I admit that most of my adult time on earth has been spent in study, contemplation, inquiry, research, and musing about life.  The philosophy of life has three immediate questions that fascinate the rational mind, especially mine.

1.  Where did I come from?
2.  Why am I here?
3.  Where am I going?

Simple questions, but rarely deliberated with any serious meditation.  If you ask all three questions and secure three answers and do that in sequence at least seven times, you will begin to lose contact with physical reality.  Human beings have a short experience with physical reality, maybe eighty years at the most.   I’ve tried to understand physical reality, or what we call life,  but I don’t understand to my satisfaction.  In 1990 I became acquainted with two terms that has occupied my search for understanding physical reality. The term “culture wars” introduced  me to the world of ungodly Individualism.  I eventually wrote a book on the subject (which very few people have read), but it revealed my interest in physical reality.  The term “Postmodernity” became my pet peeve (actually pesky peeve) because of its ungodly influence over the academy would devolve to the next generation, the demise of intelligent communication. It fascinated me beyond intelligence, because it denies RATIONAL intelligent discourse.  So much for all the energy I put into the inquiry of my contact with physical reality.  Dr. Max Malikow’s soon to be published book, The Human Predicament:  Towards an Understanding of the Human Condition,  has a quote by David Elton Trueblood:  “It is surely not so bad to die, providing one has really lived before he dies…The tragedy is not that all die, but that so many fail to really live.”

However,  the three questions I presented,  if answered with any serious inquiry, will take you into metaphysical reality.  Metaphysical, apart from all the philosophical technicalities and their derived applications, simply refers to something beyond the physical.  For instance, the body is physical.  The soul is metaphysical.  The brain is physical, the mind is metaphysical.  Of course, many people do not believe there is a metaphysical reality. They believe in “nothing” whatever that is.   At this point in my life I’m losing interest in cultural wars and the postmodern concept.   I’ve written books for the next generation as a warning and for encouragement.

I wrote a book entitled A Westminster Catechism that  is basically a miniature systematic theology.  Let me share chapter 32, because I’m devoting more and more time musing the subject in that chapter.

Question 32.1  When the body dies, what happens to the soul?

Answer: The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption: but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them: the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Beside these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledges none.

Commentary:  Westminster asserts the biblical doctrine of life beyond the grave.  They distinguish between the body and the soul.  Every human being (person) consists of a body and soul.  The body is material and physical.  The soul is spiritual and metaphysical.  The writer of Hebrews says, “it is appointed for men to die once” (Hebrews 9:27).  This biblical reference is to the death of the body.  The book of Romans says, “through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12).  This is a reference to the spiritual death of the soul in the sense that the soul is separated from the good favor and relationship with God. 

Although the body decays and ceases to function, the soul is sustained by an “immortal subsistence.”  Some opponents to the orthodox doctrine teach “soul sleep” and others teach “annihilation” of the soul.  The soul sleep advocates maintain that the soul is in a state of insensibility from the death of the body until the final judgment and resurrection.  The annihilation theory is more heretical by teaching that the soul ceases to exist.  Both errors are condemned by the words of the Lord Jesus Christ recorded by inspiration in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 10:28).

If the Lord enables me to continue writing I plan to write a book about the soul of man.

A piece of wisdom from John Calvin’s Institutes.  “It is of course true that while men are tied to earth more than they should be they grow dull; indeed, because they have been estranged from the Father of Lights [James 1:17], they become blinded by darkness, so that they do not think they will survive death..for the body is not affected by the fear of spiritual punishment… .”(Institutes of the Christian Religion, (1.15.2).

A piece of wisdom from God.   “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)