The self may be the defined as its ability to reflect upon itself. To conceptualize death is to conceptualize the end of this reflection.

Immortality can be defined as the existence of the self apart from a reflection of the self upon itself with a recognition and experience of its insignificance before God; without a concept of its end.

The human self was created to abide in the life which caused it. It was not created to be autonomous, nor to need to reflect upon itself apart from God. For God created humans to reflect his image. His image is the capacity to give of the self without measure.

So humans were created to give of God’s life without measure or concern to their own well-being for they were abiding, or resting transparently in his providential life.

When humans sinned, they died. Prior to sin, they had the capacity to reflect upon themselves, but they did so only in acknowledgement of the God that filled their selves, and did not experience nor recognize the insignificance of the self before God. They could not conceptualize the end of the reflection of the self, for they conceptualized nothing apart from the sacrificial life-giving life of God in themselves.

Spiritual death occurred when they could no longer reflect upon the self as that which is only what God fills it to be. The reflection of the self as it was in spiritual perfection ceased. There only remains the reflection of the physical self as that which is filled by the now dead human spirit, i.e., it experiences its insignificance.

The physical self now conceptualizes the end of the physical self, and is able to do so, because it has experienced and recognized its insignificance before God. Thus, it conceptualizes the end of the reflection of the physical self upon itself.

However, because of an infusion of the life of God by his characteristic means of self sacrifice, there is once again the concept of the self as that which is filled with what God is. Though this is not complete since the concept of the end of the reflection of the physical self upon itself still remains, there is now the concept of a time when this will not be the case. This is the concept of immortality.

One could not conceptualize immortality unless it is possible in the present. For to have the ability to conceptualize the self without regards to itself apart from God, requires the gift of some measure of this life from God. Otherwise the self sees nothing but the self and is, therefore, dead. This means that either one has immortality in the present or he cannot even conceptualize or desire it as it truly is. He can only experience his nothingness.