please explain the soul?

Question

following from an earlier question - if you believe in the soul - please explain to me what it is? have you ever seen one? where in my body can I find it. do animals have them? what biological function does it perform or if it is no longer used did it perform? if it exists when someone dies - has anyone got proof of this? what is its chemical or physical make-up? how does it exist, is it a life form? does it need water to live - to the best of my knowledge all life needs water. if you say not then where is the documented evidence of this?
please limit references to modern texts - the bible is about 2000 years old - as such i do not regard it as an up-to-date reference book.

Answer 1

One definition that I have seen is: Soul is the personality of man.
His mind, will and emotions.

Answer 2

Dude - its both simple and complex. Lets start with the "simple" part.

Your SOUL - is your breath - your life force..., without it you are dead. D - E - D! (or dead regardless of how you spell it).

People confuse Soul with Spirit, which is what I think you are reaching for in your sarcastic sounding question. Your spirit is the essence of who you are regardless of anything else. Its not what you are, but WHO you are.

Think of a Sci-Fi movie where a human is inside a giant Mech-Robot, controlling the thing. If such a thing existed, it would require a computer with hundreds of relays and thousands of micro-circuits, etc.., to make the mech-robot body work.

YOU (your spirit) is kind of like that in your body. Your Brain is the computer / interpreter that not only handles the Life Support Systems independent of you, but takes care of directing the body as you will it. Be that function picking up a glass of water or swinging a baseball bat at a burning effigy of Mickey Mouse.

If your body becomes crippled..., you become the reasoner on how to compensate, and the brain (master CPU) takes care of the rest.

If you become brain damaged due to trauma in an accident - your brain would not be interpreting and relaying certain types of information correctly. Even speech can be impaired (audio communications.

YOU (your spirit) can not be seen by the human eye. Cant be touched by human touch.., although I do believe with observance that dogs and animals can at times see spirit beings. When your life force exits the body and the brain (CPU) dies, your spirit exits.

FYI:
I am very serious. If you cant accept what I told you.., fine. Thats your call. But I personally believe this is the best "analogy" of Body, Spirit and Soul.

Answer 3

Ok ok ok. I get where you are coming from. But here is where I am coming from.

If the world is SO old, and we've only been here for what would be like the blink of an eye, then why is it so difficult to believe that the soul is something that scientists have yet to discover? To me, we are like babies, who are just discovering our bodies and how it works. We have only just begun to experiement with the things around us, and we still have NO idea of the world that exists beyond ourselves.

If it's only been a few hundred years that humans have known that the Earth is round, and not flat - that time in comparison with how long Humans have been ON the Earth, why is it so difficult to believe there are still things we DON'T yet know or understand about it? And ourselves?

Answer 4

You are a soul that lives in a body that has life through your spirit. The soul is the real you. It will live forever. The bible says that the Spirit is born again, John 3 and your spirit is saved. Paul said "we are not like those who do not believe unto the saving of the soul."
The soul also has three parts. The mind the will and the emotions. God try's to control your will by Faith and Satan try's to control your will through your mind and your emotions I think I don't think. I feel I don't feel. This is why we live by the word of God and not what we think or feel.

Answer 5

Aristotle defined the soul as the *form* of the body|


St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with that definition of Aristotle's, and expanded on it|

It is the very life giving principle of the matter that makes up the human body|

It also contains the faculties of *intellect* and *free-will* (the true seat of intelligence is not in the brain, the brain is merely an interface between the sense organs of the body and the intellective soul that presents forms of sensation to the soul, so that the soul can abstract intellectual species from it for thinking)|


We cannot think of body and soul as two separate things that are joined.

The soul within a body is not a ghost within a machine (as Descartes thought)|

Rather body stands to soul as matter stands to form| For example, a statue is not two things - shape plus marble - but one thing - shaped marble| Similarly, a human person is not two things - soul plus body - but is one thing - ensouled body| The soul communicates its very act of being to the body, being - in the terminology of scholastic philosophy - one *subsistence* with it|


As a result, the soul is something *metaphysical* and not physical, so as a result, it is not amenable to the categories of traditional thinking that are proper to the physical sciences|


Animals and plants, also have souls, as they have a form which is a life giving principle, but for example, for an animal, the soul is not of a rational type since animals lack a *rational intellect* and a *free will,* making up for that lack in exquisitely precise senses that can interpret the environment with great facility, but in the manner of the process of *psychological association* (which Hume erroneously confused with intellection) rather than as intellectual penetration into being and the true essences of things|




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Answer 6

The soul is an energy. You cannot see it. Perhaps you could say you can feel it. It is in all of your cells. We are all soul / spirit energy inhabiting a physical body for a time. We come from the overall energy field and return to it when our body dies. We are always connected, but still individual. The soul is what makes us think, feel, truly exist.

I have no proof. It just makes sense to me. I guess you could liken it to the Force.

Answer 7

There are no "scientific" texts regarding the nature of the soul because it is not something that can be understood with the '5 senses'.

Here is an Islamic perspective:

Their Doctrine of Ar-RÅ«h (Spirit)
Al-Junayd said: “The spirit (rÅ«h) is a thing the knowledge of which God has reserved to Himself, not suffering any of His creatures to understand it. Therefore, it can not be expressed in any other way than as being existent (mawjÅ«d). God says, “Say: The spirit is of the bidding of my Lord.” [17:85] AbÅ« Abdillāh Al-NibājÄ« said: “The spirit is a body which is too subtle to be perceived, and too great to be touched: it cannot be expressed in any other way than as being existent.” Ibn ‘Atā’ said: “God created the spirits before the bodies: for He says, ‘And we created you’, that is, the spirits, ‘then we formed you’, that is, the bodies.” Another SÅ«fÄ« said: “the spirit is a subtle (essence) materializing in a dense (body), just as sight, which is a subtle essence, materializes in a dense (body).”


The majority agreed that the spirit is an object through which the body lives. One SÅ«fÄ« said: “It is a light, fragrant breath (rÅ«h) through which life subsists, while the soul (nafs) is a hot wind (rÄ«h) through which the motions and desires exist.” Al-QahtabÄ« said: “It never entered under the humiliation of ‘Be’” – This is an answer to the question, what is the spirit? In his view, then, its only function is to produce life: and being alive, as well as producing life, is the attribute of Him who causes life, just as shaping and creating are an attribute of the Creator. This view he bases on the words of God: “Say: The spirit is of the command of my Lord.” They interpret “command” here as meaning God’s speech, and His speech is not created: but this is as much as to say that whatever possesses life only came to life through God saying “Be alive”, so that the spirit in that case is not a thing (existing) in the body at all.”

Note that Some manuscripts state Abu Bakr as saying, “This is not a sound view: the sound view is, that the spirit is something dwelling in the body, created like the body.”

[Taken from Kitāb At-Ta’arruf li madh-hab Ahl al-tasawwuf of Imām AbÅ« Bakr Al-KalābādhÄ«]

Answer 8

A person's spiritual being. The eternal "breath" of life. No you can't see it.
I have never seen one, no one has. Its located "in" your body. No specific place.
There is no "documented evidence", except
in what you believe in your heart. If you are a spiritual person, you know it exists.

Answer 9

Try to think of your body as a computer. Your soul is the software needed to run it.

Answer 10

You are a soul that has a body/mind...not the other way around.

Find out who you really are - and you will find the soul.

~ Eric Putkonen