This is an article I wanted to write for quite time now. The information which I will present is inspired by Baal Hasulam's article "Body & Soul". He goes through different theories which humanity came up with and then gives another interesting perspective. The SOUL is...
Theory №1
Albrecht Durer - The Descent of the Holy Spirit
According to Faith, there are spiritual essences, separate one from another - the human souls.
They have different qualities and descend in us to manifest themselves. The body is considered to be a temporary suit and the soul wears it to show off its characteristics, such as virtue and habits. When the costume wears out, the soul leaves it. Therefore; without soul the body is just dead matter. All life symptoms are displays of the soul. It is considered to be immortal and eternal.
Theory №2
According to Dualism the body is a perfect creation - it exists and takes care of itself in any means necessary. It does not need help from any spiritual essence. But the body is not considered to be the human essence. The base of the human essence is in the intelligent soul, which overlaps with the first theory. The difference is the understanding about the body. After the development of body-soul science, they understood that the "Divine" put a mechanism to satisfy all vital necessities, so there is not much to be done from the soul.
The soul can only manifest itself through habits and good qualities (in their spiritual types). So they believe in duality, believing in both theories at the same time and that the soul is the cause for the body to exist.
Theory №3
According to the Denial theory, there is no spiritual reality. They only accept materiality and deny any abstract soul essence in the body. The body is the cause for the mind to exist.
The brain controls what happens with all the organs, depending on the signals from the body. Their comparison of the body is with a machine with conductors between the brain and the body. Probably even they do not believe that fully.
Theory №4
Аccording to the Kabbalah theory, the soul has no relation to the body. There can be a soul only when one goes out of his egoism. When he starts to embed himself in others, to take care and serve the others - then he fееls a decomposition in humanity . This decomposition in humanity is the soul. Meaning, this is the property of giving, to "love thy neighbor". They believe something I agree with - that happiness can be maintained by bringing joy to others. Otherwise, when one acquires material things for himself, happiness is only temporary.
Everyone can ask themselves whether they have the soul property. What do they do from morning to evening? What are their concerns?
The soul is in others, not in the man. One must go out from himself to his soul.
My point of view
In the Kabbalh theory there is something I vibe with - that WE ARE ALL ONE! There is a collective soul and we connect to it when we are loving and caring. It make sense, as when I think of the stereotype for "spiritual" and "nonspiritual" people, spirituals would be nice and kind, nonspiritual will be the opposite.
But I am also a Dualist, as obviously we have different bodies, so how can we all be one? In order for something to exist so must its opposite. For the spiritual world to exist, the material should exists too and vice versa.
But there is something in the Faith theory I feel close to my understandings - that the soul is immortal and eternal. Upon imagining death, I always see how energy goes out into the collective one and gets recycled.
So it seems I agree with aspects of all 4 points, except the 3rd. This is a good example of how it is not always necessary to discard one truth, because of another. They can be both true.
Your point of view
Comment with your thoughts on the matter.
Thank you for reading