If the human soul is eternal and lives on when the body dies, it must be made of different materials. If that substance is spiritual, then where does it reside within our living bodies? Is it separate or part of our living flesh? Some have referred to the soul as the seat or location of our character and emotions, but is that just a metaphorical inference?
Some religions believe the soul comes back after death and reunites with a resurrected body in some future time, but then some are unclear as to whether the soul exists without being reunited with the body.
Existence, as a unique entity, should carry within it the substance of the life and experiences learned in the body. If the soul exists without the body, thensome substance must makes the separate soul without the body.
Plato, Aristotle, and many others have written about the existence of the soul. A recent well-known historian, Will Durant*, wrote about the history of man, looking deeply into the living lives of all things. He pondered and wrote about the existence of a soul and said he had little doubt it existed as a part of human existence, a view shared by many intellectuals. Some, like Durant, are influenced by a belief that the universe brings about life by taking matter and evolving it into living forms and even suggesting that that is the universe’s purpose.
This view says that all matter has a spiritual essence. Durant was fond of his unique soul but said he did not expect it to survive the complete death of his body. Durant summed up this conclusion in his last book, Fallen Leaves, saying that he felt the end of the body would likewise be the death of the soul. That conclusion seems to be at odds with his passion for life and the view that it exists within all things. We wonder what Durant may have felt if he had an idea of other dimensions.
Durant said he wanted to bring the “future into focus,” and his method was to focus on the raw experience of history. This approach is reflected in his extensive work writing the 11 volumes of "The Story of Civilization.”.
Durant believed that life flowed from what he felt was a mysterious source that moved like a river from an unknown beginning to an abrupt end with the body’s death. The sudden end of the soul is often the intellectual conclusion that seems tied to determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will.
Durant is a valuable focus for discussions about the soul because he was not a determinist and placed great value on individual experiences. He refused to accept the end was all predetermined by the beginning,
I think Durant was on the right track, but with incomplete conclusions on the nature of the soul, partly because he needed to live longer to see all the options. He defended free will, that the soul was a unique, valued individual experience, saw a universe whose purpose was to create and advance life, and loved the personal experience. He lacked options for what could happen after death to the soul.
We live in a world clearly defined by three spatial dimensions, including one size of time. Durant and others in the past concluded the soul was framed with this knowledge, but he did not have information about the 4th, 5th, and other dimensions. In 1919, mathematician Theodor Kaluza presented new ideas about the 4th dimension. This idea states that in shared space, a position is specified by three numbers, known as dimensions, that could be labeled x, y, and z. A place in spacetime is called an event and requires four numbers to be specified: the three-dimensional location in space plus the position in time.
Today, “string theorists” present more complicated thoughts, saying it's pretty easy to assume there are 10 or 11 dimensions and more. So maybe these other dimensions include or await our participation with our spiritual soul?
Seeing life metaphorically, like a river of influences and forces, is a poetic approach that ties things together, but it ignores where the river starts and assumes that it ends.
I conclude that the soul continues after death and that its life is eternal. The implications of Durant’s thoughts and what has been learned about string theory strongly influence this conclusion, but my religious teachings make a great deal of difference for me.
I am active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I believe that di Jesus Christ died on the cross, rose on the third day, and appeared again to his disciples. I think the soul leaves the body at death and, at some point, is resurrected again, gaining a physical body.
One of the previous church Prophets and presidents, Gordon B. Hinckley, said, “Let me say that we appreciate the truth in all churches and the good which they do. So we tell the people you bring all the good you have, and then let us see if we can add to it.”
My beliefs and knowledge also suggest that truth exists in many churches and that the more knowledge we gain, the better off we will be. So much of what we become during this life resides in our spiritual essence. If inside, memory, skills learned, and even work ethic go with us through death, then understanding them is a worthy life goal.
*William James Durant was an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He became best known for his work The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel Durant, and published between 1935 and 1975
