Soul Vs. Spirit

Some consider a person as divided into two parts, the body and soul-spirit. The other camp holds to a triune division of body, soul, and spirit. Good and godly scholars hold both views. I take a triune position mostly because there are multiple verses in both testaments that speak of the soul and spirit in the same sentence as though they are different. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 lists the division plainly: “may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless...” The other key verse in this debate is the well known Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit...” Watchman Nee agrees “the Bible never confuses the spirit and soul as though they were the same. Not only are they different in terms; their very natures differ from each other.”

Genesis 2:7 says that God formed man from dust “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.” This word soul is nephesh in Hebrew. The nephesh is what gives life to the formed body, just as Aristotle observed, “the body apart from the spirit is dead” (James 2: 26). Aquinas talked about this life-giving soul as the “first principle of life in those things in our world which live...life is shown principally by knowledge and movement.” Leviticus 17:11, and 13-14 addresses this idea that unlike plants which only have a physical ‘body’, animals and humans have nephesh—an animating life which was why the blood of flesh was not kosher. It is clear that animals and humans have a life that is unlike the life of plants, but the Bible teaches that only human beings are fully in the image of God for they alone have a spirit.

So while our spirits are alike, our souls and bodies are different. I use the word soul as that which animates the body, and as the seating place of where the differences in how we think, feel, and act are. Nee writes of the soul that it “is the site of personality. The will, intellect and emotions of man are there.” There are liberal camps which recoil from suggestions that women could have a tendency towards a different kind of temperament or personality than men do, or can have a different way of thinking, but outside the academic world of political correctness, this idea is considered self-evident. Women also may experience emotions differently than men, and often have different intellectual processes. Clearly, our bodies are also beautifully, wonderfully different. There are other parts of the person that can be isolated and discussed such as how the heart, mind, will, or intellect, are different, but that goes much deeper into philosophy than I am able to present for your consideration, and is not relevant for our needs.