“A period of “sleeping” takes place between the time of death and the resurrection” (Awake!, December 2007, p. 8).
The theory that that the soul sleeps in a state of unconsciousness (psychopannychism) appears to have been popularized by John Calvin in the subtitle to his Latin tract Psychopannychia,[1] Orléans, 1534. In the Latin it is clearer that Psychopannychia is actually the refutation of, the opposite of, the idea of soul sleep.
Mrs. Helen G. White, the founder of the Seventh-Day Adventists made this theory one on the pillars of her religious system. She taught that the soul, being mortal, is unconscious between death and Christ’s second coming; the souls of believers will ultimately receive immortality; but the souls of unbelievers will be annihilated.
Jehovah’s Witnesses declare, “All the prophets of God taught that sheol, the grave, and hell are one and the same condition, referring to the condition of death. The Jews knew that the Scriptures taught that all in their graves are dead, unconscious, and know nothing. — Eccl. 9:5,10; Ps. 115:17” (Life, p. 206).
“’Soul Sleep,’ also known as the doctrine of’ ‘Conditional Immortality,’ is primarily taught by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists. To be more exact, Jehovah’s Witnesses teach ‘soul annihilation.’ This refers to the belief that when we die, the soul ceases to exist. At the future resurrection, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the souls of the redeemed will be recreated. Seventh-day Adventists teach true ‘soul sleep,’ meaning after death believers are not conscious of anything and their souls become completely inert until the time of the final resurrection of the dead. During this period of soul sleep, the soul resides in the memory of God”[2]
The orthodox Christian belief about the intermediate state between death and the Last Judgment is immortality of the soul followed immediately after death of the body by particular judgment. In Catholicism some souls temporarily stay in Purgatory to be purified for Heaven (as described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030–1032).
Eastern Orthodoxy, Methodism, Anglicanism, and Mormonism use different terminology, but generally teach that the soul waits in the Abode of the Dead, specifically Hades or the Spirit World, until the resurrection of the dead, the saved resting in light and the damned suffering in darkness.
The Roman Catholic Church has called soul sleep a serious heresy:
“And since truth cannot contradict truth, we define that every statement contrary to the enlightened truth of the faith is totally false and we strictly forbid teaching otherwise to be permitted. We decree that all those who cling to erroneous statements of this kind, thus sowing heresies which are wholly condemned, should be avoided in every way and punished as detestable and odious heretics and infidels who are undermining the catholic faith. Moreover we strictly enjoin on each and every philosopher who teaches publicly in the universities or elsewhere, that when they explain or address to their audience the principles or conclusions of philosophers, where these are known to deviate from the true faith — as in the assertion of the soul’s mortality or of there being only one soul or of the eternity of the world and other topics of this kind — they are obliged to devote their every effort to clarify for their listeners the truth of the Christian religion, to teach it by convincing arguments, so far as this is possible, and to apply themselves to the full extent of their energies to refuting and disposing of the philosophers’ opposing arguments, since all the solutions are available.”[3]
[1] Psychopannychia (Latin from Greek; literally “all-night-vigil of the soul”) is the earliest theological treatise by John Calvin dating in Latin manuscript from Orléans, 1534. The tract opposes the mortalism or “soul sleep” taught by Anabaptists and other radical Protestants.
[2] http://christianity.about.com/od/christiandoctrines/f/whatissoulsleep.htm
[3] Fifth Council of the Lateran, Session 8, [Condemnation of every proposition contrary to the truth of the enlightened Christian faith] (19 December 1513).