We are Body, Soul and Spirit

Originally posted by galveston75
Uh no one has shown me anything especially from the Bible. Try again?

You have been shown many things from the Holy Bible, but you will not think on
them for they contradict your god at the watchtower, a headquarters of Satan.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The thought originated long before Plato.

P.S. You have been reading too many Watchtower publications and not enough
Holy Bible.

that its certainly pre Christian i know, but the again, not being able to read ancient
Babylonian, i contented myself with Plato, where it can be seen and verified, your
doctrine is pagan, your religion contaminated with weeds, your form of worship, futile!

Originally posted by RJHinds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QvI2G8xdjs

Has why believing this is important been explained, or is this just another thing to bicker about?

Originally posted by RJHinds
You have been shown many things from the Holy Bible, but you will not think on
them for they contradict your god at the watchtower, a headquarters of Satan.

Lol.... You get smaller and smaller here everyday with your lack of spiritual knowledge.

Originally posted by galveston75
Lol.... You get smaller and smaller here everyday with your lack of spiritual knowledge.

and his lack of chess knowledge!

Originally posted by JS357
Has why believing this is important been explained, or is this just another thing to bicker about?

Well, we can bicker with the atheists and the evolutionist and those with different
political and religious views about many things that may or may not be important.
But in all this bickering we will never come to the knowledge of the truth without
a foundation of truth. Believing the truth is important in science, politics, and even
religion. If we do not have a full understanding of mankind, we become limited to
how much we can truly understand about man. Also by understanding that man is
body and soul and spirit, we can more easily make sense of statements made in
the Holy Bible, like the following statement made by Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will
live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.
Do you believe this?”
(John 11:25-26 NASB)

To understand this we must realize there is a separation between the body and soul.
I could paraphrase what Jesus is saying in this manner.

“I am the resurrection and the life; the soul who believes in Me will
live even if his body dies, and every soul who lives and believes in
Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Originally posted by jaywill
Then one month I had a terrible toothache. I requested some Christian pray over me for healing. But God did not heal me. Of course I went to the Dentist too, but could not afford too much good treatment.

Anyway, as a result of the waves of pain which would come over me at times I would slump over and call on the name of Jesus - "Jesus! Jesus ! Lord Jesus! ...[text shortened]... r body, I was protected in some peaceful innermost chamber where there was life and peace.

Blimey. And the USA still cannot imagine a national health service in which health care is provided according to need rather than ability to pay. Maybe socialism is too ungodly for that puritan land but good heavens, in the world's wealthiest nation this is not good enough!

I realise this is an aside to the discussion - but it had to be noticed.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Well, we can bicker with the atheists and the evolutionist and those with different
political and religious views about many things that may or may not be important.
But in all this bickering we will never come to the knowledge of the truth without
a foundation of truth. Believing the truth is important in science, politics, and even
religion. If we do ...[text shortened]... dies, and [b]every soul who lives and believes in
Me will never die. Do you believe this?”[/b]

You probably won't care about this, but when we say "his" body or "your" soul or something like that, there is the "him" or the "you" that possesses these things. It could be your soul, your personality, your dog, your college degree, or your wife's lazy brother. You are the being that has them. Are you going to stop existing, or not? If you are, you won't mind not existing, will you? Not existing can't be so bad. Can it?

Originally posted by RJHinds
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have
eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In ...[text shortened]... has the power to
destroy the soul as well as send it into a place that it will be in torment.

Yep, that's the 'claptrap' I was referring to.

Originally posted by jaywill
.....

If you look up all the passages on the soul in the Bible you will see that three matters are covered - thinking, loving or hating, and deciding or choosing. Based upon the regularity of these psychological functions related to the word soul, we have the realization that the three main functions of the soul are mind, emotion, and will.
Based on the ...[text shortened]... an spirit.
So then the soul plus the conscience of the human spirit make up the heart of man.

I have difficulty establishing a boundary between mind/emotion/will on the one hand (soul) and fellowship / intuition / conscience (spirit) on the other, in order to establish that there are two distinct entities at work here.

Fellowship can only refer to social life in its various forms. We know that social animals (crows, dolphins, apes) benefit from bigger brains and higher intelligence - the two go together. Social interaction makes complex demands. One demand in particular is the need to guess at what the other is thinking, which is at least one asepct of what "intuition" might refer to. For example, a crow will "intuit" that another crow, if it observes him hiding some food, is likely to steal his food, and will move it to another hiding place. Curiously though, crows that have been known to steal act this way while crows that have not been observed stealing do not. It is as though, in each case, the crow assumes the other crow (the observor) will think on the same lines (honest or dishonest) as himself. It is hard to imagine that crows are burdened with a conscience, but they are certainly able to act on the belief that they or another crow have the capacity for stealing and acting to protect against that happening.

Conscience must have at least two elements. One is the awareness of a standard for proper and improper social behaviour by which to evaluate our own behaviour. This seems not at all different from the necessity to internalise social norms and expectations which in any thinking creature, free from instinct and able to learn, comes from social learning. Indeed, social animals do learn their social behaviours. In a human, the relevant brain areas (known as the social brain oddly enough) are physically constructed during the first three years of life - we are not born with a fully developed brain.

The other is that this awareness is accompanied by emotion - we feel good or bad about our social behaviour. Again, that is no longer a mystery. All thinking and all behaviour in humans is coloured by emotion.

Hence I do not see any necessity - as set out - for a separate concept of soul and spirit.

As to your account of "heart" this clearly cannot refer to an entity that exists in its own right, since it overlaps soul and spirit. It is a descriptive term which embraces a range of aspects of our psychology as listed by you. It resembles words like courage.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You have been shown many things from the Holy Bible, but you will not think on
them for they contradict your god at the watchtower, a headquarters of Satan.

So what happened to Adam's soul? Think hard on this as it's a tuff one............

Originally posted by galveston75
So what happened to Adam's soul? Think hard on this as it's a tuff one............

Adams body is in the grave somewhere. His soul went back to God.

Originally posted by Rajk999
Adams body is in the grave somewhere. His soul went back to God.

So where is Adam?

Originally posted by Rajk999
Adams body is in the grave somewhere. His soul went back to God.

I still have not seen one scripture that says anyones soul went to heaven to God or to hell or anywhere. I'm still wating to see that said anywhere in the bible...............

Originally posted by finnegan
I have difficulty establishing a boundary between mind/emotion/will on the one hand (soul) and fellowship / intuition / conscience (spirit) on the other, in order to establish that there are two distinct entities at work here.

Fellowship can only refer to social life in its various forms. We know that social animals (crows, dolphins, apes) benefit from b es a range of aspects of our psychology as listed by you. It resembles words like courage.

I have difficulty establishing a boundary between mind/emotion/will on the one hand (soul) and fellowship / intuition / conscience (spirit) on the other, in order to establish that there are two distinct entities at work here.

Because all of these components together make up a total person, we should expect that too clear cut of a division should not be easy to know. We are, after all, dealing with living people and not automobiles.

But the careful examination of biblical data and the experience of godly believers have led to these helpful distinctions.

But think about it. Everything we do practically involves the mind, emotion and will. We think about it, we decide if we like or dislike something, then we choose to act, to exercisw our will. [Edited]

Fellowship can only refer to social life in its various forms.

When I say "fellowship" I am refering to something supernatural. For example the fellowship John says all believers have with the Triune God and with the apostles:

"That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write that our joy may be made full." (1 John 1:3,4)

There is no natural or earthly social life that compares to the supernatural and spiritual "fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.".

Since the human spirit is born again to be "organically" blended with the Holy Spirit, which is God, this fellowship is not common. This is the "fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. 13:14)

This transcends a common natural social life which does not require a man to be born again. This is the fellowship of spirit - " ... if any fellowship in spirit" (Phil. 2:1) .

Since in regeneration the human spirit is joined with the Holy Spirit, the Third of the Triune God, the fellowship of spirit is also the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The two spiritual spirits have become one mingled spirit -

"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17)

Since the innermost being in the Christian is "joined to the Lord" and "one spirit" with the Holy Spirit, the fellowship we speak of here is the "fellowship of the Holy Spirit".

This is not common and natural social interaction the Bible speaks of here.

We know that social animals (crows, dolphins, apes) benefit from bigger brains and higher intelligence - the two go together.

That is true. And no one is saying only born again Christians can have a social life. Regardless of this, the "fellowship of the Holy Spirit" is a communion with God. This is also more than just believing that God exists. It is not merely being a "theist" as opposed to an "atheist."

We do not regard "fellowship of the Holy Spirit" to be merely approximated by dolphins and smart chimps or the buddy - buddy social life of the natural man.

The Socialogist only deals with the natural man. The New Testament deals with the man "joined to the Lord" to be "one spirit" with the Lord.

The fellowship of the Spirit results from the Father and the Son, as the Holy Spirit coming into man as the Divine We, to make an abode in the believers:

"Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him." (John 14:23)

The verb for of the word "abode" occurs in the next chapter where Jesus tells he disciples - "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:4-5)

This "fellowship" then is as branches that have been grafted into ONE true Vine - the resurrected and available Christ. The life nutients of the true vine flow into the branches. This supplies the branches with divine life and also unites the branches together in one divine life.

This is something supernatural. Fellowship as it pertains to the regenerated human spirit is something involving God and transcends the familiarity of the Socialogist or Phychologist of the natural unregenerated Adamic nature.

Social interaction makes complex demands. One demand in particular is the need to guess at what the other is thinking, which is at least one asepct of what "intuition" might refer to.

I don't deny that social interactions can be complex at all. And the human SOUL apart from the regeneration of the human spirit, is capable of even astounding things. I mean there are soulical powers which some systems exercise and release which do encredible things.

But the spiritual fellowship in the human spirit with God is something deeper. If course the job of the skeptic of the Christian faith is to minimize this.

So the "fellowship" and the "intuition" that I speak of here is not in the natural realm. To the man who is not born again there is no spiritual fellowship with God. The spirit of the unregenerated man is comatose, deadened and needs to be enlivened by Christ Himself.

So I am speaking of fellowship with God and intuition concerning the will of God that comes alive when the Spirit of God causes the deadened and comatose spirit to be born anew -

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:6)

In other words, the new birth takes place from the Holy Spirit causing the comatose human spirit to be brought to divine life. Then the two spirits bear joint witness within the man that he has a most intimate union with God his Father -

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." (Rom. 8:16)

Now one knows that he knows that God is PAPA, God is DADDY. God is most intimately indwelling the believer because the Triune God has come as the Divine "WE" (John 14:23) to make an abode in the believer forever.

For example, a crow will "intuit" that another crow, if it observes him hiding some food, is likely to steal his food, and will move it to another hiding place.

The word intuition may be used many ways. When we use it in relation to the intuition of the regenerated human spirit we are speaking of an knowing God's will in a supernatural way.

However, because of the limitation of human language we cannot insist that intuition as a word cannot be applied to other natural phenomena.

This is just a matter of words not being solely the property of the Christian experience.

Curiously though, crows that have been known to steal act this way while crows that have not been observed stealing do not. It is as though, in each case, the crow assumes the other crow (the observor) will think on the same lines (honest or dishonest) as himself. It is hard to imagine that crows are burdened with a conscience, but they are certainly able to act on the belief that they or another crow have the capacity for stealing and acting to protect against that happening.

I think I have established that the words used by some Bible students concerning the function of the regenerated human spirit are not the sole property of theology. Of course the Zoologist or Socialogist may use words like intuition and fellowship to discribed phenomenons related to those sciences.

I spoke before about the conscience of man being in the human spirit. For this reason, that even unbelievers usually have a functioning conscience, I personally stop short of saying that the human spirit of the unbeliever is completely dead. I use the word comatose to mean impaired or partially deadened.

Mankind, apart from all animals, has a knowledge of some things being simply right and others being simply wrong. He has a conscience in his human spirit. When the Holy Spirit through the word of God convicts this conscience to repent towards God and receive Christ, the human spirit is said to be born again - "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:6)

That same thing is said in different words in chapter one. As many as received Christ the Lord, to them He gave authority to be the born children of God -

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave aithority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name,

Who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12,13)

The conviction from the Holy Spirit, Who is God, upon the human conscience is meant to turn the sinner to receive the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And in receiving Him instead of rejecting Him, the receiver is granted authority immediately to become part of God's own divine and supernatural family. And the awakened intuition realizes that God has given to him something that the world cannot give. And the world can never take it away. He has touched eternity. And he knows that he knows. The Holy Spirit bears JOINT witness with his enlivened human spirit of regeneration.


I'll stop here. I'll say more about the conscience below. It is a soiled and stained conscience before God which hinders fellowship with God. The redemption of Christ thoroughly clears up the problem of real guilt towards God. And the separating barrier to fellowship is removed by the blood of Christ. And there is now nothing between the forgiven sinner and God. There can be communion with God and fellowship with God because of justification through Christ...