God's Creation of Souls

[jeremiah]

hello darin,

you said "...Could God's breath of life not impart a spirit within each of us that both animates us (creating a living soul) and giving us the individual essence which makes us bear His image, spiritually?" i think he could, but only in the sense that God could do whatever he see fit to do. i think your question becomes problematic when compared to what's written in genesis. if it is the breath of life that "makes" us bear the image of God then all the animals "in who's nostrils is the breath of life" also bear the image of God. Only adam and eve are said to have been created in the image[likeness] of God, then seth was begotten in adam's image[likeness].

please don't misunderstand me, i'm not saying just because all of us are born in our parents likeness that therefore we do not bear God's image (james makes clear in his letter that we do) only that the breath of life is not what makes mankind uniquely made in the likeness of God, since the animals share with us that reality, as well as being a soul.

regarding soul and spirit, in their modern usage there seemingly is no difference really. people readily use those terms interchangeably. i think the idea that these terms refer to the "real us" is a unnecessary anachronism. when james said the body without the spirit is dead, we assume he is referring to an immaterial entity that goes somewhere else when the body dies. i think his words, and those of solomon, jesus, and stephen which paidion wrote about above, were all referring to one in the same thing. when there is no breath to sustain a human, the human is at that point dead.

i think the passage in hebrews is related to this concept as well, how the word of God...piercing both soul and spirit..., this makes me scratch my head as a dualist, but otherwise it simply speaks of separating the life[soul] that is sustained from that[spirit] which sustains it. incidentally, life is often how "psuche" or "psyche" is translated in the new testament.

grace and peace...

[Paidion]

Thanks for that, Jeremiah. It makes sense to me. And yes, you are right. "ψυχη" (psyche) is often translated as "life", especially where it seems necessitated by the context.

[jriccitelli]

Rich I think you stated that God implants the soul of man in the body, I think this was the case for Adam, but I 'think' everyone after Adam is a son of Adam in body and spirit.
God created the heavens, earth, man and the spirit within man. I do not see any theological problem with our reproducing after the likeness of Adam. God willed it for every other kind of seed so why not humans, who I propose, reproduce human spirits. In fact I think our 'self' (Or, the spirit that is 'us') is what Paul may be referring to, in an analogous way, in 1Cor 15:37; "a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else"

It is hard to glean definitive answers from what scripture is so vague about, but;
Paul does refer to 'us' as seeds to which God gives a 'future' body (1Cor 15:38),
Paul also notes that the spiritual is not first (vs.38), and that man is from the earth (vs.47), and by 'man' Paul may be referring to the 'self' or person of our being since Paul contrasts us with Jesus, who has come from heaven (vs.47)
It seems natural that God allows spirits to reproduce from the seeds of Adams spirit.
God gives the spirit 'a body' just as He wished' (vs.38) but remember the spiritual did not come first (vs.38); The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven (1Cor 15:47)

The first man (Mankind in general) is born of the will of men, and the 'second' birth is of the will of God;

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13-14)

Although you and your sister are different, I am willing to bet you may indeed be very similar in character to some other relatives, as I am not much like my mother, but I am alot like my dad and his mother, spiritually it would seem.
I would add that my observations of humans are that we do indeed seem to carry genetic genes in our souls, and transfer them when reproducing as I know some peoples children are way too similar to their parents (and or grandparents) in mannerisms than simply being environmentally induced, as I have witnessed this when children are raised separately from their birth families.

I have had a couple of recent conversations along this same line with two different people (about whether or not a spirit 'needs' a body in the next life, and whether or not there is evidence of a soul) which would lead me to respond to Paidion; But I have to go now.

[jriccitelli]

We don’t know exactly what it is that we sow (vs.37) but according to this verse we sow 'something', and then Paul says "God gives it a body… and to each of the seeds a body of its own", to each of the seeds, a body. It doesn't make sense to have God giving a new body 'to' an old body; it makes sense that God is giving a new body to a person.
I would suppose Paul is telling us that the body we sow is our natural body, which would be fine except that Paul inserts the phrase 'perhaps of wheat or of something else', why is Paul expressing difficulty over what would have otherwise been a simple analogy?
Maybe because he knows the body is not 'actually' a seed, but it only 'represents' the new body, which certainly retains some sort of an image of the old, but raised bodies account for nothing if we are not in them. If the record of our old bodies 'features' is not in our dead buried body then where is the record? (I know many think of our body as a germ of the future body, but that’s the point, why does Paul insert this verse in what otherwise 'would have been' a direct association between the dead body and the new spiritual body).
The record could quite possibly be in a file in Gods office, or it could be retained in our spirit. Retaining the record in our spirit seems to be a more consistent with the way God does things rather than separating the record from our bodies, or having it retained in ashes in the ground.

This may all just sound like fanciful pondering (And maybe it is) but I use to spend a lot of time on this subject because of the false Mormon belief in the 'preexistence' of souls, and also the common Mormon use of 1Cor15 to support their belief in 3 heavens, baptism for the dead, and the coming of spirits to earth to receive a body. This issue also comes up for others when considering cremation issues, and the time and matter of conception when talking about birth control issues.

I would agree with you Paidion on Open Theism, for open theists do not have problems of God having to pre-arrange everything. (So I do not see a problem with God 'allowing' man to reproduce 'after his own kind').
First the Hebrew 'Nephesh' can be understood as the totality of man as one 'being'. Nephesh can be shown to stand for the whole living human, animal or whatever. You can't hold Nephesh to mean 'only' the body since it is used in so many different contexts.
I do not think Jesus and Stephen 'thought' of their spirit as some sort of entity, they 'knew' they would be leaving their bodies, 'with' thier spirit.

Paul had 'numerous' opportunities to dispel Platonic beliefs concerning the distinct separateness and existence of the soul and body; but Paul never does take the opportunity. Instead Paul uses the terms spirit (Pneuma) and body (Whether soma or sarx) in 'contrast' to each other dozens of times, quite absurd if Paul felt any need to dispel notions of a Platonic belief in souls. I think it is clear Paul was a student of philosophy so this would not have escaped Paul. Platonic Philosophy is not Christianity but on this point of the soul, Paul makes no distinction.
I only have a minute to say that Samuel spoke from the dead, and also that Jesus declares that "God is not the God of the dead but of the living"...

[jeremiah]

good afternoon jriccitelli,

i don't really see paul expressing any difficulty in his analogy, when he said "perhaps of wheat or some other grain..." i think he's simply giving a little detail to what still remains a simple analogy. i think gleaning an immaterial spirit out of v.37 or the passage in general is where a possible difficulty in his expression is seen.

you asked where the record of our bodies features may be after death.(i'm assuming you mean whatever makes you completely you) i don't know, but then again neither can dualism give a satisfactory explanation of how a person post resurrection will be ontologically the same as the person before he or she died. all either of us can do is appeal to mystery.

I do not see any theological problem with our reproducing after the likeness of Adam

i think you misunderstood the scope of my statement. what i saw as problematic in darin's question was: if God's breath of life is the factor that results in us possessing an individual essence that makes us bear God's image. then the animals who also have the breath of life would bear God's image aswell. us reproducing after the likeness of adam was only to demonstrate that since humans alone bear the image of God, that i thought the breath of life is not what results in the Imago Dei.

First the Hebrew 'Nephesh' can be understood as the totality of man as one 'being'. Nephesh can be shown to stand for the whole living human, animal or whatever. You can't hold Nephesh to mean 'only' the body since it is used in so many different contexts.

i agree completely.

I do not think Jesus and Stephen 'thought' of their spirit as some sort of entity, they 'knew' they would be leaving their bodies, 'with' thier spirit.

it they knew that, then they would indeed by definition had to see their spirit as an entity that only resided in a body.

Paul had 'numerous' opportunities to dispel Platonic beliefs concerning the distinct separateness and existence of the soul and body; but Paul never does take the opportunity. Instead Paul uses the terms spirit (Pneuma) and body (Whether soma or sarx) in 'contrast' to each other dozens of times, quite absurd if Paul felt any need to dispel notions of a Platonic belief in souls.

i think a little clarification on what i'm defending would be good here. i am not denying the existence of immaterial spirits carte blanche. God is spirit, ontologically greater than anything, he is not flesh and bones. what i no longer see as immutable is that human persons must also posses some immaterial spirit or soul. i think humans are physical, but to affirm humans as merely physical does not in any way negate our capacity to experience God's spirit working in us as his people. or maybe more accurately, if physicalism is true, why would that stop God from interacting with his physical creation? once i laid my dualist presuppositions aside, it was not at all difficult to conclude that the scriptural record pointed towards a physical account of the human person. so, the dozens of places where paul contrasts flesh and spirit are not a problem in the least. all that proves is we understand that dichotomy differently. as you rightly said earlier, nephesh cannot always mean body, neither does spirit in paul's usage have to mean what you think of when you think of your spirit.
whether or not paul dispelled platonic beliefs i think is in the eye of the beholder. i don't expect you to agree, but i think he did on more than one occasion.(1cor 15, and 2cor 5) but it matters not really,i'm sure you would agree that he had more pertinent matters that he discussed in the small collection of the new testament letters.

Jesus declares that "God is not the God of the dead but of the living"...

if you maintain a dualistic presupposition, then yes that sounds a lot like what your implying his meaning is. but reading the whole conversation reveals more. he said " But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken.” jesus was talking to sadducees who denied the resurrection at the last day(among other things), God being the God of the living was to prove to them that the dead would indeed rise, not that they were alive in some spiritual sense somewhere.

grace and peace...

[jriccitelli]

Read this again;
"I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, He is not the God of the dead but of the living"
Maybe the subject of Matt 22 is about the resurrection, but that’s not the subject of Ex.3.
If Abraham is dead then God is the God of the dead, or are you going to tell me God is the God of the sleeping?

I had no intention of being dogmatic on this issue, and I was trying to focus on Rich's question, never the less though, it does come up in conversation about God;
I do not want to define what I believe in philosophical terms, as that will get anyone in trouble (neither Plato or Descartes originated the soul). I can't imagine that a body contains the self, since it dissolves back to dust, and may in some cases become ashes.

Although scripture 'commonly' speaks of the two as one, and they are 'one' in this life and the next, the state of souls between the two is temporary, and thus there is less scripture dwelling on this state than the fulfilled states. Yet when the subject comes up scripture never argues against there being either a disembodied state, or a distinct soul/spirit of man.
There is not a whole lot of scripture to defend the idea of a man and women becoming 'one', and neither is there a whole lot of scripture to defend the idea of all of us becoming one in spirit (Yet at the same time occupying our own bodies). These concepts are not backed by a plethora of verse, but neither are they ever argued against. In fact the argument from scripture is always for a distinction between the soul/spirit, and for a existence of the soul separate from the body. Most scripture is concerned with the oneness (Nephesh) because we generally are one while we are alive. But when the intermediate state and the New Covenant revelations are considered the biblical writers do not seem to have any problem with a separation of the body and soul, so why should I?

Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)
(If Jesus made the distinction, then so will I)

Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with (Romans 6:6)
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24)
If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:10-11)
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. (23)
For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another (Romans 12:4-5)
For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. (1 Corinthians 5:3)
Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "The two shall become one flesh." (1Cor 6:16)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (1Cor 6:19)
The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit (1Cor 7:34)
For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, (1Cor 12:12-27)
For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord--7 for we walk by faith, not by sight--8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (2Cor 5:1-8)

(It sure doesn't seem that Paul had any problem speaking with a dualistic view of man)

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
(James 2:26)
(James doesn't seem to have a problem with it either)

After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me (John 14:19)
Why worry about losing our body if we dwell in Christ anyway?

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1John 4:16)

John says that if we love Him we are in Him, and Paul states nothing can separate us from Him in whom we love, not even death. So does God have the dead dwelling in Him, or is God the God of the living?

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:37-39)

[Paidion]

To address the many points you made, JR, would require a book. I want to makes some suggestions about just one of your statements:

I can't imagine that a body contains the self, since it dissolves back to dust, and may in some cases become ashes.

A body "containing the self" sounds more like your position, JR. Thus when the body goes back to dust, the self takes off somewhere, presumably to heaven or hell.

Let's say the self is "composed" of body and mind — not "composed" in the sense that the two are sitting side by side, but that the body is one aspect of the self, and the mind is another. The body and mind are not two separate entities but a single entity (the self) which can be described by referring to its physical qualities (the body) and its mental qualities (the mind). Now it's true that you can remove parts of the body (such as an arm or a leg) without destroying the mind. Yet the mind seems inextricably bound with the brain. You cannot destroy the brain without destroying the mind. Yet the mind is more than the physical brain.

Isn't this the case with your dog? Your dog has an individual character which differs from other dogs. Are not its body and mind a single entity? Is your dog not a "self" with mental qualities and physical qualities? Every thing I said in the paragraph above applies to your dog. Could not a human being be a single entity in the same sense as your dog is? Or do you think the "real dog" is a soul or spirit which goes somewhere at death? If so, would the same apply to birds? To turtles? To snakes? To mosquitoes?

[jriccitelli]

I too agree that there are some people who do not seem to possess a soul, whereas I have met some dogs who do have soul. I am not kidding, my testimony includes the fact that I came to believe that there must be a God because of the relationship I had with my dog.
I was literally amazed at my dog's intelligence and personhood (a Collie/German Shepherd) and I thought to myself; this is amazing there must be a God.
When that dog died, I remember picking him up, as if yesterday, and knowing that this was just his body, he was gone (I am teary just writing this). Anyway the point is; his 'being' did not seem to be his body.

Let's say the self (our spirit) uses the body in the same way a man operates a machine. I 'know' that the brake pedal should engage both the brakes and the tail lights, but if the taillights don’t come on the fault is in the machine not in me. Our memories are recorded in the brain, but that does not mean our spirit does not 'also' record them.
So you can destroy the brain without destroying the spirit, and you can retain your memories (and self) in your spirit, even if the mind is damaged, or quits working.
Technology always reveals what God already knew (DNA, bacteria, etc.), computers have two kinds of memory, and they also have backup memory systems, you would have to admit computers are not as sophisticated as Gods design of the human body and brain, so installing a back up system such as a spirit does not seem unreasonable, does it?

This seems more reasonable than God retaining all our memories (or person, or whatever constitutes our having existence) in His own mind, where He could simply have them retained in ourselves. From what I read in your post, It seems you do believe there is a place for the retaining of our memories, where?
If it is solely in Gods mind, is that all we are after death; a memory?
You must be saying that our 'self' is in the dust, is that what you are saying?
Dust and ash eventually combine with other dust particles and so forth, do you think this is where our 'self' resides?
Scripture says the 'spirit' returns to God who gave it, in fact God is with us now, so where does Gods spirit go if we die?
Jesus did say that He would never leave us or forsake us.
If God is in us and with us, and we die, does God hang out in our dead body, or do we go on living because He is living; "and if He lives we shall live also"

Jesus indwelt a body, and although the Imago dei may be our character traits, it seems very plausible that we have a created spirit, and indwell a body just as Jesus did.
Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? (Heb. 12:9)

You said it would take a book, it would take a book to explain what?
Explain why so many verses make a distinction between spirit and body, yet none argue against it.
Dogs may not have spirits, but God could very easily give one to a pet, that we don’t know.
A human is a single entity in the same sense that my dog is, only God 'also' gives a human a spirit that is our own. God could have done that for an animal, we don’t know, but in some cases I think he has.

[jeremiah]

whats up jr,

Read this again;
"I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, He is not the God of the dead but of the living"
Maybe the subject of Matt 22 is about the resurrection, but that’s not the subject of Ex.3.

the resurrection is indeed the subject of that passage, and yes it's not the subject of exodus 3. the sentence that you're focused on is not in exodus though. i don't expect you to agree with this, but i see jesus telling them they did not know the power of God or the scriptures, then says no marriage in the resurrection. next he uses scripture to proclaim how powerful God is. that is, we can count on God's power and faithfulness so perfectly that the reality can be spoken of as if it's already happened. this may sound strange to you but this is definitely not the first time we would find such a way of speaking. are we not said to posses eternal life if we are in christ? didn't jesus say "behold i make all things new..." not has made, or will make, but make. and yet we know that these things have not yet had their ultimate fulfillment. but they are so sure because we can rightly judge God to be faithful to do them. and i would repeat the fact that he was correcting folks that denied the resurrection of the dead (who by the way, unlike me, the saducees rejected spirits and angels entirely. since jesus didn't argue against those beliefs should we therefore think they were correct?).

If Abraham is dead then God is the God of the dead, or are you going to tell me God is the God of the sleeping?

abraham is indeed dead and in the grave, but it does not then follow that God is then the God of the dead. lazarus was also dead.
" These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”
Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep.
Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”" john 11:11-15

there is no problem with the fact that we die. going back to your earlier question of "retaining the record", God is powerful enough to raise us back to the same us, but everlasting. regarding is God the God of the sleeping. no i would not tell you that. he is the God of the living, brother, we just understand that differently. as far as sleeping goes, i am not the one who first spoke of our death in that way. for that matter is going to heaven at death is what the new testament teaches, why say sleep? i promise, i am not mocking your position. i have never heard a real answer to that, even when i was a committed dualist.

david is also dead,
“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses." acts 2:29-32
peter asserts that david is dead. will you tell me that when jesus said...concerning the dead, that they rise...he was not including abraham, issac, and jacob in that noun? i think verse 31 is simply a parallel saying the same thing twice. but notice too, christ's soul is not left in hades(the grave), in scripture our soul going to sheol is the common way of describing our death. why must we add an interim in heaven. i suggest it is only to satisfy the addition of a supposed immaterial soul or spirit. we are never told explicitly heaven is where we go when we die. we are told explicitly "that though we may die, we shall live" not continue to live, or still live, but shall live.

"Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” john 11:23-26

Jhn 6:40 "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
Jhn 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jhn 6:54 "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

we are not told we go to heaven. (i know you believe 2cor 5 among others imply it.) what i see is jesus telling us that though we may die, we can be sure he will raise us up at the last day. and that is our only hope.

i really hope we get to continue this discussion.but would you please stop just giving me a list of passages you think prove you point? except for matthew 22, all you did was rattle off a bunch of passages that contain the words soul, spirit, body, and flesh. you just asserted your position presuming the meaning was obvious. i have little doubt that you and i would be in wonderful agreement on probably more than half of the scriptures you listed. but, not a few are irrelevant to this question of the human person. would you not agree that paul is using body abstractly in romans 6:6? as far as i can tell. you're a conditionalist with regard to hell. would you think it valid if an eternal conscious 'tormentian' just listed a bunch of passages that mention hell, gehenna, hades, sheol, lake of fire, perish, torment, and destroy. and then asserts it be clear that God is going to torment the wicked for all eternity? like i said bro, i would love to discuss each one of those...would you like to start a different thread? for now ill just end it with assuring you that the words of romans 8 are no less precious and equally meaningful to you or i however this question may be answered.

grace and peace...

[jriccitelli]

Look, if Rich wants his thread back he's gonna have to and come get it himself.
Understand that I am not saying the existence of the soul, and where it is, can be dogmatically established from scripture. I think God has kept the passage of the soul rather veiled for a reason, knowing human nature; He does not want man being too confident about death as 'simply' a passage. Mans fear of death and the unknown remains a healthy fear.

I too consider the 'sleep', and the 'he is dead', passages of scripture and wrestle with them. But I wouldn't have to wrestle with the dead and sleep passages if it were not for the 'living' and 'one with God' passages. The Sadducees were correct that the body dies and lies in the grave, but they were not considering 'all' the theological reasons and purposes that Scripture seems to also necessitate and imply.

The scriptures in the 2/25 post (Matt10:28-James 2:26) were to demonstrate that it does not make sense to use pneuma and soma in 'contrast' with each other 'so many times' over and over, if there is 'no' contrast. God's word is full of 'amazing' allegory, symbolism and thought, and Paul explains theological principles using great examples from scripture and nature, so it makes no sense that Paul would 'repeatedly' use a contrast form in argument if there was no real or accepted contrast. An educated student of Greek and Jewish philosophy, such as Paul, is not going to make weak and pointless contrasts.

It doesn't make sense to say; 'The water wars against the ocean'. Or, 'The rocks war against the sand'. It wouldn't make sense to contrast one thing against another if the two are the same substance, or the same thing. It can make sense to say; The nail wars against the hammer, or The ocean wars against the rocks.

If Paul wrote; 'though absent in water but present in water' there is no contrast, yet if you write 'though absent in water but present in sand' there is a contrast.
Biblical writers often use the contrast between soul and body, and my point was that Paul does so 'extensively', it would be dumb to do so if someone could walk up to Paul and say; Paul but the soul and the body are really the same substance. Paul would have to respond; Yeah your right, that was a poor analogy.