How to respond to "that's assuming there is a 'soul'"

[spiritualwrrior]

Hello all,

Yesterday at work I was chatting with one co-worker, who is Catholic, regarding the essence of the soul, which is a spirit in its own right, I affirmed, but then another co-worker who was with us adamantly counteracted the conversation by saying, “that’s assuming there is such a thing as a ‘soul’ / ‘spirit’”. He repeated this probably three times. I looked at him and didn’t know how to respond. Any ideas or articles that can help me with this?

I gather from his “assertion” that he is probably agnostic.

Thanks and God bless you all!

 

[Trishie]

You can pray for him, as unless he has the grace to recognize that we have souls you cannot convince him. Faith is a gift from God.
The good thing to take from this is that you now know your co-worker needs prayer and that God has thereby invited your prayers for him that the time will come that he will give his heart and mind to God.
God bless you.

 

[spiritualwrrior]

You can pray for him, as unless he has the grace to recognize that we have souls you cannot convince him. Faith is a gift from God.
The good thing to take from this is that you now know your co-worker needs prayer and that God has thereby invited your prayers for him that the time will come that he will give his heart and mind to God.
God bless you.

Trishie,

Thank you so much for your loving and beautiful response. I guess I didn’t see God’s hand in this but now I know. I’ll follow suit.

Thanks again and God bless you!

 

[JRKH]

Hello all,

Yesterday at work I was chatting with one co-worker, who is Catholic, regarding the essence of the soul, which is a spirit in its own right, I affirmed, but then another co-worker who was with us adamantly counteracted the conversation by saying, “that’s assuming there is such a thing as a ‘soul’ / ‘spirit’”. He repeated this probably three times. I looked at him and didn’t know how to respond. Any ideas or articles that can help me with this?

I gather from his “assertion” that he is probably agnostic.

Thanks and God bless you all!

My reply would be - “Yes - assuming there is a soul”…And continue the conversation from there.

Peace
James

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Hello all,

Yesterday at work I was chatting with one co-worker, who is Catholic, regarding the essence of the soul, which is a spirit in its own right, I affirmed, but then another co-worker who was with us adamantly counteracted the conversation by saying, “that’s assuming there is such a thing as a ‘soul’ / ‘spirit’”. He repeated this probably three times. I looked at him and didn’t know how to respond. Any ideas or articles that can help me with this?

I gather from his “assertion” that he is probably agnostic.

Thanks and God bless you all!

Next time it comes up just ask him, politely, why he thinks he doesn’t have one? Also, you might ask him where his thinking, imagining, remembering, willing comes from? And you might ask if he has ever read Aquinas by Edward Feser, its cheap.

Linus2nd

 

[QNDNNDQDCE]

A likely problem is he probably believes, according to the popular conception, that the soul is magical ghost trapped in side the body or something along those lines. You could bring up Aristotle as a neutral (i.e. non-Christian) party and try to explain the soul from that perspective before introducing the Christian view.

classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/soul.html

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Hello all,

Yesterday at work I was chatting with one co-worker, who is Catholic, regarding the essence of the soul, which is a spirit in its own right, I affirmed, but then another co-worker who was with us adamantly counteracted the conversation by saying, “that’s assuming there is such a thing as a ‘soul’ / ‘spirit’”. He repeated this probably three times. I looked at him and didn’t know how to respond. Any ideas or articles that can help me with this?

I gather from his “assertion” that he is probably agnostic.

Thanks and God bless you all!

The response to him is: “You’re welcome to prove otherwise.”

Reason: The preexisting conviction throughout human history, and in the West for at least 2700 yrs is that there is an immaterial component to man called variously a soul, spirit, mind. To date no scientist or group of scientists has published peer-reviewed research demonstrating a reductive materialist/physicalist explanation of the soul or conscious mind. The burden is on them not you.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

The response to him is: “You’re welcome to prove otherwise.”

To which he will respond, "Prove that that there is.

My standard response to such statements is, “Well, if there is no soul (or God, or Heaven, etc.) then is it a moot point. But if there is such a thing as a soul (or God, or Heaven, etc.) then you should be concerned about, and refusing to believe doesn’t excuse you from accountability.”

 

[fred_conty]

Hello all,

Yesterday at work I was chatting with one co-worker, who is Catholic, regarding the essence of the soul, which is a spirit in its own right, I affirmed, but then another co-worker who was with us adamantly counteracted the conversation by saying, “that’s assuming there is such a thing as a ‘soul’ / ‘spirit’”. He repeated this probably three times. I looked at him and didn’t know how to respond. Any ideas or articles that can help me with this?

I gather from his “assertion” that he is probably agnostic.

Thanks and God bless you all!

The difference between a cadaver and a living body is the soul. The body becomes a cadaver when the soul leaves. Soul is the life force. When the body is no longer in an acceptable condition to maintain life and movement, something leaves which animates it.

At least this will give him something to think about.

 

[spiritualwrrior]

Thank you, everyone! All of you provided very interesting responses. They do help!

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

To which he will respond, "Prove that that there is.

I don’t think so. That was already his friends tactic. Spiritualwrrior should respond (again reminding him): “The burden of proof is in the historically newer claim, i.e., yours. You are attacking a preexisting claim/conviction that not even the best science of the day has come anywhere close to overthrowing.”

But I already said this in my initial response.

That is not to say your Pascal-ish approach is not valuable as well. I just think we have to hold physicalists to the burden they keep trying to shift.

 

[rossum]

I gather from his “assertion” that he is probably agnostic.

Or Buddhist. There are no souls in Buddhism.

You will need a very different set of arguments to use against a Buddhist as opposed to against an atheist or agnostic.

rossum