Do only humans have souls/how were humans ensouled in an evolutionary process?

[still_learning]

@Reggie_O_Donoghue

What do you think?

I don’t know if I can easily answer that question, but I do think there are things that can be addressed about that.

I think there is s clear distinction between the two. There is an entire book written for humans, and nothing for animals…Humans were image bearers, animals were not.

We were created to care for the animals and the earth. Subdue/rule the earth and the animals. We were not instructed to rule over other humans though.

It says of how much more valuable we are than flowers or sparrows. Jesus was incarnated as a human.

Why does one need a soul? What value is one? What is a soul?

I think a soul or a spirit, is that which lives in us, that which will never perish. I think when animals or flowers or stars are gone, they are gone, they having nothing everlasting in them, they serve their purpose, and are no more. The spirit or soul is a blessing bestowed to us, it allows us to live above our biological impulses, doing things greater than the flesh.

@Jay313

It has been a common (though not universal) assumption in the history of Christian thought that humans were created immortal, and only lost their immortality with the entrance of death as the consequence for sin. This is, however, a misreading of the biblical data, which suggests that humans were created mortal with the possibility of attaining eternal life—a possibility that was lost through sin and is now realized in Jesus Christ.

This has come to be my thoughts too. Why would God create a tree of life if we already were immortal, and if we were immortal, how was it taken from us (immortality cannot be taken away, or it is not immortal), we must not have been created immortal.