Do humans have a non-physical soul? (And how does modern science affect the question?)

In classical Greek philosophy, the non-material “soul” was much more than ‘just’ a spirit. It was an eternal essence that pre-existed the birth of an individual and post-existed (survived) the body’s death. The ‘soul’ was the perfected rendition of the material body that was seen to be imperfect (and subject to sickness, death and decay). Upon death, the soul was released from its cloak. In this, the immortal soul was seen as ‘higher’ than the mortal body. So I think that one cannot merely transpose one concept into the other. There is much to differentiate classical Greek ideas of the soul and what has come into Christian faith.

One also has to understand the Hebrew concept of life and death, because it is relevant to the bible, as a Hebrew creation. In Hebrew thought, the body/soul was one entity and indivisible. At death, the ‘person’ is placed into the ground, into Hades, but is fully conscious. There is no separation of body/soul as for the Greeks. This understanding enabled a belief in apocalyptic resurrection. It provided the framework for it to be expressed.

Probably, one reason why the Greek concept of soul came into Christian faith, was the Apostle Paul’s use of the Greek philosophical framework to interpret Christian faith for his Greek-speaking audiences. There is a fine line between teaching a concept and re-interpreting a concept to help hearers/readers to understand it. Was St. Paul teaching the Greek version of soul or was he interpreting the Gospel in categories his Greek audience could understand? That’s a difficult question to answer.

I think that modern science will also keep body and soul together as a single entity. When the brain function ceases then the person is functionally ‘dead’.

But then there is the matter of resurrection. If time-space is an Earth-bound concept then anything outside of that, another planet, universe, or even another time-space dimension, is not subject to the same rate of time. Our “day” on Earth is a single revolution around the polar axis of the planet. ie one single spin of the planet from point to point. If we travelled to Mars a “day” would be completely different, as would a year, which is a single revolution around our Sun-star. So perhaps the point of death/resurrection is instantaneous by a different “time” rate than for usso that the two become an almost instant event back-to-back rather than two separate events separated by a long time. Just a thought.

At any rate, Christian theology has lived with the idea of “a bodily resurrection, a re-creation, a new heaven and Earth” and a cosmological reconcilliation (Romans 8; Colossians; The Revelation).

St. Paul does however, not discount the body completely. In Romans 12 and in 1 Cor. 6: 19f he points out the value of the body. This is completely at odds with the Greek conception that dismissed the body as having no eternal value whatsoever.

For Greek philosophy, the soul is eternal. The soul is split into two parts prior to birthing, representing its male/female components. So when people speak of “finding one’s soul-mate” this is what it refers to: the re-joining of the male/female soul in eternity.

The question revolves around whether human beings have an essence. For the bible, the answer must be yes and no. Th Judeo part of Scripture won’t be compatible with the Greek conception of soul. Paul’s re-interpretation less so, but needs careful reading so as not to read foreign or assumptive elements into it. It’s not clear that Jesus viewed humankind in a dualistic way - but then again, he was Jewish!

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If the Old Testament didn’t take a position on the physical or non-physical nature of the soul … then I’m not convinced it matters a hill of beans…

strikes me as a perfect explanation as giving personhood to a company in the form of a legal body with duties and responsibilities. Does it make it immortal and does it give it emotions?

Marvin

You have to understand that “reason” in A-T thought (and pre-modern thought in general) is a whole lot broader than the narrow concept of Spock-type logic we think of now. So yes, it does give the person emotions and, indeed, everything that distinguishes man from beast.

To Aquinas, the immaterial nature of reason, I think, gives the disembodied soul some kind of persistence beyond death in an attenuated form that enables communion with the Lord - but the real deal is the resurrection of the body, when the soul is embodied, but now by the imperishable.

So his basic concept is that the soul is the form of the material, but he wobbles on that a bit to accommodate the Scriptual teaching on the persistence of the spirit of man beyond death, and before the resurrection.

That’s pretty consistent with the Christian hope (and more so than the Cartesian dualist idea of a ghost in the machine), but to my mind takes insufficient account of the idea that it’s communion with the eternal God that gives eternal life, not an intrinsic propenisty in man.

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thanks for the response. It was actually meant tongue in cheek as the legal personhood given to a corporation lacks the emotional element as it cannot reason on its own. The individuals within can but the are not the corporation. Corporations are person created by man

Without knowing Aquinas I would agree with this view as I come to the same conclusion. In a causal view of reality my material existence as any other material existence is the consequence of the will of God thus my body is a materialisation of his word. The question is if the soul has begun to exist with the body or if it exists prior and past the existence of the physical body or if itis recycled as other religions claim.

To me the fall represents sin as the separation of the soul from the part of the body of God to become an individual by eating from the tree of self realisation. In the separation from God we become mortal as we now base our soul on our body which is perishable so it will perish with the body. So only by becoming part of God again we can become immortal again which is what Jesus demonstrated by not dying but remaining accessible to us through time, thus building the bridge to return to God. I understand that “hell bit” to be the burnout on reentry of the soul when fighting death. Peace is a great gift to have when the time comes and it might even help you to temporarily come back for some more time as that peace not only prevents you to burn out when your soul returns to eternity but also helps your body to have more energy to heal, but then that is my personal experience.

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What is wrong with lumping all these together under the topic: Soul? I see it just as a matter of semantics. Personally, I find it easier to ponder these difficult theological/philosophical conundrums if I follow Teilhard’s conception of the Noosphere (of Ideas), a universal sphere that has followed upon the Biosphere in which we all live. What we can lump under the topic of soul is (roughly) what each of our biological natures have contributed to the evolution of the Noosphere. Expressed in other terms, it is (again, roughly) the legacy that we leave to our progeny, to our local society (civic groups, churches, school endowments, etc.) and to our nation.

I have been blessed to have had quite close relationships with several agnostic scientists. We seem to be in close agreement with the concepts expressed above, but that agreement may have been more apparent when we did NOT use the term, Soul.
Al Leo

Yes, Marvin, corporations are occupants of the Noosphere, and their evolution is guided by Noogenes (the ‘DNA’ of corporate law, corporate by-laws), rendered operational by the ‘RNA’ of boards of directors, and section chiefs together with their employees, and finally made defunct by bankruptcy laws.

I like the way your have phrased this, especially when I consider that, until humans received the gift of conscience, evolution mostly favored selfishness and self-realization. (Symbiolsis being the prominent exception.) [quote=“marvin, post:146, topic:619”]
The question is if the soul has begun to exist with the body or if it exists prior and past the existence of the physical body or if itis recycled as other religions claim.
[/quote]

As far as I am acquainted with them, I have problems with a belief in religions that preach reincarnation into life forms on this earth; that is, until release is obtained to gain some sort of Nirvana. Personally, modern astronomy has suggested a more attractive alternative to me: namely finding so many other planets, some of which probably could support life and thus could be colonized by re-cycled humans that God has chosen to struggle with a new set of challenges to create his Kingdom. I would look forward to that with greater anticipation than the prospect of singing in a celestial choir. Even as a boy soprano, I did not have a good voice.

I wish you could expand on this somewhat. Thanks, and God Bless.
Al Leo

George, you may think I have fallen prey to scientism, but a life devoted to science has given me a much deeper love for my Creator than I possibly could have if I lived in the distant past and had only the teachings of the Old Testament prophets to guide me. I hope I am correct in believing that there are many pathways that lead to God. I’m sure your choice is right for you.
Al Leo

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I actually would disagree here completely, as evolution does eradicate selfishness. Symbiosis/cooperation is the norm as you see in the complex integration of ecosystems that are interdependent networks of living communities. Only when humans received the gift of consciousness, thus becoming the the image of God, selfishness flourished as with being able to perceive a self comes the wish to become a self. This is why I explain the fall as a poetic description of puberty. The eating from the tree of self realisation symbolized the rejection of the authority over the self and with it comes the wish to control your sexuality, e.g your son’s sudden fear that his bits fall off when you see him naked in the shower - after all those years :slight_smile: Thus sin is to become an individual self, thus automatcally being in conflict with the overall self that is God.

“Symbiosis (from Greek συμβίωσις “living together”, from σύν “together” and βίωσις “living”) is a close and often long-term interaction between two different biological species.”

Show me any living system you know that is not in a symbiotic relationship with another species.
We ourselves are a symbiotic organism that is only 10% human at a cellular level and less than 1% on a genetic level. The rest is bacteria

Evolution is controlled by the word of God, to love “thy” neighbour like “thyself”. It is the rule of integration and cooperation that leads to symbiosis and higher complexity. You have to understand that only the self-centred say "to love your neighbour like yourself Taking yourself as the measure of morality is the golden rule, to do to others like you want them to do to yourself. It cannot get more self centred than that as it makes your own self as the standard for morality. That is not what Jesus taught us. When he talked to his disciples about how to love, e.g. not addressing the wider “thyself” at a tribal level, he teaches them love each other like I have loved you, e.g. selfless love, which they would have understood immediately.

If as Christians we accept that reality is governed by the word of God as to love thy neighbour like thyself we will have to accept that the ones that do not obey this rule are taken out of evolution. That you might loose the odd species that was useful in itself in the process is no problem as init’s extinction is still supported creation to the best of it’s ability. You only have to rid yourself of the idea that the end of their material existence is the end- which is what Jesus has shown not to be the case. In having shown me that it is possible to live in other peoples hearts, as he does in myself, he has given me the chance to live in him as well and thus already given me his everlasting life. I only have to be able to see that my material existence is not the pinnacle of existence but to live in the love that he has shown me to exist in God.

When I was in a coma following a serious head injury and in the 4 major operations I had on my head ever since to stop me leaking I went in and out of hospital in a way that made the doctors happy. Not that they would have called it a miracle as I just recovered extremely well and quick as good as anyone could have hoped for. I understand it to come from the peace and love I experienced each time. Not having to worry gives you enormous strength to recover, to feel the love that others have towards you and even more those you worry about / love gives you strength. In those times when your senses do not give you the terrabytes of information to process and keep your brain busy, you are left with a lot of brain capacity and nothing to think about than your internal thoughts and worries. I can only pray for anyone to be at peace at that time. Particularly if you realise that it is not your will that is done any more or your mind is preoccupied with some hate, be it personal or the hate that you cannot do what you want, this hate will burn you out in a way that I would describe like burning in hell. The positive energy you get from the love you can experience in those brief moments of semi-consciousness, the words you pick up and the silhouettes you can see make a tremendous difference to your inner peace. I have been at both sides of that situation with a sibling suffering a serious accident with trauma as well and I learned, that if you have someone lying in hospital in a dire situation and you pray to God, not to pray to him like he is Santa to fix reality for me the way I wish, but to ask him to help me to come to terms with his reality and to do something that helps her/him to find the love and peace s/he needs to either go in peace or to come back. If s/he hears about you having brought a cooked meal to the partner and the kids to help them in their stress - or that someone drove them to hospital so they did not drive there in the absent mindedness that comes with the situation or look after them in any way… you will take some of their worries of them. It is the worries that take away the energy. To heal you need peace and if we pray to God tot ask him to do things for us - that is not logical. If we ask what we can do to give that person love and peace for Gods will to be done - he will answer us. And if it is the love and peace we can give someone to go from this world - that is fine as well. We only suffer if we insist that our will be done and do not accept that this is not the case. Once we accept that it is God’s will that is to be done, as Jesus has told us to pray, we do not suffer any more and we can go with our soul wherever he may guide us. We just have to give him authority over us again.

Sorry about the long piece - but you asked for me to expand on it so I hope you or someone else can get something from that expansion that is of use.

@marvin
Thanks for sharing your experience with me. It seems that both of us have survived head injuries that could easily have been fatal, and that experience changed our outlook on life from then on. Of course any critic, when we explain our world outlook, could claim that we see things this way because a few screws have been knocked loose. If so, then I would recommend that ‘procedure’ for a few of our politicians now running for office.

You have given me new food for thought here. It seems odd, Marvin, that we can be in total disagreement in interpreting the effects of evolutionary mechanics, and yet we end up at somewhat the same destination. When a mother bird sacrifices for her chick, I see unselfishness and 'compassion’. When her elder chick tries to kill its younger sibling and succeeds in shoving it from the nest, I see gross selfishness to promote individual survival. A young seedling taking advantage of a new opening in the forest canopy will ‘struggle’ to grow as fast as it can so it can capture maximum sunlight and shade its competition. That is selfishness, pure and simple. Sorry, but there are many more examples of selfishness in evolution than there are of symbiosis, but I’ll grant you that two of the latter, mitochondria and chloroplasts, have had the most profound effect overall.

Marvin, I will grant that until recently our bacterial ‘fellow travelers’ were considered as mere parasites. Now they are seen as contributors to our well-being. But still, I do not consider them as part of who I am. They may help me maintain my position in the Biosphere, but they do not contribute to my existence in the Noosphere. I guess I can be considered a Cartesian dualist in that I see Life in the Mind is of greater importance than mere existence in the Body.
Al Leo

@aleo

People are selfish and cooperative. Nature is symbiotic.

Christians and even many non-Christians understand that everyone is better off when people work together cooperatively.

God gave flora and fauna that instinct without having to understand it. Indeed Natural Selection favors “cooperation” (symbiosis) as E. O. Wilson has pointed out.

Now humans have to do a better job of symbiosis.

This may be an “old conversation” (last reply 305 days ago), but somehow I missed this part of the discussion, and, in my opinion, it deals with the most important role that BioLogos can fulfill. The neo-Darwinian theory is a splendid tool to help us understand all the world of life that surrounds us. There is no reason devout Christians should not embrace it. But Darwinism does not explain us. We humans ARE exceptional. At least on this planet, humankind has ushered in the Noosphere–the sphere of abstract thought and ideas; the concept of a Creator that we can relate to and covenant with. Elsewhere in this universe, the Cosmosphere probably has produced a Biosphere, and possibly a Noosphere with conscious creatures like we humans who crave a viable relationship with their Creator. If they do exist, and we do contact them, I trust our Christian Faith will still makes sense.

Perhaps I should keep quiet, Eddie, but I find it rather silly that I must click on “View hidden content” to learn what you have to say. I may not agree with it, but it expands my mind, just as @Relates, @Jon_Garvey and even Dawkins do.
Al Leo

I know this is an older discussion, so I hope it’s okay to still add comments.

I’d just like to go back, if I may, to some of the questions raised by BradKramer in the original post about the concept of the non-physical soul and how it relates to modern Christianity. Concepts of the soul were the topic of my Master’s research paper, so I get very enthusiastic about these questions.

One thing I learned during my research into theories of the soul is that there isn’t a single theory shared by all religions, or even a single theory that unites the cosmological and cosmogonical doctrines of each major world religion. There seem to be three major ways of understanding the soul that pop up repeatedly across boundaries of time, culture, and religion, and these three basic theories are always in tension with each other. It’s no different for early Christianity, where evidence for all three theories can be found. The three basic theories involve doctrines intended to heal help or close the perceived rifts between (1) nomos and physis (2) nomos and the Divine and (3) physis and the Divine. But not all not three (nomos, physis, and the Divine) on the same page at the same time, perhaps because possible solutions are considered too messy, too complex, and too non-Materialist to suit the needs of the brain’s System 2 circuits.

Within Christianity, Jesus’ core teachings fall most closely within the “physis and the Divine” category, while Paul’s teachings fall very clearly within the tradition of trying to heal the perceived rifts between nomos and the Divine.

What’s fascinating is that Jesus’ own theory of soul doesn’t seem to fit neatly or conveniently within the three main categories. He seemed to have a theory of soul that transcended “the usual suspects” and offered an expansion of the understanding of soul that’s still relevant to Christianity today. His theory was non-Platonic (an important distinction between his teachings and Paul’s), non-apocalyptic, non-eschatological, non-status-addicted, non-Materialist, and based on his powerful and unquenchable loving trust in God.

The modern world tends to assume that ancient theologians weren’t interested in questions of science and natural law, though, as many others on BioLogos have pointed out, this simply isn’t true. A persuasive theological doctrine – one that appeals to both heart and mind – has to be consistent with the natural laws that people can see for themselves on a daily basis. But the laws we normally see are the Materialist laws of cause and effect – the laws of classical physics, if you will. So the roots of ancient theories about the soul have relied heavily on classical physics and have attempted to prove how the soul might be created in ways that are consistent only with Materialist laws. This is exactly what Paul did in 1 Corinthians. Tertullian’s Materialist doctrine of the soul has also had a profound influence on Christian understandings of the soul, despite the fact that Tertullian’s traducianism was eventually rejected by Western orthodoxy.

Jesus, however, having made the leap that allowed him to transcend purely Materialist thought and enter into the more expansive and infinitely weirder quantum layers that make up most of Creation’s energy, didn’t feel obligated to limit his understanding of the soul to the realm of classical physics. Only today is our understanding of non-locality, interference patterns, dark matter, neutrinos, and dark energy finally catching up with Jesus’ highly intuitive grasp of how God’s Creation actually works.

Just because we don’t yet understand the science of the soul (i.e. non-Materialist consciousness loosely shaped by the powers of free will, independent causation, and independent action within the cosmic web of life created by God) is no reason to suppose the science doesn’t exist.

The best analogy I’ve seen for how the non-Materialist quantum energy bits of the soul (i.e. the complex blueprint God uses to generate the “body, heart, mind, and talent” of each soul) is the process of turning a caterpillar into a butterfly inside the strands of the cocoon. You can read about the small number of imaginal discs that survive the digesting process in a protein-rich soup in this Scientific American post.

I don’t think it’s really that much of a leap to think of the soul as a complex series of quantum imaginal discs that get digested (as it were) and respun into biological DNA when we’re conceived (like a quantum biological step-down transformer), then later redigested upon biological death and returned to our true “butterfly” state of quantum wholeness, with all the important imaginal discs of the soul still intact.

Of course, this theory of soul leads to a whole bunch of other human questions and problems, but at least it’s consistent with the known science.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

God bless,
Jen

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@Realspiritik

Thank you for your interest in this issue.

My view of the soul is based on my understanding of humanity composed of three aspects, body, mind, and spirit, as opposed to the traditional mind and body. It is also my understanding that the concept of the “immortal soul” is not Biblical and in fact this phrase does not occur in the Bible.

All organisms have a body, so are physical, All organisms have a “nervous system” of a sort that allows them to know and interact with their environment. Organisms which have more complex nervous systems have become able to think and be self-conscious. This ability to think and be self conscious has made human beings spiritual in that they are able to relate to God.

The concept of soul confuses the mind with the spirit. The idea that the soul is immortal is a serious issue that must be addressed and my view does.

Jesus and Paul are not talking about Greek understanding of the spirit, but the Hebrew view of the spirit, which is relational. This is the true understanding of the spirit and reality which we need to accept today because the old Greek views are passé.

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Hello, Roger. Thanks for responding to my post.

One of the issues that complicates any discussion about the nature of body, mind, spirit, and soul is the confused mess that has surrounded the use and meaning of each of these words – not just today, but for several millennia. If you look up the entries for “spirit” and “soul” in the 1978 New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology or in the 2014 New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, you get, well, a headache from trying to sort out all the nuances and overlapping theories.

Although it would be easier for us today if the ancient Greek and Jewish definitions for these words were simple, clear cut, and distinct from each, there was considerable overlap across cultural and religious lines, even in the 1st century CE.

Jesus and Paul both lived in a Hellenistic society in which multiple theories about God, the soul, the afterlife, and earthly morality intersected and blended into each other (hence, the heavy influence of Platonism in all its many layers that have found their way into Christian orthodoxy, starting with Paul).

With regard to the concept of the “immortal soul” being in the Bible, that’s a long topic, but, in short, the concept is most definitely there and is, in fact, so important to everything else that’s written that it’s assumed the readers and students will take it for granted as the starting point for the theological discussions that ensue.

When you write today about theological issues, you assume that your readers share certain common assumptions that nobody has to write down or establish as foundational before the theological discussions can begin. So, for example, you don’t have to prove to me that you and both have access to all the wonders of modern electricity, computers, internet access, etc. We both know it’s true (based on our personal experience) so we don’t have to remind each other of these daily foundations.

Similarly, in a culture where almost everyone assumed that the Divine and the soul (psyche, pneuma) did, indeed exist, you didn’t have to constantly spell that part out. The biblical arguments lay in how people were to understand the laws that led them to full relationship with God while they were in human form.

Needless to say, these arguments (and many arguments from “competing” religious traditions) continue in robust fashion to this very day.

Jesus’ core teachings about the Kingdom lose all meaning, integrity, coherence, and relevance to our lives if the concept of the immortal soul is stripped from the teachings. And yes, it does appear in the New Testament, where it appears as the theological centerpiece of Mark in Mark 12.

God bless,
Jen

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@Realspiritik, I think you need to define these in plain English.

Sure, no problem.

From Walter Burkert’s book Greek Religion (trans. John Raffan (1977; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 312-313) comes this quote:

Nomos, meaning both custom and law, becomes a central concept of sophistic thought. Laws are made by men and can be altered arbitrarily. And what is tradition if not the sum of such ordinances? Horizons are extended through travel and the reports of travel: with growing interest men became aware of foreign peoples among whom everything is different, witness the ethnographic digressions of Herodotus. In this way the unquestioned assumptions of custom can easily be shaken. The discovery of the changeability of custom becomes particularly dangerous when nomos is set in opposition to physis, a concept provided by the philosophy of nature where it is used to denote the growing of the cosmos and of all things contained in it from their own laws. Archelaos, a pupil of Anaxagoras, is supposed to have been the first to formulate this antithesis about 440 BC: the just and the unjust, the ugly and the beautiful are not defined by physis but by nomos, by arbitrarily changing human convention.
But it was on tradition, nomos, that religion primarily rested, as the Greeks knew well. Its foundations were seen to be threatened, at least in theory, as a result of the questioning of nomos.

Hope this helps.

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@Realspiritik

I have to say say that what and how you defined nomos doesn’t really help me at all.

What I’m looking for is a thumbnail definition of these 3 concepts of soul, or 3 concepts of the afterlife - - - rather than definitions for the specific words you have invoked in your triune comparison in the post above.

My own way of viewing the differences between the various schools of thought looks like this:

  1. Sadducees say they don’t believe in Angels or an Afterlife; I suspect they don’t believe in a “General Resurrection” but that by being Priests, and by living a righteous life, they think they will be eligible to become a “saint” or “star” in the sky (as per Dead Sea Scroll writings).

  2. Pharisees believe in Angels and a General Resurrection, but the soul is like the light in a light bulb. Without the physical bulb (the physical body), the soul cannot manifest itself. I.E., Physical body required for resurrection.

  3. Essene and/or Jesus: Believe in Angels, a General Resurrection, but also an intermediate resurrection where the soul can exist without a body, and can wait for angels to deliver him or her to the bosom of God if warranted I.E., physical body not required to commune with angels until the time of the General Resurrection, whereupon the soul either is awarded a new physical body, or continues on as a non-physical spiritual body.

On point (3), the ancient Jewish/Christian writing called “History of the Rechabites” explores this third school of the soul and an afterlife.

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Something like this is also revealed in Josephus’s description of the “Suicide Speech” of a rebel at Masada - - named “Elazar Ben Yair”.

Hello, George. Sorry you didn’t find Walter Burkert’s definition of nomos helpful. It’s definitely a complex subject. Nomos is a human construct that incorporates human laws and human traditions, as well as human attempts to grasp, define, and write down what certain human individuals and certain human groups believe are God’s immutable laws. The history of religion, along with the history of politics, economics, science, and psychology, are often records of the ways in which humans try to gain Divine authority for the choices, traditions, and laws that we, as humans, find convenient for our own reasons.

I’m not trying to suggest that God has no Divine laws or authority – I’m only pointing out (as I’m sure you already know) that humans often try to claim the authority of Divine nomos for human cultural traditions that are in no way Divine, and many of these humans will continue to alter their theological doctrines to preserve their “right to be right” no matter how many times new information comes to light that contradicts their claims to Divine authority.

I fully understand that you probably don’t agree with my thoughts about doctrines of the soul, and it’s not my intention to try to persuade you. I’ll try to answer the new points you’ve raised, as I tried to answer your first request for me to define the terms in plain English.

The point I made above is that there are universal ways of approaching the “big questions” about God, soul, etc., and that these tend to fall into three main philosophical approaches or categories.

Approach #1 is an attempt to try to close the philosophical rift between physis and nomos.
The main problem: How can we reconcile the necessities of nature with the themes of justice and judgment derived from human laws?
The solution: Elevation of human authority and human status (arete).
Examples from religious history:
• Pre-Socratic laws of eusebia (including a doctrine of the soul)
• theological synthesis of the Deuteronomistic history (Joshua to 2 Kings)
• Genesis 2-3
• Ancient Near East Wisdom literature (eg. Proverbs)

Approach #2 is an attempt to close the philosophical rift between nomos and the Divine.
The main problem: How can we reconcile the themes of justice and judgment derived from human laws with the puzzling long-term relationship we have with God?
The solution: Elevation of prophetic authority, and lack of accountability to the necessities of nature.
Examples from religious history:
• Sinai Covenant; Second Isaiah
• Plato (including doctrines of the soul)
• apocalyptic literature
• proto-Gnosticism
• Paul

Approach #3 is an attempt to close the philosophical rift Between physis and the Divine.
The main problem: How can we reconcile the necessities of nature with the puzzling long-term relationship we have with God?
The solution: Elevation of secret knowledge, mysticism, and cult rituals.
Examples from religious history:
• Zion & Enthronement Psalms; Psalms of Thanksgiving
• Zion Covenant
• Genesis 1
• Mysteries (eg. Eleusinian)
• Jesus’ kingdom parables (including a doctrine of the soul) – sort of

As you can see from the examples I’ve given from religious history, there are multiple different solutions to each of three main questions. So there are three main questions or apparent “problems” but there are not only three answers. Far from it!

Paul and the Essenes and the Pharisees and Plato were all primarily concerned with Approach #2, which is the question of how to resolve the tension between human laws and traditions (nomos) and the Divine. Because their interests lay largely with human law and not with natural law (i.e. physis), their theological solutions, their teachings, their spiritual practices, and their socio-political priorities were all centered around nomos and much less so around physis.

Those who are most interested in the problems raised by Approach #1 are the ones who are most likely to place less emphasis on doctrines of the soul because the promises of Wisdom literature lend more authority and importance to earthly concerns such as obedience to human laws and authority (nomos). So the Sadducees would be a good example of a 1st century Jewish Approach #1 school of thought.

Again, I have no wish to try to persuade you of anything, and if you think my theory is a load of crap, I’m okay with that. I apologize for any lack of clarity on my part and will leave you in peace with the theories you’re comfortable with.

My main concern was to introduce some ideas about how today’s Christians could think in helpful ways about the soul – ideas linked to Jesus’ original doctrine of the soul – but I understand that perhaps this wasn’t the right place.

God bless,
Jen

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