Yes. A more flexible, non-destructive approach is to use an adjustment layer and set that layer’s blend mode to Soft Light instead of creating a merged pixel layer.

A blank Curves or Levels adjustment layer works well for this. Because it stays live in the layer stack, any edits you make to the layers below will still flow through and update the final result. Adjustment layers also use very little space compared with duplicating image layers.

Another option is to select your layers and convert them to a Smart Object, then duplicate the Smart Object and apply Soft Light to the duplicate. This keeps the contents editable, though it’s a different workflow than keeping all layers separate.

So if your goal is a simple Soft Light effect that remains editable, a blank Curves/Levels adjustment layer set to Soft Light is usually the easiest solution.