Question Forty-Eight
Can The Human Soul Be Annihilated?
There are many, who see themselves as merely a machine that is turned on, and then at death, when the machine quits working, all individual identity will be as if it never was. All that makes him an intelligent human being will be annihilated, according to this view.
I always thought it would be interesting, after I pass over to the other side, to greet hardened atheists after they die. When they discover they still have a consciousness they will be forced to admit there is life after death, and this of course leads to the logical conclusion that there is also Higher Creative Intelligence of some kind.
A question that persists among believers is whether or not existence and identity itself can be destroyed. There are several trains of thought on this.
The Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, Urantia followers, Armstrong followers and others see it this way.
We began at birth and at that time God created all that makes us individuals. Then, at death, instead of going to a spirit world, we sleep and only exist as a memory in the mind of God. Later, at the great judgment, God uses this fantastic memory to recreate each one of the billions of humans to stand before Him. At this time, the evil doers will be made aware of how wretched they are, but will only suffer for a short time and then be lovingly thrown into a lake of fire and burned up into nothingness, never to be heard of again.
Other believers either see the wicked as suffering in hell for eternity or annihilated.
So, again we ask, what is the real truth here? Can our essence really be destroyed or do we persist forever?
To understand the answer we must examine the various parts of ourselves. We all realize that while living that we have a physical body and that body will eventually die, decay and lose its form.
On the other hand, there are other parts to ourselves besides the physical body. In the beginning we existed in he bosom of God as a point of light or intelligence. The deeper a diver descends into the ocean the more protective gear he must have. Well, we decided to descend deep into physical matter and this required several layers of protective gear. Among those we can understand are the emotional body as well as the mental body.
These parts we add to ourselves are not the real US but are vehicles we use to explore and understand the creations of God.
The true you or the true me is not the body, feelings or mind, but that which has power of decision which uses these things. This part of ourselves cannot be destroyed and persists forever. It had no beginning and will never have an end.
Even though our vehicles have a beginning and end we use them for a very long period of time. We will use them as long as the universe persists and then when the universe folds up we will rest in the mind of God, and after the rest, assist in creating and exploring a new universe.
We have spent millions of years arriving at the point where we are now and even though our core essence cannot be annihilated it is possible to suffer the destruction of our personality makeup.
Jesus warned about this when he talked about the sin against the Holy Ghost which will not be forgiven. It’s not so much that it will not be forgiven as that the effects of such a thing cannot be undone.
As the seeker progresses from life to life he eventually establishes contact with Higher Intelligence that will guide him toward eventual liberation in the Kingdom of God. When this happens he has a choice. He can either accept the higher guidance or ignore it and deny its existence. If, over a period of time, he rejects the Holy Spirit again and again he creates a barrier between him and Higher Intelligence.
Once this barrier of his own making is solidified he loses his connection with God and his vehicles that make up his personality begin to disintegrate. After this happens only his essence remains and he has to wait until the dawn of another creation, billions of years hence before he gets another opportunity to progress.
So the answer is, no, our essence cannot be annihilated, but we can suffer some very long delays in our progression lasting for eons of time.
Copyright 2014 by J J Dewey
Easy Access to all the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
Check out JJ’s Political Blog HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Join JJ’s Study class HERE