what is the differnce between a soul and a spirit or are they the same?

Answer 1

Some people believe the soul and spirit are the same thing but the Bible shows that they are different.

The Bible says that humans and animals are souls they do not have souls. When the word "soul"(Hebrew: Ne'phesh; Greek psy.khe') is used in the Bible it refers to 1)people, 2)animals 3)the life that a person or animal enjoys.

1 Peter 3:20 says that in Noah's day, "a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water."
Exodus 16:16 speaks of the time when the Israelites were gathering manna. They were told to pick up enough for the number of souls each one has in their tent. The amount of manna gathered was based on the number of people in each family.
Genesis 46:18; Joshua 11:11; Acts 27:37; Romans 13:1 are other scriptures which use the term "soul" as referring to people. Not some kind of force.

Even animals were called souls. They did not have souls. (Genesis 1:20,24; Genesis 9:10; Leviticus 11:46; Numbers 31:28)

Sometimes the word "soul" can mean one's life as a person. Moses was told by God at Exodus 4:19: "All the men who were hunting for your soul are dead." Those men were seeking/hunting to take Moses' life. More scriptures to clearly show the word "soul" refers to life as a person: 1 Kings 17:17-23; Matthew 10:39; John 15:13; Acts 20:10.

At Genesis 2:7 it says that God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul." It does not say he was given a soul, it says he became a soul (a living person).

The word Spirit ("ru'ach" in Hebrew and "pneu'ma" in Greek) as used in the Bible refers to that which gives life to a body. (Psalm 104:29; James 2:26) In the Bible the word "ru'ach" is translated not only as "spirit" but also as "force", or life-force.(Genesis 6:17; 7:15,22) "Spirit" refers to an invisible force (the spark of life) that animates all living creatures.

The spirit is the force that brings our body to life. It has no feeling and connot think. It's an impersonal force. Without that force or "spirit" our bodies "expire, and back to their dust they go." (Psalm 104:29) It's like a radio that is dead without the electrical force of batteries or a plug, it can't do anything, but if you give it the electrical force it becomes alive.

Answer 2

A soul is an individual. A spirit can be shared by several as was the case of the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles at Pentecost.

Answer 3

You’re likely to get 3 basic answers in this forum. 1 neither exists. 2. They are both the same. 3. The soul is the mind while the spirit is the actual spirit or God's spirit (it is also the level that demonic possession happens at if God's spirit is absent).

Can I suggest that you ask this in the philosophy section? You should get much clearer answers in there than here.

Answer 4

All souls are spirits but all spirits are not souls.
Spirits is just a programme that may work or enable someone to take an action.
A goal, destination, incentive and a mission also have a spirit but soul is only concerned with living identities.
A soul keeps us in contact with the present moment of time in which we may take action, from our birth to death. As we are not the original selves but just a copy or a key model. So a programming is required to operate a copied identities. Our original selves we will have in the life of hereafter.

Answer 5

sometimes its the same. sometimes its not.

imagine you had a car and a driver, that were made of different configurations of the same "stuff"and used the same "fuel" to operate.
and that the "fuel" was merely an additional, different configuration of that same "stuff"

now, who "you" as you know yourself, is that unified car and driver.

"your soul" is the driver. its who you really are. the car is a vehicle.

"spirit" is more like the fuel that feeds both the car and the driver.

so the people who say that a person IS a soul as opposed to HAVING a soul, are both correct and incorrect. in the way many who say that MEAN it, they are wrong. (that theres no "soul" as such, and that the "soul" is the animation of the physical body with "a spirit") but at the same time, the same words are RIGHT in that the important essence of identity ... what the entity IS, is its soul, and that the body is merely a vessel.

I AM "my soul", and this body is merely a shell to ease applying my presence/will in this physical plane.

the way some people see "their soul" is as though it is a battery pack stuck in their back or some asset they were given.

edit: oh and to further complicate it, sometimes "soul" is used to refer to a person, as a person, not as their true self. someone sees a hobo under a bridge and says "that poor soul" that has nothing to do with the person's higher spiritual essence... its a more casual usage of the same word.

Answer 6

The Bible makes it clear that we are composed of three closely related parts: body, soul and spirit. The soul is that part which shows the functioning of the mind, emotions and will (Luke 1:46,47; 1 Corinthians 14:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12). The spirit, given to us by God, has become deadened and insulated from God (Ephesians 2:1) and lost its functions toward God - including God-centered morality and ethics. It is only re-energised by Christ.

Answer 7

The Soul is who we are, mind and emotions, but the Spirit is given by God to bring us life and knowledge. When we turn from our sins and receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, God removes our spirit and gives us a new Spirit, the Holy Spirit, God Himself. That is why our desires begin to change. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and then gives us the power to turn from our sin. This is called being "Born Again." That is why we are called new creatures. We are not the same. We have a different Spirit. We have the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and the same Spirit that inspired the Bible.

Answer 8

A soul is the part of us where God resides. A spirit is not alive, although he may, or may not, have a soul. The Holy Spirit is not alive in our terms, but it definitely is attached to God, therefore has a soul. That's my best educated guess.

Blessed Be

Answer 9

Man is born a duel being possessing only a soul and a physical form. The acceptance of Christ makes us a triad being, now possessing a spirit. It is that spirit that saves our soul.

Answer 10

I haven't seen any good answers yet. Let me quote fthe following Spiritual master, Ron Rathbun, who is very, very close to Jesus Christ. This was taken from his book, "The Kelee: An Understanding of the Psychology of Spirituality"

It seems appropriate to bring clarity to the difference between our soul and spirit. Society often uses them interchangeably, but there is a difference. Your soul is who you are right now with your physical body, your conscious awareness and individual name. Your soul has an electrochemical energy which is always moving up and down from food energy. The vibration from our beat frequency is one of two energies that shape us as human beings.

The second form of energy is from your spirit and is the non-physical part of you. The energy of your spirit is called a baseline vibration (universal energy) and is a deeper, more stable form of energy. Contained in the vibration is everything known about you. It would be wise on your part to exploree the energy of this vibration, which is centered in your greater Kelee cone.

Right now, your beat frequency is running over your baseline vibration. The closer these tow sine waves are together, the ore in harmony you will be. When you drop your conscious awareness into your greater Kelee cone, you bring these two sine waves closer together. This balances your physical and spiritual nature to oneness.

As you evolve spiritually, your name becomes less important and your spirit more important. When your physical body dies, your memories of this life will merge with your spirit, and you will move on into the spirit realm. We go somewhere, you know, and the adventure continues.

Oh, and guess what, The Kelee is "The Holy Grail." It is as old as humanity itself and is an electrochelmical field of energy that exists within us all.