Love and the Soul

“There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” –William Cowper

If one maintains, as I do, that Christianity holds the highest place in the quest for human happiness, more is required than simply a demonstration of the ultimate truths upon which it is based. As we each decide our course in life, we must be sure that a certain path is best for us before we take it. I have and will spend some time with the worldview claims of both Eastern religion and materialism, but for now we must contrast the teachings of on the soul that come from the Eastern tradition with those of the Christian tradition.
Redemption is a matter of making life work the best that it can. Because of this, all of the major religious and philosophical traditions have had a lot to say about the soul—the nonphysical center of the life of each human being. The Buddhist and Hindu view of things is, roughly, that through focusing the mind and body in particular ways one can come to a special knowledge of ultimate things, and a special vitality of soul. I for one would not dispute with this and I think that it is much better to follow the Eastern way (especially Buddhism, perhaps) than to do nothing at all for one’s own soul. I think that the Eastern tradition has many good things to teach us—some of which have been forgotten out of the Western tradition, others which are distinctive to the East. The genuine insights of the East are not incompatible with Christianity, except in so far as they are pursued instead of following Christ.
But, traditional Christian teaching maintains that the health of the soul consists in something higher. It is being united to a supernatural love coming directly from God. When a soul is fully redeemed, this energy flows throughout the body and the various dimensions of self, bringing a unity, identity, joy and power—exactly the environment that human beings were created to thrive in. This love, namely, that which we see in Christ on the cross, is eternal, because it is the eternal action of God Himself. If a human being leaves this life united to that love, he or she will enjoy a deep, infinitely satisfying existence forever and ever.
As love increases in someone who is following Christ, there are various stages through which the soul advances, and many transformations that occur along the way. The first two stages, knowledge of and faith in fundamental truths, and the establishment of virtue in the soul and body, are essential. These rescue the soul from the destructive forces of evil and reconnect it with the light and life of God. This marks the starting place of spiritual life in God’s kingdom. But there are further stages, and these could best be summarized by the word prayer, or even, mysticism. And it is Christian mysticism/spirituality which provides the substance of experience which goes far deeper than the Eastern practices.
What is most needed at the beginning, from a practical point of view, is knowledge of the truths of Christianity and the fundamental aspects of virtue. But those who progress through these soon come to the life that is much deeper. Those who have sensitive souls will no doubt catch the spiritual qualities of knowledge and virtue as he or she enters them in the first few years of following Christ. But one should not be ignorant of the deeper possibilities that come later on. This is especially essential today, where popular culture portrays the Christian life as merely human, and the Eastern way as the mode of life that reaches into the world of spiritual identity and power.