Straight talk about the soul

I'm really into a needlepoint project so I don't want to spend tons of time on the computer today. But I have an important topic on my mind to share with you, so here is a very quick presentation of how to most correctly think of the soul. I want to address some fuzzy thinking (and also some scare mongering) to put people's minds at ease.

First, understand that God is real and God exists in a structure that is impossible for humans to comprehend. Let's talk about heaven as the word for God's "abode" and where saved souls go after the body dies. (Save hell for another discussion). People tend to think heaven is a place of pure energy but they are wrong. The universe, the physical world, is the place for matter, energy and time. In heaven there is no matter, energy or time. Heaven, which is the presence of God, is made up of entirely the visible substance of God's will. It appears as though it is light, but it is not made of energy. St John and others observed physical beings and structures in heaven, but though they appear as matter they are not matter, but the visible substance of God's will. And while for sanity's sake, and to communicate with humans, prophets have seen sequence of events in heaven, there is no time in heaven. When a soul "arrives" in heaven, once they are in heaven proper it is as if they were always there. So there is no sequence of time in heaven, no "before" "during" and "after" an event.

Heaven is, therefore, best understood as being God's will (his intentions and purpose) being made visible to souls and angels that occupy heaven. This is why many report the blindingly bright light when they have a near death experience. God's will appears as light, but God's will is not matter or energy or time based, so it is not in the form of light waves, spirits among material structures, etc.

A human soul can be thought of as a particle of God's will that has left heaven when the baby is conceived and enters the baby in the material four dimensional (3D plus time) world. A soul cannot exist without the body. This is the point I wish to make to allow people to enjoy science fiction and fantasy books but not believe cults who claim souls exist without bodies. A soul is a particle of God's will using the substance of God that is his will. It has no identity or self perception until it is placed in a human embryo. That is why the Bible explains the body is the temple. And this is why God created physical life in the first place. A soul has no concept of itself until it is placed in a three dimensional form that learns about itself within a time frame.

This is how God is able to create beings that can be individuals, that God can love, without them being manufactured robots, for lack of a better term. Each newly made soul in heaven is not unique (though God obviously can tell them apart) until they are placed in the embryo. Then environment, genes and the structure of time and space create an individual physical reality for the soul. The soul therefore gains its own individual sense of being alive and in existence.

However, since this substance of soul is of the heavenly abode (the substance of God's will) it cannot exist separate from the body. There is no way that it can physically exist in the material realm of space, matter, energy or time. This is why there is no such thing as "alien souls" looking for bodies etc. A soul cannot exist even a microsecond outside the body; upon death it is immediately returned to God in his abode of his substance, and there the soul is judged.

I'll leave this topic with this introduction for now, and we can talk more about it some other time. I hope this is an important perspective about the "physics" of God's realm, the soul, and the material world. I know that you probably are trying to imagine "where" God's realm is, if it is not the vastness of space, the matter, the energy or the time structures. It is easiest to think of the universe as one side of a long playing record, and if you flip it over there is heaven. Think of it almost as a kind of Velcro that cannot be separated. The "hooks" of the universe, which is space, time, matter and energy all rest upon and are hooked to the substance of God's will. Thus even in a vacuum of space (and there is no real vacuum because there's always some random energy or molecules zooming around) "hooks" into the substance of God's will. When scientists try to find the 'God particle,' all they are doing is finding a smaller and smaller unit of matter, time and energy that is closer to the hook to God's substance, but is not actually in the abode of God's substance. That line cannot be crossed except when God sends the soul to the embryo, and when the soul returns to God upon death. This is why the dead truly can never "haunt" or "return" and also why "souls" cannot wander the earth or anywhere else looking for bodies or whatever. Souls cannot achieve matter, energy or time; they are exclusively the substance of God's will in the abode that is outside of matter, energy and time.

And remember, just because someone has an out of body spiritual experience, that's not the soul leaving the body. That is spirit which is a form of energy and time. That's why God has the personage of the Holy Spirit, where the Holy Spirit is a form of God's will that is spread through the use of energy and time. God puts spirit on like a garment in order to communicate with humans in their media of matter, space, energy and time. Likewise, on a much smaller scale, individual persons and animals can have a "spirit" experience, which is information or perspective gained through the use of energy over matter, and bridging of time and space. Through the Holy Spirit God does this for the entire world continuously in all times and space. People can do it for themselves in special circumstances, but these are spiritual experiences that use the four dimensions, not the use of the soul. The soul is shaped by its human owner's experience, but inert to human manipulation of its actual substance and placement. So the "dark night of the soul" experience, for example, is a soul shaping experience, but it is not a soul exercise. It is a spiritual experience and exercise because it is matter (brain), energy and time based. "Spirit" does not exist without matter, energy, space and time. Soul exists encased within matter, energy, space and time from the embryo to the individual's death. Soul is "along for the ride" of being alive. Spirit experiences are part of the ride, but not the actions of the soul itself.

I hope this helps. It's all very bright and full of goodness, and so remember that ghoulish beliefs about souls may be scary and entertaining but they are not factual. And humans have no control over the substance of their own souls. They shape their souls during their life, but their substance is really like a lease from God, they do not have any control over the actual metaphysical structure of the soul. It comes to the embryo at God's behest, and it returns upon an individual's death in an instantaneous 'snap' since the soul cannot exist in the metaphysics of the universe. It's very existence is only a manifestation of God's will in the substance of his will. Jesus mentions this, by the way, in the Gospels.