Does God the Father have a soul?

[zarthan]

Editing sacred scripture is a serious matter. At least, the Douay-Rheims version and other versions like the English Revised Version ERV translated every occurrence of nephesh as ‘soul’ as it occurs in the aforementioned scriptures relating to God.

You go on believing what you will. The church is founded on the apostles, the prophets, and Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. That means we are to be obedient to what the word of God says above and beyond what someone else ‘thinks’. If the Catholic church does not think God is soul and spirit, that is their ‘opinion’. The word of God says otherwise.
Frankly, the traditions of men are making the word of God of no effect.

 

[zarthan]

zarthan, you are falling prey to the Romantic notion of a soul. You see a person as having a soul, because to be soulless would be something terrible. God is a person, so you see people saying God has no soul as something very bad. But God does have a soul in the OT sense, of having a heart or will so to speak. When people say God has no soul, it is strictly in a theological sense. People have a soul, only because we distinguish something from this animated clay that is our body. Does our soul have a soul? Do the dead have more than a soul? No, they are just a soul. You might even say they have no soul, just existence as a spirit. See the distinction? God and the Angels have no body. They are pure spirit (just like our soul.) Therefore, they are pure soul without body.

When we talk of a human soul, we are speaking of one that is connected with a body, and at the Resurrection of the Dead, it will be re-united. There is nothing wrong with you thinking that God and the Angels are souls (instead of spirits,) as long as you realize that this is theologically inaccurate, and will cause all sorts of controversy. Try to think of the souls as spirits. Then, when you think of God the Father, as a spirit, or the Angels as spirits, you won’t be bothered by the idea that they don’t have souls, because they are souls. Souls by this definition would be a person of pure spirit. Only the Angels were created this way, and God in His being is a pure spirit. Our own souls are created beneath the angels and tethered to a lump of clay.

You must also beware of the Protestant leaven. You are quick to oppose what the Church teaches, because (in your opinion) it goes against God’s written word. However, you are using your own personal judgment to make this decision. That is the leaven of the Protestant, the soul of the Protestant.

I am getting most impatient with the intellectualizing of what I believe. Next, you accuse me of Protestant leaven. The Jewish rabbis teach that when God breathed into man, He breathed into man part of His essence. I don’t know if I would go that far, but I do know that we have the light of the Word, a conscience, the will to choose and emotions no other creature has. I do believe these attributes of soul and spirit came from the soul of God by His Spirit breathed into us. I believe the Word of God, is that so difficult for you to believe?

 

[AmbroseSJ]

zarthan:

I believe the Word of God, is that so difficult for you to believe?

Why would that be difficult to believe? I see Evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Protestants saying that all of the time. There is nothing easier to believe than someone putting his own judgment ahead of the Church’s. We are awash in a sea of such people.

 

[Bookcat]

Editing sacred scripture is a serious matter. At least, the Douay-Rheims version and other versions like the English Revised Version ERV translated every occurrence of nephesh as ‘soul’ as it occurs in the aforementioned scriptures relating to God.

You go on believing what you will. The church is founded on the apostles, the prophets, and Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. That means we are to be obedient to what the word of God says above and beyond what someone else ‘thinks’. If the Catholic church does not think God is soul and spirit, that is their ‘opinion’. The word of God says otherwise.
Frankly, the traditions of men are making the word of God of no effect.

Yes --of course the Church obeys the Word of God…all of Divine Revelation …of course!

Regarding the verse you keep quoting on “traditions of men” …honestly you are here actually taking a “tradition of men” over the Word of God…over the word of Jesus…regarding the Church’s authority… and actually here you are holding to “a tradition of Protestant men” …for such is the way that many Protestants take these things…

Jesus founded a Church…and gave the Church the authority to teach etc through out the ages…

Again…not “fighting words” …just responding to the post

 

[zarthan]

I have listed 14 scriptures from the Word of God which state that God has soul. Always, I get the same basic answer, forget what the Word of God says, obey what the Church teaches. Let me repeat,

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”

Jesus breathed on his disciples after he rose from the dead. He did not call them his **‘brothers’ **until after he rose from Sheol and the grave.

Lamentations 4:20 says “The** breath of our nostrils**, the Lord’s Anointed was taken in their pits, of whom we said, under his shadow we shall dwell among the nations.”

Jesus, the Son of God said, “As the Father has life, so He **has granted **the Son to have life.”

Jesus Christ is the new Adam, the spiritual man from heaven. The one who said, I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me." “Behold, a body thou hast prepared for me”.

The divine soul of the Son of God came down from heaven and tabernacled among us in a human body, and’ he learned obedience from the things which he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the leader of eternal salvation to all who believe.’ The Son of God was made perfect in his obedience to his Father, and he gave his perfected divine soul as a ransom for us.

 

[Bookcat]

Jesus says …if your eye causes you to sin…pluck it out…

how many eyes do you have?

 

[Bookcat]

Scripture must be translated well and understood well…taking into account various things.

(the written Word of God is in human speech…one must understand such…differnet genre’s, symbols, teaching by analogy with human things etc…lots goes into exegesis)

 

[Bookcat]

Lets look at what happened in the very first years after the Resurrection…

Some Christians read in the Scriptures (etc) that one’ belonging to the People of God is to be circumcised…and keep all sorts of dietary laws etc…

So they insisted that everyone do this…

Conflict arose…and what was needed to resolve the problem? An authoritative decision of the Church.

Same has happened again and again over the centuries…

With each side saying “but God said in his Word!” this and that…

Jesus knew to found a Church and give that Church actual authority…

Now of course that Church can not just say “Well Jesus is not God after all”…the Church does not have authority to willie nillie say things…but the Church does have Authority and IS guided and protected by Holy Spirit (there are of course various degrees here of teaching etc)

This does not mean the Church is “superior to the Word of God”…not at all…but it is the way the Word (Logos) set things up and continues to guide things…(and for good reason…)

CCC 86 (The)…Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith."

 

[Nicea325]

God is soul and spirit, and we are made in the image and likeness of God, having both soul and spirit.

Soul is spirit and our spirits are the lowest of all spirits. Above us are the angels 100% spirit and God.

 

[zarthan]

Soul is spirit and our spirits are the lowest of all spirits. Above us are the angels 100% spirit and God.

I appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut, but who were made in the image and likeness of God, human beings or the angels? Can you give me a scripture where it says that God is 100% Spirit, or the angels are 100% spirit? Don’t angels have a free will of sorts? Is not the soul the seat of the will? Does not God **choose **to do what He wills?

Only human beings can create and play music that expresses the depths and breadth of human and divine emotions. Only human beings can choose each day,’ life or death, good or evil’.

I really believe that our holy and mighty God has Divine emotions, and is not only the all- knowing and all- powerful Spirit. I really believe that God chooses and is not some sort of predictable Being. Can you give me a scripture where it says that God’s Spirit ‘loves’, or ‘abhors’ or is ‘well pleased,’ or ‘chooses’? Yet, I listed scriptures which speak of God’s soul as being both.

When it comes to knowing who God is, we should look first to the sacred scriptures, otherwise, we are defining God out of conjecture and speculation.

May His peace, His love, and His joy be with you.

 

[Apollos]

Can you give me a scripture where it says that God’s Spirit ‘loves’, or ‘abhors’ or is ‘well pleased,’ or ‘chooses’? … When it comes to knowing who God is, we should look first to the sacred scriptures, otherwise, we are defining God out of conjecture and speculation.

Historic Christianity is unanimously against you, but that doesn’t stop some people from obstinate persistence in their personal favorite heresies.

Nobody here is going to convince you of the truth, but if you are an honest person, you must also confess that:

• God has one eye
• God has one arm
• God has one hand, a right hand
• God has a heart
• God has hinderparts
• God has feet

…because when it comes to knowing who God is, we should look first to the sacred scriptures, otherwise, we are defining God out of conjecture and speculation.

 

[zarthan]

Historic Christianity is unanimously against you, but that doesn’t stop some people from obstinate persistence in their personal favorite heresies.

Nobody here is going to convince you of the truth, but if you are an honest person, you must also confess that:

• God has one eye
• God has one arm
• God has one hand, a right hand
• God has a heart
• God has hinderparts
• God has feet

…because when it comes to knowing who God is, we should look first to the sacred scriptures, otherwise, we are defining God out of conjecture and speculation.

**Finally, **someone who is actually using scripture to explain their belief.

Yes, all these scriptures that you mentioned I do believe are applicable to God in our understanding of Him. Yes, most of them, most probably are explained in a figurative manner. Some of them, ‘such as the arm of the Lord’, and the ‘hand of God’, are figurative terms for the Son of God. Origen believed that ‘the soul of God’ was quite possibly a figurative term for the Son of God. Literally, we are not the Bride of Christ, yet spiritually we are the bride of Christ.

The real question to ask ourselves, is whether the soul and spirit of God are figurative terms for describing God or literal terms in the sense of describing Him. I think most would agree, through the study of scripture, that the inner soul of man is the seat of one’s will and emotions, and the inner spirit of man is the faculty through which one understands spiritual things. The fact that they are unseen, does not mean that they do not exist. The fact that we can not explain what they are made of, does not mean they do not exist. The soul of each human being is unique, it is the personality of the human being in the deepest meaning of the word personality.

I think we all agree that God is Spirit. Does God have a will? Does God have Divine emotions? If the answer is yes, and if scripture describes God as having soul and Spirit, what is so inaccurate for me to believe that since we are created in His image, to believe that our soul and spirit are created in the image of God who is Soul and Spirit?

Job 22:12-13 “I have not departed from the command of His lips: I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. But He is unique and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does.”

 

[AmbroseSJ]

zarthan:

I think most would agree, through the study of scripture, that the inner soul of man is the seat of one’s will and emotions, and the inner spirit of man is the faculty through which one understands spiritual things.

I think most would agree that you are dead wrong. Scripture can only be read from within a tradition. The Jews always interpreted Scripture within their own tradition, and Christians, likewise always interpreted Scripture from within the Christian Church tradition. It is only now in the post-Christian world of Me, the Bible and Jesus, that Scripture has been set adrift from its moorings, and any man may paddle the Scriptures in any direction he sees fit, without regard to any Tradition, whether now or in the past.

Proof? Have a Unitarian, a Trinitarian and a Mormon read the Scriptures from start to end. When done, they all remain Unitarian, Trinitarian or Mormon. Scripture is a looking glass, when used without a tradition, which merely reflects the reader’s own ignorance and prejudice. But when used within a tradition, it becomes a signpost, a beacon and path to God. The question then becomes, which tradition is most capable of interpreting the Scriptures correctly, historically and currrently.

 

[Apollos]

…Yes, most of them, most probably are explained in a figurative manner. … Does God have a will? Does God have Divine emotions? If the answer is yes, and if scripture describes God as having soul and Spirit, what is so inaccurate for me to believe that since we are created in His image, to believe that our soul and spirit are created in the image of God who is Soul and Spirit?

Job 22:12-13 “I have not departed from the command of His lips: I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. But He is unique and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does.”

Can God see? Can he walk? If the answer is yes, and if scripture describes God as having eyes and feet, what is so inaccurate for me to believe that since we are created in his image, to believe that our eyes and feet are created in the image of God who has eyes and feet?

Genesis 3:8-9 “And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where are you?”

 

[zarthan]

First of all, there was no consensus in the first three centuries of Christianity as regards to the soul of Jesus Christ. Origen as I stated before, believed that the soul of God could represent the Son of God. Clement of Alexandria believed that the Logos was the soul of Jesus Christ. Tertullian sometimes says that the soul of Jesus Christ was divine, and sometimes states that his soul was human. The longer version of Ignatius’ letter to the Philadelphian church states that any one who espouses that Jesus Christ has a human soul is in heresy.

Secondly, in what way are we made in the image and likeness of God? No one wants to answer this question from a scriptural interpretation. We know and believe that humans have a will to choose unlike any other creatures on earth. We know that human beings have emotions unlike any other creatures on earth. We are taught and we know from scriptures that will and emotions are aspects of the soul.

We know from scriptures that God has a will to choose. We also know from scriptures that God has Divine emotions. What could be more clear in explaining that our soul was made in the likeness and image of God’s soul?

Any reference to God and his (nephesh, or soul) should be understood in the light of the first occurrence of this word in sacred scriptures.

The first occurrence of the word ‘nepesh’ (soul):

Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being (nepesh)

Genesis 2:7.

"Behold, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul".

1 Peter 2:11.

 

[FaithJoy]

Luke 1:46-47 And Mary said: “My soul (psyche) glorifies the Lord and my spirit (pneuma) rejoices in God my Savior,” Mary purposely distinctly chose to use two different words. In this verse you can tell that Mary is speaking of her life (soul,psyche) which contains her past , present and future life. This part requires involving her spirit and body, which is her life(soul) and the interactions of the sum of those two things (body and spirit). Then, there is the spirit (pneuma). This refers to the very essence of Mary. She is singling out how God views her and knows her, from her heart and every essence of her (spirit). In contrast, the soul is her life and life experiences that is the sum of her body and spiritual interactions on earth. The spirit is the pure wholeness of her, setting aside what the body may mean on earth. body+ spirit (essence of being)= soul(life) ; the English language doesn’t define it this way but that’s how Greek and Hebrew languages understood it. That’s why in the catechism the Catholic church always clarifies by referring to spirit as spiritual souls.

 

[zarthan]

Luke 1:46-47 And Mary said: “My soul (psyche) glorifies the Lord and my spirit (pneuma) rejoices in God my Savior,” Mary purposely distinctly chose to use two different words. In this verse you can tell that Mary is speaking of her life (soul,psyche) which contains her past , present and future life. This part requires involving her spirit and body, which is her life(soul) and the interactions of the sum of those two things (body and spirit). Then, there is the spirit (pneuma). This refers to the very essence of Mary. She is singling out how God views her and knows her, from her heart and every essence of her (spirit). In contrast, the soul is her life and life experiences that is the sum of her body and spiritual interactions on earth. The spirit is the pure wholeness of her, setting aside what the body may mean on earth. body+ spirit (essence of being)= soul(life) ; the English language doesn’t define it this way but that’s how Greek and Hebrew languages understood it. That’s why in the catechism the Catholic church always clarifies by referring to spirit as spiritual souls.

Your formula for body + spirit = soul (life) has some merit since this how it is described in Genesis 2:7. "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being(soul)."

Yet, our Lord says, “Fear not him who is able to destroy the body, rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.”

And ‘the soul that sins it shall die’. Did the bodies of Adam and Eve die immediately after they sinned against God? No. Their once living souls were no longer in living relationship with their Creator, their inner souls died.

So, one could also interpret Gen.2:7 in such a manner that when God breathed into his nostrils** the breath of life** man became a living spirit and a living soul in the image and likeness of God within a body made from the dust of the earth.

"The breath of our nostrils, the Lord’s Anointed was taken into their pits, of whom we said, under his shadow we shall dwell among the nations."

Lamentations 4:20.

 

[FaithJoy]

Your formula for body + spirit = soul (life) has some merit since this how it is described in Genesis 2:7. "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being(soul)."

Yet, our Lord says, “Fear not him who is able to destroy the body, rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.”

And ‘the soul that sins it shall die’. Did the bodies of Adam and Eve die immediately after they sinned against God? No. Their once living souls were no longer in living relationship with their Creator, their inner souls died.

So, one could also interpret Gen.2:7 in such a manner that when God breathed into his nostrils** the breath of life** man became a living spirit and a living soul in the image and likeness of God within a body made from the dust of the earth.

"The breath of our nostrils, the Lord’s Anointed was taken into their pits, of whom we said, under his shadow we shall dwell among the nations."

Lamentations 4:20.

I think what you pointed out here does very well agree with what I said. If soul is your life, body and spirit, then Gehenna would destroy it all. Soul IS the sum of it all. So, soul is the most reasonable word chosen here. Also,“the soul that sins it shall die” doesn’t not mean immediate death necessarily, but actually means that “the wages of sin is death”.

 

[zarthan]

I think what you pointed out here does very well agree with what I said. If soul is your life, body and spirit, then Gehenna would destroy it all. Soul IS the sum of it all. So, soul is the most reasonable word chosen here. Also,“the soul that sins it shall die” doesn’t not mean immediate death necessarily, but actually means that “the wages of sin is death”.

I think that the scriptures which I quoted relate that there is a distinct difference between the body and the soul. There is a distinct difference between the body and the spirit. There is a distinct difference between the soul and spirit.

“Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.”

Hebrews 4:12.

"Thou will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption."

Acts 2:27,31

 

[zarthan]

FaithJoy: You said, Also**,“the soul that sins it shall die” doesn’t not mean immediate death necessarily, but actually means that “the wages of sin is death”. **

Ezekiel 18:20 "The (nephesh, soul) that sins it shall die"

Col. 2:13 “And even **when you were dead in transgressions **and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.”

** Eph.2:1-3 “You were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you once lived following the age of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the desires of the flesh, following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.”**

James 1:14-15 "Rather, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death."