⌛ Civil & Last Things · Intermediate State

Soul-Sleep-Mortalism

Souls sleep unconsciously between death and resurrection — the Christian-mortalist position (Milton later) rejected by XXXII.1.

This is a contested or rejected alternative.

The Westminster baseline on Intermediate State is Immediate-Conscious-With-God-Or-Judgment. Personas and schools listed below hold this alternative position instead — either because they argued for it at the Assembly (like the Erastians on polity) or because they represent a receiving tradition that departed from the Standards on this point.

Cruxes on this attribute

The Assembly navigated 1 crux that bear directly on Intermediate State.

The Conscious Intermediate State 1647 No purgatory, no soul-sleep — the soul’s immediate conscious entry into heaven or judgement.

Other positions on Intermediate State

Immediate-Conscious-With-God-Or-Judgment WCF Souls of the righteous are immediately received into the highest heavens; souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day (WCF XXXII.1). Purgatory-And-Limbus Souls of the imperfectly purified pass through purgatorial fire; OT saints in *limbus patrum* — the Roman scheme rejected by XXXII.1's denial of 'any other place' beyond heaven and hell.

Cite this position

Study Reformed, “Soul-Sleep-Mortalism” (Position), Westminster Standards Atlas, version 79a5f9880ac1, https://studyreformed.com/atlas/cite/position/civil_last_things/intermediate_state/soul_sleep/.

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Ontology version 79a5f9880ac1 — the state of the Atlas you are reading, so a citation stays checkable when the ontology is revised.