The concept 'man' is ontically derived from the concept of the trinity of God. In other words, man is made in the image of God.
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Phenomena explained : "We have a sense of self" Our sense of self appears to be more continuous and stable than our physical basis would lead us to expect. "Man is an image of God". Given that God has purposes, it is credible that He chose to create intelligent beings in His image. That would mean, trinitarian beings. "You are eternal" Most believers, including mainstream Christians, believe that their soul will continue eternally in some form after they die. This belief begs questions as to what a soul is, when a soul is born, how a soul affects the actions of its owner, or why it is is that a soul needs a body in order to be aware of itself. |
Soul, body, spirit
You, like the One, are a quantum, from which all that is you proceeds and to which all that is you is joined. That quantum is your soul. It is your purpose. It is currently resident in your body and in control of that part of it that you call your brain.
Your body is your soul’s connection to the here and now, it is your acceptance, your love of the universe. When you make a decision, your brain makes it according to the purpose of your soul. Your body enacts it.
After your body acts, your brain constructs the conscious experience of deciding. Your brain generates your consciousness, but that is not you, merely your experience of you. It translates you into your experience. Your consciousness is your spirit, just as the Holy Spirit is the consciousness of the One.
To look at a human being and say: This person's behavior can be explained without postulating that the person has a soul, is like looking at a painting and concluding that it can be understood completely in terms of paint and canvas.
Diminished souls
Your soul is in the One. The connection between your soul and your body and spirit is a two-way street, in which your soul communicates purposes and your body and spirit communicate outcomes. The outcomes are incorporated into your soul. Or rather, the good that you do and are is incorporated into your soul. For how can evil exist in the One?
Every time you allow evil to become part of your earthly existence, you diminish yourself. If you take the good in yourself and isolate yourself from it, making it powerless to affect your actions, you destroy your soul bit by bit. Therefore we do not envy those who thank their prosperity, their status and their happiness to evil, for they are the diminished souls. Sometimes we fear them, but always we fear for them, for what will be left of them when they die?
Those who lose their mind, lose their spirit but not their soul. The soul can be released only by death. Out-of-body experiences are possible for those whose consciousness is strongly connected to their soul. The soul experiences and passes the experience on to the consciousness when it awakens.
Continuity
When you die, your soul, the quantum you, continues to exist with and in the One, as it always has. It incorporates all the good that you have become. But it needs a new consciousness, in a new body, to experience itself. The same information has a new expression. Your soul is eternal and can be expressed in any suitable medium. That expression enjoys complete continuity with the real you, not with your brain. When you die, all that was evil in you is separated from you. It has a separate locus, but unless this has been cultivated in some way, it has no persistence, but withers, shrivels and ceases to exist. Evil is the ultimate dead end street.
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Credibility: This explanation - that the dividing line between eternal life and eternal death is within each individual - must compete with the traditional view that the dividing line is between individuals. Although it must be noted that texts which support the latter view may be read as being compatible with the QO explanation, and the QO explanation is also supported by texts, we are still left with a forced exegesis. That makes this explanation tentatively credible. |