A
adambasher
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God started creation of Adam from clay and fashioned him into a human-like body in a course of time. Then at some point He blew a soul into Adam. The soul made him conscious or self-aware. But that first human was still empty in his mind. Although he had intelligence embedded in his brain, He did not have any memory or knowledge, because knowledge and memory come from experiences - through interactions with and input from the surrounding world. God then taught Adam knowledge – whatever the content of that knowledge be. Then Adam lived his life in the Garden and, later, on the earth and gathered memory through interactions and experiences with his surroundings.
Now, if we ask, who is Adam really? Is he the body made with earth? Or is he the soul that God blew onto him? Adam cannot be just the body (made with earth) because before the soul came into the body, it had no consciousness; it probably had life but not consciousness (we will have some arguments on this point later). The soul alone cannot be Adam either, because we cannot say that the soul had consciousness before it came into Adam’s body. By not having consciousness we mean that the soul cannot associate memory to itself without first being attached to a body. The soul was just a force (word) from God that made Adam’s being conscious or self-aware.
The actual self of Adam is his memory he gathered through interactions and experiences with the physical world. But the memory by itself, however, cannot feel or understands its existence unless associated with a body and soul. To make this point more clear, let us assume that Adam had lived 1000 years on earth and then died. Now God wanted to recreate Adam to his last known state right before his death. Suppose, God created another body similar to Adam’s. Then God blew his very soul into his new body. The soul will make the body conscious again but this new person – supposed to be Adam – will not realize that he is the same Adam who once lived 1000 years on this earth until God uploads the full memory he gathered on his past life into his newly created brain. He may look like Adam but he will not feel like Adam until the memory is uploaded. Each and every neuron of his brain must have the same memory state before the newly created person can realize himself as the same Adam who lived 1000 years on earth previously.
Some people may argue that the soul itself can hold or contain memory. But we can provide many proofs that are contrary to this notion –
At this point we face another question – since the soul itself does not contain any memory, is the soul of one person different from the soul of another person? To clarify the question, let us assume two persons John and Daniel have souls Soul(John) and Soul(Daniel) respectively. Their memories are Memory(John) and Memory(Daniel). After their death, if God recreates two bodies Body(John) and Body(Daniel), blow Soul(John) into Body(John) and Soul(Daniel) into Body(Daniel), but He uploads Memory(John) into Body(Daniel) and Memory(Daniel) into Body(John), what would happen? Notice that the memories are switched. The memory of John is uploaded into the body of Daniel, and memory of Daniel is uploaded into the body of John. Should John now feel like he is Daniel and vice versa? Then, is there is no difference between the soul of John and the soul of Daniel?
To answer the above question, let us first argue whether a soul has any gender distinction. There is a Tradition that says, God appoints an angel to look after the fetus in a mother’s womb. When the fetus is 4 months old, the angel asks God: what gender will this baby be, male or female? What provision will it have in its lifetime? Etc. The angel writes down all the information into the body of the baby (in its gene, perhaps). Then the angel gets a soul from God and blows it into the fetus. If the soul itself had gender, the angel would not require getting gender information and writing it down on the baby’s body. Due to the gender of the soul, the baby would automatically get the same gender. This indicates that a soul itself has no gender. So it is the characteristics of a human body, not its soul that makes it behave and grow like a male or female. Therefore, souls of males and females are alike.
Can a soul feel pain or happiness? One Tradition says that God will make the bodies of the people who will go to hellfire very large to intensify their punishment. If the soul itself, without being in a body, would feel pain, then God could just put the souls in hellfire, no body would be necessary. So it appears that the soul itself cannot feel anything unless attached to a body.
Now, back to our original question, is there any qualitative difference between the soul of John and the soul of Daniel? God said in the Qur’an that he helped Jesus with a Holy Spirit. If by ‘Holy Spirit’ God means a ‘better quality soul’, then we can say that there are different qualities of souls. But many scholars interpreted Holy Spirit as the archangel Gabriel. In that case the Holy Spirit does not refer to the soul Jesus possessed. The author, however, could not find any reason why this Holy Spirit should mean angel Gabriel. Look at the verse of the Qur’an:
2:253 Those messengers! God preferred some of them to some others. To some of them, God spoke directly, and God raised some of them in degrees of honor. God gave Jesus, the son of Mary, clear signs and supported him with Holy Spirit. If God willed, the people who received the clear verses (of God) would not have fought against each other. But they differed, some of them believed, and some of them disbelieved. If God willed, they would not have fought one another, but God does what God likes.
To us by ‘supported him with Holy Spirit’ means God gave Jesus a holy (good) soul. Due to this Holy Spirit, he had some extra ordinary qualifications, such as, performing miracles. If this argument is valid, then we can say that the qualities of the spirits (souls) differ. There is another proof in the Holy Qur’an that proves that quality of souls varies. Look at the verses about the story of Abel and Cain:
5:27 (O Muhammad) recite to them the story of two sons of Adam (Abel and Cain) in truth; when both offered a sacrifice to God, and it was accepted from one of them but was not accepted from the other. He (latter) said (to the former): “Surely I will kill you.” He (former) said: “Surely, God accepts only from the pious.
5:28 If you stretch your hand against God so that you kill me, I shall not stretch my hand against you so that I kill you, for I fear God; the Sustainer of the worlds.
5:29 Surely, I desire that you be laden with my sin and your sin, and you become inmate of the fire, and that is the reward of the wrongdoers.”
5:30 Then his evil soul prompted him killing of his brother; and he killed him and became one of the losers.
Cain’s soul is said to be an evil soul that prompted or inspired him of killing Abel. This implies that some souls are better than other souls. In other words, there are different qualities of souls.
The quality of the soul in the body of John may not be the same as the quality of the soul in the body of Daniel. This quality of the soul however is not the indications of his future actions and fate. Remember that the Tradition says that an angel writes down the fate, gender, provisions, etc. into the gene of the baby. The soul does not carry such information. The good quality of a soul may, at most, mean some spiritual strength and tendency of doing good deeds.
Let us now revisit the question of body-soul-memory of John and Daniel. We now know that if God recreates their bodies, place their souls in their corresponding bodies, but switch their memories, then the souls will not know the difference. That means, John will think he is Daniel, because he has the memory of Daniel. And Daniel will think he is John because he now has the memory of John.
Who am I?
Based on the above arguments we want to conclude that the actual I is the memory I gather through my interactions with the world. God can just save this memory, which is really a set of information, and upload into a new body-and-soul combination on the Day of Judgment to recreate me. It is not required for my earthly body to go to paradise. Any new body (and soul) uploaded with the saved memory can go to paradise. The person in paradise will feel that he is me.
Now, if we ask, who is Adam really? Is he the body made with earth? Or is he the soul that God blew onto him? Adam cannot be just the body (made with earth) because before the soul came into the body, it had no consciousness; it probably had life but not consciousness (we will have some arguments on this point later). The soul alone cannot be Adam either, because we cannot say that the soul had consciousness before it came into Adam’s body. By not having consciousness we mean that the soul cannot associate memory to itself without first being attached to a body. The soul was just a force (word) from God that made Adam’s being conscious or self-aware.
The actual self of Adam is his memory he gathered through interactions and experiences with the physical world. But the memory by itself, however, cannot feel or understands its existence unless associated with a body and soul. To make this point more clear, let us assume that Adam had lived 1000 years on earth and then died. Now God wanted to recreate Adam to his last known state right before his death. Suppose, God created another body similar to Adam’s. Then God blew his very soul into his new body. The soul will make the body conscious again but this new person – supposed to be Adam – will not realize that he is the same Adam who once lived 1000 years on this earth until God uploads the full memory he gathered on his past life into his newly created brain. He may look like Adam but he will not feel like Adam until the memory is uploaded. Each and every neuron of his brain must have the same memory state before the newly created person can realize himself as the same Adam who lived 1000 years on earth previously.
Some people may argue that the soul itself can hold or contain memory. But we can provide many proofs that are contrary to this notion –
- All Muslims know and believe that every person in the grave is asked three questions to judge his faith. It is stated in numerous Traditions that the soul is inserted back into the body before the questions are asked. Now, the question is, if the soul itself had the memory and could talk to the angels, it was not required to put back the soul into the body before the questions are asked. The angels could just ask the soul the same questions and make decisions based on its answers. So the memory is not associated with the soul. The soul is only a means to make the body active and alive. <LI style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo7; tab-stops: list .5in" class=MsoNormal>There are many verses of the Qur’an and Tradition that indicate that when the people will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment, they will be shocked and dismayed by seeing the conditions. They will feel like just waking up from a long sleep. This means that their souls, while outside of their bodies, were not able to feel or experience anything. In other words, the memory was not associated with the soul.
- In the Holy Qur’an God mentioned that He recalls our souls when we fall asleep at night and put them back into the body when we wake up in the morning. The soul, while away from the body, does not feel anything or experience anything because, if it did, we would remember it when we wake up. One should not however misunderstand this phenomenon with dreams. Dreams happen in our body – in our brain, to say more precisely. Although the soul is away while we are dreaming, the memory of dream stay with us after the soul is back. So memory can keep on accumulating while the soul is out of the body. Therefore, we do not see any association of soul and memory. By the way, we just learned that our souls go out of our body while we are asleep but still we are not dead. When we are asleep, we are perfectly alive, our hearts beat, lungs breathe – we are only unconscious or more precisely asleep. We lose consciousness because our souls go out of our body. This also proves that the soul is responsible for our consciousness.
- A man can lose a portion of memory from illness or accident permanently. If the memory is associated with the soul, he will never lose memory from bodily harm. It was his body that was hurt, not his soul. Still he loses memory. So, the memory has no association with the soul.
At this point we face another question – since the soul itself does not contain any memory, is the soul of one person different from the soul of another person? To clarify the question, let us assume two persons John and Daniel have souls Soul(John) and Soul(Daniel) respectively. Their memories are Memory(John) and Memory(Daniel). After their death, if God recreates two bodies Body(John) and Body(Daniel), blow Soul(John) into Body(John) and Soul(Daniel) into Body(Daniel), but He uploads Memory(John) into Body(Daniel) and Memory(Daniel) into Body(John), what would happen? Notice that the memories are switched. The memory of John is uploaded into the body of Daniel, and memory of Daniel is uploaded into the body of John. Should John now feel like he is Daniel and vice versa? Then, is there is no difference between the soul of John and the soul of Daniel?
To answer the above question, let us first argue whether a soul has any gender distinction. There is a Tradition that says, God appoints an angel to look after the fetus in a mother’s womb. When the fetus is 4 months old, the angel asks God: what gender will this baby be, male or female? What provision will it have in its lifetime? Etc. The angel writes down all the information into the body of the baby (in its gene, perhaps). Then the angel gets a soul from God and blows it into the fetus. If the soul itself had gender, the angel would not require getting gender information and writing it down on the baby’s body. Due to the gender of the soul, the baby would automatically get the same gender. This indicates that a soul itself has no gender. So it is the characteristics of a human body, not its soul that makes it behave and grow like a male or female. Therefore, souls of males and females are alike.
Can a soul feel pain or happiness? One Tradition says that God will make the bodies of the people who will go to hellfire very large to intensify their punishment. If the soul itself, without being in a body, would feel pain, then God could just put the souls in hellfire, no body would be necessary. So it appears that the soul itself cannot feel anything unless attached to a body.
Now, back to our original question, is there any qualitative difference between the soul of John and the soul of Daniel? God said in the Qur’an that he helped Jesus with a Holy Spirit. If by ‘Holy Spirit’ God means a ‘better quality soul’, then we can say that there are different qualities of souls. But many scholars interpreted Holy Spirit as the archangel Gabriel. In that case the Holy Spirit does not refer to the soul Jesus possessed. The author, however, could not find any reason why this Holy Spirit should mean angel Gabriel. Look at the verse of the Qur’an:
2:253 Those messengers! God preferred some of them to some others. To some of them, God spoke directly, and God raised some of them in degrees of honor. God gave Jesus, the son of Mary, clear signs and supported him with Holy Spirit. If God willed, the people who received the clear verses (of God) would not have fought against each other. But they differed, some of them believed, and some of them disbelieved. If God willed, they would not have fought one another, but God does what God likes.
To us by ‘supported him with Holy Spirit’ means God gave Jesus a holy (good) soul. Due to this Holy Spirit, he had some extra ordinary qualifications, such as, performing miracles. If this argument is valid, then we can say that the qualities of the spirits (souls) differ. There is another proof in the Holy Qur’an that proves that quality of souls varies. Look at the verses about the story of Abel and Cain:
5:27 (O Muhammad) recite to them the story of two sons of Adam (Abel and Cain) in truth; when both offered a sacrifice to God, and it was accepted from one of them but was not accepted from the other. He (latter) said (to the former): “Surely I will kill you.” He (former) said: “Surely, God accepts only from the pious.
5:28 If you stretch your hand against God so that you kill me, I shall not stretch my hand against you so that I kill you, for I fear God; the Sustainer of the worlds.
5:29 Surely, I desire that you be laden with my sin and your sin, and you become inmate of the fire, and that is the reward of the wrongdoers.”
5:30 Then his evil soul prompted him killing of his brother; and he killed him and became one of the losers.
Cain’s soul is said to be an evil soul that prompted or inspired him of killing Abel. This implies that some souls are better than other souls. In other words, there are different qualities of souls.
The quality of the soul in the body of John may not be the same as the quality of the soul in the body of Daniel. This quality of the soul however is not the indications of his future actions and fate. Remember that the Tradition says that an angel writes down the fate, gender, provisions, etc. into the gene of the baby. The soul does not carry such information. The good quality of a soul may, at most, mean some spiritual strength and tendency of doing good deeds.
Let us now revisit the question of body-soul-memory of John and Daniel. We now know that if God recreates their bodies, place their souls in their corresponding bodies, but switch their memories, then the souls will not know the difference. That means, John will think he is Daniel, because he has the memory of Daniel. And Daniel will think he is John because he now has the memory of John.
Who am I?
Based on the above arguments we want to conclude that the actual I is the memory I gather through my interactions with the world. God can just save this memory, which is really a set of information, and upload into a new body-and-soul combination on the Day of Judgment to recreate me. It is not required for my earthly body to go to paradise. Any new body (and soul) uploaded with the saved memory can go to paradise. The person in paradise will feel that he is me.