My Particular Body and My Peculiar Soul – My Immortality

The soul is what animates the body, bringing it to life – and my soul, as a human being, is the breath of God.[1] If my soul is of God, is of spirit, then it has no beginning and no end. Eternal. Immortal. For spirit cannot be reduced to parts.[2] Spirit is not finite. However, I can neither say that I, as the human person that I am, had no beginning nor that I am infinite. This is because I am of flesh and spirit, body and soul united as one human person. My spiritual soul animates my material body – and my material body affects my spiritual soul.

What makes my soul my soul?

In contemplating the human body this month, thoughts have come to me that, although the gifts of intellect, memory/imagination, and freewill are “products”, if you will, of my spiritual soul, they only take on unique qualities peculiar to me through my bodily living.

I’m thinking that, maybe, it’s kind of like this: imagine Spirit (that which is nonmaterial, infinite, eternal, divine) as an endless substance that is absolutely everywhere. When I, as an individual member of the Homo sapiens species, first came into being (at the moment of my conception, when the genetic material from my mother and my father combined and began to live, cells multiplying, a singular organism developing and growing) I was immediately a combination of matter and spirit, a unique human person. My body was in zygotic, and later embryonic, then fetal, infantile, juvenile, adolescent, and adult, form and, no matter where my body was or is in geographical location, spirit animates my body.

God, who is Spirit Itself, does not change with the changes of my body – for God is immutable. But, somehow, someway, through the mysterious workings of God, the spirit that animates my body is affected by the life that I live through my body. My intellect is informed through my body and my freewill acts through my body and, mysteriously, my bodily experiences and choices give a unique kind of energy to the spirit that brings me to life: my soul.

The Afterlife

This affected kind of energy is not infinite like spirit, but rather finite, like flesh – that is, it is not always and everywhere. But, because this unique impression, coloring, flavor, or imprinted energy, if you will, is upon spirit, grounded in spirit, it will not die. When the body dies (and the body, being of matter, must die) this particular “shade” of spirit, my soul, will continue to live eternally. (What choices I make will determine how that eternal life is lived… but, more on that later.) As a Christian, I believe that, by the power, grace, and mercy of God, my soul will be allowed to reanimate my body in the Resurrection at the End of Days, through Christ my Savior – though it will no longer be my body as it is now, living materially on earth, but, rather, my body glorified… given immortality in the New Heavens and the New Earth, in the life of the world to come. A profound Mystery.

Well, these are my thoughts, anyway, rather roughly laid out. But, I wanted to share them, hoping that others may have further and/or better insight that they will share with me as I continue to explore. What do you think?

© 2014 Christina Chase

[1] Genesis 2:7

[2] as taught by St. Thomas Aquinas