Quote:
Originally Posted by Trapped
Heck, even the distinction between body and soul isn't a 100% unblurred line. Our brain and our mind, our body and our emotions are intertwined too. The three distinct circles are actually quite inadequate and even misleading according to human experience.
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This is too true. But the general view by most theologians is that the thing we call the soul — no matter how undefinable that seems to be — is the thing that differentiates man from other animals. (Or maybe it is the combination of spirit and soul rather than just soul. Probably depends on who you are reading.)
It is interesting that one of the evidences of something unique about man relative to other animals is the tendency of man to make up his own reality and declare it to be true. Too many aspects of abhorrent behavior, from the relatively benign to grossly overt (both criminal and simply social) are easily linked to what we call the soul and/or spirit. Man does no simply follow genetic instincts, but thinks about it and rationalizes.
But when it comes to the difference between soul and spirit, even Nee had no real idea what he was talking about. There was a chart published of his detailed list of verses defining what was considered soul v spirit many years ago (and probably can be found in one of his books). After much digging through the list, I started to see that the ones claiming to be strictly aspects of the spirit were mostly found in barely-altered terms on the list for the soul. In other words, just reading verses really left the soul and the spirit pretty much indistinguishable.
Some of us concluded (with no theological degrees among us to lean on) that the spirit (to the extent that it was rightly an aspect of the person rather than some other use of the term) was more about the positioning of the soul toward (or away from) God. On the interaction of man with God (or lack thereof).
Still needs the Word of God (Christ, not the written word we call the Bible) to differentiate.
BTW, I note that in my last post almost 7 years ago, I referenced my dad as being still in the LRC. While I have mentioned it some elsewhere in the past, it was only about 2 years later that he ceased that affiliation and we have enjoyed his company on most of the Sunday mornings since.