Soul and Spirit

[JamesCaruso]

*For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.*Heb 4

Soul and spirit–

Do we as humans have both, or is one synonymous with the other?

I don’t think the Church has taught dogmatically on this, but if it has, I would be interested in knowing what it says.

Pentecostals often make this distinction, as well as, some Church Fathers. Most often I hear priests talk of the two as if they were one and the same.

 

[Nita]

They are both part of the immaterial soul. It is similar to the way we might say body and blood; both are contained in our material body. Human nature consists of two parts: a material body and an immateria/spirituall soul.Catechism of the Catholic Church

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P1B.HTM#GM
360 ……

…in the unity of its nature, composed equally in all men of a material body and a spiritual soul; …

367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly”, with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming.236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.
​

 

[JimG]

As far as I know, they are the same. Human beings are composed of body and soul. And our soul is a spiritual substance.

 

[tawny]

For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.Heb 4

Soul and spirit–

Do we as humans have both, or is one synonymous with the other?

I don’t think the Church has taught dogmatically on this, but if it has, I would be interested in knowing what it says.

Pentecostals often make this distinction, as well as, some Church Fathers. Most often I hear priests talk of the two as if they were one and the same.

We are both body & soul. The body is the spiritual temple of the soul.

 

[christofirst]

I like this explanation, from Dr. Gerald May (Will and Spirit):

“Fr. Aelred Squire (a Dominican who later transferred to the Benedictines) says, “Man does not have a soul, he is a soul.” With this understanding, we can take the soul to mean the fundamental essence of a person, while the spirit is the aspect of that essence that gives it power, energy, and motive force. Thus soul and spirit are not “things” in which one may choose to believe or not to believe. They are simply descriptive aspects of our existence, the one referring to our essence and the other to our fundamental energy.”

 

[GEddie]

One could also (IMNAAHO) say that soul, psyche, is our life, including the mind and the biological life in our body or soma; while spirit, pneuma, is the purely spiritual life, which would include the human mind but not the biology as such.

We receive biological life from the cycle of generation, and we will die within that cycle; animals also are said to have a soul (anima).

We receive spiritual life (pneuma) directly from God, just as it was breathed into Adam’s nose. Pneuma endures forever.

This also explains the difference between our human and everlasting embodiments. Our “Human Body” is formed by and holds the natural life of the soul or psyche, therefore, psychikon soma in 1Co 15 is translated “natural body” in English.

Our pneumatikon soma will be formed by and hold our spiritual, or everlasting life. This term is translated into English as “spiritual body.”

ICXC NIKA!

 

[Nita]

For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.Heb 4

Soul and spirit–

Do we as humans have both, or is one synonymous with the other?

I don’t think the Church has taught dogmatically on this, but if it has, I would be interested in knowing what it says.

.

The Church has dogmatically taught that we have only one spiritual soul – soul and spirit are not two separate parts/things that constitute the immaterial part of a human being.

The CCC paragraph #367 that I quoted in Post #2 references, in footnote 237, the Council of Constantinople 870 AD. Canon 11 of that Council reads:11
Though the old and new Testament teach that a man or woman has one rational and intellectual soul, and all the fathers and doctors of the church, who are spokesmen of God, express the same opinion, some have descended to such a depth of irreligion, through paying attention to the speculations of evil people, that they shamelessly teach as a dogma that a human being has two souls, and keep trying to prove their heresy by irrational means using a wisdom that has been made foolishness.

Therefore this holy and universal synod is hastening to uproot this wicked theory now growing like some loathsome form of weed. Carrying in its hand the winnowing fork of truth, with the intention of consigning all the chaff to inextinguishable fire, and making clean the threshing floor of Christ, in ringing tones it declares anathema the inventors and perpetrators of such impiety and all those holding similar views; it also declares and promulgates that nobody at all should hold or preserve in any way the written teaching of the authors of this impiety. If however anyone presumes to act in a way contrary to this holy and great synod, let him be anathema and an outcast from the faith and way of life of Christians.

papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum08.htm

From Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott:
Quote:
"*Again incompatible with Church dogma is the trichotomism taught by Plato, the gnostics, … according to which man is composed of three essential component parts, the body, an animal soul, and a spiritual soul…

The 8th General Council of Constantinople rejected the doctrine of the two souls, and…*

 

[Blue_Horizon]

For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.Heb 4

Soul and spirit–

Do we as humans have both, or is one synonymous with the other?

I don’t think the Church has taught dogmatically on this, but if it has, I would be interested in knowing what it says.

Pentecostals often make this distinction, as well as, some Church Fathers. Most often I hear priests talk of the two as if they were one and the same.

James it would be very naiive to go through the whole of the Bible and believe one could successfully come up with a unified and consistantly defined meaning for the variety of original language words there that 2000 years later today get translated as “soul”, “spirit”, “self”, “breath” “person” etc.

Harder still to think that those definitions would well match those of Greek philosophy from which the word 'soul", for example, originally came from. And even then which Greek philosopher would we pick, because even amongst the Greek Philosophers there was disagreement. It is not totally hopeless as the Church went with Plato’s system for the first 1000 years or so as it lent itself well to Christian Revelation. But in the Middle Ages there was a revolution (due to the very exciting newly discovered works of Aristotle) and the Magisterium eventually nailed its colours to the mast of Aristotle via Aquinas.

The long and short of it is that the Old Testament is thoroughly Hebrew in mentality and they did not think like Greeks. The Hebrews speculated little about immortality and were more interested in 'spirit" here and now. It is the Greeks who invented “soul” and strongly linked it to immortality and composite understanding of human nature. So even if an originally Hebrew word (there is no equivalent for the Greek concept of soul) is eventually translated “soul” in the Old Testament … don’t expect to find a tidy understanding of its real meaning on any given usage. It won’t really be close to a Greek meaning.

The other thing to understand is that the Bible was written over a long period of time with increasing contact with greek and other cultures. So there will be as many meanings of these sorts of words as there are different authors in the Bible. Obviously there is a common thread, but its very thin and in the end detrmined by context as well.

Finally there are well known Hebrew literary/poetic devices in the Old Testament. They love playing on words and reperating the same idea twice in two very similar ways to reinforce the message. Your quote above is a good example. Don’t try and analyse the individual words too deeply because nothing meaningful is to be discovered in the trees…look for the forest.

You ask what is the difference between soul/spirit?
That’s just the point! The difference is so small or difficult or subtle that we don’t really know. That is what the author above is trying to tell us! Only God knows, it is too subtle for us to easily do. I do not believe you will find any theology deeper than that in the above.
Obviously the ancient commentators loved these sort of verses because it appealed to their allegorical imaginations. They could use them to explicate their own preconceived theologies even if it wasn’t anything to do with what the original authors intended at the time. That’s OK. maybe that is how the Holy Spirit and inspiration works. But I think it is a fruitless task to try and find any original objective meaning here other than what I suggested re God’s discernment being greater and far more piercing than Man’s.

 

[JamesCaruso]

The Church has dogmatically taught that we have only one spiritual soul – soul and spirit are not two separate parts/things that constitute the immaterial part of a human being.

The CCC paragraph #367 that I quoted in Post #2 references, in footnote 237, the Council of Constantinople 870 AD. Canon 11 of that Council reads:11
Though the old and new Testament teach that a man or woman has one rational and intellectual soul, and all the fathers and doctors of the church, who are spokesmen of God, express the same opinion, some have descended to such a depth of irreligion, through paying attention to the speculations of evil people, that they shamelessly teach as a dogma that a human being has two souls, and keep trying to prove their heresy by irrational means using a wisdom that has been made foolishness.

Therefore this holy and universal synod is hastening to uproot this wicked theory now growing like some loathsome form of weed. Carrying in its hand the winnowing fork of truth, with the intention of consigning all the chaff to inextinguishable fire, and making clean the threshing floor of Christ, in ringing tones it declares anathema the inventors and perpetrators of such impiety and all those holding similar views; it also declares and promulgates that nobody at all should hold or preserve in any way the written teaching of the authors of this impiety. If however anyone presumes to act in a way contrary to this holy and great synod, let him be anathema and an outcast from the faith and way of life of Christians.

papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum08.htm

From Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott:
Quote:
"*Again incompatible with Church dogma is the trichotomism taught by Plato, the gnostics, … according to which man is composed of three essential component parts, the body, an animal soul, and a spiritual soul…

The 8th General Council of Constantinople rejected the doctrine of the two souls, and…*

For me, this misses the point, since I am not talking about two souls, but about soul and spirit, just as the scriptures sometimes do, but I thought your earlier posr was on point and helpful where you quoted the Catechism. Thanks. .

 

[GEddie]

So we can pretty much dismiss the “bulls-eye” concept with the “spirit” in the center, “soul” around that, and “body” surrounding both?

Good, I thought so.

ICXC NIKA

 

[JamesCaruso]

James it would be very naiive to go through the whole of the Bible and believe one could successfully come up with a unified and consistantly defined meaning for the variety of original language words there that 2000 years later today get translated as “soul”, “spirit”, “self”, “breath” “person” etc.

Harder still to think that those definitions would well match those of Greek philosophy from which the word 'soul", for example, originally came from. And even then which Greek philosopher would we pick, because even amongst the Greek Philosophers there was disagreement. It is not totally hopeless as the Church went with Plato’s system for the first 1000 years or so as it lent itself well to Christian Revelation. But in the Middle Ages there was a revolution (due to the very exciting newly discovered works of Aristotle) and the Magisterium eventually nailed its colours to the mast of Aristotle via Aquinas.

The long and short of it is that the Old Testament is thoroughly Hebrew in mentality and they did not think like Greeks. The Hebrews speculated little about immortality and were more interested in 'spirit" here and now. It is the Greeks who invented “soul” and strongly linked it to immortality and composite understanding of human nature. So even if an originally Hebrew word (there is no equivalent for the Greek concept of soul) is eventually translated “soul” in the Old Testament … don’t expect to find a tidy understanding of its real meaning on any given usage. It won’t really be close to a Greek meaning.

The other thing to understand is that the Bible was written over a long period of time with increasing contact with greek and other cultures. So there will be as many meanings of these sorts of words as there are different authors in the Bible. Obviously there is a common thread, but its very thin and in the end detrmined by context as well.

Finally there are well known Hebrew literary/poetic devices in the Old Testament. They love playing on words and reperating the same idea twice in two very similar ways to reinforce the message. Your quote above is a good example. Don’t try and analyse the individual words too deeply because nothing meaningful is to be discovered in the trees…look for the forest.

You ask what is the difference between soul/spirit?
That’s just the point! The difference is so small or difficult or subtle that we don’t really know. That is what the author above is trying to tell us! Only God knows, it is too subtle for us to easily do. I do not believe you will find any theology deeper than that in the above.
Obviously the ancient commentators loved these sort of verses because it appealed to their allegorical imaginations. They could use them to explicate their own preconceived theologies even if it wasn’t anything to do with what the original authors intended at the time. That’s OK. maybe that is how the Holy Spirit and inspiration works. But I think it is a fruitless task to try and find any original objective meaning here other than what I suggested re God’s discernment being greater and far more piercing than Man’s.

I am very appreciative for your thoughtful and thorough answer to my question. It almost immediately brought to mind “light.” What is light? It sometimes acts as waves, and it sometimes acts as particles. But we know somehow it is only one thing, whatever that is. I hope that is confusing enough to clarify things. Thanks again.