When philosophers assume there’s no spiritual realm beyond the reach of our senses, they naturally go on to argue that there is no God, heaven, angels, or demons. Similarly they deny the existence of a distinct soul within human beings. A spirit or soul cannot be observed by the physical realm. It’s a spiritual concept. Our knowledge of the existence of the human soul must be based on Scripture, in which God clearly testifies to the existence of this immaterial aspect of our beings. The fact that this truth about our existence cannot be clearly known apart from the testimony of Scripture shouldn’t cause us to shrink from affirming it. Paul does not fear death, for he says, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23). He contrasts that with remaining in this life, which he calls “to remain in the flesh” (Philippians 1:24). In fact, he says, “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), indicating a confidence that if he were to die physically his spirit would go into the Lord’s presence and there enjoy fellowship with the Lord at once. The Bible seems to suggest that both the soul and the spirit can sin, which could be because they are the same thing. 5. The soul can do everything the spirit can, and the spirit can do everything the soul can. These categories seem to suggest that there are non-Christians who are “of the flesh,” “unspiritual” Christians who follow the desires of their souls, and more mature Christians who follow the desires of their spirits. Doesn’t this suggest that soul and spirit are different? Thessalonians 5:23 appears to suggest there are three parts to every person: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Outside the realm of evangelical thought we find yet another view, the idea that man cannot exist at all apart from a physical body, and therefore the “soul” can’t exist separately after the body dies (although this view can allow for the resurrection of the whole person at some future time).

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However, man is also sometimes said to be “body and spirit.” Paul wants the Corinthian church to deliver a sinful brother to Satan “for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 5:5). Paul hasn’t forgotten that the man’s soul would be saved, too; he simply uses the word “spirit” to refer to the man’s entire immaterial existence. When scholars assemble everything the Bible says about the soul and spirit, there’s still some room for interpretation. The three main schools of thought come down to how many “parts” humans are made of: Three parts: Body, soul, and spirit Similarly, he speaks of the unmarried woman who is concerned with how to be holy “in body and spirit” (1 Corinthians 7:34). When Paul says, “My spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful,” he means he does not understand the what he is praying. He implies that there is a nonphysical component to his being, a “spirit” within him that can pray to God. But nothing in this verse suggests that he regards his spirit as different from his soul. This misunderstanding only makes sense if we assume that “mind” is part of the soul—a trichotomist claim that, as we noted above, is very difficult to substantiate from Scripture. Paul probably could have just as easily said, “My soul prays but my mind is unfruitful.” There’s a nonphysical element to our existence that can function apart from our conscious awareness of it, but that doesn’t mean we can distinguish between soul and spirit. We can feel things that aren’t emotions or thoughts Learn more in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology online course. Trichotomy: Body, soul, and spirit?

Christians have a “spiritual perception” or inner awareness of the presence of God experienced in worship and in prayer. At this deep inward level we can also at times feel spiritually troubled, or depressed, or perhaps have a sense of the presence of hostile demonic forces. Often this perception is distinct from our conscious, rational thought processes. As we discussed above, Paul realizes that at times his spirit prays but his mind does not understand (1 Corinthians 14:14). By itself, the phrase “your spirit and soul and body” is inconclusive. Other passages of Scripture pile up synonyms for emphasis, and that could be what Paul is doing here. For example, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Is Jesus indicating that the soul is different from the mind or the heart? This problem is even greater in Mark 12:30: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”The trichotomist, however, generally thinks of the “spirit” as purer than the soul, and, when renewed, as free from sin and responsive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. This understanding (which sometimes finds its way into popular Christian preaching and writing) is not really supported by the biblical text: Verses such as 1 Peter 1:22 and Revelation 18:14 seem to imply that our souls can sin. Those who hold to trichotomy will usually agree that the “soul” can sin since they think that the soul includes the intellect, the emotions, and the will.

Here the word “soul” clearly refers to the part of a person that exists after death. It cannot mean “person” or “life,” for it would not make sense to speak of those who “kill the body but cannot kill the person,” or who “kill the body but cannot kill the life,” unless there is some aspect of the person that lives on after the body is dead. Furthermore, when Jesus talks about “soul and body” he seems to be clearly talking about the entire person even though he does not mention “spirit” as a separate component. The word “soul” seems to stand for the entire nonphysical part of man. Learn more in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology online course. First: Can we be sure that humans have souls? According to many trichotomists, man’s soul includes his intellect, his emotions, and his will. They maintain that all people have such a soul, and that the different elements of the soul can either serve God or give in to sin. A person’s spirit, however, is a higher faculty that only comes alive when a person becomes a Christian (see Romans 8:10: “If Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness”). The spirit is the part of us that most directly worships and prays to God (see John 4:24 and Philippians 3:3). Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” If the sword of Scripture divides soul and spirit, doesn’t that make them two separate things?

he fact that “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit” (Proverbs 16:2) implies that it is possible for our spirits to be wrong in God’s sight. to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect . . .” —Hebrews 12:23