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

What makes your life so precious is that it is finite. Make the most of it. Live, love, laugh, cry, have children, give back, make the world better in any way that you chose.

@Find_My_Way
Moses and Elijah appeared because God is a God of the living and not the dead. For unto him all are alive. Mr. Finite is wrong and do not listen to that. You only need to read one verse and it is 2 Corinthians 5:6-8. Please do not let negativity as expressed by some discourage you. God bless and keep the faith!

I touch on this topic in my post “Did Neanderthals have a soul?”. As a Catholic, I believe that God endows the human with a soul at the moment of conception, and I also believe (and this belief can be supported, but not in a short comment) , along with Pope St. John Paul II, that the soul/mind is not an epiphenomenon of material stuff. In short, along with the fictional character in a Canticle for Leibowitz , “You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”

Kenneth Kemp has written much more incisively on this in his article, Science, Theology and Monogenesis.

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Thank you for your words of wisdom, Dr. Kurland. God bless.

@Patrick

Patrick you are right. Our lives are finite. There is not6hing in Christianity that says differently. However the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is evidence that our lives are open ended. The issue is not the length of life, but the quality of our lives.

If you want to think that there is no difference between the quality of human lives and the lives of other creatures, that is your prerogative, but that is not true. We can choose to accept our past, present and future, while they cannot.

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Your answer is good; however, we must not forget that we obtain eternal life through Jesus. I believe we are basically saying the same thing. Eternal life, as you know, goes beyond this life. It could go one of two ways: when we receive eternal life that begins at the moment we accept Christ and we go beyond the veil of death,it could be that the soul lives on without a body until the Second Coming occurs and the resurrection takes place, or there could be instantaneous resurrection since time and eternity are not the same. Therefore, only earthly life is finite. Our dear friend above is therefore wrong. There is more than this life; however, it is not inherent since eternal life is a gift from God. Do the lost have to spend eternity in hell or is hell a place of destruction, i.e., annihilation. That is a question for another blog. Shall we consider that in the theology/philosophy section? Ta Ta!

These problems are precisely what led me to consider that, for theological discussions, humanity should be defined, not by the Homo sapiens genome, but by their behavior, the modern form of which appeared suddenly as a Great Leap Forward (as per I. Tattersall & J. Diamond). This epigenetic change that transformed brain into Mind could be transmitted orally from the first few that experienced it to other Homo sapiens; i.e. it was a Lamarkian type of evolution. The physical nature of this “programming” is unknown at present, but the fact that DNA methylation operates differently in the brain than in other tissues is a fact that should be investigated further.

The importance for theological discussions is that the GLF would mark the first time any earthly life could respond to its Creator’s offer to become co-creators–to resist the selfish tendencies of our genetic nature and infuse into earthly life solid evidence of altruism and compassion, qualities that had only been hinted at previously. Thus moral evil–freely rejecting God’s offer to be co-creators–arose with the advent of Mind and conscience (~40K yrs. BP), but also it made possible the immortality of human souls.

Acceptance of this proposal leads to a number of important conclusions that involve potentiality and actualization. Each Homo sapiens zygote has an immortal soul, but its importance is only potential until it is actualized by overcoming a number of hurdles, both in-utero and neonatal. Faulty gastrulation could lead to anencephaly, and the potential to become human could never be actualized. The ‘fate’ of the immortal souls of stillborn humans (who die before being baptized) was ‘solved’ by the Catholic dogma of Limbo. Following my proposal, the ‘fate’ of one’s immortal soul depends, not upon a specific act of baptism, but of the attainment of ‘the age of reason’–i.e., the acquisition of a conscience, the formation of which is a gradual process and therefore cannot be assigned a specific time frame. This may be seen as unsatisfactory, but it is unavoidable. After all, the rational justification of Faith is an oxymoron.
Al Leo

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@marvin

Hello friends.

How would you respond then to Matthew 10:28?

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

What did Jesus mean by that? Remember that nephesh (Hebrew) and psyche (Greek) really refer to the whole person. I shall give an example: Genesis 2:7. The idea of an inherently immortal soul is an idea of Greek philosophy. Are you saying that God can create the human soul but cannot destroy it. Let us consider this thesis again. Explain to me in logical terms what Jesus meant by destroy. I wish to quote from the Harper Collins Dictionary as follows:

It is important to recognize that the Greek notion of the immortality of the soul was virtually unknown to authors of the Hebrew Bible.

Let us all pull down our Greek and Hebrew Language tools and look up soul, nephesh, and psyche. Let us not quote Church dogma. What does the Holy Word really say? Also, Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union, says and I quote: This excellent resource is truly welcome. A Catholic says that this book is a good Biblical Tool. What do you think about that? Marvin, please join this conversation. I have other sources to quote as well. Instantaneous Resurrection could be the answer since time and eternity are not the same. I have a quote from a professor concerning Einstein’s concept on that too. It could also be conditional immortality of the soul as well as resurrection of the body. That is a different view than instantaneous resurrection.

God bless you and your family.

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Al,
Happy 2016 to you and your family. I fully agree with you that being human is better defined by behavior instead of by a specific genome. But if you make the behavioral line at 40,000 years ago, how do you treat all the other species of humans who had similar if not identical behaviors? I am talking about the Neanderthals, Denosivans, archaic Sapian, Red Deer, Flores and perhaps others.

Pat
Thanks for the good wishes for 2016, and the same from me to you.

I am relying on Tattersall, Morris and Diamond for the information that modern Homo sapiens (post 40K BP) were in a class by themselves in the matter of behavior, even surpassing the archaic Homo sapiens. Painting, sculpture and making music are some indication of this, but perhaps the strongest evidence is the sudden appearance of finely crafted grave goods. As Dawkins maintained–their brains were programmed differently–not larger, but suddenly programmed with an efficient operating system.
Al

That seems to be a stretch for me given the percentage of Neanderthal genes that Europeans have.
Most of the analysis done says that around 60,000 to 30,000 mostly Neanderthal men mated with Sapian woman. I hope that the Sapian woman found the Neanderthal men attractive - stockier, more muscular perhaps.

Well I don’t know about you all, but I’ve treated them with utmost deference and respect whenever I’ve encountered them and suggest that everybody else do the same.

Seriously, though; why is it so important to so many that these precise lines get drawn for things so far gone into the past? It’s as if we are imagining that we are God and that it is our responsibility to assign value.

Dear Mervin,

Do you have any comment to make about my statement above? I mean no disrespect; however, I am being ignored. The concept is Does a human have a non-physical soul? Has the topic changed from the title?

God bless

Given that there may have been as many as seven species of humans living together for thousands of years and that for most of us, each of our genomes contain DNA from these other species, I think it is very important as it will pretty much define why we are the only living human species on Earth. It think it is central to human history which spans a million years or more.

I am happy to hear that you treat “them” (the existent Neanderthals, Denosivans and other) with utmost deference and respect. :grinning: Then it is very easy to treat the seven billion alive humans with the same deference and respect.

May I ask you to review my entry for today? You will find it below in reference to a non-physical soul. It seems that the conversation is going in a different direction. I would just like an opinion from you. Thanks and God bless.

@Patrick
My premise is based on the evidence that the increase in brain size from 300 cc (Australopithicus) to 1,400 cc (Neanderthal & Homo sapiens) was an exaptation,– useful enough to retain but greatly under-performing if all the potential neural circuits that were made through experience were retained and utilized. This Lamarkian evolution–selective advantage gained through lifetime experience–was a game-changer. It was as if the computer hardware of an IBM Watson had been operating with a primitive Basic language and then suddenly switched to Linux and the most advanced language. I have cited the Frenchman with adult hydrocephalus as evidence. His brain was ‘programed’ through experience as he matured, but hydrocephalus gradually reduced brain size until he was operating in modern society with about half of Lucy’s 350 cc. Forget relating ‘humanity’ to the genome, Pat. It’s how we behave that counts.
Al

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Edward,
In order to determine if humans have a non-physical soul, don’t we first have to define what it means to be human?

Al,
I agree with you fully. Now the hard part, given that 40,000 years ago there were up to seven species of advanced forms of the genus Homo living (and mating) together for thousand of years and were behaving generally the same. Did only one human species get souls? And when and where did it occur? This should be testable forensic science.

But don’t we need to distinguish the term soul in the Hebrew mind as opposed to the Greek concept of the soul? We must watch out when we use the term immortal soul. Is the soul immortal inherently as the Greeks said or is it a conditional situation, i.e., only the Christian soul is immortal. What does the body have to do with the soul in the Hebrew mind as opposed to the Greek mind. Since everyone must relate the soul to the evolution of the body, we must consider what Aristotle, a Greek philosopher believed. Everything has a soul. To quote from De Anima, the soul is that substance that makes matter into something that lives. If we accept the idea of the soul from the concept of Thomas Aquinas, God can create the human soul and he can destroy it. I see in this converation a development of the idea of the soul that will ultimately lead to the concept that the soul cannot exist without a body from your conversations. That is what Aristotle believed. Why did the soul have to evolve if someone accepts the Catholic Church concept of the soul. Aquinas believed that the human soul was made directly by God. Only animal souls come from the body and human souls do not. Therefore, evolution is not relevant in reference to the human soul if one accepts the concepts of Thomas Aquinas. That is philosophical fact.There are two many concepts on this topic to come up with a logical conclusion. Each subtopic must be discussed individually. I do not see that here. The main point is: the human soul did not evolve after human beings came on the seen. I wish to add something else to our pie of ideas. Phillip Edgcomb Hughes, a Church of England theologian, said that human souls do not become immortal until we accept Christ. Now friends and you are my friends, how does that relate to Aristotle’s view that all creatures have a soul that is not immortal. Since the human soul does not become immortal until we accept Christ, we must use other things that make us different from the animals. Is’t that true? Do please give a response to that. Mervin, I mean this one. Also go up a few more and view the one that is almost totally in print.