According to Genesis 2, God made a body for Adam from the dust of the ground. He, then, breathed into that body the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The breath of life breathed into Adam was that which actually enlivened him, or animated his body, which was, otherwise, lifeless. In Scripture, the words used for air, wind, breath, and spirit are the same. James 2 mentions the body without the spirit is dead. Christ, on the Cross, dismissed his spirit to God upon His physical passing, as well as Stephen, while dying by stoning in Acts 7, cried out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The real but intangible human spirit, added to the physical human body, appeared to constitute the totality of our personhood and is designated as the soul. Thus, we do not have a soul, but we are a soul. We are a soul that consists of a physical body and a non-physical spirit. It is in the human spirit that our real self exists, and where, also, our accountability lies. It is there in our internal, intangible human spirit that our volition, or will, resides along with our intellect and emotions, norms and standards, conscience, personality and temperament, imagination and creativity. All these faculties, plus more we don’t understand, are properties of our intangible human spirit. And, they are intangible as well, real but intangible. The mind itself is real but not physical, not to be confused with the physical brain. Yet, all these intangibles interact with the physical aspects of our body, especially our brain, and they all are coordinated to express themselves through our body and its physical actions and body language.
Though little understood, Scripture makes it clear that animals also have souls and refers to them multiple times in the Bible. Ecclesiastes 3 indicates that upon death the spirit of man goes upward while the spirit of the beast goes downward. Why this notable distinction is made is not clear, but a suggested possibility is that animals do not have a capacity for moral behavior or accountability but function on the basis of instinct. But man, created in God’s image, with volitional qualities is a responsible being who will be held accountable by his Creator for the moral decisions he has made. This, in itself, may be the meaning of man’s spirit going upward at death and returning to the God Who gave it. This human spirit, which of our whole being is alone responsible for one’s actions, returns to God for the purpose of judgment or of giving account for the deeds done in the body…deeds which were inspired by and volitionally put in motion by the human spirit. Consider 2nd Corinthians 5:10, consequently, animal behavior is instinctive, meaning that each species is deliberately, divinely programmed to behave in a precise, predictive manner. They have no choice. A polar bear cannot opt to behave like an elephant. His programmed spirit locks him in to being and behaving like a polar bear should.
Man does not have instincts. Man has intuition…intuitive powers that are still under the jurisdiction of his volition, his power of choice.
CC 09-09
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