Meanings
- uncountableThe doctrine that when the body dies, the intangible soul and/or spirit also goes to sleep or in other words the person's consciousness ceases until the resurrection, and that the soul and/or spirit must be awoken and both are to be called back to life at the Day of Judgement. This was first recorded as taught by the Thnētopsȳchītæ, a third century sect of Christianity in Arabia, and is based on 1 Timothy 6:16, an epistolary doxology addressed to the God who alone has immortality.
On the contrary, the metaphor of “soul sleeping” bridges what for thnetopsychism amounts to two sharply polarized concepts: on the one hand, that of death and nothingness in all its finality, and, on the other, that of eternal life.
2012, Henry Weinfield, The Blank-Verse Tradition from Milton to Stevens: Freethinking and the Crisis of Modernity
Origin
- Ancient Greekθνητόψῡχος
- Englishthnetopsychism
From ecclesiastical Ancient Greek θνητόψῡχος (thnētópsūkhos), from θνητός (thnētós, “mortal”) and ψῡχή (psūkhḗ, “soul”) + -ism.
More words from Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
thnetopsychism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thnetopsychism
“thnetopsychism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thnetopsychism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “thnetopsychism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thnetopsychism.
Source: thnetopsychism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.