Not pain, but Eternity in the Soul
It was that sharp pain in the heart that struck him again. Not from exhaustion, not from sweat, but something different — something that didn’t belong to this world. It felt like a spirit had brushed against the inside of his chest, something unseen, untouchable, from a place no one ever came back from. His degree told him such things were nonsense, that man was only dust and neurons. But in this moment, when he emptied his lust on his wife, he was sitting there in the dim light, a cigarette trembling between his fingers, he felt the ache grow deeper. It wasn’t just pain anymore; it was the pull of eternity — something he hadn’t met yet, but that had already met him.
Eternity in the Soul
There is something within every human being that resists the idea of finality — that rebels against the thought that death could truly be the end. Deep within, the soul whispers of continuity, of a life that extends beyond the boundary of the grave. This quiet knowing, present across ages and civilizations, points to an ancient truth: the soul is eternal.
The Bible declares this mystery with divine clarity: “He has set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). These words reveal that eternity is not merely a concept to be reasoned but an imprint placed in the deepest part of human existence. The human spirit instinctively reaches for the infinite, yearning for permanence, justice, love, and truth — realities that cannot be satisfied within the limits of mortal life. Our longing for eternity is not delusion; it is the echo of our origin.
Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher, perceived this same truth through reason. He wrote, “The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.” Though he did not speak as a prophet, Seneca grasped that death is not destruction but transition — a gateway rather than an ending. In the Stoic understanding, the soul partakes in the divine rational order of the cosmos; therefore, it cannot perish, for divinity itself is imperishable.
The Apostle Paul affirms this assurance in his letter to the Corinthians: “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1). Here, Paul speaks not in poetic hope but in conviction. The body is a temporary dwelling; the soul, however, belongs to eternity. This awareness transforms how one lives — with courage, with hope, and with peace, even in the face of mortality.
Plato, centuries before Paul, offered a similar insight in his Phaedo: “The soul is immortal and imperishable.” He reasoned that the soul’s knowledge of eternal truths — such as goodness, beauty, and justice — could only come from an eternal source. What recognizes eternity must itself share in eternity. Thus, when the body fades, the soul returns to the realm from which it came.
Even in modern times, this intuition persists. Science can describe the processes of death, but it cannot extinguish the inner certainty that the essence of a person — the consciousness, the moral will, the love — is not annihilated. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” The distinction is profound: the body is an instrument; the soul, the musician. When the instrument breaks, the music continues in another form.
This conviction brings both comfort and responsibility. Comfort, because eternity promises reunion, meaning, and divine justice; responsibility, because an eternal soul must live in harmony with eternal values. To live as though life ends in death is to betray the truth written in one’s heart. But to live as one whose soul is immortal is to live with reverence — for God, for others, and for the sacredness of time itself.
Ultimately, eternity in the soul is not an abstract doctrine but an inward revelation. The heart knows it, the Scriptures affirm it, and the wise of every age have testified to it. Death, then, is not a wall but a doorway. And when the soul steps through, it awakens not to nothingness, but to the infinite life from which it first came — the life of God Himself.
