The soul vs. the spirit

[normdplume]

I was googling the other day about the differences between an angel and a soul. That’s when I discovered that we have not just a soul, but also a spirit.

Questions:

• What is the fundamental difference between our soul and our spirit from a Catholic perspective? From what I’ve read, our soul is what makes us living beings, and our spirit is what connects us to God, who is also a spirit. Is this correct?
• Is our spirit like a vessel, filled with the Holy Spirit for those who believe in God?
• When someone is possessed, do the demons take over our spirit, our soul, our body, or all three?

Thanks

 

[Francis]

@normdplume

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p6.htm

II. "BODY AND SOUL BUT TRULY ONE"

[362] The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "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."229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

[363] In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person .230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

[364] The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

[366]’ The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

[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.237 “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.238

[368] The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart , in the biblical sense of the depths of one’s being, where the person decides for or against God.239

 

[Lee1]

Happy anniversary @Francis

 

[Dan_Defender]

I think human soul and spirit can be used interchangeably in practice. And I seem to remember this was the view of St Thomas Aquinas. I am sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

 

[ChristMyLife]

In Roman Catholic theological anthropology, man is a bipartite being, composed of a physical, natural body, and a supernatural, spiritual soul.

There is a theological distinction between man being bipartite (body + spiritual soul) and tripartite (body + spirit + soul). St. Thomas Aquinas is the one who solidified the bipartite anthropology in Roman Catholic theology.

Eastern Catholics are permitted to hold to a tripartite anthropology of man.

To read more in depth, see: Bipartite (theology) - Wikipedia and Tripartite (theology) - Wikipedia

 

[Francis]

@Lee1

Thanks for noticing, God Bless

 

[normdplume]

Thank you, all.

 

[Richca]

I was googling the other day about the differences between an angel and a soul. That’s when I discovered that we have not just a soul, but also a spirit.

Questions:

• What is the fundamental difference between our soul and our spirit from a Catholic perspective? From what I’ve read, our soul is what makes us living beings, and our spirit is what connects us to God, who is also a spirit. Is this correct?

There is only one soul or spirit in each human being so soul and spirit are essentially synonymous terms when speaking of human beings. Unlike plants and animals, humans have a spiritual soul that possesses the spiritual faculties of intellect and will so this is where the spiritual aspect of humans comes from. Like animals and plants, the human soul also possesses lower sensory and vegetative powers which function in conjunction with the body and bodily organs and may be considered in a certain sense as the proximate or immediate powers of the soul which animate the body although the first principle is the substance or essence of the whole soul itself from which these powers flow. It is in this sense that St Paul can be interpreted where he says:
“May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).

‘Spirit’ as in the spiritual powers of our soul.
‘Soul’ as in the sensory appetites.

Again, we only have one spiritual soul which animates the body but from which flow various powers which are in it, namely, the spiritual powers of intellect and will whose operation is wholly independent of the body, and sensory and vegetative powers whose operation is through the body and bodily organs.