How to prove immortality of soul?

[JurisPrudens]

Hello! Could someone, please, advise me on the arguments in favor of immortality of soul for non-believers?

Arguments from philosophy and natural theology, of course.

 

[Bahman]

Hello! Could someone, please, advise me on the arguments in favor of immortality of soul for non-believers?

Arguments from philosophy and natural theology, of course.

There is no soul but consciousness: Essence of any being with the ability to experience and create. Consciousness is immortal since it is simple in another word you cannot break it into peaces hence it cannot be created. You have been here and you will be. The absence of experience as you have now before your birth doesn’t mean that you didn’t existed, you have been always experiencing, they were just simple and you didn’t have any memory you have now.

 

[MaryHelp777]

Hello! Could someone, please, advise me on the arguments in favor of immortality of soul for non-believers?

Arguments from philosophy and natural theology, of course.

Human beings are separated from all other creatures because we alone have free will, and can discern right from wrong. Animals do not have reason to the extent that human beings have reason, animals are bound strongly by instinct, such as shallows who arise and eat insects all day,

Cs Lewis was converted from atheism, he said a pushing point was when one of the strongest atheists in England said to him, “We are all creatures. This around us is creation. It only makes sense that there is a Creator.”
Creatures living in a world of creation, put their by the Creator.

What about the 250,000 and over near death experiences of.those who experienced the afterlife?

Shroud of Turin has blood type Ab on it and pollen that places it in Jerusalem.at Jesus death, and used for a Jewish burial, and pollen from the historical placed the shroud was kept in history. And the blood type Ab was found on the Eucharistic miracle of Luciano Italy where.the eucharistic turned into Jesus actual flesh, was approved by the Vatican, and is incorrupt 250 years later,

The visions of all the saints who saw Heaven, St Catherine of Sienna, St Faustina, St John Bosco, St Theresa of Avila

The.evidence is there.

If it pleases God to give private revelations to strengthen our faith.

 

[JurisPrudens]

Human beings are separated from all other creatures because we alone have free will, and can discern right from wrong. Animals do not have reason to the extent that human beings have reason, animals are bound strongly by instinct, such as shallows who arise and eat insects all day,

Cs Lewis was converted from atheism, he said a pushing point was when one of the strongest atheists in England said to him, “We are all creatures. This around us is creation. It only makes sense that there is a Creator.”
Creatures living in a world of creation, put their by the Creator.

What about the 250,000 and over near death experiences of.those who experienced the afterlife?

Shroud of Turin has blood type Ab on it and pollen that places it in Jerusalem.at Jesus death, and used for a Jewish burial, and pollen from the historical placed the shroud was kept in history. And the blood type Ab was found on the Eucharistic miracle of Luciano Italy where.the eucharistic turned into Jesus actual flesh, was approved by the Vatican, and is incorrupt 250 years later,

The visions of all the saints who saw Heaven, St Catherine of Sienna, St Faustina, St John Bosco, St Theresa of Avila

The.evidence is there.

If it pleases God to give private revelations to strengthen our faith.

Well, thanks, but that does not directly address the immortality of soul question.

 

[JurisPrudens]

There is no soul but consciousness: Essence of any being with the ability to experience and create. Consciousness is immortal since it is simple in another word you cannot break it into peaces hence it cannot be created. You have been here and you will be. The absence of experience as you have now before your birth doesn’t mean that you didn’t existed, you have been always experiencing, they were just simple and you didn’t have any memory you have now.

Then, why can’t we call “soul” what You are calling “consciousness”?

 

[PumpkinCookie]

What, precisely, are you looking for? Are you looking to “prove” one of the following propositions?

1. Human souls are intrinsically immortal and indestructible.
2. We have no reason to suppose human souls are not intrinsically immortal and indestructible.
3. Human souls are potentially immortal.
4. The immortality of a human soul is contingent upon something outside of it.

Are you looking for an a priori argument showing that one of these premises is true while all of the others are false? Does the argument have to be compatible with Catholic dogma? Does the argument have to be compatible with traditional Catholic metaphysics? Is it something else? More specifics will be helpful, this is probably a great discussion to have!

 

[GEddie]

There is no soul but consciousness: Essence of any being with the ability to experience and create. Consciousness is immortal since it is simple in another word you cannot break it into peaces hence it cannot be created. You have been here and you will be. The absence of experience as you have now before your birth doesn’t mean that you didn’t existed, you have been always experiencing, they were just simple and you didn’t have any memory you have now.

Consciousness is generated by a bunch of neurons at the base of your head; when those break down that’s that.

Whatever the basis for an immortal life may be, it is not consciousness, which is a brain function like any number of others.

ICXC NIKA

 

[spiderweb]

Just following the discussion. And since St. Thomas Aquinas will be brought up by someone, here is the link. This is specifically addressed in Article 6 of the Summa Theologica. newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm#article6

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Hello! Could someone, please, advise me on the arguments in favor of immortality of soul for non-believers?

Arguments from philosophy and natural theology, of course.

None are fully convincing sorry.
Aristotle, whose definition of “soul” the Church christened, himself never clearly stated such a thing.

Aquinas, built on Aristotle and believed it could be proven. However many Catholic philosophers no longer believe his arguments are fully convincing - just as his arguments for the existence of God are similarly treated.

Sure, it may be possible to prove it, but the Church as far as I know has never said any particular argument is that silver bullet.

This topic has been done to death many times on this Forum the latest example of which is here:

Its 3 months worth of debate reaching no consensus.
If you restart that thread I am sure you will get a lot of spirited responses from the old protagonists!

 

[JurisPrudens]

Aquinas, built on Aristotle and believed it could be proven. However many Catholic philosophers no longer believe his arguments are fully convincing - just as his arguments for the existence of God are similarly treated.

Well, of course, in philosophy there are always arguments to the contrary.

But who are those philosophers, and did they propose better theories?

 

[JurisPrudens]

What, precisely, are you looking for? Are you looking to “prove” one of the following propositions?

1. Human souls are intrinsically immortal and indestructible.
2. We have no reason to suppose human souls are not intrinsically immortal and indestructible.
3. Human souls are potentially immortal.
4. The immortality of a human soul is contingent upon something outside of it.

Are you looking for an a priori argument showing that one of these premises is true while all of the others are false? Does the argument have to be compatible with Catholic dogma? Does the argument have to be compatible with traditional Catholic metaphysics? Is it something else? More specifics will be helpful, this is probably a great discussion to have!

Well, the Catholic teaching, of course, is something I believe in and don’t doubt about.

But I am looking for the arguments against the belief of the atheists, that it is UNLIKELY that after one’s death one ceases to exist.

 

[Bahman]

Then, why can’t we call “soul” what You are calling “consciousness”?

That is acceptable. However there is a problem with the immortality of the soul if you accept the traditional definition of soul which is something created by God! Immortal cannot possibly create immortal.

 

[Lucretius]

Dude! You are asking for a big order on an internet forum! I mean, the arguements that, say, St. Thomas or St. Augustine give are beautiful and persuasive, but they take a lot of contemplation in order to truely understand why they are so (which is why monks were the ones who usually did this). It is even harder to explain these arguements to modern people, who have been indoctrinated in modern philosophy, and in particular the Gnostic and concepturalist Cartesian dualism, as well as science worship.

That said, I can give you an overview of St. Thomas’s best one. It all stems down to what knowledge is. Since we humans can have knowledge, and knowledge is universal, rather than particular, it follows that the intellectual aspect of humans must be immaterial, since matter is particular.

The ultimate rebuttle of the modern empiricalist is to deny universals, which is the age old battle between the realists and the Nominalists.

I would recommend reading Thomist and philosopher of mind Dr. Edward Feser. You can search his blog here: edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

These articles might help too:

thomism.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/mind-and-immateriality/

thomism.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/augustines-argument-for-psychic-immateriality/

thomism.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/does-our-idea-of-the-immateriality-of-a-knower-need-to-become-more-radical/

thomism.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/science-and-the-immateriality-of-the-intellect/

thomism.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/contextualizing-a-metaphor-from-feser/

thomism.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/immortality-of-mind-from-the-damage-of-the-body/

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Bahman]

Consciousness is generated by a bunch of neurons at the base of your head; when those break down that’s that.

That is not correct if you pay any attention to my definition of consciousness.

Whatever the basis for an immortal life may be, it is not consciousness, which is a brain function like any number of others.

ICXC NIKA

You are mislead unless you could provide a theory that a simple functioning of brain could even lead to experience. That is the problem which we have no solution for it yet, so called the hard problem of consciousness, hence we might be mislead unless we could provide the theory. Lets forget about the act of decision and affecting the reality.

I think I have a good theory which is consistent but you don’t pay any attention to it.

 

[JurisPrudens]

Dude! You are asking for a big order on an internet forum! I mean, the arguements that, say, St. Thomas or St. Augustine give are beautiful and persuasive, but they take a lot of contemplation in order to truely understand why they are so (which is why monks were the ones who usually did this). It is even harder to explain these arguements to modern people, who have been indoctrinated in modern philosophy, and in particular the Gnostic and concepturalist Cartesian dualism, as well as science worship.

That said, I can give you an overview of St. Thomas’s best one. It all stems down to what knowledge is. Since we humans can have knowledge, and knowledge is universal, rather than particular, it follows that the intellectual aspect of humans must be immaterial, since matter is particular.

The ultimate rebuttle of the modern empiricalist is to deny universals, which is the age old battle between the realists and the Nominalists.

I would recommend reading Thomist and philosopher of mind Dr. Edward Feser. You can search his blog here: edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

These articles might help too:

thomism.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/mind-and-immateriality/

thomism.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/augustines-argument-for-psychic-immateriality/

thomism.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/does-our-idea-of-the-immateriality-of-a-knower-need-to-become-more-radical/

thomism.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/science-and-the-immateriality-of-the-intellect/

thomism.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/contextualizing-a-metaphor-from-feser/

thomism.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/immortality-of-mind-from-the-damage-of-the-body/

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Thanks, not it is starting to make sense…:thankyou::thankyou::thankyou:

 

[JurisPrudens]

That is acceptable. However there is a problem with the immortality of the soul if you accept the traditional definition of soul which is something created by God! Immortal cannot possibly create immortal.

Why? God is omnipotent. Of course, He can undo the creation, but it is not something He would like to do.

 

[OurLadysServant]

Well, thanks, but that does not directly address the immortality of soul question.

St John Bosco saw his dead mother.
Surely that is evidence her soul is immortal.

Many of the saints saw those in Purgatory or heaven. The evidence out there is staggering.

Surely if a living person sees a deceased soul, that.is evidence that a soul is immortal?

Why go to philosophy when you have concrete evidence such as Maria Simma’s in Austria who for her whole.life saw the deceased Souls in Purgatory visiting her for prayer, read her book by Nicky Eltz. The saints have countless examples. No need to use reasoning when there is hard concrete solid proof throughout all the lives of the saints of Heaven, Purgatory, and that human Souls are there or lost.

 

[OurLadysServant]

That is acceptable. However there is a problem with the immortality of the soul if you accept the traditional definition of soul which is something created by God! Immortal cannot possibly create immortal.

God.is Eternal, which is distinct from immortal.
Human beings have a beginning, and their soul is immortal from their creation.
God is outside of time, He was always there and had no beginning, neither does He have an end. HE simply.Is. As His name is “I Am who I Am.”

An Eternal Being created our Souls as immortal, just as he created the angels as immortal. They too had a beginning when He created them.

But God alone is Eternal, All Powerful, Infinite, Omnipresent,

Human beings are finite, limited, even in Heaven we will not be infinite, but still limited, His gift of immortality is sharing some of His Divine Life with us in the sense that He wants us to enjoy Him and love Him forever.

 

[Bahman]

Why? God is omnipotent.

First, because something which is immortal is irreducible inherently so it is unknowable inherently as well with anyone including God. Moreover something which is immortal cannot possibly have a beginning and end. It cannot have a begging because it is unknowable inherently. It cannot either have an end since otherwise it cannot be immortal. It should be simply eternal.

Of course, He can undo the creation, but it is not something He would like to do.

He cannot because we are immortal.

 

[GEddie]

That is not correct if you pay any attention to my definition of consciousness.

You are mislead unless you could provide a theory that a simple functioning of brain could even lead to experience. That is the problem which we have no solution for it yet, so called the hard problem of consciousness, hence we might be mislead unless we could provide the theory. Lets forget about the act of decision and affecting the reality.

I think I have a good theory which is consistent but you don’t pay any attention to it.

I don’t know what your definition of consciousness is, I use the dictionary definition:

con·scious·ness
-nəs
noun
: the condition of being conscious : the normal state of being awake and able to understand what is happening around you
: a person’s mind and thoughts
: knowledge that is shared by a group of people

(From Merriam-Webster online).

Clearly a cerebral operation.

ICXC NIKA