Being – Part 3

The prevalent doctrine of mankind is that we are tripartite, comprised of three elements: The body, the spirit and the soul. The body, often referred to as “the flesh” in the New Testament writings, is the meat sack we all hoist about in our daily meanderings. Organs and blood vessels surrounded by, and moving through, muscles and ligaments which are wrapped around bones enveloped in flesh all of which is working in harmony through a fascinatingly intricate network of nerves activated by electrical impulses originating in the brain. This description, modestly simple, is common for all human and terrestrial animal life forms on this planet. The spirit (pneuma in Greek and rūaḥ in Hebrew) is the breath, or wind, which animates the flesh, human and beast alike.

The distinguishing factor which defines humans from beasts is the soul (Psuche in Greek and nephesh In Hebrew). The soul is where our personality, our ego, our sense of self resides and operates from. Despite what someone might have claimed about you, it is not possible for any human to live without a soul. As long as the body is breathing the soul is functioning, even in a vegetative state. I’ll discuss more on the daily issues of the soul in a latter posting but for the present I need to make this inter-working more understandable.

Throughout the bible there is a mixing of the use of the terms spirit and soul. It matters not whether it is in the Hebrew or Greek scriptures, these two terms almost take on the same meaning on many occasions. This presents a problem in trying to clarify the “spiritual” condition of a person because there are times when the term “soul” is used in a “spiritual” context and “spirit” is used in bodily context. This leads many to wonder according to the body, which came first, the spirit or the soul?

For my purposes here, I am going to make the following distinction the norm. The spirit, the breath addresses the functions related to our body. You don’t breathe, you’re dead and dead people have no use for breath. The soul is the eternal element of who are; your body dies, your soul doesn’t. In this distinction your soul is more “spiritual” than your breath.

Now I understand that many of you will balk at this claim citing that the bible says, yada, yada, yada. (As a side note here, the actual spelling of this word is yadah, which in Hebrew means to extend your hands in praise. Obviously, this is what you meant, right?) I’m going to have to defer to the experts in this area by claiming that the bible doesn’t have the language to accurately articulate the spirit/soul connection in a true spiritual context.

Who, you might ask, are these experts? They are those rare individuals who have a qualified story from a near death experience (NDE). The qualification is simply that they have had a cardiac arrest, flat-lined, and were subsequently brought back to life by doctors. Those who have conveyed their experience in the after-life are in mutual agreement that it is the soul, not the breath, which leaves the body and is beckoned to cross into the light. This is where they meet other souls who have gone before them. They also agree that is the soul which returns back into the body when they are resuscitated and begin to breath again.

Taking their testimonies as authorized accounts, I stand by my distinction. Later you will come to recognize the significance of making this distinction as I address more of the soul issues in our life and how “spiritual” the soul truly is.