what is a soul ( Christians please )?

Question

I see many times that animals have no soul
and humans do
but what constitutes a soul
how do we know we have a soul ?

strange i seen many answers to another question saying animals have no soul and dont go to heaven
but now i see no answers here informing me what a soul is from those who answered the other question

Answer 1

when i go fishing i see a soul......when i look at politicians i see assouls

Answer 2

We are made up of mind will and emotions...

Humans have a spirit soul and body...
The spirit is the part we can't see, the body the part we can see and the soul our thoughts and feelings...sorry i don't know if this any help to you...but God does say the lion and the lamb will lie together(be at peace together) in His New Jerusalem...and God did save them in the Ark, not for food but because they are His creation and maybe for His pleasure and ours...and what great happiness and pleasure animals give us....those in the wild and the ones who live with us...

To Happy Theist......can i tell you it is not true that all Christians believe only humans have a soul...humans and animals might express things differently and in Thessalonians the apostle Paul talks about spirit soul and body....animals do have a soul because they have a mind a will and emotions....people with pets will tell you their pets have a mind of their own and they feel happy and sad, they hurt like humans do and feel love and peace as humans do they dream as humans do...you only have to watch wildlife on TV to see how they interact with humans...

Answer 3

I have always felt that a soul is the inate spirit that makes us who we are. The DNA structure of what constitutes 'self'

There are things that we learn as animals like eating, breathing, manners and believe it or not, morality. We learn those things the way we do because of who, when what and where we are. it's survival, conditioning, evolution. Animals are the same.

The soul is what resides in our bodies, aside from our thoughts and even our emotions. The soul could be the essence that we use go govern how our life experience affects us because we can all sense the truth of the fact that even two individuals who led exactly the same life, perhaps even in the same body, would come out different to varying degrees in reactions, analysis or in other more subtle, unclonable ways. The soul, I believe is that which creates or acts as a catalyst for those differences.

An example of communications of the soul can be found in gospel music for example. Normal notes made of frequencies and human instruments can inspire very deep feeling even in atheists and other non believers.

Music in general does this, listen to mozart, tchaikovski, chopin, queen or whoever your favourite artist is: it isn't about survival, it isn't about evolution, it isn't about communication sometimes it's just about connection.

yes of course there will be sex involved but that's not it. yes there can be other distractions but at the crux of it music feeds our souls.

I'm not convinced that animals have no soul although I can't imagine that many insects do. I'm even unsure about trees. Maybe animals have MORE soul than we do because we're certainly the odd ones out out of all of them maybe they know something we don't. It has been proven that they certainly do FEEL many things we don't.

good question!

Answer 4

Animals have a soul, but they do not have an eternal spirit. The spirit came for the breathe of God at creation and only exists in man. The soul is the part of the being that relates to the physical or natural realm. In humans the soul consists of a mind,(reason) emotions, and a will. Animals have a soul but the Bible tells us that they do not posses reason. They are creatures of instinct. The natural instincts in animals determine if those animals are domesticatable or not.

Answer 5

First of all, you do not have and immortal soul, if you did, then why had no one gone to Heaven before Jesus came to the Earth, 4000 years had came & gone since Adam & Eve, millions of people had died, what did Jesus say to a man of the Pharisees, Nic·o·de'mus was his name, a ruler of the Jews.

John 3:13
Moreover, no man has ascended into heaven but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man.

What is a Soul?
Right in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, we are told that the soul is not something you have, it is something you are. We read of the creation of Adam, the first human being: “The man came to be a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) The Hebrew word used here for soul, ne'phesh, occurs well over 700 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, never once conveying the idea of a separate, ethereal, spiritual part of man. On the contrary, the soul is tangible, concrete, physical.

Look up the following cited texts in your own copy of the Bible, for the Hebrew word ne'phesh is found in each of them. They clearly show that the soul can face risk, danger, and even be kidnapped (Deuteronomy 24:7; Judges 9:17; 1 Samuel 19:11); touch things (Job 6:7); be locked up in irons (Psalm 105:18); crave to eat, be afflicted by fasting, and faint from hunger and thirst; and suffer from a wasting disease or even insomnia as a result of grief. (Deuteronomy 12:20; Psalm 35:13; 69:10;) In other words, because your soul is you, your very self, your soul can experience anything you can experience.

Does that mean, then, that the soul can actually die? Yes. Far from being immortal, human souls are spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures as being “cut off,” or executed, for wrongdoing, being struck fatally, murdered, destroyed, and torn to pieces. (Exodus 31:14; Deuteronomy 19:6; 22:26; Psalm 7:2) “The soul that is sinning, it itself will die,” says Ezekiel 18:4. Clearly, death is the common end of human souls, since all of us sin. (Psalm 51:5) The first man, Adam, was told that the penalty for sin was death, not transfer to the spirit realm and immortality. (Genesis 2:17) And when he sinned, the sentence was pronounced: “For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19) When Adam and Eve died, they simply became what the Bible often refers to as ‘dead souls’ or ‘deceased souls.’

Answer 6

The soul is the mind, will, emotions, and intellect. Every human is a spirit that possesses a soul and lives in a body. The soul and the spirit are eternal. Biblically, the spirit is the part that relates to God and is what is "born again" at salvation. The soul must be renewed through spiritual growth ie. studying and prayer.

Answer 7

A soul is the spirit and the body combined (some say it is just the spirit, though). Animals do have souls, too, but they aren't the children of God. The spirit (soul to many) is our inner being. Our thoughts, desires, personalities, and everything which makes us who we are.

Answer 8

I think that roughly speaking the soul just corresponds to mind and emotions in our brain, which is required to function on this earth. Higher animals seem to feel and think to some degree like us.

The spirit may well also have emotions and thought in them,
with higher functions. I don't yet understand. In the christian view I think animals don't have spirits. In the christian view also the spirit is innately immortal. Our soul may also get somehow pulled into the spirit on death, and so survive.

This christian view of the human being being a trinity of components - spirit, soul and body is referred to in the New Testament. eg. 1 Thess 5:23 says in its concluding prayers to the recipients "May God himself keep you sound in body, soul and spirit".
However 'heart' refers to mind and spirit together, since we are so bound together as unities.
Its very hard to discern what comes from the spirit and what from the soul; from the christian view our soul can be easily affected by various pressures of the world around as well as the part of the spirit world that is disobedient to God (Satan, the fallen angels, and demons, which would appear to be land-bound bodyless spirits opposed to God.)

Hebrews 4:12 says "The word of God[the bible] is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart".
People who read God's Word can gradually develop this discernment. We read the bible to grow in our faith relationship with God.

I bet thats confusing - Im still 80% baffled, and in part probably incorrect. In coming into christian faith and growing in it I've gradually become aware of the reality of these things.

Answer 9

Biblically the "soul" is your mind, will and emotions. These things are at enmity with God from birth, since we are "born into sin" by the fall of Adam (the first son of God)and Eve. Your soul has to therefore be brought into submission by your spirit(given by God when you are baptised and grows through the reading of The Word!) so that your spirit can make the Godly decisions rather than your self will making the incorrect ones. When God made us in His image, he means your spirit, not your sinful flesh(self will)! God is Spirit and so are His children! If your self will controls you, you are not a child of/like God, are we? So by this knowledge you can assertain that animals do have souls(mind, will, and emotions) but they are not under the curse tha Adam and Eve started! May God bless you as you follow Him!

Answer 10

Your soul is who really are. Our bodies are "merely tents to our souls" as paul describes.

It encompases your mind, heart, spirit, etc, and yet it it also all of those things individually.

Similar to the idea of the Holy Trinity, God is God and yet is also Jesus and the Holy Spirit

We know we have a soul because we know we exist, "I think, therefore I am"--descartes. We have a conscience, which is part of the soul, knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil.

I don't know if animals have souls, but I wouldn't be suprised to see dogs and cats in heaven.

"It's raining cats and dogs!"

No wonder...

Answer 11

In Genesis, the writer states that after God formed man from the dust, he breathed into him and man became a living soul. In this case, it seems that the soul is simply 'living man'. Body, plus spirit of God = living soul.