What is a soul?

[elman]

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On your best day you quote scripture out of context. Most of the time what you quote is incoherent scraps of a larger message, that you have twisted to serve your own meaning. you use bits of the bible to support your perverted desires and then cast out all that conflicts with what you have created.

You find the scripture out of context because you do not pick those scriptrues and avoid them because they do not say what you want them to say.

If you mean the bible then why not say the bible? Why not be honest? Isn't honesty apart of your version of elmanity/christianity?

You deny picking and chosing. You are the one that is not honest.

At best you are mistaken here..

This is a statment that accomnplishes nothing except allows you to avoid responding. Where is my mistake?

 

[CryptoLutheran]

Exactly what is a soul and what is its function? I understand souls are supposed to live forever, but do souls sleep when the person is asleep? Are the souls unconscious when the person is unconscious? If so, then how do you know the soul doesn’t die when the person dies?

Peace
Ken

Good question. According to Aristotle a thing's soul is its essence, so a knife has a soul, "cutting". For Plato the soul was something more ethereal and real, since in the Platonic school of thought the material world is an imitation of the real world and we are, fundamentally, souls. Arguably, in the Hebrew notion the nephesh ("soul") is the breath of life, that which fundamentally distinguishes a living thing from a dead thing.

I'm rather uncomfortable with the more Hellenistic--particularly Platonic/Neo-Platonic--notions of the soul insofar as it portrays the soul as the inner or "real" person and the body is a kind of suit or garment the soul wears. There's a certain quasi-Gnostic feel to that and I think a lot of modern Christianity purchases into this notion.

While it's true that Christianity has historically affirmed the immortality of the soul, it simultaneously stressed the resurrection of the body (and, in fact, our Creeds specifically mention the resurrection, but say nothing about the soul itself).

I have a tendency to emphasize the resurrection of the body and the innate goodness of material creation to counter balance what I believe is an over-emphasis on the "spiritual", especially the notion that the primary hope of the Christian is to live forever in a disembodied state in "Heaven" forever. Since that's never been orthodox Christian teaching, I think it's important to emphasize what is orthodox Christian teaching, that the Christian hope is that the body will rise and God will restore all things.

So what is the soul? I don't know. I don't think it's a ghost laying inside my body, I regard such a notion as at best bad theology and at worst utter heresy. I would likely argue that the soul is that which constitutes who we are as unique individuals, not as a "real me" living inside my body, but as personality, consciousness, my emotions, my cognizance, etc. Though these are not completely separate from the processes of the body; as clearly there are neuro-chemical processes in my brain which does these things. Though I might also add that there is an unseen factor, something not dependent upon the body--that is, even should I face serious brain trauma and lose all my memories and come out a completely different person I am still fundamentally me. That somewhat nearly impossible to describe me-ness is the soul, and it's not a ghost within me but me as I live and breathe as a flesh and blood human being.

What that precisely is, who can say?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Ken-1122]

Cryptoluthern says (quote)” I would likely argue that the soul is that which constitutes who we are as unique individuals, not as a "real me" living inside my body, but as personality, consciousness, my emotions, my cognizance, etc."


(reply) So would you say animals have souls? They do have personality, consciousness, and emotions; do they have souls as well?

Ken

 

[CryptoLutheran]

Cryptoluthern says (quote)” I would likely argue that the soul is that which constitutes who we are as unique individuals, not as a "real me" living inside my body, but as personality, consciousness, my emotions, my cognizance, etc."


(reply) So would you say animals have souls? They do have personality, consciousness, and emotions; do they have souls as well?

Ken

Arguably, sure. Though I would also argue that there is something fundamentally unique about the human animal, that whatever aspect or quality of human being that makes us in imagio Dei, in the image and likeness of God. Whatever it is that it might be that distinguishes us, spiritually, from our earlier hominid ancestors. What that might actually be, I don't know, but that too could possibly be said to be the human soul.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Emmy]

Dear Ken-1122. Our soul could be called our Inner Man, and the soul grows as we grow. The soul will follow our bodily wishes, or will follow God`s Still Small Voice inside us. As we grow older, and listen more to God`s voice, our souls will become more " heaven-bound", if our souls do not pay any, or hardly any, attention to God`s Voice within us, they stay more " earth-bound". The lighter a soul, the sooner it will return to God. I say this with love, Ken. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[Ken-1122]

Emmy (quote)"Our soul could be called our Inner Man, and the soul grows as we grow. The soul will follow our bodily wishes, or will follow God`s Still Small Voice inside us. As we grow older, and listen more to God`s voice, our souls will become more " heaven-bound", if our souls do not pay any, or hardly any, attention to God`s Voice within us, they stay more " earth-bound". The lighter a soul, the sooner it will return to God. I say this with love, Ken."

(reply) Would you say the soul is the same as a person's brain?

Ken

 

[Walter Kovacs]

Aquias had an interesting view of the sould, leaning towards the Aristotlean.

Thomistc Psychology