Got a recent question…
“What is the Christian view of the
soul? And what’s the difference between ‘soul’
and ‘spirit’?
Taking my cue from Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality by Habermas & Moreland, we could say that:
“The soul, while not by nature immortal, is nevertheless capable of entering an intermediate disembodied state upon death and eventually being reunited with a resurrected body… (The soul) is an immaterial, invisible thing that makes me a conscious, living human being. (p.67)
“The soul is a substantial, unified reality that informs its body. The soul is to the body what God is to space – it is fully ‘present’ at each point within the body. The soul occupies the body, but it is not spatially located within it, just as God occupies space but is not spatially located within it. (p.68)
Getting into the distinction between soul and spirit:
“(At any given time) the soul has a number of capacities that are not currently being actualized or utilized…the various capacities within the soul fall into natural groupings called faculties of the soul…a faculty is a compartment of the soul that contains a natural family of related capacities… (p.72-73)
“The mind is that faculty of the soul that contains thoughts and beliefs along with the relevant abilities to have them…The spirit is that faculty of the soul through which the person relates to God (Ps 51:10; Rom 8:16; Eph 4:23)” (p.73)
In a nutshell, your soul is simply you and all the ‘departments’ within you. The department enabling thoughts/beliefs we call the mind; the one enabling worship we call the spirit.
It should be noted that the Hebrew words for soul (‘nephesh’) and spirit (‘ruach’) are used of animals in Gen 1:30 and Eccl 3:21, respectively. In the NT, psyche (soul) is used of animals in Rev 8:9.
For a more complex and nuanced treatment of the question, I’ve extracted part of Glenn Miller’s article on the evidence on the existence of the soul. He writes:
“Soul generally refers to either the totality of the
person (including body) or simply the transcendental part (as distinct from the
body--cf. Jesus' words in Matt 10.28: Do not be afraid of those who kill the
body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy
both soul and body in hell. ). It seems to include awareness and the
moment-by-moment phenomenal consciousness, and can be designated by 'self' or
'life' in this general sense (Luke 9.25 with parallel passages). It can be
'pulled on' by evil desires--indicating some conflict of goal processes 'below
it' (I Pet 2.11).
“The conscious aspect of the soul can be seen in the fact that 'mind' is almost a synonym for this function of it. The two words almost never appear together--except in panoramic statements such as Mark 12.30: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' . Mind can be programmed through attention/learning/choice (Dt 11.18; Is 46.8; Luke 21.14; Luk 8.18; Dan 10.12), can be influenced/dominated by the 'heart' and 'spirit' (Rom 8.6; Eph 5.19), and can be loaded with value-based goals (Rom 8.5) and principles (John 15.18; Rom 7.23).
“Mind seems to reflect the cognitive 'workspace' for
immediate memory and attended percepts (Mt 16.23; ) and is subject to constant
refresh and turnover (Rom 12.2). The mind is the primary mechanism we have
under our control to effect self-initiated changes to the heart, generally
through attention, fixation, meditation, and saturation (Phil 4.8 ; 2 Cor 3.18.
cf. Phil 3.19; Col 3.1-2).
“Spirit is the most elusive/mysterious of the words, since it not only refers to intelligent agents (God, angels, humans, evil spirits), but in psychological contexts refers to very strong propensities, goal-trajectories, or inclinations. Spirit would represent some our deepest unconscious and subconscious influences and drives, esp. those dealing with motivational 'readiness' activation. Spirit can 'write upwards into' the heart (2 Cor 3.3) and can be thwarted by the weakness of the physical organism, if the overall mental environment at a given moment is not able to 'amplify' the signal through fixation, attention, and distribution (cf. Jesus' words in Mt 26.41: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." ). The spirit is probably the more fundamental of the inclinations; the conflict between the 'sinful nature' and the 'spirit' in Gal 5.16ff and Romans 6-8 reflects conflicting value-goals of a very high-order level.”
Hope this helps,
Alwyn