My Invisible Me

To have seen the first ocean the first plant, the first animal, and then of course to have seen the creation of the first human being. Truly "Man" must have been a very important creation, because God did not just speak us into existence pointing to a patch of ground and saying "There will now walk a man, who will tend my gardens and worship and glorify me". No. All other animals have (Just as we have) bone, skin, blood, vital organs and brains. We all eat food, multiply, play, strive for preservation of "Self", and we all die. We all have the same traits, sometimes the same habits, but for some reason we are different. No, God didn't just speak us into existence, he took a material from the world that He had already created (dust on the earth), and (much like a sculptor) began forming a figure. He began perhaps with the brain, the organ which would control this figure, then maybe He moved onto the skull and onto the rest of the structure or skeleton. The placement of the organs, veins, muscles skin hairs and nails would have been so intricate and tedious. so beautiful is the creative genius of this Great artist, and as He clears away the left over sprinklings of dust from upon His new and beloved created figure, all of creation (Including angels and all other entities whom God has created) realizes that God is about to do something that He has not done before in this new creation Endeavour. He breathes into this figure the breath of life,


the figures chest rises and the organs and fluids therein take action and movement, the nostrils flare and the eyelids flicker as the pupils adjust. Man then became a living being, or as the KJV states "And man became a living soul"
But what of the soul, what is it? You see I have always had trouble understanding the difference between, the soul leaving the body and the
spirit leaving the body, I know this seems trivial to ask this question when you look at the grand scheme of things and realize that in the end, all that matters is that we grow closer to Christ. But at the same time, if I am ready to give an account for the faith that I have, I think that it would behoove me to figure out what exactly I am made of, and how it works. So lets take a look at what the scriptures have to say about the soul and spirit, I don't want to approach this with any presuppositions, so as to pull what "I" want out of it. I believe that when one begins studying any subject, one should be open to the possibility of being transformed by the renewing of their mind. Finding what it is that God wants one to pull out of his word. Keeping that in mind, lets begin. When we read Gen 2:7 we find that when God breathed the breath of life into Adams lungs, the NIV states that "He became a living being", but if you look at the KJV you will find that in the latter portion of this scripture "Living being" is changed to "living soul". Now I was raised with the idea that the soul was basically a being within you, an indwelling you that was the real seat of your emotions, your true intellect. Growing up I had supposed that my soul within was indeed the one that commanded my brain to make movement instructions for the rest of my body, I know that this might seem strange to


you, but I had presupposed this and formed these opinions from the information that was set before me in my younger years. I had presupposed that when a man dies, his soul would leave his body and enter the heavenly realm anew, without the restraints of the physical shell that he leaves behind. To me that seems like a logical conclusion for a young person, when you take into account that
teachings in modern day Christianity do in fact point towards the idea,
that when someone dies their soul is what leaves, instead their spirit. But maybe I am getting a little to far ahead of myself in this, if we take a look at the meaning of the word soul by referring to ancient Hebrew as our source, we find that the term for "Soul" is actually "Nephesh". Now when you look at it from an ancient Hebrew point of view, you will find that the Hebrew term "Nephesh" refers not to an indwelling being alone, something that does the real thinking for you, or the real feeling, or that tells your body when and how to move. But it refers to several aspects of man as a whole being, it brings about several different meanings such as soul, life, person, mind, heart, creature, body, dead, desire, man, appetite, lust, thing, self, beast, pleasure, ghost, breath and will. Now that was something that I did not have in mind, for I have gotten used to looking at the idea of the human soul as being one specific thing, it caught me rather off guard but at the same time it delighted me to find that there was more meaning to it than just one specific conclusion. Since I am beginning a study on the existence of the human soul, I thought it might make sense to look at two different types of view points, concerning the idea of the human soul, those two types of viewpoints being, “Body/Soul Indwelling” vs. “Body/Soul fused into one”. Yup that’s right, Christian Dualism vs. Christian Dichotomy. What exactly is “Christian Dualism”? Christian Dualism is the basic belief that when God fashioned man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, that breath of


life became an indwelling soul which is the generator of your true
emotions, true will, and of course your true personality. Dualism explains the belief that, the soul is separate from the body, separate and indwelling. What is “Christian Dichotomy”? Christian Dichotomy is dividing one
“thing” into separate parts for study and deeper understanding. So then we
can look at it from this perspective,
Dualism says 1+1=2 and Dichotomy says %50+%50= %100
Now lets take some time to dissect these two different views and really get down to the beef of it all.

Christian Dichotomy
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Since we know that dichotomy is the idea of splitting one ‘whole’ thing into two equal parts, we need to place this idea in the proper context, so that we can fully understand the subject. For instance, let‘s look at an apple for this explanation, an apple is made up of several parts (one might say). If you were to dissect an apple you would find things about that apple, that make it easily distinguishable from other fruits, the most simple of these distinguishable traits being the skin of the apple, you can easily tell the difference between this apple and say, an orange. We can also find evidence of this in the animal kingdom compared to the human kingdom, for instance, All humans are easily distinguishable from apes, a lot of our characteristics are the same, but in the end our basic visual structure is different enough to know the difference. So much so that I can easily say, that a human would not accidentally walk up to a primate, and mistakenly ask it for the time of day, rather than ask the human trainer standing next to the primate. So then, if we continue to dissect our apple


of discussion, we will find that all apples (Once you have pealed back the
skin) have the same white and juicy flesh underneath the skin, all apples have the same seed structure, and all apples hang from their tree by a small twig of a stem. Now… For the argument of “Dichotomy“, let‘s say
that we remove the juicy flesh of the apple, but at the same time keep all
the seeds and the stem and the skin all in the same spot, and then set these two parts of the apple on a table next to each other for study. If we then look at the two portions of the apple we can tell that the flesh of the apple, is still part of an apple, you could walk up to anyone with this portion of the apple and ask them what type of fruit it is, and I venture to say that everyone would know that it is indeed an apple, because of the characteristics of it. People would know that even though it does not have the skin on it, or the seeds within it, or the stem upon it, that it is still an apple because of the shape, or the taste, or the smell. Likewise, you could also take the portion of the apple that is left, being the skin the seeds and the stem, and also bring that portion to the average person, and they too would also know, that what you have in your hand is indeed an apple. They would know because the portion that you hold out to them has the skin of an apple, as well as the seeds, and the stem of an apple. .… What can we pull from this story, and how can we connect this story to the idea of dichotomy? Well, in christian dichotomy the argument would be that the soul, is like the white juicy flesh of the apple. For the flesh of the apple is what really holds the apples true identity, that being the taste or the smell, the texture and the shape. And I believe, that if you were to compare this idea to the ancient definition of the Hebrew word “Nephesh”, you would find a rather large amount of simularities on how the two terms try to define the human soul in it’s entirety. I also believe that the Hebrew term “Nephesh”, is quite possibly the most holistic description that anyone could ever come up with, when considering the creative genius of His Majesty Almighty God. This man, this Nephesh…
Is entirely something of a different sort, in all of his appointments, and God saw that he was good.

Dualism

And the invisible indwelling of the soul

Dualism is the idea of dividing a thing into separate parts for the purpose of philosophical reasoning, for instance the human being becomes, body, mind, and spirit. Each thing ofourse would be reasoned independently of the others, and therefore is considered an independent item, under the understanding of the human condition as a whole. Sounds a little confusing, yes. But, for the purposes of illustration, I’m going to use the same analogy as what I used for the argument christian dichotomy. Now if we take the apple that I spoke of earlier, and look at it from a dualist point of view, we find that the apple has several different items about it. An example would be if you were to take a seed out of the apple, and set it next to it’s former home, the body of the apple. Thus, you now have two different items that when joined together, complete the structure of an apple and everything that goes with, and into it. Now, on the subject of spirituality, we can look at the apple seed as an indwelling beginning. We can look at this seed, as a current indwelling body of all the things that an apple must have to infact, be an apple. We know that if we were to dry or cure this apple seed, and then plant it in the ground, that one day in a year or two, this apple seed would become a tall strong and beautiful apple tree. An apple tree that would produce many more apples… so then, we can now consider the human body to be much like an apple, with the skin, the flesh, and the core with the seeds inside of it. Dualism would say that


the human soul is much like the seed that dwells within an apple, where
the human soul is invisible to all who look at you, so the seed of an apple is invisible to you, if you were to but only look at the apple hanging from the tree. Furthermore, when the human body dies, dualism believes that the human soul leaves the body and returns to our Father in Heaven. And when you really think about it, you can see that in this stage of life, the two opinions really start to haze together into one path of understanding. Where as dichotomy, says that the nephesh and everything being the qualities of a human, and the animating force that allows us to breath and move our body about, returns to the Father. So then also, dualism states that at the point of death, the separate and independent being that is within you, and commands your body what to do as far as breathing and moving about, also returns to the Father. The difference is found in the state that a human body, or an apple for that matter, is in before it dies and returns it’s soul to the Father. As I was saying earlier, an apple seed has all the capabilities within it’s self once it has been dried and cured, to be replanted, and become a large and beautiful tree. So then in dualism, the human soul also has all the capabilities that it needs to be a functioning being, and when it returns to our Father in Heaven, it would be given a new heavenly body. Where as in dichotomy, the soul or “Nephesh” is but a description of all the cualities that make a person, mind, body, and spirit. And when a person dies, and all that they are (except for the physical) returns to the father, it is believed that it is more the spirit likeness that we have with God that returns, along with it’s human capabilities. Rather than just the animating breath of life and personality traits that God gave us. So… Why should we struggle so, to define the human soul? Because I believe that without a consistant investment in the belief structure that you cling to, our faith would dry up and flutter away on the breeze, like the ashes left over from a fire. That in the face of those who would persecute


you, you would be left doubled over in tears, like a man struck by a bullet.
Further more, I believe that we should know more about who we are and how we are made, so that we can draw more closely to the brilliant and majestic genius of Almighty God the Father. Because when you have searched for the truth, and know something beyond the shadows of this present darkness. The multitudes of the deceived could encircle you and spit at you, and shout, and curse you all at the same time. But you know the truth, you know that God gave you understanding enough to see you through, and for His good will and purpose. And in that moment, all the cursing and shouting, will drift and fade into complete silence, when faced with the awesome presence, of the one who gave you your breath… Almighty God, Creator of the Heavens, and of the Earth.