![]() In The City of God he wrote that the soul "is therefore called immortal, because in a sense, it does not cease to live and to feel while the body is called mortal because it can be forsaken of all life, and cannot by itself live at all. For Augustine death meant the destruction of the body, but the conscious soul would continue to live in either a blissful state with God or an agonizing state of separation from God. Later Augustine (354-430) tackled the problem of the immortality of the soul and death. Physical life, he reasoned, is a purification process to return humans to a spiritual state. Origen taught that human souls existed before the body but are imprisoned in the physical world as a form of punishment. The soul, having a substance and life of its own, shall after its departure from the world, be rewarded according to its deserts, being destined to obtain either an inheritance of eternal life and blessedness, if its actions shall have procured this for it, or to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishments, if the guilt of its crimes shall have brought it down to this. He was an admirer of Plato and believed in the immortality of the soul and that it would depart to an everlasting reward or everlasting punishment at death. 185-254) was the first person to attempt to organize Christian doctrine into a systematic theology. The doctrine of the immortal soul caused much controversy in the early Catholic Church. Believe it or not, God's Word teaches something entirely different. ![]() Thus secular philosophies sanction the idea of the immortal soul, even though the Bible does not. In Plato's reasoning, man is meant to attain goodness and return to the Ideal through the experiences of the transmigration of the soul. Sahakian, History of Philosophy, 1968, p. "Plato reasoned that the soul, being eternal, must have had a pre-existence in the ideal world where it learned about the eternal Ideals" (William S. 428-348 B.C.) saw man's existence as divided into the material and spiritual, or "Ideal," realms. 470-399 B.C., so his view of the soul predated Christianity. Socrates explained that the immortal soul, once freed from the body, is rewarded according to good deeds or punished for evil. ![]() Plato, in Phaedo, presents Socrates' explanation of death: "Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and body is released from the soul, what is this but death?" ( Five Great Dialogues, Classics Club edition, 1969, p. Wives and other relatives, servants, sometimes even household pets joined him in death and a supposed entrance into a new life on the other side.īelief in the immortality of the soul was an important aspect of ancient thought espoused by the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. ![]() In some civilizations when a ruler died others who had accompanied and served him in his life were put to death so they could immediately serve him in the afterlife. They constructed massive pyramids and other elaborate tombs filled with luxuries the deceased were assumed to need in the hereafter. The ancient Egyptians, for example, practiced elaborate ceremonies to prepare the pharaohs for their next life. Most religions teach some form of life after death. The most common Christian belief regarding the afterlife is that people possess souls and at death their consciousness in the form of that soul departs from the body and heads for heaven or hell. What happens to us after we die? Where are our loved ones who have passed on? Will we ever see them again?Įveryone needs to know that life has purpose, that death isn't the permanent end of our existence. ![]()
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