What does a soul without a body feed on?

Phar · Apr 15, 2026

I mean like God! He`s a bodyless soul just floating everywhere in nature and in you, what does he feed on for energy? And how does he conform energy from his surroundings when he doesn`t have a body, no metabolism?

Tuur · Apr 15, 2026

That question seems to assume that spiritual things are like physical things, when we don’t know that to be the case. That the soul continues after this body dies is a good indication that it cannot “starve” so to speak. If it cannot starve, then it does not need to eat.

Assuming that God must eat is to assume God is a part of creation and not the originator of it. We know from our own experience that the physical must obtain energy to live. Thus assuming that God must eat like what he created does is to say he is a part of creation. Unlike our physical bodies, I sincerely doubt that God is bound by the laws of thermodynamics which he created.

timothyu · Apr 15, 2026

God is everything and everything comes from God. He need not feed Himself. He is the energy you speak of.

Unqualified · Apr 15, 2026

Self existent One. Souls don’t eat, devils eat what the shouldn’t when inhabiting people. But souls will eat in heaven!

KevinT · Apr 16, 2026

I would argue that the “soul” of a person is their personhood. When we die, God retains a memory of us and can re-create us at any time. But there is no independent self-existing soul that has intrinsic immortality.

2PhiloVoid · Apr 16, 2026

Phar said:
I mean like God! He`s a bodyless soul just floating everywhere in nature and in you, what does he feed on for energy? And how does he conform energy from his surroundings when he doesn`t have a body, no metabolism?

Fish, Bread, Figs and Wine.

(.........yes, this is a poor attempt on my part at humor).

Ask a silly question, get a silly answer.

Hawkins · Apr 20, 2026

Physics laws and matters and energy all are results of creation. We don't need to assume that "God needs energy".

Revelation 21:23
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

timothyu · Apr 20, 2026

Hawkins said:
We don't need to assume that "God needs energy".

He is energy. We are the parasites.

Unqualified · Apr 20, 2026

timothyu said:
He is energy. We are the parasites.

Pretty low maybe. But he has lifted us up to being a little lower than the angels. More correct we are His children.

timothyu · Apr 20, 2026

Unqualified said:
More correct we are His children.

Yes, still the rebellious teenagers exploring our self-interest while under pressure from two sides to conform while the third way patiently waits for our transcendance.

JAM2b · Apr 21, 2026

This reminds me of these verses:

Psalms 50:12-13
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?

DragonFox91 · Apr 29, 2026

These are good answers. I like JAM brings chapter & verse. I like the ones he is the creator. The word I heard is 'self-sustaining.' He can sustain himself. This doesn't mean he can take care of himself. It means he doesn't need anything to care for himself. This is a fundamental teaching of who he is, by that I mean, like, if you want to learn more about who he is & even Jesus Christ, understanding he's self-sustaining is super important.

Phar · May 1, 2026

DragonFox91 said:
These are good answers. I like JAM brings chapter & verse. I like the ones he is the creator. The word I heard is 'self-sustaining.' He can sustain himself. This doesn't mean he can take care of himself. It means he doesn't need anything to care for himself. This is a fundamental teaching of who he is, by that I mean, like, if you want to learn more about who he is & even Jesus Christ, understanding he's self-sustaining is super important.

Do you think something can move around without energy like God?

Hentenza · May 1, 2026

Phar said:
Do you think something can move around without energy like God?

No. All earthly organisms and creatures require energy.

stevevw · May 4, 2026

When Christ resurrected He had a physical body when Thomas touched His wounds.

Reality is a strange phenomena. Our most direct contact with this is our conscious experience of the world. Almost as though everything is in the mind rather than really out there. We just don't know because we cannot get beyond ourselves to see.

I have always thought the soul was like the life force. What gives inanimate objects life. Instead of just being like a rock or piece of plastic. As someone mentioned its the sense of (self). A (you) that exists and this seems something beyond being reduced to the physical stuff around us.

I am sure something of ourselves exists beyond this world. I think maybe as the bible says that we see in part and only glimpse Gods realm. Its interesting that the bible says that "we will know just as we are known". That sounds like its about each and every individual.

The OP mentions that everything may come down to some sort of energy. I think this is a sort of glimpse into Gods realm. Even physics claims everything is energy. What is solid is actually 99.99% empty space. The universe is said to be 95% of nothing solid. A mysterious dark invisible matter and energy.

ViaCrucis · May 7, 2026

Phar said:
I mean like God! He`s a bodyless soul just floating everywhere in nature and in you, what does he feed on for energy? And how does he conform energy from his surroundings when he doesn`t have a body, no metabolism?

God isn't a bodyless soul, He's God. And God doesn't feed on anything. He's God, He's perfectly self-existent without need for anything.

timothyu · May 7, 2026

The material world needs food, replenishment of building materials. EVERYTHING is food for something else. All matter breaks down. It recycles. It dies. The unseen world operates on a different principle.

stevevw · May 9, 2026

I think the physical body is just one manifestation of God. John mentions the word became flesh. I think God is all the above and more. He has access to all the aspects of what we humans percieve.

Christ was all things at once from the physical to the incorruptable God. I think the physical manifestation of Christ after His resurrection was every bit physical because physical is from God. Its not a seperate aspect created by naturalism. It is of God.

So I think Christ could very well have been wanting nourishment. Just like God had made us in His image to eat from the fruits He had plante din the garden.

Christ could manifest Himself in all these aspects from eating food to nourish His physical risen body to walking through walls. I don't think Christ would pretend like that. He is all things and nothing that has been made was not made without Him.

The point of Christs resurrection was that He had actually risen physically from the dead. Wanting something to eat was part of that. Not a spirit but a real person. There were many beliefs about people coming back as spirits.

But the gospel is about actually overcoming physical death and rising again from that death in body. Thus defeating death.

truthuprootsevil · May 9, 2026

Phar said:
I mean like God! He`s a bodyless soul just floating everywhere in nature and in you, what does he feed on for energy? And how does he conform energy from his surroundings when he doesn`t have a body, no metabolism?

It's the physical body that needs to be fed whether plant or animals on this planet.

One thing man feels he has discovered how about energy is the first law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created - energy cannot be destroyed - energy can change forms........ Look at what the Bible says about God: God was not created God cannot be destroyed and God can change forms....... Is that a coincidence.......

Energy is self-sustaining ....... just as God is self-sustaining ...... Could God himself be a form of living, thinking, self-sustaining energy that man has yet to discover and understand, and odds are never will.
Scientists just created exotic new forms of matter that shouldn’t exist | ScienceDaily Scientists just created exotic new forms of matter that shouldn’t exist

Is everything made of energy / even matter / all life forms on Earth including humans, animals, plants, etc ....... So why not God the Creator who gave of his energy to create other forms of energy. They are not atoms the building blocks?

Physicists Suggest All Matter May Be Made Up of Energy 'Fragments' : ScienceAlert Physicists Suggest All Matter May Be Made Up of Energy 'Fragments'

What is an Atom? https://share.google/spmASHdE9kgVil7MN

99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space : ScienceAlert 99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space

In simple terms It can be said Atoms are self sustaining, they just change from one form to another.

mindlight · May 30, 2026

Phar said:
I mean like God! He`s a bodyless soul just floating everywhere in nature and in you, what does he feed on for energy? And how does he conform energy from his surroundings when he doesn`t have a body, no metabolism?

Cool question. In Genesis 2:7 the word nepesh is used to describe the living soul created when God breathed into dead matter to create the first human. This implied a monistic view of the soul that required both the material and immaterial to function. Aquinas refined our understanding distinguishing between the kind of souls given to plants, animals and rational agents like ourselves made in the image of God. As with most things the New Testament takes us deeper using the interchangeable terms pneuma and psyche to describe the immaterial aspect of our being. This opened up the dualistic possibility of out of body experiences, and the intermediate state in which souls are detached from bodies and yet remain conscious. The final and most perfect state envisaged for us in when we receive our new and glorious bodies at the resurrection and are made whole again.

In one sense the answer to your question is an obvious one. It is the presence of God that sustains the immaterial soul as it was his breath that gave it life in the first place and reanimated it at Pentecost in anticipation of the new creation that we personally experience through our new glorified bodies and now with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

But there are two kinds of people in the intermediate state, believers and unbelievers. Believers dwell continually with God so their sustenance is not really that mysterious but what about unbelievers. Isn't there a kind of absence in their case which makes how they survive to the judgment a little more mysterious. God sustains them without burning away their delusions, healing their wounds. IN effect their souls remain conscious in dark degraded bubbles so how is it they remain conscious at all.

That said maybe believers should not worry about those who are headed for that other place as their is an unbridgeable chasm fixed between them and us.

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