I have a serious question for Christians. Did "Christ" have a "human" soul-that is, one like we mere mortals?

Question

This has been a debatable issue since the time of Paul. I am posting this as an interesting point of theology to consider; theologians still have differing opinions to this day.

Answer 1

Yes, it is a good thoughtless question. Jesus never said at any time he was a super god. He had a soul just like everyone on the earth that is alive has a soul. That is the energy that lives in the body until the body give out and dies. Then the soul or energy is released to exist elsewhere. Jesus live and he die. Not to hard of a question to answer.

Answer 2

Good question and I am so far amazed at the agreement in the answers by those from different sectors as they do seem to agree. I likewise in my opinion do say absolutely yes, but my is based upon my studies and my belief in the words written in the Bible as I see them . It is declared that He was like us [Humankind in every respect] thus no matter how one does define a soul, he likewise had to have one.

I do know my personal position is quite different from most in respect to this Jesus. I see Him as a god made God by God [note small god for Jesus]. Most do not hold this position as they do not want to see Jesus as being created. Thus I do think those who see him a God must not agree that he did have a human soul, but then that is dependent on how they do define the word soul.

If they do say He did, I would wonder if they did see the words you did include in "mere mortals". I personally can not see a mere mortal as being fully God and fully man at the same time as many religious groups do teach and then equally say he had a "human" [pure humankind] soul. Of course one is always amazed how word definitions are twisted to support a doctring that is accepted and believed by another who does not want to face a possibility of being in error.

Just wait for some more answers and see what the organized religion members do say if they do choose to answer this good question.

While waiting just smile and have a great day.

Answer 3

I AM *SUCH* A SUCKER FOR QUESTIONS THAT BEGIN WITH:
"I have a serious question for Christians."

Here's just a core-dump of what comes to mind from the Bible. "The Bible says" will hereafter be abbreviated "tBs."

tBs God the Father is pure Spirit. He has no soul or body.
The Holy Spirit is also pure spirit. The third entity of the Trinity is Jesus, God's eternally begotten Son.
At the Incarnation (right after Angel Gabriel made the announcement to Miriam), the eternally existent Spirit of Jesus took on a human body. What you are asking is, I think, did he take on a human soul at that time, as well?

tBs (in Thessalonians and Hebrews I believe) that every human has a body, soul and spirit. As a fully human (while fully divine) individual, Jesus would have had a Body, Soul, and Spirit. Question is, did he have the same soul he'd had throughout eternity, or was a soul something Jesus acquired at the Incarnation? I don't know that tBs this explicitly, but it would seem from the evidence that if the Father and the Holy Spirit were pure spirit before Christ's Incarnation, then the Son of God
would have been pure Spirit, too, hence, no soul before the Incarnation, but definitely one afterwards.

What about the soul of Jesus the man?

tBs Jesus suffered every kind of temptation to sin that is known to man, yet without committing sin. tBs also that Jesus learned obedience in the things that He suffered. Jesus LEARNED something as God Incarnate. What a thing! His Spirit was eternally in union with God, but this human Soul He took on so that we would, as tBs, have a Great High Priest who could sympathize with our weaknesses---this Soul was moved to tears when Lazarus died. This soul was moved to compassion (while he was yet in mourning over his cousin John the Baptist's beheading) over the hungry crowds who seemed to him "as sheep without a shepherd," moved to give in to his mother's request to miraculously provide wine for a humiliated family friend and father-of-the-groom a little earlier than Jesus intended to make his Messianic debut.

This soul was in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before the crucifixion, crying out, "Take this cup from me, but not my will but thine be done." This soul was in agony on the Cross, separated for a few terrible moments from the Father, "My God, My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?" Yes, it was a very human soul that Jesus had. An ESSENTIALLY human soul.

This soul rescued a humiliated adultress (from an angry mob intent on stoning her), not through heroic force, but through quiet exposure of the hypocrisy of her accusers. He did this by reading, understanding, KNOWING in a way God did not know before the Incarnation, the struggle between good and evil that goes on within the heart of man.

So what about the post-Resurrected soul of Jesus? I have a feeling the Bride of Christ will be learning a LOT more about its sweetness at the Great Marriage Supper of the Lamb, which tBs will be the culmination of human history!

Answer 4

Yes certainly Jesus had a soul, a very Holy soul, The aspect of his rising from the dead is debatable, but the aspect whether he had a soul is a absolute certainty.

The word Soul is understood in different cultures differently but I am sure from any point of view Jesus was a very Holy Soul

Answer 5

I would think so because He came to earth as a human, so I would think that He did. Wait till you get to heaven and then ask Him.

Answer 6

Christ was created man like! That is he was created as less than a angel.
Much like a man would be created.

Answer 7

well im an atheist but ill chime in. logically jesus came into existence like anybody else. if we are born with a soul then he logically had one. that seems to be somewhat logical...

Answer 8

he came from jupiter planet, or maybe saturn...not sure

Answer 9

To accomplish his mission of redemption Jesus, who always was and always will be God, had to take on flesh and become truly man.

Men are composite beings, consisting of both body and soul, so we can be sure that Jesus, who is certainly true man, certainly possesses a human soul.

The best explanation of this comes from the Catechism of the Catholic church:

III. TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN

464 The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.

During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.

465 The first heresies denied not so much Christ's divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God's Son "come in the flesh".87 But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is "begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father", and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God "came to be from things that were not" and that he was "from another substance" than that of the Father.88

466 The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man."89 Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."90

467 The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God's Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:


Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; "like us in all things but sin". He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.91
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.92

468 After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity."93 Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity."94

469 The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:


"What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed", sings the Roman Liturgy.95 And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: "O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!"96

IV. HOW IS THE SON OF GOD MAN?

470 Because "human nature was assumed, not absorbed",97 in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ's human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ's human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from "one of the Trinity". The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity:98


The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.99