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Can the Human Soul be Degraded?

Fiḍál (Grace), 13 Mulk (Dominion) 175 B.E. - Tuesday, February 19, 2019

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DAY 2284: “The soul that is within me no man can degrade.” – Frederick Douglass
Let this quote by Mr. Douglass inspire your blog entry today.

“I swear by My life! Nothing save that which profiteth them can befall My loved ones. To this testifieth the Pen of God, the Most Powerful, the All-Glorious, the Best Beloved.”

Baha'u'llah1

Can the human soul be degraded? According to the Cambridge Dictionary the definitions for degrade are (1) "to reduce the quality of something", (2) "to cause someone to seem to be worth less and lose the respect of others", and (3) "to cause people to feel that they or other people have no value and do not have the respect or good opinion of others".2 So, Mr. Douglass is right about no man being able to degrade his soul. Individuals can degrade their own souls by not showing it the respect that it deserves by believing they do not have a soul, or that their soul does not survive the death of the body.

Before becoming a Baha'i, I wondered about my soul. I wondered it the things that had befallen me as a child would condemn me to hell. After because a Baha'i, I realized that the things which had befallen my in the past, the things that are befalling me in the present, and the things that will befall me in the future, can only polish my soul's mirror and assist it to reflect spiritual attributes, the attributes of God. Therefore, my soul is not degraded because every test and difficulty I have face, am facing, or will face can only profit my soul by improving its receptivity to the light of the All Glorious Lord.

Footnotes
1  Advent of Divine Justice, page 69.
2  https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/degrade