Does God the Father have a soul?

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How can the Catholic Church only have the Eucharist and yet not have correct teaching? Maybe the fault lies not in the church teaching but in your understanding. Fortunately, you are not required to understand everything the church teaches. You just have to accept that the Church teachings are true.

Why do so many fear to put their trust in the Church’s teaching, when we have been assured by Christ himself that the Church will not fail.
Because the Church is not perfect yet.
 
Please don’t split hairs. It is most ridiculous. The church is made up of members of the body of Christ. When one member sins, the whole body, the whole church is affected.
The church is not soley defined by the members that reside in the Vatican, nor does it exclude them.

The Holy Father: Lord God, your pilgrim Church, which you ever sanctify in the blood of your Son, counts among her children in every age members whose holiness shines brightly forth and members whose disobedience to you contradicts the faith we profess and the Holy Gospel. You, who remain ever faithful, even when we are unfaithful, **forgive our sins **and grant that we may bear true witness to you before all men and women. We ask this through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.
NOT splitting hairs…but rather making a very important distinction. “Always distinguish”

Yes the sins of members of the Church effect other members. Of course.

But they are not “the sins of the Church” as the Church.

Thus the prayer will say we as “members” not the sins of the Church.

(as all that goes into understanding who is in the Church…the CCC, CCCC and Dominus Jesus and the more recent response regarding certain aspects of the Doctrine of the Church by the CDF)
 
Jesus is the only person of the trinity who has a soul, and his soul is human, not divine.
JL: Actually Apollos, God became flesh, so everything about Christ is divine. His human body and soul are divine because God BECAME MAN (flesh). His body and soul are fully human and fully divine.
 
A lot. You think that excommunication and condemnation of heresies are bad.
Please do not put words in my mouth. I was specifcally addressing the theology of the Son of God as it pertains to the semi-arian viewpoint.

The eastern church at one time held to that viewpoint. Bishop Eusebius was present at the Nicene Council and eventually held to that understanding. One can read about his understanding of the Son of God in his **History of the Church **.

I think if one was honest, one would see that many of the early church fathers professed an understanding of the Son of God that was very similar to this understanding. We all know the grievous back and forth of exchanges between bishops over the theology of the Son of God. I do not think it would be exaggerated to say that Pope John Paul II was addressing that time in Church history with these remarks:

“The Holy Father: Merciful Father, on the night before his Passion your Son prayed for the unity of those who believe in him: in disobedience to his will, however, believers have opposed one another, becoming divided, and have mutually condemned one another and fought against one another. We urgently implore your forgiveness and we beseech the gift of a repentant heart, so that all Christians, reconciled with you and with one another will be able, in one body and in one spirit, to experience anew the joy of full communion. We ask this through Christ our Lord. R. Amen. R. Kyrie, eleison; Kyrie, eleison; Kyrie eleison.”

[A lamp is lit before the Crucifix.]

Semi-Arianism is a name frequently given to the Trinitarian position of the conservative majority of the Eastern Christian Church in the 4th century, to distinguish it from strict Arianism. More precisely it is reserved (as by St. Epiphanius, “Hær” lxxiii) for the party of reaction headed by Basil of Ancyra in 358.
 
JL: Actually Apollos, God became flesh, so everything about Christ is divine. His human body and soul are divine because God BECAME MAN (flesh). His body and soul are fully human and fully divine.
I understand, but the language strikes me as ill-put. Jesus’ body, for example, began to exist at a point in time, it changed, and so on - but you wouldn’t say that about anything truly divine. But I don’t want to reinvent the first half-dozen councils. 👍
 
=zarthan;7221594]If God the Father has a soul, would His Son have a divine soul?
Since the Son of God is ‘the image of the invisible God’, and 'the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being’
John.4 23 -24 "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit,** and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

When we speak of God we are spaking of God-Triune with ONE Common Divine Nature.

The Trinty in the God-Head are Spirits and by there choice and Divine Will only Jesus, Second Person in the Trinity has BOTH a Human COMPLETE Nature [including a SOUL] and His Divine Spiritual Nature.

So neither the Father or the Holy Spirit Posess a human soul. Jesus however does.

Love and prayers,
 
If God the Father has a soul, would His Son have a divine soul?

Since the Son of God is ‘the image of the invisible God’, and 'the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being’
JL: I have never thought about this before so this is my opinion. God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and God the Son before he became man are ONE INDIVISABLE UNCREATED pure spirit, and still are. Angels are CREATED spirits, man’s soul, the seat of his will and intellect, is also a created spirit, which is the life force for the created body. God the Son BECAME MAN (flesh). God did not just inhabit a body but BECAME HUMAN. Because God became man, everything about Him, body and soul, is divine. God BECAME FULLY MAN. body and soul, with TWO, perfectly united INDIVISABLE, natures. The SOUL, seat of man’s will and intellect, is SPIRIT. God the Father has intellect and will so in that sense, I would say HE is a soul (spirit) not HAS one. A spirit has no parts, God is life, he needs no life force, He is it’s souce. God the Son does have a body and soul.

Depends on context, nephesh=soul is used different ways in scripture, Gn 2:7 living creature=whole person, Ps 42:2 seat of emotion, and immortal soul (spirit) in Mt10:28, Gn35:18. Jer51:14 The LORD of hosts hath sworn by HIMSELF (NEPHESH),… Amos 6:8 The Lord GOD hath sworn by HIMSELF (NEPHESH) …, Job23:13 But he is in one mind and who can turn him? And what his SOUL (NEPHESH) desireth, even that he doeth. Ps11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his SOUL (NEPHESH) hateth. In this context, speaking of God himself, nothing could be more conscious, immortal or spiritual than nephesh.
 
John.4 23 -24 "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit,** and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

When we speak of God we are spaking of God-Triune with ONE Common Divine Nature.

The Trinty in the God-Head are Spirits and by there choice and Divine Will only Jesus, Second Person in the Trinity has BOTH a Human COMPLETE Nature [including a SOUL] and His Divine Spiritual Nature.

So neither the Father or the Holy Spirit Posess a human soul. Jesus however does.

Love and prayers,
Thank you for sharing this scripture with us. I have been waiting for some time for some one to quote this scripture. However, it is somewhat rash to base the theology of God the Father, and the Son of God on one scripture. Nevertheless, one must look at this scripture honestly, (like all scriptures which do not fit into our theological boxes).

At the time, the discussion was over whose temple does God dwell ? The temple in Jerusalem, or the temple in Samaria? Jesus answered the question by saying that “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth”.

Jesus is telling us that we do not have to go to a temple to worship God. His Spirit is omnipresent, and we as human beings when united in spirit to our heavenly Father can worship him anywhere.

Jesus is not saying that human beings do not have a soul, on the contrary. Now, please explain to me what God meant, when He said, to his Son, “This is my beloved servant, in whom **my soul **is well pleased.”

May His peace prevail, regardless.
 
JL: Actually Apollos, God became flesh, so everything about Christ is divine. His human body and soul are divine because God BECAME MAN (flesh). His body and soul are fully human and fully divine.
True God true man…

lets look at the Catechism:

vatican.va/archive/catechism/p122a3p1.htm#III

Read the whole…

here are a few highlights:

464 The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.

470 Because “human nature was assumed, not absorbed”,97 in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ’s human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ’s human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from “one of the Trinity”. The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity:98
 
Now, please explain to me what God meant, when He said, to his Son, “This is my beloved servant, in whom **my soul **is well pleased.”

May His peace prevail, regardless.
JL I have looked in Strong’s Concordance at [Mt3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. & Mt17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.]

I don’t find “my soul”, nor any indication for that translation. What bible version are you getting my soul from? Could you give the book and verse numbers, to which you are actually referring, also the Greek word or words for “my soul”?.
 
JL I have looked in Strong’s Concordance at [Mt3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. & Mt17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.]

I don’t find “my soul”, nor any indication for that translation. What bible version are you getting my soul from? Could you give the book and verse numbers, to which you are actually referring, also the Greek word or words for “my soul”?.
Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased

Matt.12:18 quoting Isaiah 42:1. (Douay-Rheims, KJV, ERV)

"nephesh’ in Isaiah 42:1 in the Hebrew texts. (Douay-Rheims, KJV, ERV and others.)
‘psuche’ in the Septuagint and in the N.T. (Douay-Rheims, KJV, ERV and others.)

There are 13 references in the O.T. to God with soul (‘nepesh’).
All of them are translated as ‘soul’ in the Douay-Rheims, KJV and ERV.
 
Again even if some translation has it that way…does not make it so.

Scripture uses lots of terms for God which are meant to convey a meaning that is not literal …by comparing to human aspects …

Does the fact that Scripture refers to the right hand of God (the Father) mean that God has a “hand”?

Of course not.

Even if such a translation can be done in such a way does not mean God has a soul.
 
Even if such a translation can be done in such a way does not mean God has a soul.
I looked into the translation…

So yes this verse is translated that way…

But this does not mean God the Father has a “soul”.

As I noted:

Scripture uses lots of terms for God which are meant to convey a meaning that is not literal …by comparing to human aspects …(this is done all over the place…)

Does the fact that Scripture refers to the right hand of God (the Father) mean that God has a “hand”?

Of course not.
 
JLHARGUS: I want to thank you for pointing out another scripture which speaks of the soul (nephesh) of God.

Amos 6:8 The Lord GOD hath sworn by HIMSELF (NEPHESH)

There is one other scripture which the Lord GOD has sworn by HIMSELF (NEPHESH)
and it is in Jeremiah 51:14

These two scriptures are the only occasions where ‘Himself’ as a pronoun for God occurs in the original Hebrew as ‘nephesh’.


These two scriptures show us that the Lord GOD has sworn by his very being, his very self, his very person, his very life, his very existence, his very soul, by the very essence of who He is. To deny that the Lord GOD has a soul would be to deny that He has existence, or being. or a life of His own. The soul of God is the very essence of who God is. There is nothing greater than his soul (nephesh), that the Lord GOD can sware by.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. bless His holy name"

Nephesh (soul) is also translated as ‘life’, as in one’s **life **in numerous scriptures, though ‘soul’ is the usual translation.
 
And thus it is that God the Father does not “have a soul” (anymore than a right hand)

The varied language of Scripture is simply making use of human terms …

(not referring to “parts” of God)
 
Let’s get right to the point, and not play cat and mouse any more.

The reason that God the Father, and the Son of God do not have divine souls in the theology developed within the Nicene Creed is because if they both did have divine souls,
then it would validate the semi-arian theology of the Son of God.

This is the only reason that I can fathom, on the insistence that the Son of God did not have a divine soul, but only a human soul. One has to do mental gymnastics with the scriptures, or ignore them completely not to see that God has a soul, and the Son of God has a divine soul.

“I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me”.

What aspect of the Son of God came down from heaven if it was not his divine soul, the seat of his will?
 
Let’s get right to the point, and not play cat and mouse any more.humm…I am a “bookcat” 🙂

The reason that God the Father, and the Son of God do not have divine souls in the theology developed within the Nicene Creed is because if they both did have divine souls, then it would validate the semi-arian theology of the Son of God.

…because God simply does not have a divine soul. He has no soul…no hand …no heart…these are terms taken from creation. He was not created…he does the creating

This is the only reason that I can fathom, on the insistence that the Son of God did not have a divine soul, but only a human soul. One has to do mental gymnastics with the scriptures, or ignore them completely not to see that God has a soul, and the Son of God has a divine soul.

Honestly no. One no mental gymnsitics here…it is exegesis that realizes that the Written Word of God is in “human language” …and when it says things like “my soul” or “his right hand” or “his footstool” it is not speaking of God having such parts or having furniture.

“I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me”.

What aspect of the Son of God came down from heaven if it was not his divine soul, the seat of his will?

The Logos himself! The Son of God…no “aspect” of himself…

the Logos was made flesh!
 
Amos 6:8 The Lord GOD hath sworn by HIMSELF (NEPHESH)

The Lord God does not sware by his own soul, if he has no soul!
 
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