In Trinitarianism, does God have three Souls?

[rakovsky]

In his refutation of the Naassene Gnostics' beliefs, Pope Hippolytus notes writes that the Gnostics note that "soul is cause of all things made" and that they, like all the gentiles are "in doubt... whether (the soul) is at all from something pre-existent, or whether from the self-produced (one), [23] or from a widespread Chaos." Here is his passage:

In order, therefore, that finally the Great Man from above may be overpowered, "from whom," as they say, "the whole family named on earth and in the heavens has been formed, to him was given also a soul, that through the soul he might suffer; and that the enslaved image may be punished of the Great and most Glorious and Perfect Man, for even so they call him. Again, then, they ask what is the soul, and whence, and what kind in its nature, that, coming to the man and moving him, it should enslave and punish the image of the Perfect Man. They do not, however, (on this point) institute an inquiry from the Scriptures, but ask this (question) also from the mystic (rites). And they affirm that the soul is very difficult to discover, and hard to understand; for it does not remain in the same figure or the same form invariably, or in one passive condition, that either one could express it by a sign, or comprehend it substantially.

But they have these varied changes (of the soul) set down in the gospel inscribed "according to the Egyptians." They are, then, in doubt, as all the rest of men among the Gentiles, whether (the soul) is at all from something pre-existent, or whether from the self-produced (one), [23] or from a widespread Chaos. And first they fly for refuge to the mysteries of the Assyrians, perceiving the threefold division of the man; for the Assyrians first advanced the opinion that the soul has three parts, and yet (is essentially) one. For of soul, say they, is every nature desirous, and each in a different manner. For soul is cause of all things made; all things that are nourished, (the Naassene) says, and that grow, require soul. For it is not possible, he says, to obtain any nourishment or growth where soul is not present. For even stones, he affirms, are animated, for they possess what is capable of increase; but increase would not at any time take place without nourishment, for it is by accession that things which are being increased grow, but accession is the nourishment of things that are nurtured. Every nature, then, as of thins celestial and (the Naasene) says, of things celestial, and earthly, and infernal, desires a soul. And an entity of this description the Assyrians call Adonis or Endymion;24 and when it is styled Adonis, Venus, he says, loves and desires the soul when styled by such a name. But Venus is production, according to them. But whenever Proserpine or Cora becomes enamoured with Adonis, there results, he says, a certain mortal soul separated from Venus (that is, from generation). But should the Moon pass into concupiscence for Endymion, and into love of her form, the nature,25 he says, of the higher beings requires a soul likewise. But if, he says, the mother of the gods emasculate Attis,26 and herself has this (person) as an object of affection, the blessed nature, he says, of the supernal and everlasting (beings) alone recalls the male power of the soul to itself.

FOOTNOTE [23]: autogenouj. Miller has auou genouj, which Bunsen rejects in favour of the reading "self-begotten."

SOURCE: Hippolytus, Against Heresies, 5:7
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol V: Book V.

In the traditional Christian thinking, the human soul comes from God, and God is a Trinity, with each Person of the Trinity having His own Spirit. Doesn't this imply that God has three souls?

In "Anselm, the Holy Trinity, and the Relative Identity Thesis,", Christopher Conn writes about two medieval Catholic theologians:

Whereas Anselm maintains that these persons are the same substantial reality, Roscelin contends that they are numerically distinct substances, “like three angels or three souls”.

In Trinitarianism, God's three Persons have the same substance, so Anselm rejected Roscelin's idea. But do the Three Persons of the Trinity also have the same one soul, or do they have "three souls"?

St. Nicolas of Zica writes that man does not have three souls: "Even the soul of man-the image of the triune God-consists of three basic indivisible powers: emotion, intellect, and will. Yet these three do not divide the soul into three souls. The soul is one and remains one; its powers are three and remain three in unity."
This might imply that God does not have three souls.

Richard Swinburne, an Orthodox Christian and philosopher who converted from Anglicanism, "argues that there are three divine individuals. The three divine persons are three souls, three rational individuals." (Trinity - Oxford Scholarship)

A short biography of Andrei Rublev and description of his Trinity ikon online says:
"Probably at that time Rublev painted the Old Testament Trinity, the best of Russian icons. Here he managed to create the mood of spiritual harmony of three souls, the Trinity is an ideal incarnation/embodiment of the complicated theological/divine theme." (Andrei Rublev Biography - Complete | Olga's Gallery)

In contrast, William Craig Lane, on his Reasonable Faith website writes: "I just want to resist any slide into tri-theism. You have got to have one being here which is God. So we have to be very careful lest you get three souls like Cerberus – when he dies you seem to have these three canine souls."

 

[rakovsky]

Sure. In Trinitarianism, God has three Persons that compose Him. Doesn't this entail that God has three Souls, One for each Person? I have heard in Orthodoxy that God has three Spirits, one for each Person of the Trinity. It makes sense then even more that God has three Souls.

 

[Rescued One]

God created our souls. But God is not created. That's the Eastern Orthodox teaching, is it not?

Then it declares that man is created according to the image and likeness of God. If this passage is linked with another passage (which mentions that God formed the body from the dust of the ground and then breathed into him and thus the soul was created) it is clear that man was directly created by God in a positive way. This means that the soul did not previously live in an eternal and unborn world of ideas, but was created by God at that moment. It also means that the body is not the prison of the soul, but was formed by God at that moment, and man was formed in this way a unity of soul and body. That is to say, the body did not exist before the soul, and the soul did not exist before the body. Man is not simply a soul or simply a body. The soul is the soul of a human person and the body is the body of a human person, i.e., man is always bother, because he consists of both soul and body.
Orthodox Christianity Concerning the Body — St. Andrew Greek orthodox Church

Genesis 2:7
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.

 

[prodromos]

To the OP, we know that Christ has a human soul, but beyond that I don't believe we can speak of a divine soul.

 

[buzuxi02]

The divine persons do not have a soul. A soul does not exist for bodiless powers. Each soul belongs to its own material body as both elements are created as a psychosomatic unity.

 

[ArmyMatt]

to the OP, there is one soul, and that is the soul God assumed in the Incarnation.

 

[wisemenpray]

In the traditional Christian thinking, the human soul comes from God, and God is a Trinity, with each Person of the Trinity having His own Spirit.

I would like to think that within the Trinity of God, only one of them has and is a Spirit.

Doesn't this imply that God has three souls?

NO. Then God said, "Let US make man in OUR image, according to Our likeness" Genesis 1:26

"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High" Psalm 82:6

In my opinion, if we are created in the image and likeness of God, if God has three souls then are we not suppose to have three souls as well? Obviously, every man has one soul. So God having three souls is not the case. I believe whatever the Trinity is, he made us in it's likeness.

 

[hedrick]

to the OP, there is one soul, and that is the soul God assumed in the Incarnation.

Could you say more? With the Western dualistic concept of humanity, the soul is the non-material part of a person. Obviously that makes no sense for God. But I had the impression that Orthodoxy was not always so dualist. In a non-dualist anthropology, soul is the person's life. If we are in the image of God, I would expect that God would have or be a soul. Probably one soul.

 

[rakovsky]

The idea that God has three Spirits for His three Persons hadn't occurred to me until I heard it from an Orthodox priest or theologian. But it appears to show up in a few places in the NT that talk about Christ's own spirit that is in believers, and in the Shepherd of Hermas where the preincarnate Spirit that made the world took on flesh, etc.

Plus, a person is soul, spirit and body, although I am not sure if the body means a flesh body until a person gets a spirit body. So three persons in the Trinity would seem to entail three souls and three spirits as Swineburne claims.

 

[Lukaris]

I would think that since God is Spirit ( John 4:24) & most Christians confess that the Holy Spirit is the life giving Spirit in the Nicene Creed that Spirit is from where we receive our souls. As Fr Matt. has said (if I understand correctly) the Son took on a soul when He took on our humanity.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Could you say more? With the Western dualistic concept of humanity, the soul is the non-material part of a person. Obviously that makes no sense for God. But I had the impression that Orthodoxy was not always so dualist. In a non-dualist anthropology, soul is the person's life. If we are in the image of God, I would expect that God would have or be a soul. Probably one soul.

the soul is the immaterial part of man's nature, not his person, so it is also created. God is Uncreated. so if Christ is fully man, He possesses a rational created soul.

 

[hedrick]

the soul is the immaterial part of man's nature, not his person, so it is also created. God is Uncreated. so if Christ is fully man, He possesses a rational created soul.

sorry, I should have said nature rather than person. But that wasn't my question. My question is whether belief in dualism, i.e. separate material and immaterial portions of human nature, is universal in orthodoxy. This has implications beyond the current topic, since nonreductive and/or emergent physicalism seems likely from a scientific point of view.

 

[ArmyMatt]

sorry, I should have said nature rather than person. But that wasn't my question. My question is whether belief in dualism, i.e. separate material and immaterial portions of human nature, is universal in orthodoxy. This has implications beyond the current topic, since nonreductive physicalism seems likely from a scientific point of view.

yes, humans are both material and noetic. that's what makes us human.

 

[hedrick]

yes, humans are both material and noetic. that's what makes us human.

Noetic is (if my dictionary checks are right) somewhat ambiguous in this context, in that there are physicalist models of the mind in which noetic is still an appropriate description.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Noetic is (if my dictionary checks are right) somewhat ambiguous in this context, in that there are physicalist models of the mind in which noetic is still an appropriate description.

well, theologically, noetic means we exist in the realm of the angels in addition to physical matter. only man exists fully in both.

 

[buzuxi02]

. If we are in the image of God, I would expect that God would have or be a soul. Probably one soul.

This is not exactly true in the biblical sense. The soul is entwined with the blood. The soul just like the blood is the animating life force of its vessel; the body. Since God is an immaterial power without flesh and blood, it does not require a soul.


Gen 4:10 -And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground...

Lev 17:14 -
..for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.’
(Note in the Septuagint 'life' is translated as soul; psyche)
St. Ephraim the Syrian explains the soul and its body are companions. They were created for each other. The Divine Trinity is bodiless and uncreated and has no need of a soul. Souls are given to animate material life.

 

[wisemenpray]

Since God is an immaterial power without flesh and blood, it does not require a soul.

I have to disagree. Are you talking about God the Father? God the Son? or God the Holy Spirit? Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God. Jesus ascended into heaven with his body and blood intact and dwells within heaven as the Son of Man & Son of God. Therefore God is not an immaterial power without flesh and blood. In my opinion(because I have no proof) Jesus was always flesh and blood.

Genesis 3:22
And the Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever"

If Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of life, they would have been able to live forever as flesh and blood. So it is not inconceivable to think that the Son of God who has always existed, was always Body and Blood.

(again my opinion)

 

[prodromos]

I have to disagree. Are you talking about God the Father? God the Son? or God the Holy Spirit? Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God. Jesus ascended into heaven with his body and blood intact and dwells within heaven as the Son of Man & Son of God. Therefore God is not an immaterial power without flesh and blood. In my opinion(because I have no proof) Jesus was always flesh and blood.

Genesis 3:22
And the Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever"

If Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of life, they would have been able to live forever as flesh and blood. So it is not inconceivable to think that the Son of God who has always existed, was always Body and Blood.

(again my opinion)

If there is no support for your opinion, and you are at least correct in that regard, then the most likely explanation is that your opinion is wrong. Opinions are not self validating.
None of us exist as persons, let alone flesh and blood, until the moment of our conception in our mother's womb. God the Son always existed as a person, but He did not take on flesh and blood until the moment Mary conceived in her womb. This is well attested in Scripture and was never simply an opinion.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I have to disagree. Are you talking about God the Father? God the Son? or God the Holy Spirit? Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God. Jesus ascended into heaven with his body and blood intact and dwells within heaven as the Son of Man & Son of God. Therefore God is not an immaterial power without flesh and blood. In my opinion(because I have no proof) Jesus was always flesh and blood.

Genesis 3:22
And the Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever"

If Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of life, they would have been able to live forever as flesh and blood. So it is not inconceivable to think that the Son of God who has always existed, was always Body and Blood.

(again my opinion)

if this was true, John's Gospel would have said the Word was flesh, not the Word became flesh.

 

[rakovsky]

Alexi Fokin, in the same essay series on the Trinity that Swinburne writes in, quotes Augustine as saying that since the 3 Patriarchs are three individuals, they are also three Persons and souls, which logically implies that an individual is a Person and a soul. Next he says that the patriarchs were 3 men, so they have the one common substance of men:

For as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are called three individuals, so are they called three men and three souls. Why then are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, if we are also to reason about them according to genus and species and individual, not also called three Essences, as they are called three Substances or Persons?^^ But if essence is a species, as man is a species, those are three which we call substances or persons, and then they
have the same species in common, in such a way as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have in
common the species which is called man’, not as man subdivided into Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.