Nature or Nurture

Nature or Nurture?

Nature or nurture? This question has haunted humanity for millennia. Is it our environment that determines our humanness, our uniqueness, our personalities? Or are we born with something that makes us human beings, with unique personalities, virtues, and talents? What makes us human?

What makes us human is our souls, our spiritual essences. Our souls become part of our being, while we are still in our mothers' wombs, at sometime between conception and birth. We do not know, and probably will never know, the moment the soul is joined with the physical body. This is a mystery the All-Knowing Creator has kept from us for reason only the Creator understands.

Once the soul joins the body, the human being becomes a dual-natured creature. A dual-natured create with a body that is part of material creation and a soul that is a gift from God. It is the duality of our human nature that causes us to contemplate the question "Nature or Nurture?" We intuitively wonder how these two parts of our being work together to create a unique individual human being.

Once the soul becomes part of the individual, it must be nurtured or educated to achieve its full potential in both the spiritual world and the material world. The body's education is learning how to acquire food, shelter, clothing, and anything else that will help it thrive and procreate. The soul's education concerns acquiring spiritual virtues such as faith, hope, love, mercy, and anything else that will help it thrive in the spiritual world once the body dies and decomposes into its subatomic elements.

It is education, both material and spiritual, that helps human beings thrive. Without education that enhances both aspects of the human being, the individual will focus solely on material needs and ignore the needs of its soul. It is the soul that survives the death of the body and ascends into the spiritual world. If the soul's needs are ignored, the soul will not be able to thrive in the spiritual world, which is the true home of the human soul.

So what is the answer to the question "Nature or Nurture?" As dual-natured creatures living in a material or physical world, we need to make sure both aspects of our being is nurtured through education that helps both thrive. Once both parts of our nature thrive, when the moment our bodies, die our souls will ascend into the spiritual world clothed in the virtues they acquired while they were joined to the physical body.

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