For people who believe in the soul, is the human soul fixed at birth, staying the same until death, or does it undergo changes like the physical body?
An irrelevant question. The living soul is not one thing or another. It is not definable as simply static or dynamic. Are you static or dynamic? What about the “parts” of you that do not change? What about the “parts” of you that do change?
I believe that the soul develops along with other parts and aspects of the organism; I don’t have any presentable evidence for this (or indeed for the existence of such a thing as a soul), but this is my personal resolution of the ‘when do we become human beings’ conundrum.
BTW, how is this thread (here) different from this one ?
Mangetout I think this is quite different, it’s talking about the soul changing through time, not how it connects to a human.
My take would be that a completely static (unchangeable) soul would cause this problem. If the Universe and Human existence within it is at least in part concerned with God’s judging of souls, then why should judgment require existence if souls are static. Since God could judge a static soul without it needing to experience existence as such a soul would not be altered by existence. Only a dynamic (changeable) soul could be altered by existence, so existence is only necessary for a dynamic soul.
The soul need not be changed according to time or causality as we know it, the soul may exist within a time like dimension of its own, or may exist outside of time, either possibility makes the concert ‘change’ differ from the concept as we know it. But either way a dynamic soul differs due to the existence of the life (lives?) to which it joins from its state had the Universe and the lives within it not existed.
Yes it seems implicit in most religions that the soul undergoes change: ie. if it goes to hell for punishment, the punishment must alter the state of the soul. (else its pretty damn pointless)
Since existence itself as we know it is always changing, then the soul if it exists changes, or it belongs to a different kind of existence which is changeless.
An important question is how the soul relates to matter for those who would justify its existence.
Here I will not distinguish between existence and material existence - if the soul exists it has some kind of material existence (although not necessarily subject to the same laws of physics as matter proper).
If you say that it exists you have to ask what kind of existence it can have. It can either a) exist and change state with external influences or b) exist in a persistent state.
Since the soul is a part of God, and it is taken that God is eternal and changeless (having initiated the laws of nature his totality is beyond their influence) it seems strange to suggest that a part of God can change while his whole remains the same.
A strange contradiction indeed…
Where eternity is considered, I believe all things, including God are in a constant state of change. We often hear how people don’t change and God don’t change, but I think they do in subtle ways. God is always Love, always caring, but must broaden those attitudes to cover new creation. I think He learns as we are learning and grows as we are growing. The soul or spirit changes also, everything is expanding and growing and learning, that is the nature of all things. Even God doesn’t know it all, because “all” has yet to be created.
Love