Q: What makes the Soul Grow?
A:
The Urantia Book information about the soul is revolutionary, and revelational. I want to go through it with you, so that we can approach the soul with the same understanding.
We learn that our soul is born very early in life – usually around five years of age. And it is born when a child makes its first moral decision.
Jesus taught:
“The soul is the self-reflective, truth-discerning, and spirit-perceiving part of man which forever elevates the human being above the level of the animal world. Self-consciousness, in and of itself, is not the soul. Moral self-consciousness is true human self-realization and constitutes the foundation of the human soul, and the soul is that part of man which represents the potential survival value of human experience. 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. A stagnant soul is a dying soul. But the soul of man is distinct from the divine spirit which dwells within the mind. The divine spirit arrives simultaneously with the first moral activity of the human mind, and that is the occasion of the birth of the soul.”
Please click HERE to learn even more about this divine spirit that Jesus mentions, the Thought Adjuster. This is vital information if you wish to understand the soul, and how it grows throughout life.
Here is more of what The Urantia Book teaches about this divine spirit – God in Man – HERE
108:6.5 “These faithful custodians of the future career unfailingly duplicate every mental creation with a spiritual counterpart; they are thus slowly and surely re-creating you as you really are (only spiritually) for resurrection on the survival worlds. And all of these exquisite spirit re-creations are being preserved in the emerging reality of your evolving and immortal soul, your morontia self.”
What makes the soul to grow or not to grow?
Soul growth is important. The soul grows in response to our decisions in life. The closer our decisions are towards God’s will, the greater the growth of the soul. Conversely, if we are sinful, or not growing towards God, our soul does not grow.Jesus said:
“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. A stagnant soul is a dying soul.”
The soul grows throughout life, becoming stronger with every decision that we make that is good, true, and beautiful. The indwelling spirit of God is our partner in life that guides us towards decisions that will aid in growing our immortal soul. And, this new reality is the vehicle that will survive at our death and that will go on to enjoy eternal life. Along with our personality and memory, the soul maintains our identity throughout our afterlife.Again, Jesus teaches:
“The human soul, when matured, ennobled, and spiritualized, approaches the heavenly status in that it comes near to being an entity intervening between the material and the spiritual, the material self and the divine spirit. The evolving soul of a human being is difficult of description and more difficult of demonstration because it is not discoverable by the methods of either material investigation or spiritual proving. Material science cannot demonstrate the existence of a soul, neither can pure spirit-testing. Notwithstanding the failure of both material science and spiritual standards to discover the existence of the human soul, every morally conscious mortal knows of the existence of his soul as a real and actual personal experience.”
These are the basics of Jesus’ teachings about the soul. You can read Jesus’ complete Discourse on the Soul HERE. The quotes of Jesus that I have added above are taken from that discourse.But there is even more to know and understand. I invite you to look at our study on the soul HERE. It has dozens of passages that will help you grasp the nature and the importance of the soul and its growth throughout life and beyond.
Thanks again for this important question. I hope my reply has been helpful. I encourage you to click on the links to The Urantia Book that I have added in this reply to learn even more about your immortal soul.
