Simply Soul

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For Students Pursue a deeper knowledge of God through self-paced college- and seminary-level online courses in Old and New Testament studies, theology, biblical Greek, and more. Jesus tells us not to fear those who “kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” but that we should rather “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). They ask, “If I do not have a spirit that is distinct from my thoughts and my emotions, then what is it that I feel that is different from my thoughts and my emotions, something that I can only describe as worshiping God in my spirit and sensing his presence in my spirit? Isn’t there something in me that is more than just my intellect and my emotions and my will, and shouldn’t this be called my spirit?”

Paul certainly distinguishes a person who is “natural” ( psychikos, “soul-ish”) from one that is “spiritual” ( pneumatikos, “spiritual”) in 1 Corinthians 2:14–3:4. But in this context “spiritual” seems to mean “influenced by the Holy Spirit,” since the entire passage is talking about the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing truth to believers. But the passage doesn’t imply that Christians have a spirit and non-Christians don’t, or that the spirit of a Christian is alive and the spirit of a non-Christian isn’t. Paul isn’t talking about different parts of man at all, but about being influenced by the Holy Spirit. Paul appears to make a distinction between his spirit and his mind When Stephen was dying, he knew he would immediately pass into the presence of the Lord, for he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).When Paul says, “Your spirits are alive because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10), he apparently means “alive to God,” but he doesn’t imply that our spirits were completely “dead” before, only that they were living out of fellowship with God and were dead in that sense. In the same way, we as whole persons were “dead” in “trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), but we were made alive to God, and we now must consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God” (Romans 6:11). This view is called monism. According to monism, the scriptural terms soul and spirit are just other expressions for the “person” himself, or for the person’s “life.” Most evangelical theologians don’t hold this view because so many scriptural texts seem to affirm that our souls or spirits live on after our bodies die: When Paul says, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful” (1 Corinthians 14:14), isn’t he implying that his mind does something different from his spirit? And doesn’t this support the trichotomist’s argument that our mind and our thinking are part of our souls, not our spirit? Those who advocate trichotomy face a difficult problem defining exactly what the difference is between the soul and the spirit. If Scripture clearly supported the idea that our spirit is the part of us that directly relates to God in worship and prayer, while our soul includes our intellect (thinking), our emotions (feeling), and our will (deciding), then trichotomists would have a strong case. But Scripture doesn’t appear to allow such a distinction.

Outside the realm of evangelical thought we find yet another view, the idea that man cannot exist at all apart from a physical body, and therefore the “soul” can’t exist separately after the body dies (although this view can allow for the resurrection of the whole person at some future time). When philosophers assume there’s no spiritual realm beyond the reach of our senses, they naturally go on to argue that there is no God, heaven, angels, or demons. Similarly they deny the existence of a distinct soul within human beings. A spirit or soul cannot be observed by the physical realm. It’s a spiritual concept. Our knowledge of the existence of the human soul must be based on Scripture, in which God clearly testifies to the existence of this immaterial aspect of our beings. The fact that this truth about our existence cannot be clearly known apart from the testimony of Scripture shouldn’t cause us to shrink from affirming it. When Rachel died, the Bible says, “Her soul was departing (for she died)” (Genesis 35:18). Elijah prays that the dead child’s “soul” would come into him again (1 Kings 17:21), and Isaiah predicts that the Servant of the Lord would “pour out his soul [Hebrew “ nephesh”] to death” (Isaiah 53:12). In the New Testament God tells the rich fool, “This night your soul [Greek “ psychē”] is required of you” (Luke 12:20). These categories seem to suggest that there are non-Christians who are “of the flesh,” “unspiritual” Christians who follow the desires of their souls, and more mature Christians who follow the desires of their spirits. Doesn’t this suggest that soul and spirit are different?We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” —2 Corinthians 5:8 By itself, the phrase “your spirit and soul and body” is inconclusive. Other passages of Scripture pile up synonyms for emphasis, and that could be what Paul is doing here. For example, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Is Jesus indicating that the soul is different from the mind or the heart? This problem is even greater in Mark 12:30: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” A “haughty spirit” goes before a fall (Proverbs 16:18), and it is possible for sinful people to be “proud in spirit” (Ecclesiastes 7:8). Some trichotomists argue that both humans and animals have souls, and that the presence of a spirit is what makes us different from animals.

Trichotomists also argue that when we become Christians our spirits come alive: “But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10). If all people have souls, but only Christians have spirits that are “alive,” doesn’t this imply a distinction between soul and spirit? Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” —Luke 23:46 When scholars assemble everything the Bible says about the soul and spirit, there’s still some room for interpretation. The three main schools of thought come down to how many “parts” humans are made of: Three parts: Body, soul, and spirit If we believe that lists of terms tell us about the distinct parts to a person, then when we add spirit to this list (and perhaps body as well), we have five or six separate parts! It’s far better to understand Jesus as simply piling up roughly synonymous terms for emphasis to demonstrate that we must love God with all of our being. Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Paul is not saying that soul and spirit are distinct entities, but simply that, whatever our immaterial part is called, he wants God to continue to sanctify us wholly to the day of Christ. The Word of God divides soul and spirit This is the most-widely held scholarly view on the soul and spirit. Later, we’ll look in more detail at the reasons why many scholars believe spirit and soul are synonymous. One part: the body

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It’s not just one part of us (the spirit) that has been made alive in Christ. We are a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We should think of the soul and spirit as the same thing