From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
Subject: Re: Soul
Organization: Cypress Semiconductor Northwest, Beaverton Oregon
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 01:44:20 GMT

In article <LEET.92Sep9095010@dove.ims.com> leet@ims.com (Lee Thomas) writes:
>
>In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the soul is that part of a person
>which responds to God.  In the Bible the soul is likened by analogy
>and metaphor to many organs (the bones, the heart, the liver, the
>stomach, ...), but is "fixed" in none of them.

This is incredibly simplistic: there is much more than this to
the record.

The earliest conception of soul that I can find in the Bible,
is as a wind that animates the clay of Adam. In the psalms, we
see how broad the notion of soul was. It is shown as knowing
love, hate, elation, depression, fear, resentment, fantasy, dreams,
nightmare, emotions: most of which are no longer considered part
of the activities of the soul.

Aristotle considered the `psyche' was the first principle
of all the various activities in the various grades of living
things. It is the form of the body, to him; (Now of course,
we know better, and don't need to believe in a spirit that pushes
blood around). I could locate a reference for this, but I suspect
you won't contest this. This will be important later.

So also, in the new testament, the word `psyche' is used for the life
in general. While there is an implication of survival after
death,  I don't see why we can't reconcile those verses with
a complete resurrection in another realm.

Consider:

	Is it lawful ... to save psyche, or to destroy? (Mark 3:4)

	The son of man is come go give his psyche a ransom
	for many. (Mark 10:45)

	The good shepherd giveth his psyche a ransom for many.
	(Mark 10:45)

	He that findeth his psyche shall lose it, and he that
	loseth his psyche for me shall find it. (Matt. 10:39)

These verses are much more closely translated if psyche -> life,
and that is how they are translated. In other cases, the modern
word 'soul' is used. Sometimes, 'heart' is used.

By the time we get to Hebrews, you start to see a change: "The
word of God is living and effectual ... reaching into the division
between psyche and pneumaticos" -- pneumaticos (breath) represents
the jewish idea of soul seen in the old testament where Adam is
clay indwelt by wind, and psyche represents the greek idea later
called _anima_ by Acquina later on. Just as in polytheism you see
Gods from separate cultures making peace and living within one creed,
here you see the result of the interbreeding of Jewish and Greek
doctrine in two different concepts of the soul mentioned in one verse.

Elsewhere it is very easy to find struggles between the two conceptions.

In _De Anima_, Tertullian (Ad 208-211) argues that the Platonist/Stoic
conceptions were most inimical to the Christian evaluation of the
body. Origen on the other hand considered the soul imprisoned in the
body.  Irenaeus, according to my notes, 250 ad said the soul was a 
_relatively_ incorporeal subtle matter which animates the body ...
literally moving the muscles around.

The Augustinian - Franciscan school fought with the Thomist school;
Augustine further subdivided the soul into pieces with the "Mens"
containing the purely spiritual portion - it's higher part and chief.
Augustine also considered the soul to contain our intellectual
faculties:

"Do you not concede that the souls of learned men are much fuller
and in their own way much greater, as it were, than the souls of
the uneducated." _Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings_ Mary T.
Clark, Paulist Press, '84.

The Thomists, on the other hand argued for the Soul as platonic
ideal of the body.

This conflict lead to the Council of Vienne 1311-1312 and the Council
of Lateran in 1513 [Source: Denzinger Bannwart, Enchiridion Symbolorum
p481, 738]. The Thomists won: it was decreed that the soul was the
platonic form of the body, and that to say otherwise was heretical.

Face it: the category 'soul' has changed, despite the tendency of
fundamentalists to pretend that their doctrine and all of it's
concepts sprang into full flower all at once, by backpatching
translations. Vines Expository Dictionary is notorious for this,
smudging the definitions of Bethulah and Almah until they are
indistinguishable. What a bunch of liars fanatics are.

Note also, that as science has explored the activities of life, the
role of the soul has emptied further and further. You suppose now
that what remains in the soul is out of reach of the tools of the
scientist. Wrongo, bucko; if the soul has an effect on the body,
then that is a thread of causality and testability that the scientist
can tug on; if not, then you cherish an empty bag.

Again, as I said before, IMHO it is all a bunch of hooey.

>Kent> No, *your* argument is moot. You're trying to prove the
>Kent> existence of some alleged, critical, yet non-material, property
>Kent> of humans (referred to in the biblical passage mentioned above
>Kent> as a "spiritual body") by assertion.
>
>There is a critical difference between proof by assertion and proof by
>revelation, but I don't believe :-) that my supplying it would change
>your mind.

I would very much like to see you justify your definition of soul
on the basis of scripture.

>"Verifiable properties" would be material, natural, and scientific,
>would they not?  Are you saying that all entities must have such
>properties to exist?  That is philosophic Rationalism, and is a belief
>system which cannot be defended via scientific reasoning without
>resorting to circular argument.  I cannot provide you with verifiable
>properties for the soul, because the soul lies outside of the realm of
>scientific verification.

This finally, is only true of the most modern conception of the idea
of soul, which has been emptied of anything science can touch.

>--
>Lee Thomas,  leet@ims.com 

Regards,

	Max G. Webb


Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:16123 talk.origins:11045