There is a natural and inescapable observation that there are material and immaterial realities. Moreover, the material and the immaterial interact: the spiritual and the somatic; the temporal and eternal; the mundane and the transcendent. Theories of the soul, both in Platonism and in most of Christianity are, largely, attempts to posit a “part” of the human person which is, not material but can interact with the material. Thus, for most, the “soul” is the hypostasis, substance, form, or part of the human person which functions as mysterious an immaterial command center – the ghost in the machine[1] – or which justifies the interaction of material and immaterial within the human person. Thus, for many, if not most, the “soul”, as it is commonly conceived, is posited to account for the presence of and interaction with the immaterial within and by material beings. In many ways, though it is not stated to be such, the soul is a proposed answer to the mind-body problem. This makes defining “soul”, in a Western context, so influence by Platonism and Christianity, particularly difficult because the parameters of what the soul is have already been set by the question. Thus, many definitions of soul are large-scale exercises in philosophical question begging.

But for the Christian, the problem cannot simply be erased by saying that the soul is not a thing, because the Bible is rife with the uses of נפשׁ (nephesh) and ψυχή (psoochay). Since these words are translated with the English word “soul”, it is incumbent upon Christian philosophers to explain what the Bible means when these words are used, and to do so in a philosophically satisfactory manner. Thus, the Christian philosopher is at an impasse. The soul is a loaded term. The nature of the question forces us to a predetermined and overly narrow set of explanations for the Biblical meaning of “soul”. Once we begin with the premise that the soul explains the immaterial in the material, we can never escape that premises in a satisfactory way. The framing of the question forces us to a conclusion that the soul is either a ghost in the machine or some hylomorphic form, or that it doesn’t exist at all. But I do not believe that that is the soul. I believe that based upon the best scriptural interpretations we can make, applied to our best philosophical methods and traditions, we can arrive at the understanding that the soul is neither less, nor more, than the self.[2]

I recognize that this is a minority view, which jettisons much of the most venerated anthropology to ever come from philosophers and theologians. But I think that the “soul is the self” is the least problematic view, with the most explanatory power. In what follows I will examine: the Partialist view, advocated by Plato[3] and modern Trichotimists and Dualists; the Materialist view, advocated by atheists (primarily); the Hylomorphic view, advocated by Aristotle[4] and which is very similar to Christian Integrated Complexity. I will weigh the merits of each and also demonstrate that all of these views fail and point us to the need for a new way of looking at “soul”.

I was a Trichotomist for most of my life. I understood Body, Soul, and Spirit, to be aspects of personality that corresponded to and interacted with the Physical, the Psychological, and Spiritual realms; this corresponds to Science, Philosophy, and Theology; it corresponds with Christ, the Father, and the Spirit; et cetera. I still believe that these three realms are real. But dividing the human person into 3 parts, while elegant, and coherent has problems. The soul is often conflated with the spirit in the Old Testament. Moreover, a tripartite view really relies entirely on Hebrews 4:12. Also, there are more “parts” that are listed, why only these 3? Moreover, it presupposes that personalities in the spiritual realm cannot interact with material or psychological (thoughts, emotions, volition, etc.) Trichotomism answers some questions very well. But is ultimately unsatisfactory.

Dualism has much to merit it. It recognizes the eternality of personality, that there is more to the world than the material, the reality of the transcendent. Plato’s forms even correspond strongly to an Edwardsian view of Christian typology, where all things in the Universe are types of Christ. Moreover, the separability of consciousness[5] from the body within Christian theology strongly supports the Dualist (and Trichotomist) view.

But Dualism fails for similar reasons as Trichotomism. It conflates the psychological and the spiritual, though we recognize that they are different. God is not pure thought, He is Spirit, though He has the capacity for the psychological. Moreover, Dualism fails to account for how the soul and the body interact. Dualism says, in essence: “If we can’t explain HOW the immaterial and material interact, we’ll posit a “soul” to explain it.” But it doesn’t explain anything, it merely accepts the immaterial in humanity as a first principle and then calls it “soul”. Moreover, because the soul is something placed in the body rather than an inextricably linked aspect of the total person Dualism (and Trichotomism) eventually devolve into the disintegration of the person and the denigration of the body.

On the other extreme, of course, is hard Materialism, which denies the existence of any kind of immaterial reality. All there is is matter. And this simply cuts the Gordian Knot. Unfortunately for the hard Materialist, describing a mechanism doesn’t explain away a phenomenon. Love doesn’t necessarily become reduced to chemical reactions simply because we can describe the chemical reactions. The Materialist has to prove (or at least convince people) that there is nothing immaterial working in conjunction with the material – a difficult task, since it’s hard to prove a universal negative.[6] It’s also an unpleasant view. It also overstates our realistic level of confidence in our knowledge of biological mechanisms and processes. Materialism cannot give a satisfactory explanation of even consciousness. It cannot explain known phenomena, why should we accept its take on the unprovable?

So, we can see Trichotomism and Dualism attempt to explain the soul as the immaterial “part” of the person that interacts with the material. Materialism attempts to explain the soul away as something that doesn’t exist because the immaterial doesn’t exist.

Aristotle seems to be between Scylla and Charybdis. Yet, Aristotle’s view is so abstruse that it leaves much to be desired. I agree with him that the immaterial is integrated seamlessly into the material. But I disagree that it is inseparable. For Plato and the Dualist/ Trichotomist the soul is part of the self and can and will be separated from the body upon death. But not for Aristotle. Because he views the soul as merely the form of the self, when the body dies, so does the soul. Aristotle in some ways comes closer to the truth than Plato. But he leans too far into Materialism. Aristotle is right in understanding that something directs the human person, and even animals. He’s right to think that trying to divvy up the person is a mistake; he’s wrong say the soul cannot survive death.

And so, it seems I’ve painted myself into a corner. I reject Partialism because the soul is too thing-y. I reject Hylomorphism because the soul is not thing-y enough. I reject Materialism because it denies the existence of a soul!

But what if this whole time we’ve missed the point? What if the soul is the self? All attempts to narrow down what the self, eventually fall prey to a reductio ad absurdum. The soul is inextricably linked to the body because it IS the body. The body is part of the soul, the soul is not part of the body, or a ghostly inhabitant thereof. The mind, consciousness, will, reason, spirit, these are all parts of the soul, because the soul is the self.

Genesis makes it plain that the “soul” comes into being when the Spirit of God is breathed into the nostrils of the earth which had been formed into the shape of a man. Adam, like the beasts, becomes a נפשׁ חיה (Nephesh Chaiyah). Whatever God did, he did to matter. But the text doesn’t say he put a נפשׁ חיה into the dust. It says the dust became a נפשׁ חיה. This is of course consonant with OT usage of נפשׁ and NT usage of ψυχή which are used synonymously with “life”.

But how then can the soul be separated from the body, as we know to be “absent from the body is present with the Lord”? Again, this is the wrong way of thinking about this. The soul doesn’t leave the body, the body is separated from the soul. All the other aspects of self, the mind, the will, the emotions, consciousness, memories, and so on, these all remain “parts” of the soul. The body doesn’t lose a soul at death – the soul loses a body.

How does this work? I don’t know. I’m not attempting to explain how this works. I’m simply saying that the best philosophical understanding of “soul” is that the soul is the self. Is consciousness a ghost in the machine? Maybe? Perhaps the immaterial aspects of human life are the “breath of God” which have unified with the dust of the earth and been animated (literally). But if that’s the case there’s no proving it. And there is no disproving it, either. It cannot be verified or falsified.

Thus, positing a ghost in the machine because we cannot understand the mechanism through which consciousness works and how God and spirits interact with bodies is a thesis that should be considered carefully. Equating that ghost in the machine with the soul is simply a “soul of the gaps”. It is a thesis – but a superfluous thesis.

I believe in soul because God divinely inspired the Biblical authors to use the words נפשׁ and ψυχή. But when everything is weighed, we find that any attempt to separate soul from self creates more problems than it solves. Partialism posits the soul to explain the presence of the imaterial and must explain whence the ghost comes and how it works, calling the ghost the “soul” doesn’t answer anything. Materialism denies the existence of the soul altogether and rejects the reality of parts of the self, which are typically understood to be immaterial. Hylomorphism escapes the mind-body problem, and accepts the reality of the immaterial, but fails because it rejects life after death.[7] In other words. Materialism says nothing. Plato and Dualists/ Trichotomists say too much. Hylomorphists don’t say enough.

The simple, elegant, most philosophically durable answer is that what we call the soul is no more nor less than the self. It doesn’t overstate its case and posit something unprovable and problematic. It doesn’t deny the reality of the immaterial. It accounts for life after death. Viewing the soul as the self allows us to recognize that human (and animal) personalities are complex and combine material and immaterial aspects. Moreover, it handles the biblical data with the most integrity – not importing Platonic presuppositions on what “soul” is.

While I have no doubt that this answer is underwhelming and disappointing to many, especially those who, like me, fancy themselves anthropologists, it seems to me that this answer is the best available. The many definitions of soul, I believe, arose because people understood that human personality is complex and mysterious.[8] The Western concept of soul was developed to explain the mystery of personality. The philosophical discussion continues because all the answers to the question of what the soul is begin with the premise that the soul has to explain the complexity of human personality. Perhaps we must simply accept that humans are complex, and God has not given us knowledge on how we exist in complexity. We are the dust of the earth animated by the breath of God. To say less than that is sub-Christian. To say more than that is to enter into error. The self, in all its complexity, is a נפשׁ חיה.

Footnotes:

[1] I’ve written on my personal website at some length on similar issues, with some overlap. See:

Luke M Nagy, “The Ghost in the Machine” last modified August 17, 2020, accessed September 24, 2020. https://www.lukenagy.com/blog/2020/8/17/the-ghost-in-the-machine.

Luke M Nagy, “Christianity Confirms Brain Science” last modified August 12, 2020, accessed September 24, 2020, https://www.lukenagy.com/blog/2020/8/12/christianity-confirms-brain-science.

[2] Of course, this means I must define self. But this, again, need not trouble us. The self is the “I” of the speaker, with all that that means. My body is I; my mind is I; my will is I; my reason is I; my emotions are I; my memories are I; all these aspects of personality have a Gestalt and form the unique “I”. And this is true of all people. I am me; you are you. And this is true of animals. One can say neither more nor less.

[3] Steven M. Cahn, Classics of Western Philosophy, 8th Edition, Phaedo (Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Company, 2012).

[4] Steven M. Cahn, Classics of Western Philosophy, 8th Edition, On The Soul, Nichomachean Ethics (Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Company, 2012).

[5] Especially II Corinthians 5:8.

[6] Of course, he could rush to posit Lex Parsimoniae, but that would require all things being equal – which they are not – and they are unacceptably not to a person who has accepted Christian metaphysics.

[7] There are of course other issues with Aristotle’s theory that are merely “piling on” as I reject any system that does not attribute for survival of the soul after death.

[8] Of course, this leads us to a significant philological question: must a word be restricted to its original meaning? Where did the idea of ψυχή come from? Did the first Hellenes have a correct theological anthropology? Or did the word reflect their own cultural understandings that changed over time? Are Christians to be bound to the first Hellenic view? Or do we accept that the word attempted to explain, without revelation, real phenomena, even if wrongly?