The fact that there is some basis to make this claim is why I don’t like the word “soul.” It is too ambiguous and comes from such a variety of belief systems and ideas that I see little value in the word. Thus if we want to talk about the non-physical and imperishable portion of our existence, the word “spirit” is better and Paul really nails this down in 1 Cor 15.
You are certainly free to pay no attention to Paul or Bible. There are many religions in the world. But the belief in a non-physical existence which includes both God and an afterlife is central to the Christian religion. Our ultimate destiny is polarized into heaven and hell by the simple fact that the forces of good/creation and evil/destruction are opposed to each other. You either follow where your bad habits lead to greater degradation or you fight against them and embrace the challenge of life to learn and strive to fulfill your potential for making the world/existence something worthwhile.
As for this bizarre idea of being physically resurrected so that you can be tortured by a sadistic demonic god, well no I don’t see any point to that at all. But I don’t think that is what Christianity is about, any more than I am buying the distortion which has people passing out indulgences and get out of jail free cards in some secret knowledge of “sound doctrine.” Our actions have logical consequences from which there is simply no escape. However there are choices concerning how we can deal with those consequences.
It strikes me that folks here may not be aware of the fact that skilled/reputable hypnotic regression therapists have collected and collated a lot of data pertaining to what souls actually encounter and deal with ‘in the afterlife’ - Michael Newton, Ph.D.'s books, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, have struck me as being especially informative.in this regard.
Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives by Michael Newton
Learn the latest details and most recent groundbreaking discoveries that reveal, for the first time, the mystery of life in the spirit world after death on Earth—proof that our consciousness survives—in Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, PhD.
Using a special hypnosis technique to reach the hidden memories of subjects, Dr. Newton discovered some amazing insights into what happens to us between lives. Journey of Souls is the record of 29 people who recalled their experiences between physical deaths. Through their extraordinary stories, you will learn specifics about:
How it feels to die
What you see and feel right after death
The truth about "spiritual guides"
What happens to "disturbed" souls
Why you are assigned to certain soul groups in the spirit world and what you do there
How you choose another body to return to Earth
The different levels of souls: beginning, intermediate, and advanced
When and where you first learn to recognize soulmates on Earth
The purpose of life
Journey of Souls is a graphic record or “travel log” by these people of what happens between lives on Earth. They give specific details as they movingly describe their astounding experiences.
After reading Journey of Souls, you will gain a better understanding of the immortality of the human soul. You will meet day-to-day challenges with a greater sense of purpose. You will begin to understand the reasons behind events in your own life."
And here a jpeg of the back cover of Destiny of Souls, describing what’s in it:
Michael Newton founded an Institute devoted to providing hypnotherapy to people interested in exploring not just their experiences in prior lives but in the ‘spiritual world’ where souls ‘live’ between lives. Some might find looking his name and work up on the internet quite an enlightening experience. Needless to say what he and his clients discovered (his book are chock full of case-session transcripts!) provide a lot of information whereby ‘traditional religious’ notions pertaining to where souls come from and the afterlife may be seen in perspective.
Soul is life… we are living souls. When we die, we cease to exist. Think about it… Jesus said Lazarus was asleep… many times Paul refers to brothers who have died has “those who have fallen asleep in death”. The dead are awaiting the promised resurrection…John 5:25-30
5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Yes, but the scriptures tell us the resurrection will be on the “last day”. Until then, the dead are “asleep” or “resting” as Jesus put it.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
If indeed we are already dead to our spirit, and seperated from God, what happens to the soul is not relevant. This view also deals with the soul that sins, will die, and forever seperated from the spirit which becomes a demon and cannot stay in God’s presence but finds a hiding place. Leaving the person in a state whereby in the final judgment their name is removed and it is pronounced that God never knew them.
Before the cross, the soul of believers was in the bosom of Abraham. It was not sleeping nor could it join with the spirit, because Jesus had not finished the task that allowed such reunion.
Paul settled the issue, and stated that now the soul could be reunited with spirit and be instantly with God (in Christ). The issue is not really with the soul or spirit but the body, if one holds that the body contains both soul and spirit. What is currently dead and separate from God? Some say the spirit leaves the body to be with God, and the soul sleeps, while the body is dead.
Back to a spiritual body that is always with God, and a physical body. The soul does not have a dead or alive attribute. It just exists. We will receive a new body when the time comes. To say the soul is lost between the two bodies, or asleep does not make sense one bit. Either it is in the physical or spiritual. Although the Jews seemed to allow for a period of 3 days, where the soul can come back to the physical. Now if the soul of a lost being is placed into the demon body, and sent to hell, or the soul dies, and never makes it to the demon body, then that soul or being will never know God, or they will have one chance to know God, and find out what they were rejecting. At what point a spirit can no longer tolerate God, because the physical has rejected God cannot be known in the physical.
The soul would be the collection of experiences by a being that has both a physical body, and a spiritual body, but is currently separated from the spiritual experience. That is why God sends us the Holy Spirit in the place of the spiritual body that is dead to us. I do not see the soul existing without a body as it is essentially “software” unable to do so. I think that the NT teaches that the only thing we can know with certainty is that we are in Christ. Especially if the Holy Spirit is working in us. That is the experience of the soul.
When I was in my early twenties, I visited my great grandmother who had been in a nursing home with severe dementia for several years. She didn’t know any family members, and would yell out to a person that wasn’t in her room. The last time I saw her I was feeding her ice cream, and she grabbed my hand and held it, and started asking me questions, in a perfectly normal voice and manner! She asked by name, if my grandfather had died? And she said not to lie to her. My grandfather had indeed died about 3 months earlier. She then told me that she would also be dying soon, and that “all her people” would be there to greet her. She promised to greet me at the end of my life. She smiled and returned to her demented state. By this time I was totally beside myself. A few days later she died, alone in the nursing home.
I tried to tell my dad, who didn’t believe me. And actually told me I was lying! Several other family members also looked at me with skepticism, and doubt. Which I don’t blame them for. I even thought for a while that I might have had some kind of hallucination! But, no. I now believe that my grandmother had spoke from her soul, with a moment of clarity. And why not with me? I was closer to her than any of my other family members.
Dear @ronedee,
Thank you for sharing your personal story. You are not alone, In her life’s work, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, published many such near death clarity moments. The most memorable from her work for me is the story of a patient who had been institutionalized their entire life and never spoke a single world. Right before he died, he sat up and sang a song praising God. Kübler-Ross explained this behavior as a soul that was held in-prisoned In a mute body and was allowed to sing God’s praises at the end their sentence.
The soul carries the pure spark of life that God gave us, plus all the vices that we carry. This is what dims our light. The soul is in the center of our spiritual body, located essentially behind our human heart. When people speak of the “heart” they are actually referring to the soul, which is the holder of conscience.
Best Wishes, Shawn
That is very interesting. I am in no way very knowledgeable here, but I guess my concern with calling consciousness the soul or an otherwise immutable spiritual constant would be the observation of how simple, inorganic chemicals such as Versed, inhaled anesthetics and poisons can totally or partially disintegrate it. It implies to me that it is natural. Does Hart give a scientific argument for an implication that we will never be able to understand it…or am I misunderstanding him? I can learn from this. Thanks.
What is the soul?
A big part of this question is the confusion between three closely related words, soul, spirit, and mind. They were used by the Greeks and found their way into our vocabulary by way of the Bible, theology, and philosophy.
The Greek word nous means mind, I think in the normal way we use it today, our means of thinking. However, the Greek word psyche, which is usually translated “soul,” can also be translated as mind. This is because the Greeks were oriented toward thinking, so they that that the key to who a person is the mind.
The English word psychology is based on psyche. Psychology is about more than the thinking of a person. It is about the personality of a person and problems of the personality are treated by changing thinking, drugs, and changing actions.
The Greek word pneuma is translated spirit. Sadly in Western dualism there is little room for the spirit. In as far as humans as said to have an eternal soul, the soul could be said to be the divine aspect of humanity or the spirit. While the mind is about thinking, the Christian spirit is about loving. I prefer to think that the spirit is about the moral essence of a person.
Western Dualism = Mind (Soul) and Body. Thinking and the physical.
Christian Realism = Body, Mind, and Spirit. Physical, Thinking, and Spiritual. Knowing and Loving are different. The mind is not physical, because thinking is not physical, but rational.
Interesting toward the end when he suggests that very complex high-level information processing might be possible for computers -which may even fool human observers- and yet be unaccompanied by any awareness/experience of the sort we think of from direct experience.
“There is a sense, according to some, that sooner rather than later computers may be cognitively as good as we are – not just in some tasks, such as playing Go, chess, or recognising faces, or driving cars, but in everything,” says Tononi. “But if integrated information theory is correct, computers could behave exactly like you and me – indeed you might [even] be able to have a conversation with them that is as rewarding, or more rewarding, than with you or me – and yet there would literally be nobody there.” Again, it comes down to that question of whether intelligent behaviour has to arise from consciousness – and Tononi’s theory would suggest it’s not.
But if he is right about that then it would seem that while information processing may be necessary for and strongly correlated with consciousness - consciousness isn’t that. I wonder what I’m missing? It certainly seems as though the question of what consciousness is has once again gotten away. Once again we’re left talking about indicators without being able to say what it is.
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” - Gn 2:7, KJV.
The biblical soul is the person alive, even modern translations recognize this by translating “living soul” as “living being”.
The breath of life (or spirit) is what gives life to the body (“dust of the ground”) and the result of this conjunction is the person alive, that is a “living being” or “living soul”.
The notion of nephesh (soul) in the Bible is connected with life, breath and sometimes seems to indicate the mind.
Hart is giving a metaphysical argument. Let me explain.
Suppose materialism were true. Nature would automatically be mechanistic through and through while biology would be entirely reducible to physics. “How does life arise?” would become a meaningless question, since “life” wouldn´t really exist. It would be matter in motion. The same goes for higher animals. The line from the stone to the thinking human would be fluid. Thinking would be matter in motion. Every “meaning” which we attribute to language, represented by brainstates, would be illusory, the same goes for abstractions e.g. in mathematics. Scientific materialism doesn´t have space for that, and if it doesn´t fit, it gets eliminated.
Now this is of course completely absurd, hence my adamant opinion that materialism can´t possibly be right. Life is a qualitative feature, when we compare the animate to non-animate matter we detect completely new features, impossible to reduce to the single constituents. The same and even more extreme comes when we introduce the mental to the picture; Consciousness, Intentionality, Rationality.
Why can we safely conclude that science by itself will not explain consciousness? Why does Tononi´s idea pose no threat whatsoever to that? Simple; science depends on certain metaphysics. Science is in the business of detecting and explaining mechanistically quantitative material phenomena and their causal relationships. If we assume that it could exhaustively explain every aspect of consciousness, we´d be forced to affirm the consequence I outlined above. However they cannot possibly be correct. Hence the quantitative picture is insufficient.
Remember: Everytime you affirm emergence, you have refuted the materialistic view of nature
But the fantasy of alchemy that there is some life stuff which you can add to something nonliving in order to make it alive doesn’t exist. Like all living things, the body is alive because of all the self-perpetuating cyclical processes going on to maintain the body’s structure in response to environmental challenges. And it is demonstrable this life of mankind is derived from the life that had been going on for billions of years already in animals, plants and micro-organisms.
So I would suggest that what this passage is really about is not what makes the body alive but what makes the body a person… and that is the human mind, which is distinguished from the operation of the brain by language. This suggests that the breath of life coming from God is no alchemical stuff of life but rather a communication of essential ideas, such as what it means to be a person.
Whether or not the Hebrew word indicates any such thing, I quite agree that the human mind is the essential difference which makes the body a person.
This is a difficult idea to fully accept for me in light of such things as Alzheimer’s, strokes, brain injury, and mental impairment. I know how families who loved ones with dementia state at the time of death that “they lost them little by little over the years” or “they have been gone a long time,” which is supportive of that concept. Yet, to equate the mind with the soul is to open the door to the idea that those with an impaired mind are less human or less “souled” than those who are not. Yet again, we accept brain death as final death itself.
So, while I am sympathetic to the idea of mind as soul, I agree with what I think you are saying that while an essential component, there is more to it than just the mind. What that “more” is a question. Perhaps it is the integration of all the components of mind, body, and spirit. But as we perhaps falsely equate spirit with soul, that gets fuzzy also. Sorry to have rambled.
That is based on an entirely different premise that illness, injury, or impairment reduces the value of a living thing. It is not premise that most people are likely to accept. How about you? Or are you suggesting that I embrace such a premise? A bird with an illness, injury, or impairment is still a bird and a mind with an illness, injury, or impairment is still a mind. The issue here is whether a body without any mind whatsoever is still a person? Perhaps you think lobotomizing someone is no great crime compared to murder, but I think it is exactly the same as murder. Or maybe we should be talking about whether the psychological harm that people do to others is of any significance compared to physical harm? It may be difficult to legally penalize because we currently don’t have the ability to measure such harm as effectively, consistently, and objectively, but that doesn’t mean is really less significant.
I most certainly do not equate the mind with the soul. I don’t believe in the pagan idea of an immortal “soul” at all. I believe the mind is a physical living organism and I believe in the spirit that all living things create by their choices. The word being translated inconsistently as “soul” in some translations simply means life, being, and person. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this pagan concept of a soul. I do not believe in metaphysical zombies which are defined as physically identical to human beings but lacking some supernatural thing that makes them a human being. There is no such thing.
Yes a body which is no longer capable of supporting a human mind certainly means that the person is dead and gone. The mind as a physical living organism in its own right can also die leaving behind a shell which is no longer a human being.
I don’t know where you get that from. While I can imagine the mind separate from the body and would very much believe that with the mind goes the person, I cannot imagine the spirit separate from the mind while the mind still lives – i.e. a mindless spirit wouldn’t be a person any more than a mindless body. So I certainly do not think of body, mind, spirit, and possibly something else as ingredients added together to make a person. On the contrary, I think the mind is the person and the spirit is an imperishable creation of the mind (and incidentally the body also) which extends its existence beyond death.
