Evidence for God from Science

K wrote:I believe the soul remains the same always—it never changes. What does change is whether or not the soul possesses a body wherein its capacities can function. Soul and body combined together both produce a "living soul," that is a soul that can interact with the world. Genesis 2:7 supports this: "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." Here we see "body" + "breath of life" (i.e., soul [or spirit as you'd define it]) = "living soul."

I'm also not sure whether you've read posts within the thread entitled "Hell", but I detail a fair bit more there also.

I read the thread you mentioned . . . maybe I need to read your paper. I can't really see anything that brought you to that position?

So, you believe we have a physical body and that we have a soul. This soul is immortal . . . it is our essence. It would be parallel to what I have considered the spirit. But, you believe that the soul must have some sort of body in order to do or experience anything, and therefore, to experience the spiritual, it must have a spiritual body. Fallen man has a spirit, but it is dead, and therefore, the soul cannot perceive or experience spiritual things. Death in this state seals the soul in a position in which it cannot perceive/experience.

I have some thoughts on this, especially in the context of our discussion, but I'll postpone them because 1) I have to go to class now, and 2) I want to get a confirmation that the above accurately represents your ideas. It won't do us any good if we're talking at each other but misunderstanding each other's basic premises

Jac3510 wrote:So, you believe we have a physical body and that we have a soul. This soul is immortal . . . it is our essence. It would be parallel to what I have considered the spirit. But, you believe that the soul must have some sort of body in order to do or experience anything, and therefore, to experience the spiritual, it must have a spiritual body. Fallen man has a spirit, but it is dead, and therefore, the soul cannot perceive or experience spiritual things. Death in this state seals the soul in a position in which it cannot perceive/experience.

I do believe the soul to be immortal, as I'm assuming you believe the spirit equivilant in your understanding to be immortal, but I'm open to the possibility that it could be annihilated by God if He desired.

You are correct that I believe the soul must have a body to experience things, but at the same time the soul needs to have the capacity to be able to experience and perceive certain things through its given body. For example, I do not believe animals will ever be moral creatures, because I do not believe their souls have moral capacities, which is one way I believe we are made in God's image.

I believe humans in their fallen state are spiritually dead, and therefore they really do literally have to be born of the spirit (John 3:3-8) in order to experience God. This is how I believe we are resurrected when we come to Christ—it is a spiritual resurrection (Ephesians 2:4-6; John 11:25-26; 1 Corinthians 15:42-46).

Spiritual death leaves us in a position where we can't perceive or experience God with our spiritual body. Physical and spiritual death, leaves us with no body. I assume if we enter such a total disembodied state, that our soul substance would be sustained by God (Psalm 49:15; Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Some important meanings to note. Firstly, I recognise that spirit can simply represent an immaterial non-physical substance, and thereby be used to designate 1) a spiritual body, or 2) our essense (the "soul" in my usage). I've seen both these meanings in Scripture, however I always use "spirit" to refer to the former. Secondly, I also recognise that soul can designate 1) our essense (or "spirit" as you understand), or 2) our body+soul complex.

Kurieuo.