On the Human Soul

"We are not physical beings having spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings having physical experiences."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

One of the things that is most rewarding to me about theological or metaphysic speculation: considering the impact or implications the speculation would have on the key issues in the various conventional areas of theology and associated theories.

This quote seems to be consistent with this rather "New Age" idea from a person named Elise Cantrell.
"“You did not come here to be punished. You came by your own free will. You came for the adventure. You came for learning and growth. You came to assist and to help others up-level. You came to experience contrast, which is something that does not exist on the higher levels, especially as you near the top where only bliss is found. You wanted to know for yourself how your soul would react, respond and handle polarity, density and duality. You came to experience living in a body and taking form. A physical body is necessary to live in this density. You exist only as energy as you reach the higher levels of reality.”"

Cantrill’s idea is that there are 11 levels of reality above neutral which are increasingly positive as you ascend each one. “Many of you came from the upper levels of reality to be here in 3rd density (You are currently in the third density above neutral on the positive end of the spectrum.)”

In this second version, the perspective is such that many of the key questions in theology, especially perhaps, Christian theology become meaningless, or at least radically transformed:
--Theodicy, the confounding question of, if the world was created by a perfectly good god, why then is there evil and suffering in the world? Now some plausible answers to this have been given to this conundrum, such as the "soul strengthening" idea of theologian John Hicks and others. But why would the soul need to be strengthened if the faithful are going to heaven or paradise upon death, where it seems puzzling that they would need a “stronger” soul. A sports coach doesn't usually subject his players to a grueling workout to get them in tip top shape at the end of the season.
But if we momentarily assume the perspective of Ms. Cantrell', then the suffering and pain so ubiquitous in the world becomes a FEATURE of Level 3, not a mystery to be reconciled. Such suffering and pain is precisely why some souls would choose to come here.

The underlying idea in William Wordswoth’s ode seems to also imply we have an eternal soul:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And Cometh from afar; 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home: 
Heaven lies about us in out infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
upon the growing boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,— 
He sees it in his joy: 
The youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's priest. 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended: 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day.

But here the idea seems to be that we were sent here either by, or from, “God”. There does not appear to be any hint of the idea that we souls have chosen to come here, as is stated explicitly in Cantrill’s version. Overall the poem does imply that our souls are eternal.
The poem focuses on how as a child the world is magical and wonderful, but gradually, as we age into adults, the world increasingly seems commonplace and the magic fades.