...I can't imagine anyone answering 'no,' but I thought some of you who are more learned in the Scriptures than I can help me to crystallize it: Does God have a soul?

Conceiving the soul to be mind and emotions, we know that Jesus showed anger, compassion etc so He had a soul.

Does God the Father have a soul? Well, considering how He spoke to many of the prophets of His anger at Israel, or other instances when He had compassion on them, I think indicate to His having a soul.

How about the Holy *Spirit*? Is He exclusively Spirit and not soul? Any scripture to suggest one way or the other? E.g. is it scriptural to speak of 'grieving the Holy Spirit?' If it is, does that suggest He has a soul?

JESUS was moved with compassion,
touched by our weakness, wept
over Jerusalem and for HIS friend
Lazarus. Yes, GOD has a heart
and soul, and it is breaking over
sin !

_________________
Martin G. Smith

_________________
Travis

Why are we likening "soul" to emotions? Can't it be an old English word for Spirit?

If you do a search on the word "soul" it shows up as God possessing a soul about three times in the OT. Here is one of them but offhand I do not know where the others are

Judges 10:16
And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

Anyway.......

Every spirit has a soul and God is spirit. In Isa 11.2 you see the Spirit of the Lord (1) and then the six attributes of the soul that all together add up to seven that is the fulness of God

The soul is essentially the mind and Christians start off with the Holy Spirit but they still have the mind(soul) of man and need to obtain the mind (soul) of Christ

Doug

I'm all for asking deeper questions, but I have to wonder "what does it matter?". Not trying to be degrading by any means, please believe me. But sometimes I read discussions on this forum and wonder "why?".

Does God have a soul? Will there ever be an answer to that question in which everyone here would walk away satisfied that we have come to the correct answer?

We need to be very careful with this forum because scripture (God) has some things to say about "endless debates".

Taking every scriptural instance using the word soul, we find that soul is not an attribute, but is rather an outward (physically impinging) expression of the heart.

The heart is "the seat of the affections", and contains the attributes usually mistakenly assigned to the soul.

Does God have a soul?

Jesus is God became man as well.
Does He posess His own soul (life)?


Interestingly, there is one phrase lately that keeps jumping out at me as i have repeatedly , been going through Luke 21. Jesus says, ". . .in your patience, posess ye your soul. . ."

Now, since He says to do this, seeing this thread made me wonder how many of us actually possess our own soul in the expression of our lives through the living?


God Bless us one and all
as we further posess our own souls.

Agapeo,
g

as

Lesserlight is on the right track.

The controversy seems to revolve around the opinion of whether or not the Soul is synonymous to Spirit. I am of the leaning that Soul and Spirit are more or less two different aspects of the same thing. And the Scriptures seem to liberally use the terms interchangeably, just like it does with Mind and Heart.

The particular verse often used to disassociate the two as distinct and separate entities is Hebrews 4:12.

"For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

The general concept for holding to this perspective is the typical formation of man as a triune-being. Personally, I think this an excessive interpretation to the meaning of man being made in the "image of God."

Moreover, those who use this verse to support the triune-man doctrine usually completely overlook that there are three symmetrical pairs.

1) soul and spirit
2) joints and marrow
3) thoughts and intentions of the heart

I am no doctor, so I am not altogether certain why the writer of Hebrews (I say Paul) should think to contrast bone joints to bone marrow. And what in the world does it really mean to divide them? If a joint is a joint, made of either fibrous or cartilaginous material joining the bones together; and marrow is marrow, made of fatty tissue, contained within the bones; then it seems to me they are already distinctly divided. However, it should immediately appear that a linking characteristic exists, they both deal with the same substance: bones.

As for the third pair, I can see two ways of classifying these terms. Either abstractly, which is to say, it is true that thoughts are not always intentions, yet intentions are always thoughts; or, by definition, as taken from Strong's,

Gr: enthymēsis ("thoughts"): "a thinking, consideration"
Gr: ennoia ("intentions"): "the act of thinking, consideration, meditation"

Either way, we are still dealing with the same thing: the mind.

So then, why should the Soul and Spirit deal with different things? If the Soul and Spirit are merely aspects of the same substance then there is no trouble or confusion about God possessing a Soul; as Lesserlight pointed out with Judges 10:16.

Other OT passages include:

Job 23:13. Job spake concerning the Lord God: "He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? and what His soul desires, even that He does."

Psalms 11:5. "The LORD tries the righteous: but the wicked and him that loves violence His soul hates."

Soul (Hebrew: nephesh): "soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion."

_________________
Jordan

I think spirit and soul are separate. Thessalonians shows us that.

1Th 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our spirit is made alive by the Holy Spirit and inhabited by the Holy Spirit while our soul is the seat of our mind/will/emotions.

Being former Catholic, they believe soul and spirit are the same. It serves their theology well.

Does God have a soul (mind, will, emotions). You judge.

Who is talking here through Isaiah?

Mat 12:18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.