What is a soul?

Skrill · Post by **Skrill** » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:54 pm

It is fact that the Physical Brain controls memories, personality. Thousands of other actions are all controlled by our nervous system, which is managed by our brains.

Therefore, what consensus is there for any evidence for a soul(s)? As the existence of the soul is very central to any belief or religion.

(my first post

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hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 7:04 pm

[Replying to post 97 by Talishi]

OK, but how do you know your arguments aren't just some psychological mechanism kicking in on your part?

marco · Post by **marco** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 7:14 pm

JehovahsWitness wrote:

So the words in the text don't "make much difference"? Evidently because you seem to not see the difference between the verb "to become" and "to possess" (Gen 2:7). Am I to presume you won't be drawing our attention to any more of these pesky words that "don't make much difference" (such as "ghost" or "spirit" or "flesh") in the future then?

Dear JW,

I offered you a piece of Scripture, the words of Christ, that confound your theory.

You have failed to give any reply, but instead suggest I should study the meanings of a few simple words. My entire belief system does not rest on the erroneous interpretation of a few words but yours does.

And I suspect that you know this too. That will close this discussion, since I have waited long enough for a polite response. Have a good evening.

hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 7:18 pm

[Replying to post 96 by JehovahsWitness]

What we translate as "soul' and "spirit" are essentially equivalent terms in Scripture, each having a number of meanings. Sometimes soul means the whole person, sometimes the psyche. Spirit and psyche also have largely equivalent meanings. The spirit can denote emotional conditions of a person, as in Num. 14:24. In the NT, "spirit" sometimes refers to the higher aspirations of the soul.

I realize the WatchTower Society insists that soul and spirit are very different, with spirit denoting an impersonal, mechanical kind of energy. But that is not al all what Scripture has in mind. God's Spirit, for example, is God's love, not something cold and impersonal.

onewithhim · Post by **onewithhim** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:39 pm

dio9 wrote: [Replying to post 61 by JehovahsWitness]

person creature being, pretty vague would you agree?

No, not at all. What IS vague is the idea of some ethereal conscious being, departing from a person at death. Genesis 2:7 couldn't be clearer. "Then the LORD God [YHWH] formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man BECAME a living being ['soul,' KJV]." (NASB)

How can it be said any plainer that a human being IS a soul?

onewithhim · Post by **onewithhim** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:50 pm

dio9 wrote: [Replying to post 66 by JehovahsWitness]

To say a person is a soul and a soul is a person is circular reasoning.

No more irrelevant than saying that a tibia is a shin-bone and a shin-bone is a tibia.

onewithhim · Post by **onewithhim** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:56 pm

dio9 wrote: Still no one here has said what a soul is.

At least two of us have said EXACTLY what the soul is! (See, for example, post #87.)

onewithhim · Post by **onewithhim** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 9:10 pm

hoghead1 wrote: [Replying to post 81 by Checkpoint]

The Bible does not have a mind-body dualism, such as you find in major thinkers such as Plato and Descartes, where mind or soul is some wholly simple, immaterial entity, wholly independent and separate from the body and world of matter. In Scripture, everything has a physical dimension, including God, to whom is attributed about every body part, hands, eyes, feet, etc. Hnece, the risen Christ also has a body. Mind and matter are one in Scripture. Survival beyond the grace is survival in a physical form.

You are apparently perplexed in your understanding.

Actually the Bible does not indicate that everything has a "physical dimension." Scripture states plainly that God is a SPIRIT, and even Christ, God's Son, now lives in "unapproachable light which no man has seen nor can see." (I Timothy 6:16)

If Christ took back his physical body after his death, he would have cancelled out his sacrifice. He sacrificed his physical body, as a human being on Earth, so that we all could live on forever as physical beings. He was raised up "a life-giving spirit" (See I Corinthians 15:45; I Peter 3:18.)

When God is described in Scripture as having a face, heart, hands, etc., that is what is called anthropomorphism.....ascribing to some non-human Being characteristics that pertain to humans.

hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 10:23 pm

[Replying to onewithhim]

Spirit, in Scripture, means "breath." And "breath" is a very physical reality.

The Bible attributes a body to the resurrected Christ. Thomas saw the holes in his hands.

Paul, in I Cor. 15, sys we will have have a spiritual body (vs. 44). "There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies " (vs. 40).

The Incarnation itself is a powerful revelation that God has a body If the Incarnation is at all revelatory, then it is revelatory of God,s general MO with creation, and that means God is incarnate throughout the whole of creation. IN addition, the Bible speaks of God as omnipresent (Her. 23:23-24) and all inclusive, as in I Cor. 15:28. When Paul says that our lives are hind in God, I think that's what he means.

The fact the Bible attributes many body parts to God means that the ancient Hebrews thought of God as embodied. If such biblical metaphors are to have any real meaning, they must somehow fit the actual reality of God.

The ancient Greeks were responsible for the spirit-matter or mind-body dualism. Plato, for example, saw the world of time, change, and matter as inherently evil, a big illusion. The "really real," the truly divine was a wholly immaterial, static realm of existence. By "immaterial," I mean wholly simple, without extension.

The early church incorporated much Hellenic philosophy into its doctrine of God. Consequently, the classical Christian model of God argued that God is void of body, parts, passions, compassion, wholly simple, wholly immutable, and outside the universe. But that definitely is not the biblical view. Indeed, the Bible pronounces the physical world as something good.

Yes, the biblical writers did anthropomorphize God, and with good reason. All our knowing is analogous knowing. We generalize from the familiar to the unfamiliar. If there is one thing we know best, it is human existence. Unless, there is an analogy, a genuine likeness between ourselves and the rest of reality, including God, we haven't got an inkling what's going on, can know nothing. Anthropomorphizing and projection are not the problems, they are the solutions.

hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 10:24 pm

[Replying to post 104 by onewithhim]

Good point. In the Bible, the term "soul" is often used to denote a person. "Soul" has many meanings in Scripture, one of which is person.

JehovahsWitness · Post by **JehovahsWitness** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 11:07 pm

hoghead1 wrote:
What we translate as "soul' and "spirit" are essentially equivalent terms in Scripture

Interesting statement, equally interesting is the lack of scriptural support for this. Do you would have a set of scriptures with both soul and spirit in them that can demonstratively be seen to refer to the same thing.

JW