The idea something of a spirit nature dwells within each of us has been known since early times on Urantia; it appears several times in the Bible.[1] Many peoples have believed there is something vital growing within us destined to survive after physical death.[2] There is a word equivalent to the idea of soul in the language of every evolving race on our planet.[3]
The soul grows by experience as the individual makes spiritual decisions. This growth is encouraged by the indwelling adjuster and grows as the personality continues to make spiritual decisions. This soul is not physical nor is it purely spiritual but rather it is between these levels; it will survive death and eventually go to Paradise should the individual so choose.[4]
When the Thought Adjuster arrives as a consequence of the child’s first moral thought, the soul is born. Moral choice and spiritual attainment, the ability to know God and the urge to be like him, are the characteristics of the soul. The soul of man cannot exist apart from moral thinking and spiritual activity.[5] Thus the soul grows as we continue to make spiritual decisions and the soul must always be reaching out for growth because a stagnant soul is a dying soul.
There are three factors influencing the creation and growth of the soul these are the human mind, the indwelling spirit, and the relationship between these two; this relationship becomes the soul.[6] The soul thus grows as we, of our own free will, arrive at spiritual decisions under the guidance of our adjuster; we hinder or assist its growth by our decisions.
As our soul grows and becomes filled with truth, beauty, and goodness, as it increases in God-consciousness, such a being becomes indestructible. If our eternal spiritual values did not survive physical death our entire life is an illusion.[7] Indeed, when our physical existence is viewed in isolation, apart from spiritual reality, it indeed does appear without any meaning. But our life does have meaning and value because our soul will survive death, should we so choose. At all times we have the free will to choose between good and evil; we then reap the consequences of our decisions.
Human life continues — survives — because it has a universe function, the task of finding God. The faith-activated soul of man cannot stop short of the attainment of this goal of destiny; and when it does once achieve this divine goal, it can never end because it has become like God — eternal.[8]
After physical death the memory of our earthly life resides with the adjuster while the soul is placed in the custody of our guardian angel. After the adjuster and the soul are reunited in the resurrection halls we will awaken as a morontia being ready to continue our journey toward God.[9] Morontia is the name given to a level between the physical and spiritual regions.[10] At this point we will no longer be physical, but we are not yet true spirit beings.
Our soul is our potentially eternal self, we must feed it with spiritual decisions, nurture it by choosing to do God’s will and thus experience its growth throughout our earthy lives, and beyond.
True death comes only after the individual totally rejects the will of God and rejects continuing survival. There are three kinds of death. One is intellectual death, which happens when the brain is damaged so much the ministry of the mind spirits cannot function. In this case the Thought Adjuster departs while the life energies of the body continue. Depending on the choice of the individual, the adjuster will later return for the resurrection of that individual after physical death; in any case the physical body may continue to function.[11] Our society calls this brain dead.
Physical death is merely when the physical energies of the body cease to function; the material mechanism stops working. Similar to intellectual death, the Thought Adjuster departs and will return at the individual’s resurrection to reconstitute that personality for further growth in the climb toward Paradise depending upon the individual’s moral decision.[12]
These two types of death are temporary, after them our adjuster will return at resurrection to resume its association with the individual. The final type of death is soul death, which is final. When the individual has made a final decision to deny God, reject eternal life and to totally reject universe reality, then the adjuster departs never to return. This is the final death from which there can be no resurrection and it comes as a consequence of the individual totally rejecting our Heavenly Father, rejecting spiritual reality.[13] Soul death may come either before or after physical death. In either case there can be no resurrection.
Realizing this, death now becomes our graduation time when we graduate from this preschool we call Earth into a wider reality, even cosmic reality. To paraphrase the poet Robert Burns we will be from a world of woe relieved and arise renewed in heaven.