Is the Human Soul Immortal?
The human soul is immortal. Everything that has something else in opposition is necessarily generated from its opposite (Plato). For instance, light is generated from darkness; the absence of darkness generates light. Evil too is generated from its opposite which is righteousness or holiness. The opposite has to decrease if the opposite is to increase. Socrates states that anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less (Plato).
Lest of us consider sleeping and waking up as opposites that generate each other. It is from sleep that an individual wakes and it is from the waking that the individual sleeps. If the individual has to wake up, sleep has to decrease so that waking which was once greater before sleep but has become less, increases again. In an individual, the concepts of waking and sleeping are mutually exclusive and one must necessarily beget the other. In other words, that which becomes less must have been once greater and then become less (Plato).
Plato further states that “the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more unjust.” The Devil, considered as the father of evil was filled with God’s goodness but he rebelled and the grace/goodness left him and he has remained worse yet he came from the better, God. This is true for all opposites; they are generated from their opposites (Plato).
The generation of opposites implies two intermediate processes which go on through and through from one to the other, and back again (Plato). As earlier seen, in the process of generation, there must be a greater and a less (Plato). When the greater becomes less, a process occurs and the same is true for the less when it becomes the greater. Two intermediate processes are ever going on (Plato). The fewer waxes while the greater wanes (Plato). Whether division and composition take place as does cooling and heating, these are all stages of the process.
In the same way, just as things have their opposites, life too has its opposite (Plato). The opposite of life is death. Just as the other opposites are generated from each other through intermediate processes, so are life and death (Plato). If the generation of waking involves the process of sleeping, and the generation of sleep involves the process of waking, therefore, death is generated from life, and life is generated from death (Plato). In a nutshell, any living thing is generated from the dead (Plato).
From the above arguments, by inference, it is rightly so that our souls are in the underworld (Plato). The processes involved are dying and revival. According to Socrates, dying as one of the processes involved is a visible process while revival is not a visible process but it necessarily exists (Plato). The living comes from the dead just as the dead come from the living and this implies that the souls of the dead must be in some place from which they come back through revival (Plato).
Generation does not happen in a straight line only, there must be compensation. What this means is that if things did not go into others and others back into the others through the intermediate processes, then all things would, at last, have the same form and pass into the same state, and no generation would take place (Plato). For instance, if all human beings were to die without more being born, at some point, all human beings would be dead and remain in the same state of death.
So far, it is evident that the human soul is immortal and it leaves the human body through death and comes back through the revival of the process of birth which starts at conception. Further to that proof, Socrates had earlier stated that knowledge is recollection (Plato). This affirms that the human soul is immortal. If knowledge is recollection, this necessarily implies a previous time in which we learned that which we now recollect (Plato). However, this can only happen if our souls had been in some place before existing in human form.
Other Proofs for the Immortality of the Human Soul
The soul “is the principle of life. It is the first source of life in a living being. It is the primary constituent that separates beings from non-living beings” (Brotherton). The human soul is not material or better put, the human soul does not depend on the material it is in for it to exercise its powers (Brotherton). By being immortal, it is meant that the soul continues forever to exist by its own nature (Brotherton). Brotherton offers more proof that the human soul is indeed immortal.
Metaphysical Proof
There are two instances that would render the human soul mortal. One, the soul could be inherently susceptible to corruption or decay. Secondly, the human soul could entirely depend upon the body so much so that; decomposition of the body would necessarily mean decomposition or disappearance of the soul. The former proposition is flawed because material things are they that decompose yet the human soul is not material. In addition, the human soul is not made up of several components into which it can decay (Brotherton). The human body is made up of several components like blood (which is also composed of different parts), flesh, and so on.
The latter proposition is not possible because the human soul is independent of the body. The soul is spiritual as dictated by its author and can and does therefore continue to exist with or without the body (Brotherton). Further, the author of the soul created it immortal and it would not make sense for him to destroy it.
Psychological Proof
Everything that is intellectual in nature desires to exist forever. The soul is intellectual in nature and tends to its own perfection (Brotherton). Eternal existence is perfection and the soul being perfect in creation must exist forever (Brotherton). In other words, perfect things so created cannot have an end. The universe for instance is perfectly created and has no end whatsoever. It is the only one of its kind and exists forever.
Moral Proof
Good men have to be rewarded while evil men must be punished (Brotherton). This would not be possible if human souls did not persist in existence (Brotherton). If God has to reward or punish men for their deeds, then it must be through the eternal soul and not through the mortal body. The souls of the good men will be rewarded for persevering in good deeds. Socrates intimates that “the good souls have a better portion than the evil” souls. The issue of reward or punishment is proof that the soul must necessarily be immortal.
Conclusion
The human soul is immortal bearing in mind that opposites generate opposites and that since knowledge is recollection, the souls must exist prior to being embodied.
Works Cited
Brotherton, Seth. Whether the Human Soul is Immortal. n.d. Web.
Plato. “Phaedo.” Phaedo: The Last Hours of Socrates. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. New York, 2008.