Spirit, Soul and Body - How we are designed

We human beings are complicated. Every one of us is unique, with different backgrounds and personalities. But with respect to how God created us, we’re actually all the same.

Our body through its five senses contacts the visible, touchable, tangible things of the material world. It’s the most outward and visible part of our being, and by it we exist and experience the things in the physical realm. But of course, we’re more than just a physical body.

Our soul, though unseen, is just as real as our body. By our soul, we experience things in the psychological realm. In fact, the Greek word for soul is psuche, which is also the root word of psychology. Our soul is composed of our mind, which enables us to do things like think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder; our emotions, which enable us to have feelings like happiness, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion; and our will, which enables us to choose and make decisions. Our mind, emotion, and will make up our soul, which is our personality, who we are within.

But we are even more than just a body with a soul within. We have a part that’s deeper than our soul—our spirit, which is the deepest and most hidden part of our being. By our spirit we can contact the spiritual realm. No other creature was created with this third part, the spirit, within. By our spirit God is real to us and we can contact Him, receive Him, contain Him, and fellowship with Him.

Tripartite or Bipartite

One way to view our nature is that we have a material part, our body, and an immaterial part, our soul and/or spirit. A frequently held view is that we have a bipartite nature where the “soul” and “spirit” are taken as different terms for the same entity. In a 1931 issue of The Evangelical Quarterly, A. McCaig wrote a comprehensive 17-page review of scripture in an article titled “Thoughts on the Tripartite Theory of Human Nature” in which the author makes the case that we are bipartite.

Many other theologians suggest that our immaterial nature has two distinctly different parts – a soul and a spirit. This is known as a tripartite view. 

We tend to lean towards those who hold a tripartite view and the following is my understanding of our design and how the  spirit, soul and body are interconnected.  Indeed, we are very, very complex beings and only a living God could have created us as we are. I urge you to study the scriptures to arrive at your own understanding of man’s design.

Our Body

It is by our body that we function. It’s comprised of organs and cells which consists of protein carbohydrates and fats. Our body contains our nervous system with nerves and the brain. It’s through our bodies that we connect to the physical world with our five senses.

Our Soul

Our soul is what gives us our personality and it’s through our soul that we live out our relationship with God, with other people and with our self. Our soul likely has three major components — our mind, will and emotions. Our mind has a conscious part and a subconscious part. The conscious mind is where we do our thinking and reasoning. The sub-conscious mind is where we hold our deep beliefs and our attitudes. It’s also where we have our feeling, our emotions and retain our memories. Our will is what gives us the ability to make choices. Through a very complex way, our mind, our will and our emotions are connected to the body through our endocrine, nervous and immune systems.

“The mind and body communicate constantly. What the mind thinks, perceives, and experiences is sent from our brain to the rest of the body.” Herbert Benson, M.D., The Benson – Henson Institute for Mind Body Medicine

Our Spirit

It’s in our spirit that we have meaning and purpose in life. At the deepest level our spirit gives us meaning and purpose and our spirit enables us to love one another, our self and God. It’s through our spirit that we have communion and fellowship with God.  Our spirit gives us intuition between right and wrong. For in-depth reading about the distinction between spirit, soul and body consider material written by Watchman Nee, especially The Spiritual Man which is a book online and free.

Our spiritual health will have a significant impact on our emotional health which will have a major influence on our physical health. The inter-connection between the spirit, the soul and the body is certainly a complex connection, nevertheless, the connection is very real. This is an indication of the importance of attending to matters of the soul as it relates to being healthy.

The Interaction Between Spirit, Soul and Body

Many of us are affected by how we handle the stress that life brings us. If chronic stress is left unchecked, over a period of time our bodies will take a toll. A strong faith can help us to cope with the stress that we experience in our life and enable the impact of that stress to be less significant. Without a strong personal faith we must resort to our own resources to cope with the stress present in our life. Often we attempt to cope with this stress through addictions and other methods of escape. This behavior can further exacerbate the effect of stress on our physical health. A strong personal faith can be a resource that helps to manage stress. Life and stress – they go hand in hand. We will experience lots and lots of stress in our life. There is no getting around it. I believe that the degree to which we effectively manage and cope with the stress in our lives will determine the degree to which we are healthy. If we turn to unhealthy behaviors to cope with the stress, our physical and emotional health will suffer.

Many people turn to food as a way to cope with stress. Others turn to the use of drugs. Some turn to alcohol. Still others light up a cigarette. Some burn the midnight oil surfing the internet and pay for it the next day because they have had inadequate sleep.

Faith can be the anchor that keeps a person steady in times of stress.  If followed, biblical principles can be the cornerstone of a person’s life and enable them to live a life less impacted by what otherwise would be stressful circumstances. 

Our beliefs and attitudes, determined in large degree by our faith, will play a major role in our thinking patterns. Our day to day thinking will have an impact on our emotions and feelings, and our emotions and feelings will have a major impact on our behaviors. In this regard, our thought patterns play a significant role in our emotional and physical health.