The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Pagan Philosophy’s Basic Arguments for Immortal-Soulism

The Phaedo —Peak of Plato’s Teaching on the Soul

Many able scholars believe that the earliest group of Plato’s dialogues includes the Phaedo, the Gorgias, and the Symposium; that in the second, or middle, period are found The Republic, the Phaedrus, and the Theaetetus; while in the third and last period are clustered the Timaeus, the Philebus, and the Laws—the latter recognized as Plato’s last. ¹ By dealing in depths with the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, and the Timaeus, we therefore touch on all three major periods in Plato’s views and writings. But, before beginning the survey, this general statement from a specialist should be noted. CFF1 573.1

1. IMMORTAL-SOULISM NOT ORIGINALLY HELD BY PLATO

According to Oxford’s Dr. R. H. Charles, Innate Immortality was not originally a part of Plato’s thinking. Here is Charles’s statement: CFF1 573.2

“The immortality of the soul was not originally a part of Plato’s system. We have in the Republic the various stages through which his views passed before he arrived at his maturest convictions.” ² CFF1 573.3

And with that point is to be placed the commonly recognized fact that the deathlessness of the soul, in endless happiness or misery, was not the general belief of the Greeks. Furthermore, the Phaedo is a joint declaration of the views of both Socrates and Plato, or at least of Socrates through Plato’s mind and hand. CFF1 573.4

2. DISTINCTIVE ANGLES OF THREE DIALOGUES

As noted, with but few exceptions, Plato’s writings are in the form of dialogues—often with Socrates as the principal speaker, in colloquy with certain critics or pupils. But it is generally recognized that the various speakers are really voicing Plato’s own beliefs. Each of the three great dialogues here surveyed makes its own approach, as concerns the soul—the Timaeus, in the light of the soul’s divine origin; the Phaedrus, as a principle of motion and a prior existence; and the Phaedo, unfolding the grandeur of its after existence, as well as gathering together the various reasonings and completing the arguments. CFF1 574.1

The divine and enduring soul, destined to eternal existence, is here contrasted with the mutable, perishing human body. The Phaedo far surpasses all previous attainments of pagan Greek thought—on the origin, nature, and destiny of the soul. Let us first analyze the evidence of the Phaedo, most famous of all Plato’s writings. ³ CFF1 574.2

3. “THE SOUL IS THE MAN.”

The major discussion of the nature of the soul is restricted principally to the Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Timaeus, but it is also involved in The Republic and the Laws. And it is briefly touched upon in such smaller works as Meno, Gorgias, Theaetetus, Philebus, Statesman, Sophist, Symposium, and Alcibiades i—thirteen in all. For instance, in Alcibiades i (130) there is discussion of man as “one of three things”—“soul, body, or both together forming the whole.” ⁴ The speaker rejects the concept that the combination of the first two constitutes the man, and flatly says that only “the soul is man.” ⁵ CFF1 574.3

4. SOCRATES WELCOMES DEATH AS “INITIATION” TO AFTERLIFE

The Phaedo is a dramatic account of the last conversations and concerns of Socrates, one of the noblest of pagan teachers, during his last hours on earth. The scene, an Athenian prison; the time, the summer of 399 B.C. The day is spent discussing the origin, nature, and destiny of the human soul. This indicates the importance of the theme. CFF1 575.1

The immortality of the soul is here set forth with touching background and pathetic setting. It presents Socrates and his friends in the prison, the cheerfulness of the victim, the distress of his friends, the emotion of the jailer. Socrates, the philosopher, does not fear death—which he repeatedly declares to be the “separation of soul from body” in which it is encased—because he had repressed the lusts that had beset his embodied soul. He felt himself prepared in his pagan way. And now he welcomes death as “the final step in an initiation into true being.” And this position was acknowledged to be in sharp contrast with the current belief of the masses that “the human soul is no more than the physical breath which death disperses.” ⁶ CFF1 575.2

5. DEATH DECLARED “FINAL STEP” INTO “TRUE BEING.”

Because of illness Plato was not present during this dialogue on that fateful day. Eleven were present. Phaedo (after whom he named it) gave a faithful report to Plato, then twenty-eight, who had been with Socrates for eight years. Under Plato’s hand it becomes a story unmatched in the annals of ancient literature. In this colloquy on life and death Socrates, as a philosopher, with imperturbable calm welcomes death as the final step of entrance into “true being,” holding that only after death does “the soul exist by herself, separate from the body” (67). ⁷ CFF1 575.3

But, we repeat, the Socrates of the Phaedo expresses exactly the same concepts held by Plato, as attested by all his other writings. The voice is therefore that of Socrates-Plato, speaking in unison. CFF1 576.1

6. DEATH: “SEPARATION” OF SOUL FROM “BODY.”

SOCRATES launches into his main contentions by asserting: CFF1 576.2

“I am as sure as I can be in such matters that I am going to live with gods who are very good masters. And therefore I am not so much grieved at death; I am confident that the dead have some kind of existence, and, as has been said of old, an existence that is far better for the good than for the wicked” (63) ⁸ CFF1 576.3

This concept, then, was not original with Socrates. CFF1 576.4

Declaring that he was of “good cheer,” and hoping to gain the “greatest good” in the “other world” (64), Socrates asks, “Do we believe death to be anything?” (64). Then he expressly defines death as the “separation of the soul from the body,” and asks: CFF1 576.5

“Does not death mean that the body comes to exist by itself, separated from the soul, and that the soul exists by herself, separated from the body? What is death but that?” (64) ⁹ CFF1 576.6

That is the initial premise in the Socrates-Plato reasoning. CFF1 576.7

He declares that “as long as we have this body, and an evil of that sort is mingled with our souls, we shall never fully gain what we desire.” It is asserted that we live “in slavery to the cares of the body.” ¹⁰ Only “after we are dead” can we “gain the wisdom which we desire” (66). ¹¹ And why? “For then, and not till then, will the soul exist by herself, separate from the body” (67). ¹² CFF1 576.8

Six times in the four pages of sections 64 to 67 this thought and the term “separation” of soul and body occur. CFF1 576.9

7. POPULAR VIEW: SOUL PERISHES AT DEATH

One of Socrates’ companions, Cebes, often speaking in opposition to Socrates, voices the popular Greek skepticism: CFF1 576.10

“But men are very incredulous of what you have said of the soul. They fear that she will no longer exist anywhere when she has left the body, but that she will be destroyed and perish on the very day of death. They think that the moment that she is released and leaves the body, she will be dissolved and vanish away like breath or smoke, and thenceforward cease to exist at all” (70) ¹³ CFF1 577.1

It is to be noted that destroy and perish, dissolve and vanish, are here used as denoting complete cessation of existence. CFF1 577.2

8. LIVING ARE BORN “ONLY FROM THE DEAD. “

SOCRATES Plato—for this was their joint teaching—insist that through death men are “born,” or “born again,” into the “next world.” This thought is repeated three times in the one paragraph. A variant form, “generated from the dead,” likewise appears more than once in close proximity (71, 72). ¹⁴ Here is a precise statement, based on an “ancient belief“: CFF1 577.3

“Let us consider whether or not the souls of men exist in the next world after death, thus. There is an ancient belief, which we remember, that on leaving this world they exist there, and that they return hither and are born again from the dead. But if it be true that the living are born from the dead, our souls must exist in the other world; otherwise they could not be born again. It will be a sufficient proof that this is so if we can really prove that the living are born only from the dead” (xv. 70) ¹⁵ CFF1 577.4

9. SOUL DECLARED “IMMORTAL,” “INDESTRUCTIBLE,” “INDISSOLUBLE.”

And now in Phaedo 73 the key phrase “soul immortal” first appears. This one term “immortal,” is mentioned about nineteen times in this seventy-four-page treatise. And, in addition, several variants are added—“imperishable,” “indestructible,” “unchanging,” “unchangeable,” “indissoluble,” and “divine.” There is no escaping Plato’s intent. CFF1 577.5

10. POSTULATE OF SOUL’S PRE-EXISTENCE INVOLVED

Cebes points out the logical and inevitable conclusion to this immortality argument in these words: CFF1 577.6

“If the doctrine which you are fond of stating, that our learning is only a process of recollection, be true, then I suppose we must have learned at some former time what we recollect now. And that would be impossible unless our souls had existed somewhere before they came into human form. So that is another reason for believing the soul immortal” (73). ¹⁶ CFF1 577.7

Recollection of former existences is thus an added argument that is used. CFF1 578.1

11. SOULS MUST HAVE EXISTED BEFORE BIRTH

Socrates argued that knowledge is reminiscence by the soul of former modes of existence in other bodies—“knowledge before our birth” (76). ¹⁷ The companions of Socrates logically raised the question as to whether the soul’s pre-existence is really proof of its “survival in perpetuity.” ¹⁸ Socrates insists that— CFF1 578.2

“our souls must have existed before ever we were born. But if they do not exist, then our reasoning will have been thrown away. Is it so? If these ideas exist, does it not at once follow that our souls must have existed before we were born, and if they do not exist, then neither did our souls?” (76). ¹⁹ CFF1 578.3

But these “ideas” bear, of course, on prior existence, rather than after existence. CFF1 578.4

It is to be observed that this expression, “existed before ever we were born,” appears five times in Phaedo 76-77, ²⁰ together with the expression “all life is generated from death” (77) ²¹ Simmias states that Cebes is “perfectly convinced that our souls existed before we were born” (77) ²² But he adds that he himself does “not think”— CFF1 578.5

“that you have proved that the soul will continue to exist when we are dead. The common fear which Cebes spoke of, that she may be scattered to the winds at death, and that death may be the end of her existence, still stands in the way. Assuming that the soul is generated and comes together from some other elements, and exists before she ever enters the human body, why should she not come to an end and be destroyed, after she has entered into the body, when she is released from it?” (77) ²³ CFF1 578.6

It “must also be shown,” he adds, “that our souls will continue to exist after we are dead ... if the proof is to be complete.” But Socrates insists that “that has been shown” (77). ²⁴ CFF1 578.7

Socrates chides them for being “afraid that the wind will really blow the soul away and disperse her when she leaves the body” (77). ²⁵ He declares that the soul is not “compound and composite,” and that what is “uncompounded” is not liable to “dissolution” (78). ²⁶ To him that argument was final. CFF1 579.1

12. “SOUL” INVISIBLE, UNCHANGEABLE; “BODY” VISIBLE, CHANGING

Two kinds of existence, “visible” and “invisible,” are next set forth by Socrates-Plato. The “invisible” is “unchangeable” and “unchanging,” and the “visible is always changing.” The “body” is definitively the “visible,” whereas the “soul” is the “invisible” (79). ²⁷ But “the soul employs the body,” making use of its sight, hearing, and other senses. So, the Phaedo concludes, the soul “goes away to the pure, and eternal, and immortal, and unchangeable, to which she is kin” (79). ²⁸ On the contrary, the body is “changeable.” Then comes the declaration, “The soul is like the divine, and the body is like the mortal” (80). ²⁹ The two are in complete antithesis. CFF1 579.2

And now comes the summarizing declaration: CFF1 579.3

“The soul is most like the divine, and the immortal, and the intelligible, and the uniform, and the indissoluble, and the unchangeable; while the body is most like the human, and the mortal, and the unintelligible, and the multiform, and the dissoluble, and the changeable” (80). ³⁰ CFF1 579.4

Words could not be more explicit. CFF1 579.5

13. SOULS “IMPRISONED” IN SUCCESSION OF ANIMAL BODIES

The argument is next presented that “after a man is dead, the visible part of him”—the “body,” or “corpse”—is subject, in due time, to “dissolution and decomposition.” But the pure soul, which is “invisible,” goes to Hades (the “unseen world”), “to dwell with the good and wise God” (80) ³¹ No “taint of the body” adheres, but the soul goes away to the invisible, divine, and immortal (81). ³² On the contrary, the soul that is “defiled and impure,” on its departure is “dragged back to the visible world,” and here “haunts” the “graves and tombs” (81) ³³ Socrates describes them as “imprisoned” souls: CFF1 579.6

“These are not the souls of the good, but of the evil, which are compelled to wander in such places as a punishment for the wicked lives that they have lived; and their wanderings continue until, from the desire for the corporeal [a body] that clings to them, they are again imprisoned in a body. CFF1 580.1

“And, he continued, they are imprisoned, probably, in the bodies of animals with habits similar to the habits which were theirs in their lifetime” (81). ³⁴ CFF1 580.2

This reincarnation in the bodies of animals includes “asses and suchlike animals”—if one has been gluttonous, or perchance, if one has been tyrannous, in “the bodies of wolves, and hawks, and kites.” “In short, ... each enters an animal with habits like its own” (82). ³⁵ CFF1 580.3

This thought of the soul’s being “imprisoned” in a body, and bound in her “prison house, the body,” is repeated several times. ³⁶ Reference is also made to the soul’s being “bound” and “fastened,” and the condition is called a “captivity,” from which the soul must be “released” (82; 83) ³⁷ A soul is “defiled with the body when she leaves it, and cannot be pure when she reaches the other world; and so she soon falls back into another body and takes root in it, like seed that is sown” (83). ³⁹ But the “philosopher or lover of knowledge” goes to the “race of the gods.” Philosophy “strives to release” the soul “from her captivity” (83). So death is a special boon to the thinker. These and other features constitute the Socrates-Plato Immortal-Soulism in all its baldness. CFF1 580.4

14. SOUL “WEARS OUT” SUCCESSION OF “MANY BODIES.”

The Phaedo contends that the soul passes through a succession of bodies. In fact, it is declared that “each soul wears out many bodies” (87). The soul is “wholly indestructible and immortal,” not dying when the body dies. ⁴¹ Then Socrates repeats the questions raised by Simmias and Cebes: CFF1 580.5

“Simmias, I think, has fears and misgivings that the soul, being of the nature of a harmony, may perish before the body, though she is more divine and nobler than the body. Cebes, if I am not mistaken, conceded that the soul is more enduring than the body; but he said that no one could tell whether the soul, after wearing out many bodies many times, did not herself perish on leaving her last body, and whether death be not precisely this—the destruction of the soul; for the destruction of the body is unceasing” (91). ⁴² CFF1 581.1

15. SOUL AS INSTRUMENTAL “HARMONY” ARGUMENT DISMISSED

Simmias presents the harmony counter-theory of the soul—that the soul is as beautiful music from a musical instrument, but perishes with the destruction of the “mortal” body, or “corporeal” instrument. The soul therefore is a resultant “mixture and harmony of the elements by which our body is ... held together. It may perish before the body” (86). ⁴³ Socrates argued that “our souls must necessarily have existed somewhere else, before they were imprisoned in our bodies” (92). ⁴⁴ Here is ‘Cebes’ summarizing argument: CFF1 581.2

“Our souls existed in the period before we were born, but also that there is no reason why some of them should not continue to exist in the future, and often come into being, and die again, after we are dead; for the soul is strong enough by nature to endure coming into being many times. He might grant that, without conceding that she suffers no harm in all these births, or that she is not at last wholly destroyed at one of the deaths; and he might say that no man knows when this death and dissolution of the body which brings destruction to the soul, will be, for it is impossible for any man to find out that. But if this is true, a man’s confidence about death must be an irrational confidence, unless he can prove that the soul is wholly indestructible and immortal. Otherwise everyone who is dying must fear that his soul will perish utterly this time in her separation from the body” (88). ⁴⁵ CFF1 581.3

The pre-existence and transmigration and reincorporation of souls is thus the bedrock foundation upon which the whole superstructure of the Platonic immortality of the soul is built. CFF1 581.4

This argument quashed the harmony contention with Socrates’ companions. The harmony obviously could not exist before the instrument (92). ⁴⁶ CFF1 582.1

16. SOUL’S IMMORTALITY CONNOTES INDESTRUCTIBILITY

Socrates’ (and Plato’s) closing argument is this: Since “the soul is immortal” (106), it is therefore “imperishable.” ⁴⁷ This brought the candid admission from Cebes: “Beyond all question the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will indeed exist in the other world” (107). ⁴⁸ CFF1 582.2

Then comes the admonition, but based on an “if“: CFF1 582.3

“If it be true that the soul is immortal, we have to take care of her, not merely on account of the time which we call life, but also on account of all time [futurity]. Now we can see how terrible is the danger of neglect. For if death had been a release from all things, it would have been a godsend to the wicked; for when they died they would have been released with their souls from the body and from their own wickedness. But now we have found that the soul is immortal, and so her only refuge and salvation from evil is to become as perfect and wise as possible. For she takes nothing with her to the other world but her education and culture; and these, it is said, are of the greatest service or of the greatest injury to the dead man at the very beginning of his journey thither” (107). ⁴⁹ CFF1 582.4

17. FANCIED FATE OF INCORRIGIBLY WICKED

Not only does the Phaedo assert a future life, it avows a retributive order of that life. It declares a judgment after death for all souls, according to the deeds done in the body—with a Heaven for the pure and a Hell for the vile, and a gradation of rewards and punishments. And it affirms a correspondence between sin and reality. After describing the earth and the dwelling place of the gods, Socrates touches upon Tartarus, with its never-failing, turbid underground rivers of water and fire and surging “liquid mud,” like a “lava stream,” and of earth’s great “chasms,” one of which is Tartarus (111-114). ⁵⁰ As authority he quotes Homer and other poets. ⁵¹ CFF1 582.5

Picture 1: Socrates, Compelled to Drink the Poisoned Hemlock:
Socrates, Propounding the Soul’s Immortality, Was Condemned to Death and Compelled to Drink the Poisoned Hemlock.
Page 582

Four rivers are described—Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus—all falling into Tartarus (112, 113). When the dead come, “sentence is first passed on them according as their lives.” Some are punished for their crimes, and “purified and absolved,” and rewarded according to their “deserts.” The incurably wicked are “hurled down to Tartarus” as their fate-eternal imprisonment—“whence they never come forth again.” Those that are not irremedial are likewise cast into Tartarus for a limited time. After a year, if they repent, they are cast forth, and their sufferings cease. Otherwise sentence to Tartarus is passed (113, 114). ⁵² CFF1 583.1

But the righteous “are set free and released from this world, as from a prison.” These thenceforth dwell in a “pure habitation” on the “earth’s surface.” But those who have “purified themselves with philosophy,” thenceforth, “without bodies,” proceed to indescribably fair dwellings. And Socrates adds, “Noble is the prize, and great the hope.” Socrates-Plato, it must be added, did not claim that the soul’s future would be exactly as here pictured, but rather that if the soul is immortal, something of the kind must be before it (114). ⁵³ CFF1 583.2

18. DRINKS THE HEMLOCK AND FACES “JOURNEY.”

Then comes the dramatic moment, when Socrates must drink the hemlock, and await his “journey to the other world.” He indulges in a pleasantry when he replies to Crito’s question, “How shall we bury you?” He answers, “He thinks that I am the body which he will presently see as a corpse, and he asks how he is to bury me .... Say that you are burying my body; and you may bury it as you please” (115, 116). ⁵⁴ CFF1 584.1

After bathing himself and sending away his family, Socrates calls for the cup of poison, and says, “But I suppose that I may, and must, pray to the gods that my journey hence may be prosperous” (117). ⁵⁵ Then calmly, without change of color or feature, he drains the cup. His legs become heavy, under the effects of the hemlock, and he lies down, as the coldness and stiffness of death spread over his body. His eyes and lips are closed. The end has come. CFF1 584.2