can hinder scientific research, particularly when researchers believe they know the truth, as do evolutionists. They view the important predictions of evolution as predominantly true. False predictions, on the other hand, are usually not viewed as legitimate falsifications. Instead, these are interpreted, more positively, as open research questions which are yet to be resolved. Indeed, evolutionists often make the remarkable claim that there is no evidence that is contrary to evolution.

Those British and Swedish researchers ought to have a chat with our friend Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, who advises Darwin advocates to avoid giving the impression that evolutionary theory has any serious weaknesses at all.

Madness in the method?

More engineerless engineering?

Eggshell’s Remarkable Design — A Tribute to Mindless Evolution?

David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

Scientists have revealed the delicately designed structure of bird eggs, combining remarkable strength with the capability of being cracked and pierced from within by an otherwise helpless chick in the process of hatching. The paper reporting this research, published in Science Advances, is striking with its references to “design.” Yet from this they derive a demonstration of…evolution and its mindless genius.

The key lies in a triple-layered structure and a protein called osteopontin. The Abstract summarizes:

Avian (and formerly dinosaur) eggshells form a hard, protective biomineralized chamber for embryonic growth — an evolutionary strategy that has existed for hundreds of millions of years. We show in the calcitic chicken eggshell how the mineral and organic phases organize hierarchically across different length scales and how variation in nanostructure across the shell thickness modifies its hardness, elastic modulus, and dissolution properties. We also show that the nanostructure changes during egg incubation, weakening the shell for chick hatching. Nanostructure and increased hardness were reproduced in synthetic calcite crystals grown in the presence of the prominent eggshell protein osteopontin. These results demonstrate the contribution of nanostructure to avian eggshell formation, mechanical properties, and dissolution.

A story in The Guardian translates:

Using a number of microscopy techniques, as well as a cutting-edge method known as focused-ion beam for preparing thin sections of the eggshell, the team found that all of the layers appear to be formed from an array of tiny areas packed with a crystalline calcium-containing mineral.

The team also found the areas are smaller and more closely arranged in the outer layer, with the nanostructure becoming larger towards the inner layers. Levels of osteopontin were found to be lowest in the innermost eggshell layer.

“The third discovery was that the outside of the shell is harder as it has the smallest [nanostructure] and then you move inwards and it gets a little bit softer,” said [Marc] McKee.

The team say the upshot is that osteopontin seems to form a sort of scaffold that guides the arrangement of calcium-containing mineral, generating a nanostructure that affects the hardness of the eggshell layer.

The researchers admire the “remarkably designed and evolutionarily persistent avian eggshell,” and they enthuse about the implications for developing new biomimetic technologies:

[T]he findings also potentially serve to inform rational designs for novel, bioinspired functional nanomaterials having desirable and tunable unique properties.

It’s “remarkably designed,” it can “inform design concepts.” Yet guess what? It’s all a tribute not to intelligent design but to unguided evolution. The Guardian quotes Marc McKee of McGill University:

“When you think about it, we should be making materials that are inspired by nature and by biology because, boy, it is really hard to beat hundreds of millions of years of evolution in perfecting something,” he said.

Read that again. Is he being snarky? The exclamation — “Boy, it is really hard to beat hundreds of millions of years of evolution in perfecting something”! — is oddly phrased. It’s the kind of thing an ID scientist might say in a moment of being temporarily overcome by sarcasm. No, I’m confident that Dr. McKee is in earnest. But he made me wonder there for a moment.

The complaint about seemingly imperfect design is often heard from Darwinists as a reason to say that apparent design in biology isn’t real design. An atheist brags about flummoxing an argument for ID based on the human eye by pointing out to an interlocutor, making a case for design, that he’s wearing eyeglasses. Yes, the eyes wear out with age. God wouldn’t do it that way! Neither would a clever human designer. After all, we know that human technology never wears out. Ergo, Darwinism.

Here the logic is exactly reversed. The design of the avian egg is so amazing, so worthy of imitation by human technology, that “when you think about it,” it’s all a magnificent tribute to unguided evolution. Boy, any clever human designer should rush to learn from this!

Is any observation, along with its opposite, not evidence for evolution? Sometimes, it seems not.

How Jesus saves: The Watchtower Society's commentary.

Jesus Saves​—How?

The Bible’s answer

Jesus saved faithful humans when he gave his life as a ransom sacrifice. (Matthew 20:28) Thus, the Bible calls Jesus the “Savior of the world.” (1 John 4:​14) It also states: “There is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.”​—Acts 4:​12.

Jesus ‘tasted death for everyone’ who exercises faith in him. (Hebrews 2:9; John 3:​16) Thereafter, “God raised him up from the dead,” and Jesus returned to heaven as a spirit creature. (Acts 3:​15) There, Jesus is able “to save completely those who are approaching God through him, because he is always alive to plead for them.”​—Hebrews 7:​25.

Why do we need Jesus to plead for us?

We are all sinners. (Romans 3:​23) Sin puts a barrier between us and God, and it leads to death. (Romans 6:​23) But Jesus serves as “an advocate” for those who exercise faith in his ransom sacrifice. (1 John 2:1, footnote) He pleads in their behalf, asking God to hear their prayers and grant forgiveness of their sins on the basis of Jesus’ sacrificial death. (Matthew 1:​21; Romans 8:​34) God acts on such pleas made by Jesus because they are in harmony with His will. God sent Jesus to the earth “for the world to be saved through him.”​—John 3:​17.

Is belief in Jesus all that we need to be saved?

No. Although we must believe in Jesus to gain salvation, more is required. (Acts 16:30, 31) The Bible says: “Just as the body without spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” (James 2:​26) To be saved, we must:

Learn about Jesus and his Father, Jehovah.​—John 17:3.

Build faith in them.​—John 12:44; 14:1.

Demonstrate our faith by obeying their commands. (Luke 6:​46; 1 John 2:​17) Jesus taught that not everyone who called him “Lord” would be saved but only those “doing the will of [his] Father who is in the heavens.”​—Matthew 7:​21.

Continue to demonstrate our faith despite hardships. Jesus made that clear when he said: “The one who has endured to the end will be saved.”​—Matthew 24:13.

The Watchtower Society's Commentary on the New Jerusalem.

NEW JERUSALEM

An expression that occurs two times, and only in the highly symbolic book of Revelation. (Re 3:12; 21:2) Near the end of that series of visions, and after seeing Babylon the Great destroyed, the apostle John says: “I saw also the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”—Re 21:2.

The Bride of the Lamb. In the light of other scriptures, the identity of New Jerusalem is made certain. She is “as a bride.” Farther along, John writes: “One of the seven angels . . . spoke with me and said: ‘Come here, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.’ So he carried me away in the power of the spirit to a great and lofty mountain, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God and having the glory of God. Its radiance was like a most precious stone, as a jasper stone shining crystal-clear.”—Re 21:9-11.

New Jerusalem is the bride of whom? The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who shed his blood sacrificially for mankind. (Joh 1:29; Re 5:6, 12; 7:14; 12:11; 21:14) What is her identity? She is composed of the members of the glorified Christian congregation. The congregation on earth was likened to “a chaste virgin” to be presented to the Christ. (2Co 11:2) Again, the apostle Paul likens the Christian congregation to a wife, with Christ as her Husband and Head.—Eph 5:23-25, 32.

Furthermore, Christ himself addresses the congregation at Revelation 3:12, promising the faithful conqueror that he would have written upon him “the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which descends out of heaven from my God, and that new name of mine.” A wife takes her husband’s name. Therefore those seen standing with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, numbering 144,000, having the Lamb’s name and that of his Father written in their foreheads, are evidently the same group, the bride.—Re 14:1.

Why could “New Jerusalem” not be a city in the Middle East?

New Jerusalem is heavenly, not earthly, for it comes down “out of heaven from God.” (Re 21:10) So this city is not one erected by men and consisting of literal streets and buildings constructed in the Middle East on the site of the ancient city of Jerusalem, which was destroyed in 70 C.E. The members of the bride class when on earth are told that their “citizenship exists in the heavens” and that their hope is to receive “an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance.” “It is reserved in the heavens for you,” says the apostle Peter.—Php 3:20; 1Pe 1:4.

In 537 B.C.E., Jehovah created “new heavens and a new earth” when the Jewish remnant was restored to Jerusalem from Babylonian exile. (Isa 65:17) Evidently the governorship of Zerubbabel (a descendant of David) aided by High Priest Joshua, at the city of Jerusalem, constituted the “new heavens” then. (Hag 1:1, 14; see HEAVEN [New heavens and new earth].) The New Jerusalem, together with Christ on his throne in this symbolic city, constitutes the “new heavens” that rule over the “new earth,” which is human society on earth.

That the New Jerusalem is indeed a heavenly city is further supported by the vision of her that John beheld. Only a symbolic city could have the dimensions and splendor of New Jerusalem. Its base was foursquare, about 555 km (345 mi) on each side, or about 2,220 km (1,379 mi) completely around, that is, 12,000 furlongs. Being a cube, the city was also as high as it was long and wide. No man-made city could ever reach that far into “outer space.” Round about was a wall 144 cubits (64 m; 210 ft) high. The wall, itself constructed of jasper, in turn rested on 12 foundation stones, precious stones of great beauty—jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, hyacinth, and amethyst. On these 12 foundation stones were engraved the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. The city proper within these beautiful walls was no less glorious, for it was described as “pure gold like clear glass,” having a broad way of “pure gold, as transparent glass.”—Re 21:12-21.

A Pure, Beneficial Rule. Entrance into the New Jerusalem through its magnificent walls was by means of 12 gates, three on a side, each made of a huge pearl. Although these gates were never closed, “anything not sacred and anyone that carries on a disgusting thing and a lie will in no way enter into it; only those written in the Lamb’s scroll of life will.” A holy and sacred city indeed, yet there was no visible temple of worship, for “Jehovah God the Almighty is its temple, also the Lamb is.” And there was “no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God lighted it up, and its lamp was the Lamb.” Its rulership over the nations will be beneficial to them, for “the nations will walk by means of its light.”—Re 21:22-27.

Watchtower Society's commentary on the doctrine of eternal torment.

Hell

Definition: The word “hell” is found in many Bible translations. In the same verses other translations read “the grave,” “the world of the dead,” and so forth. Other Bibles simply transliterate the original-language words that are sometimes rendered “hell”; that is, they express them with the letters of our alphabet but leave the words untranslated. What are those words? The Hebrew she’ohl′ and its Greek equivalent hai′des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge′en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction. However, both in Christendom and in many non-Christian religions it is taught that hell is a place inhabited by demons and where the wicked, after death, are punished (and some believe that this is with torment).

Does the Bible indicate whether the dead experience pain?

Eccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.) (*“Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB; “the grave,” KJ, Kx; “hell,” Dy; “the world of the dead,” TEV.)

Ps. 146:4: “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts* do perish.” (*“Thoughts,” KJ, 145:4 in Dy; “schemes,” JB; “plans,” RS, TEV.)

Does the Bible indicate that the soul survives the death of the body?

Ezek. 18:4: “The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*“Soul,” KJ, Dy, RS, NE, Kx; “the man,” JB; “the person,” TEV.)

“The concept of ‘soul,’ meaning a purely spiritual, immaterial reality, separate from the ‘body,’ . . . does not exist in the Bible.”—La Parole de Dieu (Paris, 1960), Georges Auzou, professor of Sacred Scripture, Rouen Seminary, France, p. 128.

“Although the Hebrew word nefesh [in the Hebrew Scriptures] is frequently translated as ‘soul,’ it would be inaccurate to read into it a Greek meaning. Nefesh . . . is never conceived of as operating separately from the body. In the New Testament the Greek word psyche is often translated as ‘soul’ but again should not be readily understood to have the meaning the word had for the Greek philosophers. It usually means ‘life,’ or ‘vitality,’ or, at times, ‘the self.’”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1977), Vol. 25, p. 236.

What sort of people go to the Bible hell?

Does the Bible say that the wicked go to hell?

Ps. 9:17, KJ: “The wicked shall be turned into hell,* and all the nations that forget God.” (*“Hell,” 9:18 in Dy; “death,” TEV; “the place of death,” Kx; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)

Does the Bible also say that upright people go to hell?

Job 14:13, Dy: “[Job prayed:] Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell,* and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me?” (God himself said that Job was “a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad.”—Job 1:8.) (*“The grave,” KJ; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)

Acts 2:25-27, KJ: “David speaketh concerning him [Jesus Christ], . . . Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,* neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (The fact that God did not “leave” Jesus in hell implies that Jesus was in hell, or Hades, at least for a time, does it not?) (*“Hell,” Dy; “death,” NE; “the place of death,” Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Does anyone ever get out of the Bible hell?

Rev. 20:13, 14, KJ: “The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell* delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.” (So the dead will be delivered from hell. Notice also that hell is not the same as the lake of fire but will be cast into the lake of fire.) (*“Hell,” Dy, Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” NE, AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Why is there confusion as to what the Bible says about hell?

“Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1942), Vol. XIV, p. 81.

Translators have allowed their personal beliefs to color their work instead of being consistent in their rendering of the original-language words. For example: (1) The King James Version rendered she’ohl′ as “hell,” “the grave,” and “the pit”; hai′des is therein rendered both “hell” and “grave”; ge′en·na is also translated “hell.” (2) Today’s English Version transliterates hai′des as “Hades” and also renders it as “hell” and “the world of the dead.” But besides rendering “hell” from hai′des it uses that same translation for ge′en·na. (3) The Jerusalem Bible transliterates hai′des six times, but in other passages it translates it as “hell” and as “the underworld.” It also translates ge′en·na as “hell,” as it does hai′des in two instances. Thus the exact meanings of the original-language words have been obscured.

Is there eternal punishment for the wicked?

Matt. 25:46, KJ: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment [“lopping off,” Int; Greek, ko′la·sin]: but the righteous into life eternal.” (The Emphatic Diaglott reads “cutting-off” instead of “punishment.” A footnote states: “Kolasin . . . is derived from kolazoo, which signifies, 1. To cut off; as lopping off branches of trees, to prune. 2. To restrain, to repress. . . . 3. To chastise, to punish. To cut off an individual from life, or society, or even to restrain, is esteemed as punishment;—hence has arisen this third metaphorical use of the word. The primary signification has been adopted, because it agrees better with the second member of the sentence, thus preserving the force and beauty of the antithesis. The righteous go to life, the wicked to the cutting off from life, or death. See 2 Thess. 1.9.”)

2 Thess. 1:9, RS: “They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction* and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” (*“Eternal ruin,” NAB, NE; “lost eternally,” JB; “condemn them to eternal punishment,” Kx; “eternal punishment in destruction,” Dy.)

Jude 7, KJ: “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” (The fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah ceased burning thousands of years ago. But the effect of that fire has been lasting; the cities have not been rebuilt. God’s judgment, however, was against not merely those cities but also their wicked inhabitants. What happened to them is a warning example. At Luke 17:29, Jesus says that they were “destroyed”; Jude 7 shows that the destruction was eternal.)

What is the meaning of the ‘eternal torment’ referred to in Revelation?

Rev. 14:9-11; 20:10, KJ: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment [Greek, basa·ni·smou′] ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

What is the ‘torment’ to which these texts refer? It is noteworthy that at Revelation 11:10 (KJ) reference is made to ‘prophets that torment those dwelling on the earth.’ Such torment results from humiliating exposure by the messages that these prophets proclaim. At Revelation 14:9-11 (KJ) worshipers of the symbolic “beast and his image” are said to be “tormented with fire and brimstone.” This cannot refer to conscious torment after death because “the dead know not any thing.” (Eccl. 9:5, KJ) Then, what causes them to experience such torment while they are still alive? It is the proclamation by God’s servants that worshipers of the “beast and his image” will experience second death, which is represented by “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” The smoke, associated with their fiery destruction, ascends forever because the destruction will be eternal and will never be forgotten. When Revelation 20:10 says that the Devil is to experience ‘torment forever and ever’ in “the lake of fire and brimstone,” what does that mean? Revelation 21:8 (KJ) says clearly that “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” means “the second death.” So the Devil’s being “tormented” there forever means that there will be no relief for him; he will be held under restraint forever, actually in eternal death. This use of the word “torment” (from the Greek ba′sa·nos) reminds one of its use at Matthew 18:34, where the same basic Greek word is applied to a ‘jailer.’—RS, AT, ED, NW.

What is the ‘fiery Gehenna’ to which Jesus referred?

Reference to Gehenna appears 12 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Five times it is directly associated with fire. Translators have rendered the Greek expression ge′en·nan tou py·ros′ as “hell fire” (KJ, Dy), “fires of hell” (NE), “fiery pit” (AT), and “fires of Gehenna” (NAB).

Historical background: The Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) was outside the walls of Jerusalem. For a time it was the site of idolatrous worship, including child sacrifice. In the first century Gehenna was being used as the incinerator for the filth of Jerusalem. Bodies of dead animals were thrown into the valley to be consumed in the fires, to which sulfur, or brimstone, was added to assist the burning. Also bodies of executed criminals, who were considered undeserving of burial in a memorial tomb, were thrown into Gehenna. Thus, at Matthew 5:29, 30, Jesus spoke of the casting of one’s “whole body” into Gehenna. If the body fell into the constantly burning fire it was consumed, but if it landed on a ledge of the deep ravine its putrefying flesh became infested with the ever-present worms, or maggots. (Mark 9:47, 48) Living humans were not pitched into Gehenna; so it was not a place of conscious torment.

At Matthew 10:28, Jesus warned his hearers to “be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” What does it mean? Notice that there is no mention here of torment in the fires of Gehenna; rather, he says to ‘fear him that can destroy in Gehenna.’ By referring to the “soul” separately, Jesus here emphasizes that God can destroy all of a person’s life prospects; thus there is no hope of resurrection for him. So, the references to the ‘fiery Gehenna’ have the same meaning as ‘the lake of fire’ of Revelation 21:8, namely, destruction, “second death.”

What does the Bible say the penalty for sin is?

Rom. 6:23: “The wages sin pays is death.”

After one’s death, is he still subject to further punishment for his sins?

Rom. 6:7: “He who has died has been acquitted from his sin.”

Is eternal torment of the wicked compatible with God’s personality?

Jer. 7:31: “They [apostate Judeans] have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart.” (If it never came into God’s heart, surely he does not have and use such a thing on a larger scale.)

Illustration: What would you think of a parent who held his child’s hand over a fire to punish the child for wrongdoing? “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) Would he do what no right-minded human parent would do? Certainly not!

By what Jesus said about the rich man and Lazarus, did Jesus teach torment of the wicked after death?

Is the account, at Luke 16:19-31, literal or merely an illustration of something else? The Jerusalem Bible, in a footnote, acknowledges that it is a “parable in story form without reference to any historical personage.” If taken literally, it would mean that those enjoying divine favor could all fit at the bosom of one man, Abraham; that the water on one’s fingertip would not be evaporated by the fire of Hades; that a mere drop of water would bring relief to one suffering there. Does that sound reasonable to you? If it were literal, it would conflict with other parts of the Bible. If the Bible were thus contradictory, would a lover of truth use it as a basis for his faith? But the Bible does not contradict itself.

What does the parable mean? The “rich man” represented the Pharisees. (See Lu 16 verse 14.) The beggar Lazarus represented the common Jewish people who were despised by the Pharisees but who repented and became followers of Jesus. (See Luke 18:11; John 7:49; Matthew 21:31, 32.) Their deaths were also symbolic, representing a change in circumstances. Thus, the formerly despised ones came into a position of divine favor, and the formerly seemingly favored ones were rejected by God, while being tormented by the judgment messages delivered by the ones whom they had despised.—Acts 5:33; 7:54.

What is the origin of the teaching of hellfire?

In ancient Babylonian and Assyrian beliefs the “nether world . . . is pictured as a place full of horrors, and is presided over by gods and demons of great strength and fierceness.” (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898, Morris Jastrow, Jr., p. 581) Early evidence of the fiery aspect of Christendom’s hell is found in the religion of ancient Egypt. (The Book of the Dead, New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1960, with introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, pp. 144, 149, 151, 153, 161) Buddhism, which dates back to the 6th century B.C.E., in time came to feature both hot and cold hells. (The Encyclopedia Americana, 1977, Vol. 14, p. 68) Depictions of hell portrayed in Catholic churches in Italy have been traced to Etruscan roots.—La civiltà etrusca (Milan, 1979), Werner Keller, p. 389.

But the real roots of this God-dishonoring doctrine go much deeper. The fiendish concepts associated with a hell of torment slander God and originate with the chief slanderer of God (the Devil, which name means “Slanderer”), the one whom Jesus Christ called “the father of the lie.”—John 8:44.