21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

mind (and therefore requiring no spiritual belief) or equally, it holds if one regards the soul as created by God and of a different substance from our minds and bodies.

Part of human flourishing is to be focused on some aims in our lives, so that our energies are not dissipated on things that will mean nothing to us. Purpose could be for home, family, friendship, work — any number of things. It is our inner, authentic self that has these goals. There can therefore be a certain seriousness about life goals. This in turn leads to people deserving to be treated with respect for the way they try to live there own truth.

From an ‘eternal’ perspective our souls ‘just are’. The idea of change is meaningless until some boundary is set within which a measure can be taken. Depending on the boundary, or the description or economy that is adopted, it could be said perhaps that the soul changes over the course of a human lifespan. Whether that change is for better or for worse again depends on how our economy is set up. If the choice is to look at how the soul accommodates the life of her host to the particular mores and customs in which she finds herself, then perhaps an improvement or a decline could be stipulated. But from an eternal perspective, the soul is perfect. So the soul can be nurtured, but there is no sense in which she can be ‘developed’ or ‘improved’! Such notions are anathema to soul!

If ‘soul’ were to be defined in some way other that the way she is normally thought of then the new definition might amount to something like ‘that which we take to be our true self’. But

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