On the Soul

Distinct Aspect of the Ancient Church Perspective on the Soul and the Human Person

 

Orthodox Anthropology

"I pray to God that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Thess. 5:23)."

I. Three aspects of a human person

A human person is a unity of Body and Soul - both constitute a whole person.
a.) Death (fall) breaks the natural bond

1.) Body-(Soma): we are "dust from the ground" (Gen 2:7)- Physical

2.) Soul- (Psyche): incorporeal, spiritual

a.) Greek Platonic Thought about the Soul: (Christos Yannaras)

For the ancients, to say that the "soul" is immortal is to believe it is divine. Immortality however, belongs to God alone. To say something is immortal is to say it has no beginning and no end - it is thus "uncreated." The human person is a created reality and as such it is not immortal but becomes a partaker of the Divine Nature and immortal by Grace.

"Inasmuch as His divine power has freely given to us all the things for life and piety, through the full knowledge of Him Who called us by glory and virtue, by which He has freely given to us the very great and precious promises, that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by desire. [2 Peter. 1:3,4]

Biblical Meaning of the term "Soul" 

"The word soul is among the most difficult words in the Bible and in Christian literature. . . Today, most people, almost self-evidently, understand the word "soul" more with the ancient Greek (Platonic) and less with its biblical meaning. They believe that, as there exists within a body of man blood, lymph, bone marrow, in the same way there exists and immaterial element, spiritual, essentially different from our material composition and precisely this is the soul- something transparent and indefineite, which leaves is with the last breath when we die and goes "somewhere else." (Christos Yannaras, Elements of Faith: An Introduction To Orthodox Theology, T & T Clark, P. 55.)"

b.) Anything that has life is called a soul.
c.) It signifies the way in which life is manifested in a person.
d.) It signifies the whole person - not just the spiritual side
e.) The soul does not merely dwell in the body, but is expressed by the body, which itself, like the flesh or the heart, corresponds to our ego (identity), to the way in which we realize life.
f.) If the soul is the sign of life, it does not signify that it is also the cause of life, as the Greeks believed. It is the bearer of Life...in the New Testament, it appears also to be the bearer of eternal life, and therefore, the salvation of the soul is identified with the possibility of life which does not know corruption and death.

"...the life-force that vivifies and animates the body...the soul is endowed with consciousness, it is a rational soul, possessing the capacity for abstract thought, and the ability to advance by discursive argument from premises to a conclusion. . . With the soul man engages in scientific and philosophical inquiry, analyzing the data of his sense-experience by means of discursive reasoning." (Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, pg. 48.)

3.) Spirit- (Pneuma) = spiritual intellect/Nous (The highest aspect of the soul)

"... nous or spiritual intellect - we understand eternal truths about God and the inner essence of created things, not through deductive reasoning, but by direct apprehension or spiritual perception- a kind of intuition. (Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, pg. 48.)"

"...most people are not even aware that they possess a spiritual intellect. . . Modern man has for the most part lost touch with the truest and highest aspect of himself; and the result of this inward alienation can be seen all too plainly in his restlessness, his lack of identity and his loss of hope. (Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, pg. 49)

4. The Power of Self-Determination (Free-Will)
a.) We are free to choose between good and evil

5. The Heart:

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God (Matt 5:8)


"Within each person- within his or her truest and innermost self, often termed the ‘deep heart' or ‘ground of the soul' - there is a point of direct meeting and union with the Uncreated. "The Kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21)."