​​I like the definition of a soul by Dr. Christopher Kaczor which is: "The soul is the immaterial principle of the human body endowed with reason. If immaterial, then it is not detectable by empirical means." 

Mark M.

Your mind creates your soul—the mental product of your choices as you build your character and self-esteem.

Guiding you to a flourishing and happy life is the role of your healthy soul.

Robert H.

Anya, thank you for the opportunity!

“How different is the one who devotes his soul, pondering the law of the most high. He will hunt out the wisdom of all the ancients, and pore tirelessly over the words of the prophets…” The Wisdom of Ben Sira, Chapter 39.

Shakespeare says, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” In my case, as it is with Polonius, brevity is the soul of a nitwit. And this nitwit says, “the eternal human soul, though invisible, nevertheless, it exists and is the most real thing about us. Our soul, though not a physical thing, knows of truth and beauty and is the essential being of our physical selves. Our flesh has purpose and is directed by the soul. We are rational animals searching for love and seeking excellence. We are more than mere atoms formed from dust. We are embodied souls made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26a). We are human.”

Jack E. C., Jr., Pastor.

What is, or constitutes, a soul? In my opinion a soul is nothing more (or less,) than our capacity to connect with others on an emotional level.

If our conscience is our moral guide, then is this not the basis for a soul? What we think of as good people or a good soul.

I cannot remember if anyone has ever said that someone has a bad, or evil, soul. I doubt anyone would think that a psychopath has a soul whether or not this individual does anything inherently "evil."

If the eyes are the window to the soul but evil people have 'nothing behind the eyes,' (which I have heard victims of trauma say,) then we have already tried to say what a soul is without knowing how to say it. A soul is your capacity for empathy, sympathy and imagining how the "other" will feel.

Ken S. 

Before I get to your question, what, if anything, is the soul? Let me state that I barely graduated high school and likely have an average IQ. However, I have an insatiable curiosity, enjoy Classical Wisdom, am well-read, and have been searching for "the truth" my whole life due to a unique and often traumatic history. But the more I learn, the more questions I have and realize how little I know.

Now, about the soul. My personal experience is indirectly related to your question. Without going into details, I grew up in a cult. But my childhood was a mix of Woodstock, Baywatch, and the Jesus Movement, which laid the foundation for my life, values, and existential questions, such as the possible existence of the soul and the meaning of life.

I had many supernatural experiences throughout my childhood and early adult life. Some were a symptom of trauma and explained by what we now know about the brain. But some were beyond explanation, similar to quantum mechanics. I saw people and objects that did not exist in the observable world. Did this prove the existence of God or Angels? If so, then we must have a soul and an afterlife. Or did I witness another dimension, such as string theory suggests? Or perhaps it was the residual energy of people or objects no longer here. And why me? I'm not special. There must be others with similar experiences.

As I get older, I've come to accept that I will never find the answers I seek. The wonder and complexity of life is a never-ending journey of discovery that only leads to more questions and hopefully, some wisdom and understanding that you can apply to your life and circle of influence. 

Dino

P.S. I love Classical Wisdom and Notes from the End of the World!

In the spirit of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit lets answer with;

God’s soul reflecting dimly onto the spirits of existence.

Greg

The Soul and Spirit of Man

I want to define as clearly as I can, what the soul and spirit is in all humans. When we discuss the soul and the spirit of man we cannot consider one without including the other because they are so closely related and connected.  

Genesis 2:7 says that man was created as a “living soul”.  From this we can see that the soul is closely associated with the body and in particular, the brain or the mind.  Attributes such as one’s personality, intellect, etc. are part of the soul and these things are part of the brain. Of course, the brain is part of the "living body" and these qualities are passed to the person from the DNA of one’s parents.  This is where the soul and the body overlap.  Of course, your brain is mortal because it is part of your body and it dies with our body.

The soul is also spiritual and the spiritual component can be thought of as how we relate to the world and the things of the world. These would be things like dreams, passions, thoughts etc. while our spirit is totally spiritual and relates our soul to God.  It is also the means by which Satan can get access to our soul and steal our soul.

When the body dies, do the qualities such as personality and intellect that are clearly DNA related, survive with our other soul qualities such as love, emotions, free will, and the rest, along with your spirit?  Or, after our death, do they remain with our dead body until we are resurrected in a glorified body to meet the Lord Jesus in the air at his second coming?

I believe that they do survive. The soul and spirit then go to heaven to be with God or to hell with Satan, until the second coming of Jesus when we will all be resurrected, and our glorified body will be united.with our soul and spirit.  Some will spend eternity with Satan, and some will spend eternity with God, the glorified Jesus.

Sincerely, 

Dave A

I believe that the soul is the female part of yin and yang and I know that I am right . Oi

Catherine C.

I find it odd that people try to define the soul--it reeks to me of hubris, that we know enough to define it!

However, I have read enough near-death experiences to believe that human consciousness goes on after the fleshly body dies.

I wouldn't presume via physics to define exactly what that post-body human is.

It is also interesting that the Shroud of Turin has been studied ad nauseam from every angle. Newsmax ran a whole issue on it last year. Even scientists who are not Christians seem convinced that it is the actual burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth.

The most interesting facet is the image that appears burned into the fabric. Was the resurrection a mini-nuclear event? An extreme form of energy re-inhabiting a body?

Many near-death experiencers claim to have seen a being shining very brightly, like a form of energy.

I suspect we have been given small evidences of a reality that we cannot define. Hence, I stand by my comment that it is great hubris to attempt to do so even while recognizing that something lives on without the body.

Many Blessings,

Mary G.

The soul is the life of consciousness, intentionality, striving to be a certain person.  One could have a soul without necessarily buying into an eternal soul. Many of the Greeks saw the soul as distinct from the body but dissipating at death or being transformed into "soul stuff" for rebirth.  Not sure about the latter option, however.  A.N.Whitehead argued for an impersonal immortality as the experiences of all souls are kept within the nature of God.  His point was that a soul captures an intensely personal experience of the world and the value realized cannot simply cease to exist. 

Modern science has not disproved the soul, even if it can establish clear correlations between brain activity and human thought.  Correlation does not guarantee causation.

Wendy T.

I don't believe the soul is an entity, a 'thing', not to be confused with those beliefs of the soul as some sort of immaterial substance, separate from (and possibly surviving) the body.

It is a useful word and concept in contexts. The latter, for instance, may refer to 'soul music' or when we talk about the 'heart and soul' of a matter. (A related word is spirit as when we talk, for instance of team spirit).

It is as implied in classical philosophy, such as Stoicism, a naturalistic reference understood in language communities as experiential - both observable in others and felt in oneself. It is the total of individual being which includes relationships, beliefs, values, capacities, 'mind', feeling, 'instincts'. The German word geist has no equivalent in English but can be translated as mind, spirit, intellect according to various contexts: as such, it can be seen to posit a rarified elevation, akin to Reason, while personally I understand the soul as a totality, including its messy bits.

'Psychology' has appropriated psyche and constrained the concept to fit into narrow, positivist, materialist frames, these frames also structuring its conception of the human being. The modern understanding of 'mental health' is calculative and mechanistic, and fails to envisage the far horizons of flourishing or eudaimonia. The needs, aspirations and high potentials of the soul are greater than attention to any of its parts - whether you're a religious believer or an atheist.

Best wishes,

Adrian B., Glasgow, Scotland