Saturday, December 22, 2007

Mormon,Mormonism Human Soul

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the human soul is quite different than the human souls that are envisioned by other Christians.
And the spirit and the body are the soul of man. (D&C 88:15)
That is, the soul is a combination of a spirit offspring of God and a physical body that acts as a tabernacle for the spirit. To understand the significance of our soul, we need to better understand spirit. Joseph Smith said spirit is matter that is more refined and more pure.
There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. (D&C 131:7)
My interpretation of this scripture leads me to believe that spirit matter is governed by different laws than the mortal laws of nature. Let us get a better understanding of spirit matter. In the Book of Mormon, there is a clear and explicit account of a man, known as "the Brother of Jared", talking with Jesus Christ, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who at that time was a spirit. From this experience, we learn that bodies of spirit matter look like bodies of flesh and bone. The brother of Jared saw the spirit body of Jesus prior to Jesus being born of Mary, and he thought the body was flesh and blood; Jesus corrected him and explained it was the body of his spirit. Then Jesus said
Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh. (Ether 3:16)
Spirits have mass that can be formed and shaped. Spirit mass can reside inside physical mass. Spirit mass is not visible to normal eyesight. Now, we have a little better idea of what Joseph Smith meant when he said spirit is matter but is more refined and pure than mortal matter. Because of this, I don't believe instruments used by scientists will detect the presence of spirit matter or spirit energy. However, I could be wrong about this.

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