THE SOUL: What is it?
- Thread starter JIMINZ
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I understand! I enjoyed Greek but Hebrew is a whole other degree of difficulty.
Id prefer the catholic option over the protestant seminary any day
. More philosophy, less language and scripture study.
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This is being moved to General Theology. The Junk Drawer is not for theology discussions.
This is being moved to General Theology. The Junk Drawer is not for theology discussions.
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I am reading a lot of personal opinions but nothing from the Source.... Paidiske was the closest though.
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.
Your soul is not something separate from your being, it is you very life. Take away the breath of life and you cease to be a soul and revert back to the dust.
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.
Your soul is not something separate from your being, it is you very life. Take away the breath of life and you cease to be a soul and revert back to the dust.
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- Mar 27, 2018
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12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
28And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
I have heard the soul described as the seat/essence of personality.
It is intertwined with the spirit. Based on man receiving the breath of life and becoming a living soul, it appears that the soul somehow tied to the body as well, but not to the degree that it is tied to the spirit.
28And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
I have heard the soul described as the seat/essence of personality.
It is intertwined with the spirit. Based on man receiving the breath of life and becoming a living soul, it appears that the soul somehow tied to the body as well, but not to the degree that it is tied to the spirit.
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Only the born again believer is restored to a trichotomy before God.
Unsaved man is body and soul.
Born again is body, soul, and human spirit (NOT Holy Spirit.)
I understand the soul consisting of Intellect, Emotions, Senses, Memory, Conscience, Mind, and Will (although there is no such thing as free will in all God's Creation. Our "will" operates completely under control of the Will of God, His Nature, and His Ability.) Thus, "free will" in man is an illusion. God would not create sin and sinful-ness unless He could control it and finally vanquish/destroy/eradicate it at any time of His choosing.
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The soul of every person God had named in the book of life of the lamb slain from [BEFORE] the foundation (creation) of the world was blown into the nostrils (and loins) of the man called Adam. At the appointed TIME a true-born of God is born into the world this soul is actually a part of the Almighty, maybe even the divine-ness Peter wrote about is right here, and at the appointed TIME is born again into NEW life.
Adam was the only human created trichotomy, or body, soul, and human spirit.
After Adam's sin that proved his sinful-ness his human spirit died. But God restored fellowship and a new mode of communication was founded.
Jesus son of Joseph is the only human born trichotomy, that is, body, soul, and human spirit.
After the man and the woman's disobedience in the Garden ALL children are born into the world dichotomy, that is, body and soul - no human spirit. When one is born again God creates a new human spirit for the person.
For a believer all we are awaiting is a new body.
Two-thirds saved, if you will.
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Deadworm
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One of the most shocking things about a seminary education is the debunking of theological claims we heard in church all our lives. For example, despite 1 Thess 5:23, there is not biblical concept of a tripartite composition of humans: body, soul, and spirit. The Hebrew term "nephesh" is misleadingly translated as "soul," when in fact it nore vaguey means "soul, person, emotion." For example, the command to love God with all our soul just means to love God with all your emotion. The Greek term "psyche" refers to "a life" or "a mind" and thus can at times be synonymous with "nous" (= "mind" or "understanding."
Why is this important? Because to the ancient Hebrew mindset, the body and the so-called soul are inseparable aspects of a human being. This belief led to the belief that postmortem survival depends on a bodily resurrection at the end of the age becazise disembodied souls cannot survive death fully conscious. This Jewish belief has changed in the NT era with the rise of the belief that humans can expect to survive in a spiritual body after death.
"Spirit" (Hebrew: "ruah"; Greek: "pneuma"), when applied to humans, comes to closest to the modern concept of "soul." If you look up its NT Pauline examples, it designates the self in relation to God. Oddly, in Paul the term "body" sometimes means "the totality" of the person," and not just the physical body.
Modern theologians occupy themselves with issues arising from the soul question.
(1) the apparent Jewish consensus in Jesus' day that the soul preexists prior to birth (Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20; 2 Enoch 24:1-3; the Essenes (so Josophus), the early rabbis, and implicitly in John 9:1-2 and Jeremiah 1:4-5). This consensus is clearly relevant to pro-choice claim that the fetus is not a person.
(2) the issue of whether the human essence is "a ghost within a machine." This view is widely rejected by Christian philosophers because (a) mind states cannot be reducted to brain states and (b) the human mind seems to operate apart from the body/brain. Many neurologists now prefer this view. On this model the brain is more like a generator that transmits mind signals like a TV from a nonlocal source in which mind resides. Remember, Paul does claim that we (our mind essence) are already "seated with Christ in heavenly places." This mind-body problem is one of the biggest problems occupying modern philosophy, both secular and Christian.
Why is this important? Because to the ancient Hebrew mindset, the body and the so-called soul are inseparable aspects of a human being. This belief led to the belief that postmortem survival depends on a bodily resurrection at the end of the age becazise disembodied souls cannot survive death fully conscious. This Jewish belief has changed in the NT era with the rise of the belief that humans can expect to survive in a spiritual body after death.
"Spirit" (Hebrew: "ruah"; Greek: "pneuma"), when applied to humans, comes to closest to the modern concept of "soul." If you look up its NT Pauline examples, it designates the self in relation to God. Oddly, in Paul the term "body" sometimes means "the totality" of the person," and not just the physical body.
Modern theologians occupy themselves with issues arising from the soul question.
(1) the apparent Jewish consensus in Jesus' day that the soul preexists prior to birth (Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20; 2 Enoch 24:1-3; the Essenes (so Josophus), the early rabbis, and implicitly in John 9:1-2 and Jeremiah 1:4-5). This consensus is clearly relevant to pro-choice claim that the fetus is not a person.
(2) the issue of whether the human essence is "a ghost within a machine." This view is widely rejected by Christian philosophers because (a) mind states cannot be reducted to brain states and (b) the human mind seems to operate apart from the body/brain. Many neurologists now prefer this view. On this model the brain is more like a generator that transmits mind signals like a TV from a nonlocal source in which mind resides. Remember, Paul does claim that we (our mind essence) are already "seated with Christ in heavenly places." This mind-body problem is one of the biggest problems occupying modern philosophy, both secular and Christian.
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ViaCrucis
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In the Hebrew mind the nephesh was the breath which animates the body; it's what distinguishes something which is alive from something which is dead. In Genesis 2 God fashions Adam from the dirt of the earth, breathes into his nostrils and Adam becomes a living creature (לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּֽה l'nephesh chaya), a living, breathing, thing.
The Greeks had different ideas, the Platonic concept of the soul and the Aristotelian concept of the soul, for example, were quite different; but generally involves some concept of the animating principle. For Plato this animating principle had its own existence apart from the body, having originated in the pre-mortal world; for Aristotle the soul referred to the innateness of a thing, a knife which cuts is a knife because it cuts, that is it's soul; a tree is a tree because of its innate treeness.
As used in 1 Corinthians 15 to describe the present body (soma psuchekos, "soulish body") it indicates our present mortal life, the way we currently live in our present mortality and corruptibility; in contrast to the future spiritual body (soma pneumatikos) of the resurrection which is immortal and incorruptible.
I would argue that what is aimed at when talking about the soul is the fact that we aren't merely compositions of matter and bio-chemistry, we are more than merely the sum of our parts. We're alive, and more than that, as human beings our life is a kind of life which can relate to God. This is what philosophers and theologians have aimed at in talking about the rational soul; that the rational soul of man means the capacity for reason, consciousness, and conscience--and by which we might confess God.
Is this something independent from the body? Yes and no. David looks forward to reuniting with his dead child in She'ol (2 Samuel 12:23); and King Saul meets the shade of the Prophet Samuel when he wrongly and foolishly seeks out the medium of Endor (1 Samuel 28:8-14). And we have the promise that absent from the body we will be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). So in that sense, something about us survives death, at least in some sense; which is why Christianity historically believes that the soul survives death in the interim between death and resurrection, either in the Lord's presence or not. But to think of the soul as some separate thing than us, or that we are merely souls inhabiting a body is completely wrong. Bodily existence is the way things are supposed to be, death is not how it ought to be, and so when death tears us asunder this is to be understood as a deep wrong--which is why God in healing the world brings resurrection.
-CryptoLutheran
The Greeks had different ideas, the Platonic concept of the soul and the Aristotelian concept of the soul, for example, were quite different; but generally involves some concept of the animating principle. For Plato this animating principle had its own existence apart from the body, having originated in the pre-mortal world; for Aristotle the soul referred to the innateness of a thing, a knife which cuts is a knife because it cuts, that is it's soul; a tree is a tree because of its innate treeness.
As used in 1 Corinthians 15 to describe the present body (soma psuchekos, "soulish body") it indicates our present mortal life, the way we currently live in our present mortality and corruptibility; in contrast to the future spiritual body (soma pneumatikos) of the resurrection which is immortal and incorruptible.
I would argue that what is aimed at when talking about the soul is the fact that we aren't merely compositions of matter and bio-chemistry, we are more than merely the sum of our parts. We're alive, and more than that, as human beings our life is a kind of life which can relate to God. This is what philosophers and theologians have aimed at in talking about the rational soul; that the rational soul of man means the capacity for reason, consciousness, and conscience--and by which we might confess God.
Is this something independent from the body? Yes and no. David looks forward to reuniting with his dead child in She'ol (2 Samuel 12:23); and King Saul meets the shade of the Prophet Samuel when he wrongly and foolishly seeks out the medium of Endor (1 Samuel 28:8-14). And we have the promise that absent from the body we will be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). So in that sense, something about us survives death, at least in some sense; which is why Christianity historically believes that the soul survives death in the interim between death and resurrection, either in the Lord's presence or not. But to think of the soul as some separate thing than us, or that we are merely souls inhabiting a body is completely wrong. Bodily existence is the way things are supposed to be, death is not how it ought to be, and so when death tears us asunder this is to be understood as a deep wrong--which is why God in healing the world brings resurrection.
-CryptoLutheran
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It is "you" -- it is who you are... and you are it when you are born (actually before that while developing).
Matthew 10:28 is a good example of how that works.
The text says the soul survives even when the body does not -- albeit in a dormant state as 1 Thess 4 points out.
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It is not a thing that can act by itself - but it is a thing that can be dormant apart from the body according to Matthew 10:28
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gideon123
Humble Servant of God
The truth is ...
we dont know.
And any person who says ... 'it is this way' ... it is only an opinion.
We use words like soul, faith, heaven to describe spiritual things. But where is the Kingdom Of God? What place?
These things are beyond our mortal understanding. Therefore, when we speak about the soul, we are talking about our spiritual presence. But if you talk to any doctor, he/she will tell you there is no soul in their anatomy book.
Things that are spiritual require a wisdom that only comes from God.
Blessings!!
we dont know.
And any person who says ... 'it is this way' ... it is only an opinion.
We use words like soul, faith, heaven to describe spiritual things. But where is the Kingdom Of God? What place?
These things are beyond our mortal understanding. Therefore, when we speak about the soul, we are talking about our spiritual presence. But if you talk to any doctor, he/she will tell you there is no soul in their anatomy book.
Things that are spiritual require a wisdom that only comes from God.
Blessings!!
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- Apr 25, 2016
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I don't think I'd read that verse that way. I'd argue that it means that our life is not limited to this mortal span; which we know from the resurrection.
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- Mar 18, 2014
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Jesus made the distinction:
Matthew 10:28
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
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I'm not saying body and soul are the same thing; I'm saying we shouldn't see the soul as a "thing" at all. As I posted in #38, I'd argue that that verse means that our life is not limited to this mortal span; which we know from the resurrection; which is why they are not able to "kill the soul."
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