Body, mind and soul
Clive Ashwin reflects on the gateway to spiritual grace
The fifth edition of Quaker faith & practice contains fifty-three separate references to ‘soul’, drawn from more than three hundred years of Quaker thought. Clearly, the notion of the soul has an important place in the history of Quaker beliefs. Curiously, however, the word does not appear in the index. It includes ‘gravestones’, with only four mentions in the text, and ‘tobacco’ with three; but not ‘soul’ with fifty-three. Does the traditional concept of ‘soul’ as an eternal spiritual entity with a sense of personal identity present problems for Quakers? What, if anything, can ‘soul’ mean to contemporary Quakers? Perhaps, as Patricia Williams suggests in Quakerism: A Theology for our Time, ‘The soul, it seems, must remain mysterious in order to survive as a concept’.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.