THE EDITOR, Sir:
ON THE dark 'trick or treat' evening of Monday, October 31, while stopping by a Molynes Road gas station, I encountered a 'canon' seminary teacher with whom I shared brief commentary re a gamut of issues, but found it rather ironic to discover that the gentleman (not to say ghostly man) believes his deceased mother or grandmother, 'still' had the ability to communicate with him!
Children, even adults, celebrating the demon-inspired American custom of Halloween would have already been taught from cartoons and from the Church that an immortal soul separates from our bodies while retaining consciousness in a life after death! However, in the introduction to his book Immortality or Resurrection: a Biblical Study on Human Nature and Destiny, Italian Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) scholar Samuele Bacchiocchi observes: "A close re-examination of the basic biblical terms for man (body, soul, spirit, flesh, mind, heart) has led many scholars to conclude that in the Bible there is no dichotomy between a mortal body and an immortal soul that 'comes apart' at death.
INDIVISIBLY UNITED
Both body and soul and flesh and spirit are an indivisible unity, part of the same person who ceases to exist at death until the resurrection. Reading these scholarly studies, one almost gets the impression that Christianity is coming out of a stupor and is suddenly discovering that for too long it has held to a view of human nature derived from Platonic dualism rather than from biblical wholism." (page 9)
I find it utterly repugnant, as an SDA Christian, that our Catholic friends have turned away so many people from Christianity with regard to what they teach on hell, purgatory, prayer for the dead, etc. The wages of sin is death, not eternal life in Hell! But our Lord, who alone is immortal, will grant eternal life to His redeemed. (See Rom. 6:23, I Tim. 6:15, Eccl.9:5,6;Ps.146:3,4; John 11:11-14; Col. 3:4; I Cor. 15:51-54; 1 Thess. 4:13-17, John 5:28,29; Rev. 20:1-10) A duppy (or ghost for our foreigners) is actually an evil angel impersonating a deceased person, taking advantage of our theologically "grave errors about death" (title of an 'amazing facts' book).
BREAKING OF THE SABBATH
My adult Sabbath School Bible study guide of April-June 1999 - "The Nature of Man" - directed me to some comments from Catholic authors Ted and Maureen Flynn in their book The Thunder of Justice which claims that the reasons for "the deluge of apparitions" and visions from the virgin Mary is, among other things, "... to stress that the core of our problems is the breaking of the Sabbath (Sunday)". Reject the evil spewing from this doctrine with prayer, fasting and Bible study (not just 'hardtalk') lest you be the object of nefarious laughter trailing off from some thriller because "duppy know who fi frighten"!
I am, etc.,
RYAN O'NEIL SEATON
Cell8763132444@gmail.com
Revelation1217@yahoo.com
Insignia7@msn.com
