Which part of us the soul is?

Body,‌ ‌soul,‌ ‌spirit:‌ ‌1‌ ‌Thess‌ ‌5:23‌ ‌
Body,‌ ‌Soul:Mt‌ ‌10:28;‌ ‌Isa‌ ‌10:18‌ ‌
Body,‌ ‌Spirit:1‌ ‌Cor‌ ‌5:3,‌ ‌6:20;‌ ‌Eph‌ ‌4:4;‌ ‌Rom‌ ‌8:10,‌ ‌13;‌ ‌James‌ ‌2:l‌ ‌
Soul,‌ ‌Spirit:Heb‌ ‌4:12;‌ ‌1‌ ‌Cor‌ ‌15:45‌


Lev 17:11,14, blood is the life of all flesh. Oxygen(brought by the breath of life) is the component needed for the blood to live and flow throughout the body. It is blood and oxygen that make up the two main components for bodily life. These are the same things every living creature possess today, blood and breath. Without one the other is useless. Does this mean every animal today is a living soul as we are(it should be noted that animals also have conscious thought)? If they are the same can animals be granted eternal life or eternal damnation? Why or why not? Or is there something more to our nature?

Genesis 2:7

7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

1. The body was formed from dust and breath was put into it.
   
   
2. Then man became a living soul. It was not the body that became a living soul(being combined with the breath) it was man who became a living soul within the body. It is not something seen or tangible it is simply the essence of man’s being, no man has power to touch the soul(Matt 10:28)
   

1 Timothy 6:13-16 God alone hath immortality.
Strong’s concordance Greek 110 Athanasia
immortality.
From a compound of a (as a negative particle) and thanatos; deathlessness -- immortality.

Thayer’s greek lexicon
1 timothy 6:16 where God is described as ὁ μόνος ἔχων ἀθανασίαν, because he possesses it essentially

The Lord alone is truly immortal, he alone hath immortality because he was neither created(Revelation 1:8; Revelation 22:13) nor can he destroyed( 2 Chronicles 20:6 1 timothy 1:17). While the Lord was killed in the flesh it was only because he allowed it to happen(John 10:18) and it was not spiritual death, only physical.

1 Peter 3:18-19

18For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

While we humans were both created(genesis 2:7) and can be destroyed(Matt 10:28). True immortality is possessed essentially(meaning it is inherent immortality and not given) as God’s immortality is. None but God can ever claim to have always been or claim to never have been created. The immortal soul is eternal but it is both created(genesis 2:7) and can be destroyed if God wishes it to be(Matt 10:28) distinguishing it from the true immortality which God possess/is. .

The body is composed of two things that give it life, blood and breath. The body/blood returns to the dust of the earth(Genesis 3:19) and the breath returns to God(Ecclesiastes 12:7). It is the body and blood that dies without the spirit/breath of life(james 2:26). The living soul that was created(which is neither body/blood or breath) does not turn into dust neither does it go to the Lord. Instead it sleeps inside the dust of the earth(Daniel 12:2). So when the breath leaves the body it is a bodily death(first death Ecclesiastes 9:5-6,10) and not a spiritual one(second death Revelation 20:14-15).
Psuche
Thayers greek
c. the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death (distinguished from τό σῶμα, as the other part of human nature (so in Greek writings from Isocrates and Xenophon down; cf. examples in Passow, under the word, p. 2589{a} bottom; Liddell and Scott, under the word, II. 2)): Matthew 10:28, cf. 4 Macc. 13:14 (it is called ἀθάνατος, Herodotus 2, 123; Plato Phaedr., p. 245 c., 246 a., others; ἄφθαρτος, Josephus, b. j. 2, 8, 14; διαλυθῆναι τήν ψυχήν ἀπό τοῦ σώματος, Epictetus diss. 3, 10, 14); the soul freed from the body, a disembodied soul, Acts 2:27, 31 Rec.; Revelation 6:9; Revelation 20:4 (Wis. 3:1; (on the Homeric use of the word, see Ebeling, Lex. Homer, under the word, 3, and references at the end, also Proudfit in Bib. Sacr. for 1858, pp. 753-805)).

Strongs 5590
soul, life, self
From psucho; breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from pneuma, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from zoe, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew nephesh, ruwach and chay) -- heart (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us, + you.

pneuma
Thayers greek
b. a human soul that has left the body ((Babrius 122, 8)): plural (Latinmanes), Hebrews 12:23; 1 Peter 3:19.

Strongs 4151
spirit, ghost

From pneo; a current of air, i.e. Breath (blast) or a breeze; by analogy or figuratively, a spirit, i.e. (human) the rational soul, (by implication) vital principle, mental disposition, etc., or (superhuman) an angel, demon, or (divine) God, Christ's spirit, the Holy Spirit -- ghost, life, spirit(-ual, -ually), mind. Compare psuche.


Man is Body, Soul, and Spirit. He is a Soul within a Body that is powered by the Breath of life.

Maria Billingsley said:

Relation to Greek "psyche" The only Hebrew word traditionally translated "soul" (nephesh) in English language Bibles refers to a living, breathing conscious body, rather than to an immortal soul.

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This is how JW's got the idea that the "soul" is in the blood and started rejecting blood transfusions. It's all bec of a mistranslation of "nefesh."

Andrewn said:

I will ask all the SDA's here what the "spirit" is and what does it mean for the spirit to return to God.

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Original Happy Camper said:

The Hebrew word for "breath" in Genesis 2:7 is neshamah: the life-giving principle. The breath is equivalent to life itself (Isaiah 2:22). Another Hebrew word which is translated 28 times as "breath" in the King James Version is ruach, which can also mean "wind," "disposition," or "spirit." It is translated 237 times as "spirit" in the KJV. In Genesis 2:7, God's breath makes the inanimate material come to life, and transforms it into a living soul. . . . Job correlates the usage of breath and the spirit, saying, "All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils" (Job 27:3).

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This is completely unrelated to my question. I guess you didn't find an answer in the Watchtower pamphlets and just decided to write what you found.

misput said:

Just as we do not know what it was to be with God before we were born, neither do we know what it means to be with Him after we die,

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So, your reply is that the Bible doesn't provide an answer.

magiani said:

It's difficult to answer. Jesus says that if we are not born from the spirit we can't see the God's kingdom.

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He's talking about the Holy Spirit, not our human spirits.

magiani said:

When Jesus heels he gives the spirit(the women that touched to his cloth took spirit).

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I can't find reference to the spirit in this pericope.

magiani said:

Christ says that we can ask for the spirit and God will give it as we are persistent and with clean hearts. He also says that it will be given more to those that have and taken from those that do not have( I think he speeks also for the spirit).

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Again, this is about the Holy Spirit.

magiani said:

I think everyone have some amount of the spirit in order to be able to live and that the spirit is the God's energy and witness in us. This is only how I interpret it. I can be very wrong.

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Actually, I agree very much that our spirit is "God's energy and witness in us." I love it.

magiani said:

I wonder which part of us the soul is.

I believe we have many parts. Everyone has ego(or free will), child, critics and there are also other parts of us and we have our experiences during our life, we have our mind and feelings.
We have also the spirit that is given from above and can be more or less(I believe its pure energy) but the soul is something else. I wonder what is the soul? Does anyone has some insight on this?

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There really is no clear, unambiguous definition of the soul in Scripture; but perhaps broadly speaking in Christianity the soul can be described as that "part" of us that animates, gives reason, and is the seat of the will and emotions.

Historically many Christians followed the Aristotelian idea that there are different "kinds" of souls; so for example plants have a soul, animals have a soul, but the vegetative soul and the animal soul aren't the same kind of soul human beings have. Humans have a "rational soul". Both plants and animals are alive, and have a life unique to them.

What makes the human soul special is that it is a "rational soul", we aren't just animals following instinct, but are animals endowed with reason, with intellect, having been given moral agency. As creatures made to bear the Divine Image we have been endowed so as to have a relationship with God, endowed with moral agency--and thus culpability. The lion does not sin when it kills another lion, though sin and death are the reason why such violence happens in the natural order--but the lion is not held morally culpable, the lion does not face judgment for this act. On the contrary, when a man kills another man, it is a murder, for man hears the command "Do not murder" and does so anyway. And as such man is held liable, held culpable, for the act.

So the soul can be said, in one sense, to be the animating principle; that something-or-other which marks the distinction between a living creature and a lifeless corpse. It is the breath of life, as we see in Genesis where God takes a lump of dirt, shapes it, and then breathes into it and it goes from being lifeless dirt to a living, breathing creature (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּֽה - nephesh chayah). When St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 speaks of the present body being a soma psuchekos ("soulish body") the idea is that our present life is marked as "soulish", a life governed by the animal breath; which is contrasted with in the resurrection where the body having been raised and glorified is described as a soma pneumatikos, a "spiritual body". That is, the body transformed, transfigured, and quickened by the power of the Spirit (compare Romans 8:11, "If the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells also in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also.")

And in another sense the soul can be described as the thinking-rational-moral dimension of our life; as rational creatures, as thinking animals, as creatures endowed with moral agency, and thus moral culpability. As already described earlier.

It's not a "part" of us in the sense that one could strip away us bit by bit and one would then find a "soul" hiding somewhere underneath. But rather it speaks to our living-breathing-rational existence as human beings, created to relate with God, and to bear God's image into the world.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

in Christianity the soul can be described as that "part" of us that animates, gives reason, and is the seat of the will and emotions.

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I've been taught this since I was a teenager but who invented this Christian definition of the soul?

Andrewn said:

I've been taught this since I was a teenager but who invented this Christian definition of the soul?

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I don't know if anyone invented it, so much as its a general view that has been generally accepted, at least in the West. Much of it as a theological interaction with philosophy--chiefly Plato and Aristotle. Obviously never taking a wholesale adoption of Greek philosophy, as that would lead to obvious heresy (especially with the Platonic idea of the soul). The view goes back to the ancient fathers, such as St. Augustine.

Augustine uses, but ultimately disagrees with, Platonism; where the [Neo-]Platonists believed the soul of a man must ultimately be free of the body, Augustine rejects this, instead arguing that man consists of both body and soul; and that the soul without the body is not whole; even as the body without the soul is not whole. Augustine sees in the soul the upward drive toward God, which contrary to the lusts of the flesh and the vices, is moved by love--love of God and love toward our fellow man. It is the soul which seeks the Summum Bonum, the Highest Good--God Himself. It is with the soul that the Divine Image operates. The needs of the body are food, water, shelter, medicine; the soul needs the nourishment of life with God, and discipline to harness and control the bodily appetites. Thus by seeking God the soul finds its fullness, and in turn, by discipline, reins in the body, choosing virtue over vice. (c.f. St. Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic Church, 6, 52)

Note I'm not advocating for a purely Augustinian view, I'm merely presenting what I see in Augustine's thoughts on the matter and their influence on historic Christian language (or, at least, as found in the West).

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

Augustine sees in the soul the upward drive toward God, which contrary to the lusts of the flesh and the vices, is moved by love--love of God and love toward our fellow man. It is the soul which seeks the Summum Bonum, the Highest Good--God Himself. It is with the soul that the Divine Image operates. The needs of the body are food, water, shelter, medicine; the soul needs the nourishment of life with God, and discipline to harness and control the bodily appetites. Thus by seeking God the soul finds its fullness, and in turn, by discipline, reins in the body, choosing virtue over vice.

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The "upward drive toward God" is usually attributed to the spirit rather than the soul. Unless, of course, if one considers the spirit a part of the soul (or the soul a part of the spirit, I'm not sure which expression makes more sense). Apparently, Augustine was a dichotomist. This is not surprising considering Calvin was a dichotomist.

Andrewn said:

The "upward drive toward God" is usually attributed to the spirit rather than the soul. Unless, of course, if one considers the spirit a part of the soul (or the soul a part of the spirit, I'm not sure which expression makes more sense). Apparently, Augustine was a dichotomist. This is not surprising considering Calvin was a dichotomist.

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I'm not aware of the spirit being thought of as something truly distinct from the soul as anything other than modern. As far as I know, trichotomism is a modern idea. Dichotomism, or something like it, has been the standard view, both East and West, going back at least to the patristic era.

Man, as a psychosomatic unity, that is a unity of body and soul; is, I think, the view that best fits with the biblical and historic Christian perspective. Man is not a ghost in the shell, but neither is man merely matter.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

I'm not aware of the spirit being thought of as something truly distinct from the soul as anything other than modern. As far as I know, trichotomism is a modern idea. Dichotomism, or something like it, has been the standard view, both East and West, going back at least to the patristic era.

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The following article includes a useful table of supporters of trichotomy. They include almost all Eastern saints as well as Martin Luther. Notably absent from the list are Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, who are the most influential Roman Catholic theologians.

Tripartite (theology) - Wikipedia

It seems that trichotomy has been, mostly, supported in the East.

Andrewn said:

So, your reply is that the Bible doesn't provide an answer.

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The part of my post you left off is the best answer we will get in this life. It has to do with the "dark glass" and you can read the description in Revelation for a little more insight.

Aussie Pete said:

To be born again is to receive a new, live spirit where Lord Jesus can live. God's intent is that we are governed by our spirit (which is conscience, communion and intuition). Our spirit man receives communication from the Lord Jesus. If we are consecrated fully, we choose to live according to the prompting in our spirit man. This requires the cooperation of the will.

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I've been reading Watchman Nee's "Salvation of the Soul." He distinguishes salvation of the soul and salvation of the spirit. This distinction is new to me. It seems like taking taking trichotomy way too far. What do you think of this?

Andrewn said:

I've been reading Watchman Nee's "Salvation of the Soul." He distinguishes salvation of the soul and salvation of the spirit. This distinction is new to me. It seems like taking taking trichotomy way too far. What do you think of this?

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Not at all. I believe that Mr Nee had insight into the soul/spirit divide that very few have had, before or since. I've read quite a lot of his books. He warns against making it all too technical. That is a real danger. Having said that, I've found it enormously helpful, especially in the realm of discernment. Most modern Christianity appeals to the intellect, the emotion or willpower. That's the realm of the soul. And that explains precisely why modern (Western) Christianity is such a disaster.

magiani said:

I wonder which part of us the soul is.

I believe we have many parts. Everyone has ego(or free will), child, critics and there are also other parts of us and we have our experiences during our life, we have our mind and feelings.
We have also the spirit that is given from above and can be more or less(I believe its pure energy) but the soul is something else. I wonder what is the soul? Does anyone has some insight on this?

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There are two things; there is the dictionary meaning or most common usage, and there is the Bible were translators render "soul" incorrectly; the dictionary calls soul, the immaterial part of man, where as the Bible uses soul to represent the material part of man; man made from a hand full of dust, is a dead soul until God breathes breath into him, where man becomes a living soul.


Genesis 2:7 (NKJV)
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Hebrews 4:12 (NKJV)
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Revelation 16:3 (NKJV)
3 Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.

sparow said:

There are two things; there is the dictionary meaning or most common usage, and there is the Bible were translators render "soul" incorrectly; the dictionary calls soul, the immaterial part of man, where as the Bible uses soul to represent the material part of man; man made from a hand full of dust, is a dead soul until God breathes breath into him, where man becomes a living soul.

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Exactly, this is what I said in post #4. But sometimes the NT uses the word "psyche" for the immaterial "soul."

Andrewn said:

Exactly, this is what I said in post #4. But sometimes the NT uses the word "psyche" for the immaterial "soul."

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The Bible among many other things is a psychology manual. Once psychologists used 12 personality types based on Jacob's profiling of his 12 sons. Today most psychologists deny the existence of psyches or spirits and to distance themselves from the Bible they have 16 personality types.

Nee' s distinction between SOULISH and SOULICAL kind of goes over my head, and I guess these are words translated from Chinese anyhow.

He has great insight, true, but how much gets through to me, I dunno.

PSUCHE is the Greek word for soul.

Where "mind, will and emotion" got designated as its parts, I dunno either.

Tra Phull said:

Nee' s distinction between SOULISH and SOULICAL kind of goes over my head, and I guess these are words translated from Chinese anyhow.

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In Nee's work, a soulical man is a non-Christian, an unregenerated man. A soulish man may be a Christian but is unspiritual so overrun by his soul, but saved. I'm unaware of any corresponding difference in the Greek NT. In fact, on page 91 volume 2 of The Spiritual Man Nee uses the word "soulical" for "psychikos" in 1 Cor. 2:14. On page 53 of volume 1, Nee cites the very same verse with the word "soulish." Nee, also makes a big case of the distinction between "psychikos" and "sarkikos" when there is no such distinction in the NT.

Tra Phull said:

He has great insight, true, but how much gets through to me, I dunno.

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His major contribution is explaining the spirit and its 3 functions. This is wonderful and essential for every Christian to understand.

Tra Phull said:

PSUCHE is the Greek word for soul. Where "mind, will and emotion" got designated as its parts, I dunno either.

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I'd rather say that the mind has 4 functions as explained in post #13. I prefer not to use the word "soul" as much as possible bec of the different meanings of "psyche" in the Bible. Basically, I use the word "mind" where Nee writes "soul" and I add a 4th cognitive process where Nee mentions only 3.