The Soul

The Soul

What is the soul?

In Christian teachings we find the soul described according to the church one attends. For a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of the soul, we need to go to the Eastern teachings with its long spiritual history.

Most Christians understand the soul as an ontological reality

(the argument that God, being defined as most great or perfect, must exist) distinct from, yet integrally connected with, the body. Its characteristics are described in moral, spiritual, and philosophical terms.

Richard Swinburne, a Christian philosopher of religion at Oxford University, wrote that "it is a frequent criticism that dualists cannot say what souls are. Souls are immaterial subjects of mental properties. They have sensations and thoughts, desires and beliefs, and perform intentional actions. Souls are essential parts of human beings".

According to a common Christian eschatology, meaning that when people die, their souls will be judged by God and determined to go to Heaven or to Hell. Though all branches of Christianity – Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Evangelical and mainline Protestants teach that Jesus Christ plays a decisive role in the Christian salvation process, the specifics of that role and the part played by individual persons or ecclesiastical rituals and relationships, is a matter of wide diversity in official church teaching, theological speculation and popular practice.

Some Christians believe that if one has not repented of one's sins and has not trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he/she will go to Hell and suffer eternal damnation or eternal separation from God. Some hold a belief that babies, including the unborn and those with cognitive or mental impairments who have died will be received into Heaven on the basis of God's grace through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Other Christians understand the soul as the life, and believe that the dead are sleeping (Christian conditionalism). This belief is traditionally accompanied by the belief that the unrighteous soul will cease to exist instead of suffering eternally (annihilationism). Believers will inherit eternal life either in Heaven, or in a Kingdom of God on earth, and enjoy eternal fellowship with God.

John 5:28-29 (KJV)

28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,

29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

Did Jesus teach bodily resurrection of the dead?

In the age of logic it is hard to believe in the literal interpretation of Christ’s words in these verses. The word grave used by Jesus gave Biblical interpreters who had little or no intuitional insight the idea that after death souls would be entombed in the body, only to rise on Resurrection Day when Archangel Gabriel blows his trumpet. Obviously Gabriel has not blown the tramped for twenty centuries, because the skeletons of millions can still be found in graves. This reasoning seems revolting and unreasonable.

Teachings of various denominations:

The present Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the soul as the innermost aspect of humans that which is of greatest value in them, that by which they are in God's image described as 'soul' signifies the spiritual principle in man. All souls living and dead will be judged by Jesus Christ when he comes back to earth. The Catholic Church teaches that the existence of each individual soul is dependent wholly upon God: "The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God.

Protestants generally believe in the soul's existence, but fall into two major camps about what this means in terms of an afterlife. Some, following Calvin, believe in the immortality of the soul and conscious existence after death, while others, following Luther, believe in the mortality of the soul and unconscious "sleep" until the resurrection of the dead.

Various new religious movements derived from Adventism—including Christadelphians, and Jehovah's Witnesses similarly believe that the dead do not possess a soul separate to the body and are unconscious until the resurrection.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the spirit and body together constitute the Soul of Man. "The spirit and the body are the soul of man."Latter-Day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth.

After death, the spirit continues to live and progress in the Spirit world until the resurrection, when it is reunited with the body that once housed it. This reuniting of body and spirit results in a perfect soul that is immortal and eternal and capable of receiving a fullness of joy. Latter-Day Saint cosmology also describes "intelligences" as the essence of consciousness or agency. These are co-eternal with God, and animate the spirits. The union of a newly created spirit body with an eternally-existing intelligence constitutes a "spirit birth" and justifies God's title "Father of our spirits".

One may find it difficult to attain a clear view concerning the nature of the soul when we ponder the various views expressed by the different Christian denominations.