tktt: On the Source of the Human Soul

“Enq:  How, then, do you account for man being endowed with a Spirit and Soul? Whence these?

 
Theo:  From the Universal Soul. Certainly not bestowed by a personal God. Whence the moist element in the jelly-fish? From the Ocean which surrounds it, in which it lives and breathes and has its being, and whither it returns when dissolved.

 
Enq:  So you reject the teaching that Soul is given, or breathed into man, by God?

 
Theo:  We are obliged to. The “Soul” spoken of in ch. ii. of Genesis (v. 7) is, as therein stated, the “living Soul” or Nephesh (the vital, animal soul) with which God (we say “nature” and immutable law) endows man like every animal. Is not at all the thinking Soul or mind; least of all is it the immortal Spirit.

 
Enq:  Well, let us put it otherwise:  is it God who endows man with a human rational Soul and immortal Spirit?

 
Theo:  Again, in the way you put the question, we must object to
it. Since we believe in no personal God, how can we believe that he endows man with anything?

 
But granting, for the sake of argument, a God who takes upon himself the risk of creating a new Soul for every new-born baby, all that can be said is that such a God can hardly be regarded as himself endowed with any wisdom or prevision.

 
Certain other difficulties and the impossibility of reconciling this with the claims made for the mercy, justice, equity and omniscience of that God, are so many deadly reefs on which this theological dogma is daily and hourly broken.

 
Enq:  What do you mean? What difficulties?

 
Theo:  I am thinking of an unanswerable argument offered once in my presence by a Cingalese Buddhist priest, a famous preacher, to a Christian missionary – one in no way ignorant or unprepared for the public discussion during which it was advanced.

 
It was near Colombo, and the Missionary had challenged the priest Megattivati to give his reasons why the Christian God should not be accepted by the “heathen”. Well, the Missionary came out of that for ever memorable discussion second best, as usual.”

 
H. P. Blavatsky