# What is the soul?



## RamistThomist (Nov 17, 2007)

How would we define the "soul?" Is it the image of God ala Calvin? Is it the ghostly, neo-Platonic aspect of man? How would we define it?


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## Kevin (Nov 17, 2007)

I think I will go make pop-corn & then sit back and watch this thread unfold.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 17, 2007)




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## Pergamum (Nov 17, 2007)

Hmmmm...good question.


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## satz (Nov 18, 2007)

I hope this isn't a thread derailment, but I always wondered what is the difference between the soul and spirit ?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 18, 2007)

I assumed them to be synonymous since I held to a dichotomous view.


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## Southern Presbyterian (Nov 18, 2007)

Spear Dane said:


> I assumed them to be synonymous since I held to a dichotomous view.


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## cih1355 (Nov 18, 2007)

2 Corinthians 5:8 says, "We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord."

2 Corinthians 4:16 says, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day." 

Could the soul be one's identity or inner man?

Some people believe that the soul is defined as just the body and one of the ways they try to prove is by using Genesis 2:7, which says in the King James Version, "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." They would say that man is a soul, not that he has a soul. How would you respond to this?


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## k.seymore (Nov 18, 2007)

In the OT it seems to me be described as more of the breathing full-of-life body, and in the NT it appears to focus more on the inner person. Since death is described as unnatural in scripture, it seems that it is unnatural that the "soul" survives after death, so the fact that it does makes me think that it is sustained supernaturally. Which means, I guess, that I do think it is associated with our "identity or inner man." But than again I don't really know, that's just the impression I get reading scripture.


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## panta dokimazete (Nov 18, 2007)

I get the impression that the soul is the combination of our mind (our identity/self awareness) and our spirit (our essence of eternity). That is - the mind being finite, since it has a beginning and the spirit being infinite, since it proceeds directly from God.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 18, 2007)

Wilhelmus a'Brakel, _The Christian's Reasonable Service_, Vol. I, pp. 309-310:



> The other constituent element of man is the _soul_, also referred to as his _spirit_. In Hebrew it is called [] (_Nephesh_), and in Greek [] (_Pneuma_).
> 
> Both words are derivatives of "to breathe," either because it was created by a symbolic act of breathing, is the cause of nasal breathing, or due to its invisibility and mobility.
> 
> The soul is a spiritual, incorporeal, invisible, intangible, and immortal personal entity adorned with intellect and will. In union with the body it constitutes a human being and by virtue of its inherent propensity is inclined to be and remain united with the body.



This is a brief definition by a'Brakel. For further discussion of the soul's attributes, and the distinction between the souls of animals and people, etc., and more, see pp. 309-314.


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## Jim Johnston (Nov 18, 2007)

> In union with the body it constitutes a human being



since Christ always is the god-man, the human interceding for us, and since he was without body for three days (round abouts), this would seem to imply that he was not human for this time.

I'd say that the soul is a substance that grounds identity over time, has the capacity for rational thought, makes compatibilistly free decisions, and *has* properties like: a body, intellect, etc.


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## VictorBravo (Nov 18, 2007)

I go with Calvin, with a little elaboration. It seems that the soul is our essence--who we really are. In perfection, the soul is united with its body. They are one unit, I think we see them separately only because of corruption. (Romans 7:24 and the "body of death).

It's not supposed to be that way, it's a post-fall long-term anomaly.

And that's why Christ's body had to die too. Col 1:22: "In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight." Even with the body dead, he is always Christ, but putting that part of his being through death reverses the separation for his people. 

That's why we look forward to the resurrection. Our essence becomes reunited.


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## Jim Johnston (Nov 18, 2007)

anyone who thinks we are without bodies while we wait for our resurrected bodies must say that they are *in fact* separate entities. Now, it is natural, best, the intention, etc., that we be *joined* or *united* with our bodies, but that doesn't mean that they are not logically distinct.


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## Jim Johnston (Nov 18, 2007)

One of the best books on the subject, bar none:

Amazon.com: Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate: Books: John W. Cooper,Cooper. John W.


Cooper argues for holistic-dualism.

Cooper argues that any kind of monism can't make sense of (among many other things, but mainly) the intermediate state and the identity of the person with a new, resurrected body.

and here's some of the blurbs

Amazon Online Reader : Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (click on "back cover")

If you'd like a well-thought-out defense of thomistic dualism, I thought this was a good read

Amazon.com: Body & Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in Ethics: Books: James Porter Moreland,Scott B. Rae


For a variety of essays, including defenses of Christian physicalism (or, constitutionalism) see this book:

Amazon.com: Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons: Books: Kevin Corcoran


There's a few others I could recommend, but the above should suffice...

...well, let me include some robust defenses of Cartesian dualism:

Amazon.com: The Immaterial Self: A Defence of the Cartesian Dualist Conception of the Mind (International Library of Philosophy): Books: John Foster


Amazon.com: The Conscious Self: The Immaterial Center of Subjective States: Books: David H. Lund


Amazon.com: Consciousness and the Mind of God: Books: Charles Taliaferro


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## k.seymore (Nov 19, 2007)

Tom Bombadil said:


> anyone who thinks we are without bodies while we wait for our resurrected bodies must say that they are *in fact* separate entities. Now, it is natural, best, the intention, etc., that we be *joined* or *united* with our bodies, but that doesn't mean that they are not logically distinct.



Doesn't that prove to much? Wouldn't those who have lost limbs and wait to be reunited with them at the resurrection also prove that limbs are separate entities and thus force us to divide the essence of a human up into even more separate entities? Look: I can in one sense think of a human as essentially one. When do they cease to be human? I can, pardon the way I'm expressing this, chop off their finger. Still human. Chop off their legs. Human. Arms. Still a living human. Then I can destroy the rest of their body. I can say a soul (think, "a human") can not be destroyed by cutting off their body. The soul remains. The human remains. They are still human because as God was sustaining them before, he is still sustaining them. But they are not being sustained by God through what we call "natural processes." So to me it makes sense that we might say that they are being sustained through "supernatural processes." They continue to exist as a human. We just can't see that existence any more, and their existence is not being sustained by God through the processes of their natural body anymore. However, we don't have _the ability_ to see that continued existence that scripture tells us is true. We humans experience ourselves two "parts": the seen and the unseen, and this is particularly pointed out at death when we cease to see God sustaining their existence. It appears to me that we see this dichotomy because of the limits of our senses. This limit of ours + the scriptures revelation that God sustains after death means we as Christians experience human existence as a dichotomy.

At least that is what makes sense to me right now. Who knows what I'll think a year from now


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## VictorBravo (Nov 19, 2007)

Tom Bombadil said:


> anyone who thinks we are without bodies while we wait for our resurrected bodies must say that they are *in fact* separate entities. Now, it is natural, best, the intention, etc., that we be *joined* or *united* with our bodies, but that doesn't mean that they are not logically distinct.



I'll have to read up on holistic dualism, give me some time, though. I'm swamped with stuff like the Internal Revenue Code for the next few months.

But I'm not so sure about your first statement here. I acknowledge that there _appear_ to be separate entities, but I'm not sure that there are "in fact" separate entities. I'm wrestling with the idea that the body is only a "body" when the immortal soul interfaces with time/space creation. Sure, when the soul is departed from time/space creation, some bones, etc. remain, but is that really a body at that point? I think it is more of a reminder that the particular soul operated in the physical world, and that it will again upon redemption of the universe.

The soul remains whatever it is--our essence. But when it is in physical world, I think it fair to say that it always is integrated with a body. A weak analogy might be something like an object that is red, and looks red, but only if there is red light in the light spectrum illuminating it. The "redness" may be an isolatable quality (analogous to the body), but it is not separate at all.

Pressing the analogy probably way too far, I might say that a soul demands a body, is created for living in time/space, but can and does survive outside of that fallen realm, just as a red object is created to look red, but does not look red if there is no red light.


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## Jim Johnston (Nov 19, 2007)

> I can say a soul (think, "a human") can not be destroyed by cutting off their body.



According to Leibniz's law of identity, you just gave another proof for soul/body dualism. You can attribute properties to the one while not the other. Your soul cannot be cut, your body can.



> Then I can destroy the rest of their body.



You're talking like a dualist. *Their* body. As if it's something _they_ *have.*



> Doesn't that prove to much? Wouldn't those who have lost limbs and wait to be reunited with them at the resurrection also prove that limbs are separate entities and thus force us to divide the essence of a human up into even more separate entities?



The point was that the *person* or *soul* exists and lives while the body doesn't. If the body is "in the ground" and the soul is "present with the lord," then bidy and soul are not the same.

Now,

Do you mean people who are waiting during the intermediate state? I'd say you're just playing language games. Those people are waiting for their entire body, arm included.

Do you mean a guy who has lost an arm and is (rest of) bodily present when the Lord returns? Well, an Thomist would argue that the arm has its identity as a human arm in relation to the whole. In that it can fulfill its function. When it gets lopped off and is laying on the ground, it's not a human arm anymore. So, the separate human entity argument wouldn't work against an Thomistic dualist.

Or, one could argue that it may be a separate entity while it is lying on the ground in the it is spearate from the body, and you could attribute properties to it that you couldn't to the rest of the body, but it's not a different *kind* of spearate entity. 

Or, one could say that they still wait until they get their resurrected *body* (as in the noraml human body - head, arms, legs, etc) and they don't have it right now. That is, to say the arm is separate from the *body* is wrong. They only have *part* of a body.

There's much that could be said. But (much to the Scripturalists chagrin) the Bible doesn't give us a worked out position on the matter. It seems that something like substance dualism fits the data best, but the many details are missing.

Lastly, it's not that the arguments for substance dualism are just from naive people who base their thoughts on the matter from experience or sensation. If you get the books I linked to above you can see that they have (a) theological arguments for their position, (b) philosophical arguments for their position, and (c) empirical arguments too.


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## Jim Johnston (Nov 19, 2007)

victorbravo said:


> Tom Bombadil said:
> 
> 
> > anyone who thinks we are without bodies while we wait for our resurrected bodies must say that they are *in fact* separate entities. Now, it is natural, best, the intention, etc., that we be *joined* or *united* with our bodies, but that doesn't mean that they are not logically distinct.
> ...




if it makes you feel better, perhaps "not identical" is a better word.

Some forms of dualism would maintain that it is *integrated* with the body. C Stephen Evans had an article on that, but I can't find it on the web anymore (except for at Apollos ws, but you have to be a member to read it). That is is never spearate that way.

But, they key notion for the dualist is that of *logically separate.* Even if they never became disintergrated, they could still be distinct substances since properties could be true of one but not the other.

Last, you seem to imply that abstracta do not exist except if they are instantiated in concreta. I'd have to disagree seeing that "redness" is a concept in the mind of God, and it has existence apart from being instantiated in concreta. Or, I could look at a red apple, get the mental image, and "see" red in my minds eye. Light waves and the like are out of bounds here.

Your last paragraph affirmed substance dualism.


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## VictorBravo (Nov 19, 2007)

Tom Bombadil said:


> if it makes you feel better, perhaps "not identical" is a better word.



Yes, I feel much better now. 



> Some forms of dualism would maintain that it is *integrated* with the body. C Stephen Evans had an article on that, but I can't find it on the web anymore (except for at Apollos ws, but you have to be a member to read it). That is is never spearate that way.
> 
> But, they key notion for the dualist is that of *logically separate.* Even if they never became disintergrated, they could still be distinct substances since properties could be true of one but not the other.



Fair enough, I follow. I'm just not convinced that we can call both "substances" in the same sense. 



> Last, you seem to imply that abstracta do not exist except if they are instantiated in concreta. I'd have to disagree seeing that "redness" is a concept in the mind of God, and it has existence apart from being instantiated in concreta.



Not at all, my mistake for coming across this way. I'm merely acknowledging that we can't see the "redness" without red light. It is always there, created by God, and therefore it must be be a concept in the mind of God. In a weakly similar way, we (presently) do not experience the soul except as it is integrated with the body. Of course, absent our body we still will still be self-aware (judging from the limited information we have from scripture), but I think we have support for the idea that we will also feel "out of our element". A fundamental expression of our essence is missing. That's all I meant from the weak analogy that the red object will not appear red, even though it is.

But I'm afraid I've gone far enough in speculating. I dare not go futher. I'll try to read up on it as I can.


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## VictorBravo (Nov 19, 2007)

Tom Bombadil said:


> Or, I could look at a red apple, get the mental image, and "see" red in my minds eye. Light waves and the like are out of bounds here.
> 
> Your last paragraph affirmed substance dualism.



Oops, TB. It looks like I grabbed your quote but you weren't finished. When I wrote the above, I didn't see these last two sentences. I wasn't trying to selectively quote.

I don't really follow, but that is probably more a function of my unfamiliarity with your argument than anything else. I admit the analogy is weak, even very weak. I'm not trying to argue empircal observations or physics, but I do think subjective impression (lack of total information because our experience is limited to linear time) impairs our ability to really grasp what is going on.


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## shackleton (Nov 19, 2007)

I know Pentecostals believe that the body, soul, and spirit are all different. Man being made in the image of God, who exists as a Trinity, mimics this with three essences that make up man. 
They believe the soul can be saved but not the spirit and vice versa. This is the basis for the "carnal christian."


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## k.seymore (Nov 19, 2007)

Tom Bombadil said:


> > I can say a soul (think, "a human") can not be destroyed by cutting off their body.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I may have not been clear since I don't think you are understanding what I was trying to say. That is probably my fault, I'm not always the best communicator. I was trying to explain that we do perceive our existence as two parts, body and soul, but that that doesn't mean that things are essentially how we generally perceive them. For instance, the first thing I think of when someone says "light" is brightness. But brightness is not a property of light necessarily, it is an effect that light particles or waves or whatever has on our perception. The light tingles some strange thing somewhere in our eyes and our brain interprets that tingling as brightness. Or something like that. Brightness is a property of human perception. But in normal everyday life we talk about light as having the property of brightness. Scripture uses our perception of light as brightness often when it is talking about light. Or also when scripture says other things, like the sun rises. That doesn't mean that rising or brightness are essential properties of the sun or light. But that is how we perceive of them, so that is how we talk about them, and that is how scripture talks about them. This is how I explain the fact that we talk about ourselves as two basic parts, and can't seem to help it. But the two parts may be in our perception. Like when Solomon made the temple and said "God said he'd dwell here, but will he really? He is too great to even dwell in heaven," then he turns right around and says, "God look on the temple from where you dwell in heaven." Or when God tells Samuel that he repents for making Saul king and in the same chapter Samuel says to Saul God is not a man that he would repent. To their experience God appeared to be repenting. The people would have perceived God as having started something with Saul then changing his mind. God revealed what he was doing in the way we humans perceive it, Samuel know that that wasn't what was happening from God's perspective. I am sure that I will say things that to you sound "dualistic." I'm not sure I can help it. It may be that I am actually contradicting my own self, but I like to think that it is otherwise and I just can't help how the abilities and inabilities of human perception influences the way we think and talk.

So if we start with the OT we come across this way of describing the soul: 

"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." (Gen 2:7)

Here soul is synonymous with "human." The human has a breathing body. The soul has a breathing body. But then Jesus says things about people not being able to destroy the soul even though they can destroy the body. So the way I would describe this is though a soul (in this sense of the term) is a living body that is sustained by God through what we call "natural" processes, we are also told that if someone later destroys that body of natural processes, God still sustains the human through what could be described as "supernatural" processes. Processes outside of what we perceive as nature. So we perceive humans as a dichotomy. But that doesn't mean that humans are necessarily a body and soul as to their essence, but we do perceive humans in this way. And scripture uses this perception, just like how it speaks of light as brightness and the sun as rising. With this in mind–that a body that has life in it is described as a soul, and Jesus says a soul cannot be destroyed by killing the body–I said, "I can say a soul (think, "a human") can not be destroyed by cutting off their body." You responded,



Tom Bombadil said:


> "According to Leibniz's law of identity, you just gave another proof for soul/body dualism. You can attribute properties to the one while not the other. Your soul cannot be cut, your body can."



I am looking at it from the perspective that your body can be destroyed, but God can still sustain you. In this sense, a soul (a human, as I was defining the term) can literally have their body separated from their existence (and even by a literal sword) because God continues to sustain them without some of their former properties. Of course a sword can effect a person's soul in this sense. "Deliver my soul from the sword" the Psalmist writes (Psa 22:20). Or how about when David said, "I cut off the skirt of thy robe, and killed thee not... I have not sinned against thee; yet thou huntest my soul to take it" (1Sam 24:11)? When God does sustain our soul after our body dies, I don't think that is proof that it is one of our two main parts just because you can cut someone's body from their existence.

You said,



Tom Bombadil said:


> "Do you mean a guy who has lost an arm and is (rest of) bodily present when the Lord returns? Well, an Thomist would argue that the arm has its identity as a human arm in relation to the whole. In that it can fulfill its function. When it gets lopped off and is laying on the ground, it's not a human arm anymore. So, the separate human entity argument wouldn't work against an Thomistic dualist."



If what you say is true, then the fact that we continue to exist after death also doesn't prove that a human is made of of two essential parts, because the body would no longer be a human body anymore, but separate from the human [maybe you agree with this, I don't know]. The person is still a human without their body. Like you said, a severed arm is "not a human arm anymore." But I think it makes more sense as a Christian for that human/soul to say "that arm is my arm" and for that human/soul to say after death, "that body is my body." I realize that from another perspective it might make sense to say those things are no longer human. 

Here is an example of a few passages that appear to me to be in line with the say I am thinking about this. The soul is said to hunger and be filled with physical food. This might point to a similar idea as that of Genesis 2:7, where a human is a soul, and has a body:


"I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." (Luke 12:19 he apparently means "self" by soul. "I will say to myself")

"Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry" (Prov 6:30)

"The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." (Prov 27:7)

"It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion." (Is 29:8)

"For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry" (Is 32:6)

Well I'm not sure if I moved the discussion forward at all, but I hope I at least made more sense this time


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## cih1355 (Jan 28, 2008)

How is the biblical view of the soul different than what Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Descartes taught?


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## moral necessity (Jan 28, 2008)

This is off the cuff, and, it's been a while since I thought on this, but, I think the idea of an immortal soul came about, perhaps, from Greek influence upon the church. Christ speaks of the soul as being able to be destroyed, in Mt.10:28 - "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Also, this scripture points out that there is a difference between the soul and the body. The Scripture does speak of a spirit that returns to God, in Ecc.12:7 - "...and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." But, this spirit means seems to mean "breath of life", as was breathed into Adam; it is also in the animals and all living creatures, Gen.7:22 - "Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the spirit died." It seems like, from the creation of Adam, that the combining of the spirit (breath of life) and the body, a "soul" is made, or at least a living one is, for "man became a living soul". Yet, Jesus seemed to also use the word "spirit" to mean his essence or personality, when he said, "into thy hands, I commit my spirit." He didn't say "soul". But, his use of the word "spirit" here seems to perhaps mean more than just some common "breath of life" that all living creatures have. It seems to mean his self or personality.

Just some initial thougths.

Blessings!


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## Anton Bruckner (Jan 28, 2008)

the soul is the mind. separate and distinct from the body but works in concert with the body.


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