Man Is A 3 Part Being, Body, Sole, Spirit

[Nova Scotian]

This is what I believe. Man is a 3 part being. Man is a Spirit, who lives in a body, your flesh, and has a mind will and emotions, your sole. When we die, your flesh and your sole dies. Your Spirit lives on. That's why when we are born again in Christ, our Spirit is brand new.

Now what I see Christians thinking is that once your sole is renewed, everything else is changed. Not so. If you had an anger problem before, you'll still have it. If you had a sexual addiction before, you'll still have it. If you were an alcoholic before, you'll still be an alcoholic. Just because your Spirit is renewed, doesn't remove the responsibility from you to overcome your other problems. YES. God forgives you and giving your life to Jesus will save you from eternal damination. But God won't do for you what you can do for yourself.

Remember This:
Without God, I cannot, Without me, God will not.

[Siobhan Blues]

Mmm, interesting thought.
But I've always figured the 'soul' and 'spirit' are referring to the same thing, that part of you that exists besides the physical body. When you become a Christian, when you choose to follow Christ, you are the same soul but you've become Christ's now... so if you do still deal with negative addictions or habits, now you have Him to help you overcome them. Just because you become a Christian you don't automatically have an easy life! You still have to make the choice every day to pick up the bad habit or not.

But the struggles sure are easier to face when He's got your back!

[Nova Scotian]

But I've always figured the 'soul' and 'spirit' are referring to the same thing, that part of you that exists besides the physical body.

Your soul is your mind will and emotions. Your spirit is your inner man.

[Robert Phoenix]

Just adding some info from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The numbers are the sections where you can find the info, not the page numbers.
363 In Sacred Scripture the term"soul" often refers to the human life or the entire human person. But soul also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: soul signifies the spiritual principle in man.
364 The human body shares in the dignity of the "image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and that it is the whole person that is intented to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit.
Man, though made of body and soul is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is to reguard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it on the last day(Daniel 3:57-80)
365 The unity of the soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: it is because of of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living human body,: spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God-it is not "produced" by the parents-and also that it is immortal: it does not parish when it seperates from the body at death, and it will be united with the body at the final Resurection.
On a side note, during my Master degree studies the idea of the mind, body, and soul being seprate came from the Greeks. For the Jewish people there was no seperation and the Church has been trying to get back to the original idea. I wish I could find the exact quote in my notes but I do remember it because it was such a new revelation for me. Hope this is helpful.

[Robert Phoenix]

Dug a little deeper into my notes- it was Plato who held that of all living beings, humans alone were a combination of material (body) and spiritual (soul). Soul donated everything that comprised the inner life and identity of human beings, that which is enduring and seperable from merely organic existance.
Aristole rejected Plato's duelism of body and soul in favor of the constitutive unity of human nature (anthropos) in which the material body and the intellectual soul were inseperable. Soul, mind , and body belong together because the human soul actually requires bodily organs and a sense of experience in order to preform it rational functions in living activity.
Aquinnas was the one who incorporated Aristotlian philosophy into his approach to grace, God's presence in our lives.