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    The Three Souls: Eternal, Immortal, Mortal
    The Three Souls: Eternal, Immortal, Mortal
    The Three Souls: Eternal, Immortal, Mortal
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    The Three Souls: Eternal, Immortal, Mortal

    By Jack Tanner

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    Do you have a soul? If you do, is it mortal, immortal, or eternal? If you don't know the difference, how can you expect to go to heaven? Are there people without souls? That would explain a lot, wouldn't it? Believe it or not, but the whole of reality can be understood through a proper understanding of eternity, immortality and temporality (mortality). These three terms are inextricably entwined with the concept of soul/mind. There are three possibilities: 1) One eternal mind (God) creates everything else, including immortal souls. This is the Abrahamic position. 2) Everything in the universe is made of individual eternal minds, or of one eternal Mind. This is the position of much of Eastern religion, and also of the Western esoteric tradition. 3) There are no minds at all, whether eternal or immortal, and all that exists is temporal matter, from which temporal minds are inexplicably made, and which perish when their bodies perish. This is the position of atheism and scientism. What kind of soul do you have?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateMar 7, 2018
    ISBN9780244073084
    The Three Souls: Eternal, Immortal, Mortal

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      Book preview

      The Three Souls - Jack Tanner

      The Mystery of Time

      You can’t understand reality unless you have a deep understanding of the difference between eternity, immortality and temporality. Due to their religious significance, these concepts were of much more interest to medieval scholars than modern thinkers (who are overwhelmingly atheistic), so the medievalists are the ones that provide the most useful definitions.

      Time (tempus) involves both a beginning and an end. It relates to the created, mortal, material world. An ancient saying, erroneously attributed to the Buddha, is: Everything that has a beginning has an ending. This is the essence of time.

      Perpetuity (aevum), by contrast, has a beginning but not an end. It relates to the created, immortal, spiritual world of angels and souls.

      Eternity (aeternitas) has neither a beginning nor an end. It relates to the only uncreated entity as far as conventional theology goes: God, the source of everything, including time and perpetuity.

      Time involves finite extension (a line with a start and an end). Eternity can be likened to infinite temporal extension backwards and forwards (a line with no start and no end, or, alternatively, a circle), and perpetuity to infinite extension forwards (a line with a start but no end). There is nothing that corresponds to having an end but no start (reverse immortality, we might say).

      For some thinkers, eternity has to be wholly separate from time, hence is atemporal: timeless, outside time. This conception of eternity is sometimes called eternity proper.

      If eternity refers to God’s mode of existence, and temporality to the created world’s mode of existence, then aevum (also called aeviternity) is the mode of existence experienced, according to Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, by angels and saints in heaven. This mode logically stands between the eternity (timelessness) of God, and the temporality of material beings and things. By contrast with eternity, it is sometimes called improper eternity.

      When the created soul is referred to as immortal, it should not be understood to be eternal. An eternal soul is radically different from an immortal soul because the former has no beginning and no end, while the latter has no end, but, critically, does have a beginning. Immortal souls are created, eternal souls are not.

      If souls are eternal, they have no need of God. If souls are immortal, they are dependent on a Creator. If there is no God and no eternity then either souls do not exist at all (as atheists insist), or all souls have a beginning and an end, hence are mortal (in which case they are mere temporal minds).

      =====

      The three terms of eternity, immortality and temporality are inextricably entwined with the concept of soul/mind. There are three possibilities:

      1) One eternal mind (God; the Cosmic Mind) creates everything else, including immortal souls. This is the Abrahamic position.

      2) Everything in the universe is made of individual eternal minds, or one eternal Mind. This is the position of much of Eastern religion, and also of the Western esoteric tradition.

      3) There are no minds at all, whether eternal or immortal, and all that exists is temporal matter, from which temporal, epiphenomenal minds are inexplicably made, which perish when their bodies perish. This is the position of atheism, scientism, skepticism, empiricism and nihilism, which are all more or less the same thing.

      Which of these positions is correct? This is a book about how to think properly about reality using just a few basic concepts regarding the nature of time.

      =====

      People without souls can’t stand reading about the soul. People with immortal souls are slaves of God, their Creator. People with eternal souls have existed forever. They themselves are the gods.

      What kind of soul do you have? Isn’t it time you found out?

      The War of the Souls

      Do you have an eternal soul, an immortal soul, or a mortal soul? The way you lead your life depends entirely on which type of soul you believe you have.

      People who say they have an immortal soul believe it was made by their Creator, hence all of their thoughts are directed towards that Creator, and trying to discern and to do what he wants. They are comprehensively defined by this Creator, and are obsessed with him. Just look at Muslims, Jews and Christians.

      By contrast, people who assert that they have an eternal soul, and those who deny they have any soul at all, fundamentally reject a Creator, and regard all beliefs concerning the Creator as absurd, obnoxious and downright dangerous. (The vast majority of terrorists believe in the immortal soul.)

      Abrahamists are those who advocate a Creator, while followers of Eastern religion and Western esoteric religions

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