Immortality of the soul

“ We watched the women, drank a great deal, and conversed on the immortality of the soul.
“It’s foolish,” said one of my comrades who was older than I, “it’s foolish to believe that it would be a blessing to have an immortal soul. Look at that old harridan dancing there, whose head and hands tremble if she stays still a moment. One sees directly that she is wicked and ugly and entirely worthless, and that she’s getting more and more so every day. How ridiculous it would be to imagine that she had an immortal soul! ”

“ Upon such a tissue of absurdities is built the marvellous opinion of the immortality of the soul. If I ask, what are the motives for believing the soul immortal, they immediately answer, that it is because man naturally desires to be immortal: but, because you desire a thing ardently, can you infer that your desire will be fulfilled? By what strange logic can we dare affirm, that a thing cannot fail to happen, because we ardently desire it? Are desires, begotten by the imagination, the measure of reality? ”

“ Swept on and up in ecstasy, perception becoming ever clearer, he beheld the so-called soul-self of man unravelled into its component parts and laid before him like the unwoven threads of a garment, and behold in these was no durability nor immortality, for there is but one Immortal, one Infinite, and the man who claims his own, his separate immortality, is dying and reborn through the ages and but the fierce desire of life gives him its simulacrum and the long-linked chain of births and deaths and griefs immeasurable. ”

“ Strong as the death it masters, is the hope
That onward looks to immortality:
Let the frame perish, so the soul survive,
Pure, spiritual, and loving. I believe
The grave exalts, not separates, the ties
That hold us in affection to our kind. ”

“ There is nothing, however, spiritual in this resurrection, nor what concerns the soul, but it is wholly corporeal and material; although some writers have plumed themselves upon their fancied discovery of what they call the savages belief of the immortality of the soul. ”

“ To many, the reasoning of the 'Spiritualists,' like that of the ancient, amounts to "It is quite possible that human beings are immortal;" and that is all. Many a man and woman are dying daily deaths from the fearful doubts that constantly arise as to the truth of the Immortality of the Soul ”

“ But what he spoke to him of immortality we need not here repeat, for the while he spoke out of the romantic eloquence of his heart, his matter-of-fact mind kept incorrigibly whispering to him that immortality is the theory that life is a rough ocean voyage and the soul a club breakfast. ”

“ Do we ever believe so much in immortality as when we look on such a dear and noble face, now so still, which a few hours ago was radiant with thought and love? 'He is not here: he is risen.' That power which we knew,—that soaring intelligence, that soul of fire, that ever-advancing spirit,—that cannot have been suddenly annihilated with the decay of these earthly organs. It has left its darkened dust behind. It has outsoared the shadow of our night. God does not trifle with his creatures by bringing to nothing the ripe fruit of the ages by the lesion of a cerebral cell, or some bodily tissue. ”

“ Ponder over the following questions and see the folly of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul:
Since the Bible speaks of a living man (Gen. 2:7) as a living soul, and a dead man as a dead soul, (Num. 6:6; 9:10) (the word body in these verses is from nephesh) , and since Paul defines a living soul to be a natural body (I Cor. 15:44, 45) , how can you speak of the soul as immortal, deathless? ”

“ But do you not think this should strengthen one’s faith in the soul’s immortality? Are we not spirits living in material bodies? And when the material body dies, if our spirits are immortal, why should not they seek to manifest themselves to their friends on earth? ”

“ And as this fulfilment is uncertain, how can it be known that my divine is not really human, my human really divine?
Not until death lifts the veil can we truly know that this life is bounded at each end by an immortality to which the soul finally reverts. ”

“ And when he came to die, he gave this reason of his belief of immortality; "I cannot," said he, "persuade myself to think that the soul of man, after having sustained itself in a mortal body, should perish when delivered out of it, for want of it;" ”

“ Now the faith in the immortality of the soul or, to speak more correctly, in the continued existence of conscious human personality after death, is, as I remarked before, exceedingly common among men at all levels of intellectual evolution from the lowest upwards ”

“ That blessing of a heavenly immortality, freely given by God, is nothing else but a celestial holiness, purity and perfection brought forth in the soul, by its having the eternal WORD and SPIRIT of God again restored to, and united with it: called immortality, not because of its eternal duration, but because eternally free from all that, which is death, or the deadly evil of sin in the soul; called also so, in opposition to that natural immortality of devils, and damned souls, which tho’ never ceasing, is only an eternal death. ”

“ For the more closely we look at many deities of natural religion, the more distinctly do we seem to perceive, under the quaint or splendid pall which the mythical fancy has wrapt round their stately figures, the familiar features of real men, who once shared the common joys and the common sorrows of humanity, who trod life's common road to the common end.
The deification of dead men presupposes the immortality of the human soul, or rather its survival for a longer or shorter time after death. ”

“ But God bestowed upon us an immortal soul, to watch as a guardian angel over the body, and placed it in the loftiest part of our frame, to teach us to look upward, and remember our birth,—that men are not creatures of clay but children of God and heirs of immortality. ”

“ The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us, and which touches us so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is. ”

“ Death, and his image rising in the brain,
Bear faint resemblance; never are alike;
Fear shakes the pencil; Fancy loves excess;
Dark Ignorance is lavish of her shades:
And these the formidable picture draw. 60
But grant the worst; ’tis past; new prospects rise;
And drop a veil eternal o’er her tomb.
Far other views our contemplation claim,
Views that o’erpay the rigours of our life;
Views that suspend our agonies in death.
Wrapt in the thought of immortality,
Wrapt in the single, the triumphant thought!
Long life might lapse, age unperceived come on;
And find the soul unsated with her theme. ”

“ And if the belief in the immortality of the soul has been unable to find vindication in rational empiricism, neither is it satisfied with pantheism. To say that everything is God, and that when we die we return to God, or, more accurately, continue in Him, avails our longing nothing; for if this indeed be so, then we were in God before we were born, and if when we die we return to where we were before being born, then the human soul, the individual consciousness, is perishable. ”

“ Still, again, there is immortality, and an infinitely hospitable immortality, which the hand and the whole body and the soul, be it yours or be it mine, all have a place and a part in. There is immortality, and, besides those things that were just named, divinity is also immortal. But even a God dies, this being just one of the things that make him God. Any man, then, or any being, or any thing, may say, "I am immortal." ”

“ We should know at once that such a being must be immortal; such a life could never be lived by an ephemeral creature; of all possible proofs of immortality he is himself the sublimest. This is true, but not the whole truth. The resistless assurance, the Divine inspiration, the sublime repose, with which he enunciates the various thoughts connected with the theme of endless existence, are indeed marvellous. ”

“ He offers immortality, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” The deadening power of sin loses its hold, and one tastes the unspeakable joy of living a life that is life indeed.
Then be not confounded by the feeling of restlessness that ever creeps upon the healthy soul. What a tragedy our lives would be had we been satisfied with our first achievements! ”

“ If so, where do their souls go?
"Is the source of new life in the soul?
"It seems we believe souls have existed from the beginning, since they never die but are transmigrated. Is immortality a divine gift or an inherent property of the soul?
"And of you, Chief Priest of Osiris, head of our order, I would respectfully ask:
"'Does the soul assume a body akin to its own nature?
"'Should I live to be very old, dwarfed in limb and blind, when my soul returns to its preserved mummy, which you maintain it does, will I rise again, old and blind and weak? If not why preserve the body? ”

“ He demonstrates immortality by raising us from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, by filling our soul with infinite aspirations and delights. Here is the proof supreme of immortality. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also ”

“ The belief in immortality is one thing; the special form thereof, the definite notion of the future life, another and quite different. The popular doctrine in our churches I think is this: That this body which we lay in the dust shall one day be raised again, the living soul joined on anew, and both together live the eternal life. But where is the soul all this time, between our death-day and our day of rising? ”

“ I am dreaming ...? Let me dream, if this dream is my life. Do not awaken me from it. I believe in the immortal origin of this yearning for immortality, which is the very substance of my soul. But do I really believe in it ...? And wherefore do you want to be immortal? you ask me, wherefore? Frankly, I do not understand the question, for it is to ask the reason of the reason, the end of the end, the principle of the principle. ”

“ Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he who would be a great soul in future, must be a great soul now. ”

“ And having known the dual fulfilment, then within the fulfilled soul is established the divine relation, the Holy Spirit dwells there, the soul has achieved immortality, it has attained to absolute being.
So the body of man is begotten and born in an ecstasy of delight and of suffering. It is a flame kindled between the opposing confluent elements of the air. ”

“ For by the soul doth the body live. This life cannot die, and therefore is the soul immortal. Why then said I according to a certain manner of its own? Hear why. Because there is a true immortality, an immortality which is an entire unchangeableness; of which the Apostle saith, speaking of God, “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in that light which no man may approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” [3] If then God only hath immortality, the soul must needs be mortal. ”

“ The dead who are meritorious are alone remembered, and, thus incorporated into the Divinity, they have a "subjective immortality in the brains of the living." 45 It is a poor shadow of the sublime truth which the soul craves. ”

“ The consciousness of Immortality rises or falls with the moral and spiritual height of the soul. Nothing makes men doubt or question the Immortality of their souls so much as their own "base and earthly loves," and so, too, inward goodness "breeds a sense of the Soul's Immortality": "Goodness and vertue make men know and love, believe and delight in their Immortality. ”

“ ’Tis immortality, ’tis that alone,
Amid life’s pains, abasements, emptiness,
The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.
That only, and that amply, this performs; ”

“ While the Bible teaches that immortality of the soul is conditional upon well-doing, it makes no distinction in respect of the spirit. ”

“ With these facts before you, that man is mortal, and that the soul and spirit of man are never spoken in the Scriptures as immortal, we may now ask you to listen to the use of the word immortal, so that you may more fully see that immortality is in no sense man's present possession, and that therefore "immortal soul" and "immortal spirit" are invented phrases--not scriptural. ”

“ As set forth in the various Scriptures we have given, when the word is used otherwise than of the person or being, it is always employed to express the variety of aspects in which a living being can be contemplated, such as life, individuality, mind, disposition, breath, etc.; but it never expresses the idea of immortality, and is never used in the popular form, "immortal soul." ”

“ The singular of Soul becomes plural as sense, wherein Mind seems to be multiplied into minds, error to be Mind, Mind to be matter, matter to be a lawgiver, unintelligence to act like Intelligence, and mortality to be the matrix of immortality. The hymn is right: —
Mortal existence is a dream without a dreamer. It is the dream, that saith “It is I.” The Ego never dreams, but understands all things. It never slumbers, is ever conscious. It never believes, but knows. It was never born and never dies.
Sleep is a phase of the dream that Life, Substance, and Intelligence are material. ”

“ What has time to do with our immortal soul? and if the soul be immortal, will not the best part of our life, our love, all that we have striven, and yearned for be purified and increased, and remain ours for ever. ”

“ How can the spirit of man, deprived of virtue, cognition, will, personality and life, remain immortal? Still more, how can he enjoy such immortality? The dim feeling of such eternal rest we all can understand, who have gone suddenly from a lighted room into the vast night, and have felt our souls suddenly invaded and possessed by a sense of mystery and silence. We have felt this; but in his final beatitude the Mystic must not feel: “He must be as one dead.” ”