(This article also includes a podcast discussion. Click the play button below, or subscribe and listen on your Apple or Google podcast app. )
One of the most popular beliefs about our physical and spiritual selves is that we have three parts: body, soul, and spirit (also known as trichotomy). The three are unique and serve different functions yet are necessary for us to be who we are. There are several reasons this is convincing, but the arguments for a three-part being also create just as many issues that we shouldn’t ignore.
Do we have a body, soul, and spirit? Is it biblical?
First, let’s discuss what it looks like to have three parts. People differ on what exactly each one does, but this is the more accepted explanation of each:
- Body: Our physical forms
- Soul: Who we are, including our emotions, minds, personality, beliefs, etc
- Spirit: The part that allows us to interact with God; the spirit is “dead” until we become Christians
Unlike my first article in this series, I won’t build a case and then conclude with clear evidence that this belief isn’t biblical. Many people who seek to honor God and His word hold to this. Instead, I’ll give the common reasons why people believe we have three parts, then address the biblical and logical conclusions each leads to and why we may not want to outright accept a belief because it’s popular.
#1 God is composed of three persons
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. (Genesis 1:26a)
The creation of man can be a confusing one. There are a surprising number of explanations for what verse means. One of them is that being made in “God’s image” refers to how we are both composed of three parts.
- God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
- We are body, soul, and spirit
Thus, this view of the soul explains how God made us in His image.
Response to #1
God the Father is a whole and complete person, with His own thoughts and personality. Christ and the Holy Spirit are likewise whole and complete persons. No one in the Godhead is lacking, nor does one possess something the other doesn’t. They serve different roles in how they relate to humans and one another, but they are of the same substance and have the same majesty.
This breaks down when we think about what this means for us. Are our body, soul, and spirit made of the same substance? Are they independent, complete beings who work together? Are all three parts of us eternal?
In the end, this is just pattern recognition. It’s tempting to see that God is three persons and try to make that match our belief about how we’re made. However, doing so compromises the majesty and uniqueness of God. It works on a surface level, but it struggles to stand up to closer examination.
#2 The Bible divides us into three parts
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)
Here, we see that we are to love God with all we are: our spirit (heart), soul, and body (might). Thus, we see all three parts of the human being represented.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
Likewise, we see all three aspects of a human being referenced.
#2 Response
If we use this method of interpretation, then Christ says we’re actually made of four parts:
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Matthew 12:30)
And suppose heart, soul, and mind are three separate things since they use different words. In that case, we’re also composed of flesh (Matthew 26:41, which uses a different word than “body” or “strength”) bowels/affections (Philippians 1:8, translated differently in the KJV and other translations), and spirits (since spirit isn’t technically listed here).
So we must ask ourselves if these verses are inventories of what we’re made of. The context makes more sense to interpret things like Deuteronomy 6:5 or 1 Thessalonians 5:23 as an example of poetic language that simply means “the entirety of who you are,” rather than assuming it’s specifically referring to individual and specific parts.
#3 Hebrews 4:12 says soul and spirit can be separated
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
This verse clarifies that not only are soul and spirit different things, but they can be separated from one another by the Bible.
#3 Response
If we’re being consistent, then the Bible can also separate our joints from our marrow. Ignoring the medical complications, we also know that joints and marrow can’t be separated from one another because they aren’t connected. Marrow is the gooey center of a bone, while joints are either where two bones meet or they’re our tendons and ligaments (depending on which the author meant here).
Either way, the interpretation breaks down when we try to say that soul and spirit are being described literally, but joints and marrow (and thoughts and intentions) mean something else.
Instead, we can keep reading and realize this verse isn’t saying that the Bible separates these things from one another, but rather that it gets to the deepest, most intimate parts of who we are. The author isn’t saying that we are composed of souls and spirits any more than he’s saying we’re only physically composed of joints and bone marrow. Instead, he’s using these unseen aspects of ourselves to point to the end of the verse: that God isn’t fooled and His word reveals who we are and what we truly desire.
(If you’re wondering why he says soul and spirit if they’re separate things, come back for the next article in this series)
#4 The spirit is dead because of sin and alive through Christ
…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:7)
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10)
The serpent was right because Adam and Eve didn’t physically die when they disobeyed God. Instead, they experienced spiritual death, which the New Testament confirms by talking about how our sin makes us dead while Christ gives us life. This understanding isn’t talking about our bodies but instead the spirit that God gives us to relate to Him.
#4 Response
What does it mean for our spirits to be dead? If we believe that only those who the Holy Spirit has regenerated have an active spirit, then we struggle to explain how pagan rulers had spirits that seems very much alive and active:
But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day. (Deuteronomy 2:30)
Instead, death is another example of language painting a picture for us. Death is a separation from our God. It’s our inability to have a right relationship with Him because of His wrath that was on us for our sin.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:4-5)
Through His death on the cross, He offers us salvation. He took the punishment for our sin upon Himself so that God would have no wrath left for us. We may have been physically alive, but we were spiritual rotten and decayed. We could only choose to live in rebellion against God.
How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:2b)
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. (Romans 6:6-8)
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11)
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Before Christ, we could only be dead to God and alive to sin. We hated one and loved the other.
Now, through Christ, we can choose to hate sin in the same way we hated God. We can choose to love and pursue God in the same way we loved and pursued sin. We are a new creation in Christ, living for our God because of the death and resurrection of our Savior.
#5 Paul separates mind and spirit
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. (1 Corinthians 14:14)
Here, Paul is showing how his spirit is doing one thing, but his mind (or soul) isn’t connected to it.
#5 Response
First, let’s look at why Paul is saying thing:
Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. (1 Corinthians 14:13-17)
The entire discussion of tongues in 1 Cornthians is something I’ve covered here. But for our discussion, let’s look at the problem Paul is presenting.
He’s saying that it’s possible to have a spiritual experience that builds up no one. He’s not saying that it’s possible for our spirits to act independently of our minds. Instead, he’s giving an extreme example of how the feeling of something spiritual is worthless if it’s not building up either us or those around us. Paul is calling for us to be engaged and purposeful with our worship, not selfish or emotion-driven.
#Bonus: Animals have souls, but no spirit
We love our pets in this life and look forward to seeing them in Heaven. Although animals can’t relate to God with a spirit like humans, they still have souls that will live on after their bodies die.
Bonus Response
This may be silly to some and critical to others. Animals are amazing companions, and I even wrote part of this article with my corgi laying on my feet and a few interruptions from my golden retriever wanting attention. I’ve had a pet almost every day of my life, so I’m not discussing this as someone who just doesn’t “get it.”
A view of a three-part human allows us to believe that God creates all things with a temporary body and an eternal soul, but only humans have the spirit required to have a relationship with God.
In the end, there’s simply no good biblical support for this belief. It may be difficult to think of animals as purely material creatures, especially when so many people refer to them as their children. Humans having two spiritual pieces (soul and spirit) allows us the comfort of thinking we’ll see our pets in Heaven because they can still have a soul.
However, what we want to be true can’t determine what is true. And as disappointing as it may be, we see no evidence that animals will continue after this life, whether or not humans have three parts. They can be a blessing in this life when they aren’t chewing furniture, but we need to be careful not to create teachings that suit our desires.
Final thoughts
These aren’t the only arguments for humans being made of three parts, but they are the most common.
To sum everything up, the biggest issue standing in the way of this interpretation is consistency. It makes sense when we read certain verses in isolation and build a theology from there. However, by using those same methods elsewhere (sometimes within the same verses), we see things start to break down. That doesn’t make the belief wrong, but these are things that need to be addressed if someone is going to hold to this understanding.
The next part of this discussion will look at whether humans are made of two parts, meaning soul and spirit are used synonymously to describe the exact same thing.
Check out the rest of this series: Part 1 (one-part beings), Part 2 (three-part beings), Part 3 (two-part beings), Part 4
Ray, this is another deep, thoughtful piece. As you show, we must be careful about reading our preferred ideas into Scripture. While some passages may seem to imply that humans consist of body, soul, and spirit, you show that the Bible is not clear on this point, so that we should avoid making this judgment.
I need to point out a couple issues in “Response #1,” because the concept of the Trinity is both crucial to Christian orthodoxy, and confusing. Members of the Godhead are persons, not “people,” and they are not “made” of anything. Objects that are “made” can be “unmade” or broken down into parts, which cannot happen to God. God has substance, but cannot be described as “made.”
Also, I hope that someday you take on the issue of pronouns with respect to God. While Hebrew and Greek permit the use of masculine pronouns for genderless objects, English does not (check a good dictionary, or The Chicago Manual of Style). God is neither male nor female, so per rules of English, God is correctly referenced as “it.” This of course is very uncomfortable for most Christians, so we should make allowances, but we have a duty to avoid leading folks in an erroneous direction, and so should avoid referencing God with pronouns like “Him” and “His.”
Thanks again for your hard work and careful thought!
John, thank you for pointing out my accidental heresy! I knew my sentence of being “whole and complete people” sounded wrong, but I didn’t realize it was because I’d phrased it in tritheistic terms. And thank you for correcting my use of “made.” I tried to simplify homousious and ended up making things worse. I’ve edited those two issues for now and will return to them later if I can find a better way to phrase them.
God’s pronouns are something I’d want to study more before tackling it here. God the Father presents Himself in masculine terms and in the masculine role of how He relates to people. I do understand the concern of English speakers getting a skewed idea of thinking that God is biologically male, but my immediate thought is that it may be a “baby with the bathwater” scenario.
Thank you for the encouraging and challenging words!
Ray, I’m glad you found my comments to be helpful. I hope you don’t worry too much about being heretical; I just don’t want folks to get wrong ideas about orthodox Christianity.
My hope with regard to pronouns is that you would look into this carefully, so I’m satisfied. As you examine God’s word, you should notice that the Old Testament presents God in both masculine and feminine terms and roles, and that the NT presents Jesus as God both ways also. But more important is that the Bible never explicitly says that God is male, and in fact often implies that God is genderless.
Happy studying!