The soul is what hurts a person when the whole body is healthy.
After all, we say (and feel) that it is not the brain that hurts,
not the heart muscle - the soul hurts.
Deacon Andrey
Soul 1) a composite, substantial part of the human, possessing properties that reflect Divine perfections (); 2) different from the human part (); 3) person(); 4) animal (); 5) the vitality of the animal ().
The human soul is independent, because, according to the word of St. , it is not a manifestation of another essence, another being, but itself is the source of phenomena emanating from it.
The human soul is created immortal, since it does not die like the body, while remaining in the body, it can be separated from it, although such separation is unnatural for the soul, and is a sad consequence. The human soul is a personality, because it was created as a unique and unique personal being. The human soul is rational and, because it has rational strength and free power. The human soul is different from the body because it does not have the properties of visibility, tangibility, and is not perceived or cognized by bodily organs.
Irritable power of the soul(παρασηλοτικον, irascile) is her, emotional strength. St. calls it a spiritual nerve, giving the soul energy for effort in virtues. This part of the soul of St. Fathers attributes anger and a violent beginning. However, in this case, anger and rage do not mean passions, but jealousy (zeal, energy), which in its original state was zeal for good, and after the fall must be used as courageous rejection. “It is up to the irritable part of the soul to be angry with the devil,” say St. Fathers. The irritable force of the soul is also called.
The lustful part of the soul(επιθυμητικον, concupiscentiale) is also called desirable (desirable) or active. It allows the soul to strive for something or turn away from something. The lustful part of the soul belongs to, which tends to act.
“Train the irritable part of the soul with love, wither the desirable part with abstinence, inspire the rational part with prayer...” / Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopouls/.
All the powers of the soul are aspects of its single life. They are inseparable from each other and constantly interact. They achieve greatest unity when they submit to the spirit, focusing on contemplation and knowledge of God. In this knowledge, according to the word of St. , no trace remains of their separation, they remain in unity like unity.
The human soul is connected to the body. This connection is an unmerged connection. As a result of this connection, there are two natures in man - mental and physical, which, according to the word of St. , dissolved unmerged. From two natures, God formed one human being, in which “neither the body is transformed into the soul, nor the soul is changed into flesh” (St.). Despite all this, such a union is unfused, but it is not indivisible and inseparable, since the human body acquired mortality and separation from the soul as a result of sin.
Soul concept
The soul is something special power, present in a person, which constitutes his highest part; it revives a person, gives him the ability to think, sympathize, and feel. The words “soul” and “breathe” have a common origin. The soul is created by the breath of God, and it has indestructibility. It cannot be said that it is immortal, because only God is immortal by nature, but our soul is indestructible - in the sense that it does not lose its consciousness, does not disappear after death. However, it has its own “death” - this is the ignorance of God. And for that matter, she may die. That is why it is said in Scripture: “The soul that sins, it will die” ().
The soul is a living essence, simple and incorporeal, by its nature invisible to bodily eyes, rational and thinking. Having no form, using an endowed organ - the body, providing it with life and growth, feeling and generating power. Having a mind, but not different from herself, but as the purest part of her - for as the eye is in the body, so is the mind in the soul. She is autocratic and capable of willing and acting, changeable, i.e. voluntarily changing because it was created. Having received all this by nature from the grace of the One who created her, from whom she received her being.
Some sectarians, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists, reject the immortality of the soul, considering it simply a part of the body. And at the same time they falsely refer to the Bible, to the text of Ecclesiastes, which poses the question of whether the human soul is similar to the soul of animals: “Because the fate of the sons of men and the fate of animals is one fate: as they die, so these die, and one everyone has breath, and man has no advantage over cattle, because everything is vanity!” (). Then Ecclesiastes himself answers this question, which the sectarians neglect, he says: “And the dust will return to the earth, as it was; and the spirit returned to God, Who gave it” (). And here we understand that the soul is indestructible, but it can also die.
Soul powers
If we turn to the patristic heritage, we will see that there are usually three main forces in the soul: mind, will and feelings, which manifest themselves in different abilities - thinking, desire and concupiscence. But at the same time, we must understand that the soul also has other powers. All of them are divided into reasonable and unreasonable. The irrational principle of the soul consists of two parts: one is disobediently reasonable (does not obey reason), the other is obediently reasonable (obeys reason). The highest forces of the soul include the mind, will and feelings, and the unreasonable forces include the vital forces: the force of the heartbeat, seminal, growth (which forms the body), etc. The action of the soul's power animates the body. God deliberately made life forces beyond the control of reason, so that human mind was not distracted by controlling heartbeat, breathing, etc. There are various technologies related to the control of the human body that try to influence this life force. What do yogis do intensely: do they try to control the heartbeat, change breathing, control the internal processes of digestion? and they are terribly proud of it. In fact, there is absolutely nothing to be proud of here: God deliberately freed us from this task, and it is stupid to do this.
Imagine that, in addition to your regular work, you will be forced to do the work of the housing office: organize garbage collection, cover the roof, control the supply of gas, electricity, etc. Now many people are delighted with all sorts of occult, esoteric arts; they are proud that, to some extent, they have mastered the regulation of this vital force of the soul, which is beyond the control of reason. In fact, they are proud of the fact that they exchanged their job as a university teacher for a job as a sewer operator. This is due to the stupid idea that the mind can handle the body better than the irrational part of the soul. I will answer that in fact it will do worse. It has long been known: any attempts to rationally build life lead to very irrational consequences. If we try to use the power of our mind to properly control our body, the result will be complete stupidity.
Why did you say that a monk must take a blessing even for the number of drops of water he drinks? In order to free the monk's mind as much as possible from the worries of life. The task of obedience is the exact opposite of yoga. If a yogi or occultist tries to control his body with the help of his mind, then an Orthodox monk completely frees his mind from caring about the body in order to switch it entirely to God.
She is what she is about modern people they know a lot, and at the same time they know nothing. She is the universe contained in every person. She is an incomprehensible mystery, but she definitely exists. She human soul. The most mysterious and unknown condition to science.
It is multifaceted and very different; it can be filled and at the same time empty, like a vacuum. The human soul is so strong that a person does not know all its capabilities. The human soul is one of the few phenomena in the universe that cannot be destroyed.
The human soul is a world that allows a person to choose his own path and follow this path. The soul has a huge reserve of memory, it is so huge that even the most powerful computers created by man cannot compare in power with the human soul.
The soul does not decide for a person where to go and what to do, but at the same time it has the ability to remember every step and analyze all the events happening around. This is what makes the soul beautiful.
In the modern world, when the development of science and technology has reached a high level, and amazing technical opportunities have opened up for discovering many secrets of the universe. The global scientific community is trying to get closer to the secrets of the soul and understand its mystery, or even reveal its secrets.
Scientists are trying to understand the nature of the human soul, its location, where it goes after death. But for now, probably fortunately, the nature of the soul is still unknown. But thanks to numerous experiments, today it can be said with a high degree of probability that the soul exists, it lives, lives according to its own laws, and can even be studied.
Let's not delve into the question, how much does the human soul weigh? Numerous experiments, including with dying people, give a figure of about 6 grams. But that's not the point. The point is whether a person needs a soul, and whether a mere mortal can exist without a soul.
In many religions and mystical teachings the soul is a hidden world that stores information, energy, and natural secrets.
The soul can be characterized by the following theses:
- the soul is an energy center.
- repository of information about human life.
- the soul lives much longer than the human body.
- harmony allows you to maintain balance in the universe.
- The possibilities of the soul as an energy center are limitless.
Very often you can hear the terms soulless person, or kind soul. Is there an evil soul in nature, or a good soul?
We can definitely say that there is no evil or good soul, just as there are no soulless people. The soul is, first of all, a repository of information that contains all the data about human life.
A person takes steps and makes choices himself. The data is analyzed by the soul, and the processed information is issued in the form of thoughts and new actions of a person. As in the universe, what you send to her is what you receive in return. The soul is neither good nor evil, but it is definitely very strong.
One of the incorrect statements says: The soul lives all its life in the human body and only leaves it with death. However, it is not:
The soul, like any astral body, can leave the human body during sleep and return to it. During her journey, she has access to any corner of the universe. It’s not for nothing that many people tell amazing stories about various parallel worlds they visited during sleep. They describe them in detail, although naturally they could not get there while they were awake.
Ancient people also believed in the movement of the soul during sleep. For example: the unwritten law of ancient people said: You cannot paint a person’s face with war paint when he is sleeping, the soul may return to the person and not recognize him.
- -She is neither good nor evil.
- -she is able to travel while sleeping.
- -the soul is a huge data bank.
- — the soul lives much longer than the human body.
Conclusion: The soul is a reflection of actions and thoughts in the universe. What kind of soul to have is determined by the person himself. The soul is extremely beautiful and very strong.
https://site/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/111111111111111111dusha-1024x628.jpghttps://site/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/111111111111111111dusha-150x150.jpg 2018-08-06T20:35:37+07:00 PsyPage Reflection astral body, data bank, universe, harmony, soul, mystery, beauty, science, suspense, reflection of actions, nature of the soul, path, balance in the universe, strength, hidden world, state, mystery, storage of information, energy center, phenomenon in the universeIt is something about which modern people know a lot, and at the same time know nothing. She is the universe contained in every person. She is an incomprehensible mystery, but she definitely exists. She is a human soul. The most mysterious and unknown condition to science. What is the human soul? It is multifaceted and can be very different...PsyPage
SOUL
Soul, Seele) is a specific, isolated functional complex that would best be described as a “personality” (PT, par. 696).
Jung establishes a logical distinction between the soul and the psyche, understanding the latter as “the totality of all mental processes, both conscious and unconscious” (ibid.). Jung used the term psyche more often than soul. But there are also cases of Jung’s specific use of the term “soul”, such as: 1) instead of the concept of “psyche”, especially when in the latter they want to emphasize the deep movement, emphasize the multiplicity, diversity and impenetrability of the psyche in comparison with any other structure, order or semantic unit , discernible in the inner world of a person; 2) instead of the word “spirit”, when it is necessary to designate the intangible in people: their essence, core, center of personality (KSAP, p. 55).
SOUL
a concept that reflects historically changing views on the psyche of humans and animals; in religion, idealistic philosophy and psychology, the soul is an immaterial, life-giving and cognitive principle independent of the body. In Hellenic philosophy, the existence of the soul was not questioned. In general, during antiquity, different opinions emerged about the soul - its “materiality” and “ideality.” A special treatise on the soul belongs to Aristotle and is the first known psychological work. It systematized known ideas about the soul, put forward and substantiated several important provisions. Here the soul is defined as the essence of a living body - a special organ through which the body feels and thinks. In general, the soul is mortal along with the body, but the part of it corresponding to abstract, theoretical thinking is immortal. From the standpoint of materialism, the emergence of the concept of the soul is associated with the animistic ideas of primitive man, who interpreted sleep, fainting, death, etc. in a primitive materialistic way. Dreams were perceived as impressions of the soul leaving the body and acquiring an independent existence. The further development of ideas about the soul took place in the context of the history of psychology and was expressed in the clash of idealistic and materialistic teachings about the psyche. Aristotle was the first to put forward the idea of the inseparability of the soul from the body, according to which the human soul appears in three modifications: plant, animal and rational. In modern times, Descartes identified the soul with consciousness as a reflection of the subject. In empirical psychology, the concept of the soul was replaced by the concept of mental phenomena. IN scientific literature- philosophical, psychological, etc. - the term “soul” is not used or is used very rarely - as a synonym for the word psyche. In everyday usage, soul in content usually corresponds to the concepts of the psyche, the inner world of a person, experience, consciousness. According to C. G. Jung, the soul is a non-physical reality full of energy that moves in connection with internal conflicts. It is full of opposites: conscious and unconscious, male and female, extroverted and introverted... The problem is that for a number of reasons, primarily sociocultural, a person sees and develops in himself only one of the sides of a single contradictory pair, while the other remains hidden and unaccepted. A person must discover and accept himself through the process of individuation. The hidden sides of the soul demand acceptance, appearing in dreams, symbolically calling out; you need to be able to see the meaning of the call, and ignoring it, typical of an unprepared person, leads to disintegration, the impossibility of self-development and crisis experiences and illnesses.
SOUL
English soul; lat. anima). D. - in ethnological terms. The belief or conviction that our thought, feeling, will, life are determined by something different from our body (albeit associated with it, having its place in it), is probably characteristic of all humanity, and may. stated at the lowest levels of culture, among the most primitive peoples (see Animism). The origin of this belief may be. reduced, in the end, to a feeling of well-being, to the recognition of one’s “I”, one’s individuality, more or less closely connected with the material body, but not identical with it, but only using it as a dwelling, a tool, an organ. This "I", this something spiritual, or, in a more primitive concept, the driving principle, the "force" located in us - is what primitive connects with the idea of "D." (Enc. Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, 1893, T.I, S. 277).
1. D. to mid-19th V. was not only the subject of philosophical and theological reflection, but also the subject of psychological study. From the beginning development of experimental psychology, D. remained only a nominal subject of scientific psychology, which sought to become like the natural sciences. Its real subject was the psyche. Psychology sacrificed D. for the sake of the objectivity of its subjective science. Psychologists do not deny the existence of D., but refrain from studying it, try to avoid sensitive questions about its nature, and transfer D. and spirit to the departments of philosophy, religion and art. The loss of D. is not harmless for psychology. She pays for it with a permanent crisis, the dominant of which is an inescapable longing for the integrity of mental life. In search of integrity, psychologists go through various methodological principles, sometimes absurd (such as the principles of determinism or systematicity), look for and sort through various units of analysis, “cells” from which all the richness of mental life is derived. The role of such units was and is played by association, reaction, reflex, gestalt, operation, meaning, experience, attitude, attitude, act of reflection, action, action, etc. The ineffectiveness of such searches forces psychologists to return to D., to reflect on its possible functions and possible ontology. They, wittingly or unwittingly, follow the recommendations of M. Foucault: You go backwards towards the main thing...
Much in philosophical and psychological reflections about D. has been preserved from mythology (see point 1). Aristotle considered D. as the cause and beginning. a living body, D. recognized as an essence, a kind of form of a natural body, potentially endowed with life. Essence is realization (entelechy), i.e. D. is the completion of such a body. This means, according to Aristotle, D. is force. Its most important function is foresight: “[The soul] is a certain realization and comprehension of what has the ability to be realized” (On the Soul. - M., 1937. - P. 42). D. seeks and focuses on a future that does not yet exist, and she herself sketches out the contours of future events. But she, according to I. Kant, perceives the internal states of the subject, that is, she perceives and evaluates the present, without which the search is impossible and the future is not needed. This means that D. is at least an inhabitant of 2 worlds: the present and the future, and also possesses formative power or energy. Plato speaks about this, whose peacemaking fantasy gave rise to the wonderful image of D. He likened it to the united power of a winged pair of horses and a charioteer: a good horse is a strong-willed impulse, a bad horse is affect (passion). The charioteer is the mind that takes something from the good and something from the bad horse.
In most sense images of D., all of the listed attributes of D. are present with slight variations: cognition, feeling and will. For Augustine, D.'s main abilities are memory, reason and will. If k.-l. of the attributes is missing, D. turns out to be defective. For example, L.N. Tolstoy wrote that commanders are deprived of the best human qualities: love, poetry, tenderness, philosophical doubt. The presence of all the attributes of D. (mind, feelings, will, let us add: and memory) do not guarantee her wealth. Deep intelligence, high talent, remarkable professional skill, m.b. poisoned by pride and envy, which devastate D. and kill the spirit. M. b. Plato's united force lacks wings?! This explanation is beautiful. And although it is difficult to accept as a definition, it follows from it that D. cannot be reduced to knowledge, feeling and will. D. is a mysterious excess of knowledge, feeling and will, without which their full development is impossible.
Recognition of the reality of D. inevitably entails the question of its ontology. Aristoxenus (a student of Aristotle) argued that D. is nothing more than tension, a rhythmic mood of bodily vibrations. Plotinus reasoned in the same spirit. Answering the question why the beauty of a living face is dazzling, but only a trace of it remains on a dead face, he wrote that it still lacks what attracts the eye: beauty with grace. A. Bergson notes in this regard: “It is not for nothing that charm, which manifests itself in movement, and the act of generosity characteristic of Divine virtue are called in one word - both meanings of the word “grace” were one.”
Natural scientists expressed similar thoughts. A. F. Samoilov, assessing the scientific merits of I. M. Sechenov, said: “Our famous botanist K. A. Timiryazev, analyzing the relationship and significance of various parts of the plant, exclaimed: “a leaf is a plant.” It seems to me that we with the same right they could say: “a muscle is an animal.” A muscle made an animal an animal... a man a man.” Continuing this line of reasoning, one can ask, what is D.? The bodily organism is busy. M. b. this is grace or, in the terms of J. A. Bernstein, living movement! It was at the final stages of action that Charles Sherrington localized its attributes (memory and foresight). To this should be added the statement of R. Descartes that action and passion are one. A. A. Ukhtomsky gave such reflections a very definite form. Having set himself the goal of understanding the anatomy of the human spirit (N.V. Gogol would call him a “spiritual anatomist”), Ukhtomsky introduced the concept of a functional organ of an individual. Such an organ is any temporary combination of forces capable of achieving a certain achievement. It is similar to the vortex movement of Descartes. (Let’s remember once again the united force in Plato’s metaphor.) Such organs are: movement, action, image of the world, memory, creative mind, human states, even personality. Together they constitute a spiritual organism. According to Ukhtomsky, these organs, once formed, exist virtually and are observable only in performance, that is, in action, in deed, in empirical actual existence. There is no contradiction here; Thus, stopping can be considered as accumulated movement. This is, for example, an image that represents eidetic energy accumulated during its formation. Such energy, with the sanction of D. and courage of spirit, is embodied in action, in work. In fact, Ukhtomsky came to the conclusion about the energetic projection of the spiritual organism (combination of forces), in which D has a place.
It would be premature and reckless to identify the functional organs, which are countless, with D., but one cannot help but notice that they are natural to D., which is why she can “control” them. Fichte said that a person builds new organs and functions of D. and those planned by consciousness; in other words, D. performs the formative function discussed above. She herself is the “form of forms.” It happens that D. and consciousness plan to create organs for their own destruction: “The soul is struck like thunder by a curse: The creative mind has mastered - killed” (A. Blok).
Acceptance of the position about the energetic nature of D. facilitates the discussion of questions about its location and functions. In particular, it becomes clear position Hegel: “D. is something all-pervasive, and not something existing only in a separate individual.” D. can be between people. Even a union of souls is possible. D. is the gift of my spirit to others (M. M. Bakhtin). It is in this sense that D. cannot die, she moves on to another. Of course, if this gift is accepted by another, and if the latter has a grateful memory, D. retains the authorship of the donor. Once upon a time in Russian In language, “spiritual memory” was equivalent to “testament.” D. is an amazing gift that does not become scarce from giving, but grows: the more you give, the more remains for the giver. The position that D. is a gift of the spirit does not contradict the Hegelian definition of spirit: spirit is a system of movements in which it distinguishes itself in moments and at the same time remains free. This means that D. is natural not only to functional organs, but also to the spirit.
One more thing: “D.’s place is where the external and internal worlds come into contact, where they penetrate each other. It is at every point of penetration” (Novalis). In the language of V.F. Humboldt and G.G. Shpet, this is the place between external and internal forms, at the points of their interaction and interpenetration. Both forms are connected by relations of mutual generation. The external is born within, and the internal is born without. Being between them or encompassing them, D., to put it mildly, coordinates their interaction. Perhaps D. feels (realizes) the inequality of external and internal forms and thereby acts as a source of ideas, feelings, actions, and, ultimately, a source and driving force of development. Strong D. transforms negation. the energy generated by the “excess of lack” into positive energy, into the energy of creation and achievement.
Eliot said that what is in front of us and what is behind us is nothing compared to what is within us. Every person has archaeological, or archetypal, layers, virtual forms of behavior, activity, knowledge, experience, and undisclosed abilities. All of them are difficult to access not only to an outside observer, but also to their bearer. It happens that all this wealth, like water, is bound by ice. “D. unchains the subsoil” (O. Mandelstam), etc. allows them to discover and realize themselves. The waking D. is always on the brink, on the threshold of transformation.
So, there are at least 3 spaces “between”, or 3 boundaries where D. is located: between people, the external and internal forms of the person himself, between the past and the future. It does a great job of connecting all of the listed pairs horizontally and possibly vertically. The idea of D.'s borderland deserves the closest attention. Bakhtin wrote that culture does not have its own, self-contained territory: it is all located on the borders. Every cultural act essentially lives on the boundaries: abstracted from the boundaries, it loses ground, becomes empty, arrogant and dies. The same is the case with D. By withdrawing exclusively on herself or within herself, she degrades.
D.'s borderland does not contradict the fact that she can manifest herself externally. Shpet wrote: “In general, is it not because philosophers and psychologists failed to find the “seat of D.” that they were looking for it inside, while all of it, D., outside, covers “us” with a soft, gentle cover. But then the blows, that are inflicted on her are wrinkles and scars on our external face. All D. is appearance. A person lives as long as he has an appearance. And personality is appearance. The problem of immortality of D. would be solved if the problem of immortal appearance was solved" ( Works - M., 1989. - P. 363-365). D. m. b. also high and low, large and small, wide and narrow, even tight. Poets say that D. has its limits: the limits of D., the limits of melancholy. This means that, with all its borderlands, D. also has its own space, but the space is completely special. The space of D., its palaces are not described by metric or even topological categories, although D. has its own topology. D.'s topology is not unique, but multiple; the topology is not scientistic, but humanitarian, presupposing the mutual reversibility of space and time, determined by meaning.
D.'s space and time are the subject of reflection on the fascinating and endless area of chronotopy (see Chronotope) of conscious and unconscious human life. The search for D.'s ontology must be continued. D. not only plans to create new functional bodies, but authorizes, coordinates and integrates their work. At the same time, she herself reveals herself more and more fully. Perhaps in this work of D. lies the integrity of man sought by scientists and artists, which is a stumbling block for psychology, which has long dreamed of bringing together isolated mental functions that have already been studied in detail and is looking for the laws of their interaction. (V.P. Zinchenko.)
Soul
Mental, psyche, personality, persona, anima]. In the course of my research on the structure of the unconscious, I had to establish a logical distinction between the soul and the psychic. By mental or psyche I mean the totality of all mental processes, both conscious and unconscious. For my part, under the soul I think of a certain, isolated functional complex, which would best be characterized as a “personality”. To describe more clearly what I mean by this, I must bring in some other points of view. Thus, in particular, the phenomenon of somnambulism, split consciousness, split personality, etc., in the study of which the greatest merit belongs to French scientists, led us to the point of view according to which many personalities can exist in the same individual.
[The soul as a functional complex or "personality"] It is clear, and without further explanation, that such a multiplication of personalities is never found in the normal individual; however, the possibility of personality dissociation, confirmed by these cases, could exist in the realm of normal phenomena, at least in the form of a hint. And indeed, somewhat more keen-sighted psychological observation manages without much difficulty to discern the presence of at least rudimentary traces of character splitting even in normal individuals. It is enough, for example, to carefully observe someone under different circumstances to discover how dramatically his personality changes when moving from one environment to another, each time revealing a sharply defined and clearly different character from the previous one. The proverb “He barks at his own people, but caresses towards strangers” (Gassenengel - Hausteufel) formulates, starting from everyday experience, precisely the phenomenon of such a splitting of personality. A certain environment requires a certain installation. The longer and the more often such an environment-appropriate attitude is required, the sooner it becomes habitual. Very many people from the educated class are for the most part forced to move in two completely different environments - in the domestic circle, in the family and in business life. These two completely different situations require two completely different attitudes, which, depending on the degree of identification (see) of the ego with each given attitude, determine the doubling of character. In accordance with social conditions and needs, social character is oriented, on the one hand, on the expectations and requirements of the business environment, on the other hand, on the social intentions and aspirations of the subject himself. Usually, the domestic character is formed rather according to the spiritual needs of the subject and his needs for convenience, which is why it happens that people, in public life extremely energetic, courageous, tenacious, stubborn and shameless, at home and in the family they turn out to be good-natured, soft, compliant and weak. Which character is the true one, where is the real personality? This question is often impossible to answer.
These considerations show that splitting of character is quite possible in a normal individual. Therefore, we can rightfully discuss the issue of personality dissociation as a problem of normal psychology. In my opinion, if we continue our research, the question posed should be answered in such a way that such a person has no real character at all, that he is not individual at all (see), but collective (see), that is, he corresponds to general circumstances, meets general expectations. If he were individual, he would have the same character despite all the differences in attitude. He would not be identical with each given attitude and could not, and would not want to prevent his individuality from being expressed in one way and not another in one or another state. In reality, he is individual, like every being, but only unconsciously. By his more or less complete identification with each given attitude he deceives at least others, and often himself, as to what his real character is; he puts on a mask, which he knows that it corresponds, on the one hand, to his own intentions, on the other, to the claims and opinions of his environment, and now one or the other moment prevails.
[Soul as a person]
This mask, that is, the adopted ad hoc attitude, I called “persona” - a term that denoted the mask of an ancient actor. The person who is identified with such a mask I call “personal” as opposed to “individual.”
Both of the above-mentioned attitudes represent two collective “personalities”, which we will collectively denote by one name “person”. I have already indicated above that real individuality is different from both of them. So, a person is a complex of functions created on the basis of adaptation or necessary convenience, but is by no means identical with individuality. The complex of functions that constitutes a person relates exclusively to objects. It is necessary to clearly distinguish the individual's attitude to the object from his attitude to the subject. By “subject” I mean first of all those vague, dark impulses of feelings, thoughts and sensations that do not flow with clarity from the continuous stream of conscious experiences associated with the object, but which emerge, often interfering and delaying, but sometimes encouraging, from the dark internal depths, from deep distant regions that lie beyond the threshold of consciousness, and in their totality make up our perception of the life of the unconscious. The unconscious is the subject taken as an “internal” object. Just as there is a relation to an external object, an external attitude, so there is a relation to an internal object, an internal attitude. It is clear that this internal attitude, due to its extremely intimate and difficult to access nature, is a much less known subject than the external attitude, which everyone can see without any difficulty. However, it seems to me that gaining an understanding of this internal attitude is not at all so difficult. All these so-called random blockages, quirks, moods, unclear feelings and fragments of fantasies, sometimes disrupting the concentrated work, and sometimes even the rest of the most normal person, the origin of which we rationalistically reduce to bodily causes, then to other reasons, are usually not based at all on those reasons to which consciousness attributes them, but the essence of the perception of unconscious processes. Such phenomena include, of course, dreams, which, as we know, are often reduced to such external and superficial causes as indigestion, lying on one’s back, etc., although such an explanation never stands up to stricter criticism. The attitude of individual people towards these phenomena varies widely. One does not allow his internal processes to influence him at all, he can, so to speak, completely detach himself from them, while the other is highly susceptible to their influence; Even when getting up in the morning, some fantasy or some nasty feeling spoils such a person’s mood for the whole day; a vague, unpleasant sensation inspires him with the idea of a hidden illness, the dream gives him a gloomy premonition, although he, in general, is not at all superstitious. On the contrary, other people are only occasionally subject to such unconscious impulses or only to a certain category of them. For some, they may never have reached consciousness at all as something that could be thought about, but for others they are a topic of daily reflection. One evaluates them physiologically or attributes them to the behavior of his neighbors, the other finds in them a religious revelation.
These completely different ways of dealing with the impulses of the unconscious are as familiar to individuals as attitudes towards external objects. Therefore, the internal installation corresponds to the same specific set of functions as the external installation. In cases where internal mental processes seem to be completely ignored, the typical internal attitude is as little absent as the typical external attitude is absent in those cases where the external object, the reality of facts, is constantly left unattended. In these latter, far from rare cases, the person is characterized by a lack of correlation, connectedness, sometimes even blind imprudence, rashness, bowing only to the cruel blows of fate. Often these individuals with a rigid personality are distinguished by such an attitude towards unconscious processes that is extremely susceptible to the influences emanating from them. As much as they are inflexible and inaccessible to influence from the outside, they are just as soft, sluggish and pliable in relation to their internal processes. Therefore, in such cases, the internal attitude corresponds to the internal personality, which is diametrically opposed to the external personality. I know, for example, a man who mercilessly and blindly destroyed the happiness of his loved ones, but interrupted an important business trip to enjoy the beauty of the forest edge, which he noticed from a railway carriage. The same or similar cases are known, of course, to everyone, so I have no need to pile up examples.
[Soul like anima]
Everyday experience gives us the same right to speak of an external personality as it gives us to recognize the existence of an internal personality. Inner personality is that type and way of relating to internal mental processes that is inherent to this person; this is that internal attitude, that character with which he is addressed to the unconscious. I call the external attitude, the external character, persona; I designate the inner attitude, the inner face, with the word anima, or soul. To the extent that an attitude is habitual, it is a more or less stable set of functions with which the ego can be more or less identified. Our everyday language expresses this very clearly: when someone has a habitual attitude towards certain situations, a habitual way of acting, then they usually say: “He is completely different when he does this or that.” This reveals the independence of the functional complex with the usual attitude: the situation is as if another personality took possession of the individual, as if another spirit “possessed” him. The inner attitude, the soul, requires the same independence, which very often corresponds to the outer attitude. This is one of the most difficult tricks of education - to change a person, an external attitude. But it is just as difficult to change the soul, because usually its structure is as extremely welded together as the structure of the person. Just as a person is a being that often makes up the entire visible character of a person and, in certain cases, invariably accompanies him throughout his entire life, so his soul is a definitely limited being, sometimes having an invariably stable and independent character. Therefore, the soul often lends itself perfectly to characterization and description.
As regards the character of the soul, in my experience the general principle can be established that it generally complements the external character of the person. Experience shows us that the soul usually contains all those universal human properties that the conscious attitude lacks. The tyrant, haunted by heavy dreams, forebodings and inner fears, is a typical figure. On the outside, unceremonious, tough and inaccessible, he internally succumbs to every shadow, subject to every whim as if he were the most dependent, most easily defined creature. Consequently, his anima (soul) contains those universal human properties of determinability and weakness, which his external attitude, his persona, is completely devoid of. If the person is intellectual, then the soul is probably sentimental. The character of the soul also influences the sexual character, as I have been convinced of more than once without a doubt. A woman who is supremely feminine has a masculine soul; a very masculine man has a feminine soul. This opposition arises due to the fact that, for example, a man is not at all more masculine and not in everything, but also has some feminine traits. The more masculine his external attitude, the more all feminine traits are erased from it; therefore they appear in his soul. This circumstance explains why very masculine men are subject to characteristic weaknesses: they have a feminine, pliable attitude towards the impulses of the unconscious and gently submit to their influences. And vice versa, it is precisely the most feminine women who often turn out to be incorrigible, persistent and stubborn in certain internal issues, revealing these properties in such an intensity that is found only in the external attitude of men. These masculine traits, being excluded from a woman’s external attitude, became properties of her soul.
Therefore, if we talk about anime in a man, then in a woman we would rightly have to talk about animus in order to give the female soul the right name.
As for universal human properties, the character of the soul can be deduced from the character of a person. Everything that should normally be found in the external installation, but which is strangely absent from it, is undoubtedly found in the internal installation. This is a basic rule that has always been confirmed in my experience. As for individual properties, no conclusions can be drawn in this regard. If in general a man’s external attitude is dominated by logic and objectivity, or at least considered ideal, then in a woman it is feeling. But in the soul the opposite relationship appears: the man feels inside, and the woman reasons. Therefore, a man falls more easily into complete despair, while a woman is still able to console and hope; therefore, a man takes his own life more often than a woman. As easily as a woman becomes a victim of social conditions, for example as a prostitute, a man succumbs to the impulses of the unconscious, falling into alcoholism and other vices. If someone is identical with his person, then his individual properties are associated with the soul. From this association arises the symbol of mental pregnancy, often found in dreams and based on the original image of the hero’s birth. The child about to be born signifies in this case an individuality not yet present in consciousness.
Identity with the person automatically determines the unconscious identity with the soul, for if the subject, the “I,” is not different from the person, then it has no conscious relationship to the processes of the unconscious. Therefore, he is nothing other than these very processes - he is identical with them. He who unconditionally merges with his external role inevitably falls under the power of internal processes, that is, under certain circumstances, he will inevitably go against his external role or bring it to the point of absurdity. (See enantiodromia.) This, of course, excludes the affirmation of an individual line of behavior, and life proceeds in inevitable opposites. In this case, the soul is always projected into the corresponding real object, to which a relationship of almost unconditional dependence is created. All reactions emanating from this object act on the subject directly, capturing him from the inside. Often this takes the form of tragic connections.
In Greek, the word “soul” (psyche – from psykhein – “to blow, breathe”) meant the very life of a person. The meaning of this word is close to the meaning of the word “pneuma” (“spirit”, spirit), meaning “breath”, “breath”.
A body that no longer breathes is dead. In the Book of Genesis it was he who breathed life into Adam:
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
The soul is not something material, substantial, visible. This is the totality of all our feelings, thoughts, desires, aspirations, impulses of the heart, our mind, consciousness, free will, our conscience, the gift of faith in God. The soul is immortal. The soul is a priceless gift of God, received from God solely out of His love for people. Even if a person did not know from Holy Scripture that, in addition to the body, he also has a soul, then with just one attentive attitude towards himself and the world around him, he could understand that what is inherent only to him: reason, consciousness, conscience, faith in God, everything that distinguishes him from the animal, constitutes its soul.
It is often observed in life that people who are healthy and wealthy cannot find complete satisfaction in life, and, conversely, people exhausted by illness are full of complacency and inner spiritual joy. These observations tell us that, in addition to the body, every person has a soul. Both soul and body live their own lives.
It is the soul that makes all people equal before God. Both men and women were given identical souls by God at creation. The soul that the Lord gave to people carries within itself image and likeness of God.
God is eternal, He has neither beginning nor end to His Being. Our soul, although it has a beginning to its existence, but it does not know the end, it is immortal.
Our God is God Almighty. And God endowed man with the traits of power; man is the master of nature, he owns many secrets of nature, he conquers the air and other elements.
The soul brings us closer to God. She is not made by hands, destined to be a dwelling place for the Spirit of God. It is the dwelling place of the Spirit of God in us. And this is her highest dignity. This is her special honor, intended for her by God. Even the pure and sinless are not given this honor. It is not said about them that they are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, but about the human soul.
Man is not born a ready-made temple of God.
And when a person is baptized, she dresses in snow-white clothes, which usually become contaminated with sins throughout life. We must not forget that our spiritual nature is structured in such a way that all thoughts, feelings, desires, all movements of our spirit are closely connected with each other. And sin, entering the heart, even when it has not yet been committed, but only the thought of it has come, and then through action, immediately leaves its mark on all aspects of our spiritual activity. And goodness, entering into the fight against the evil that has penetrated us, begins to weaken and fade.
The soul is cleansed by tearful repentance. And this is necessary, for it is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can only dwell in a clean temple. The soul, cleansed from sins, represents the bride of God, the heir of paradise, the interlocutor of the Angels. She becomes a queen, filled with the grace-filled gifts and mercies of God.
From the book of Archimandrite John (Krestyankin)
When St. Gregory wrote about the soul; he began with an apophatic approach, recognizing from the very beginning that the soul belongs, like the Lord himself, to the realm of the unknowable with the help of reason alone. The question “Why am I living?” requires silence and silence.
When the Holy Fathers spoke about reason in relation to the soul, they called it “nous” (a term introduced by Plato to designate the Supreme Reason. “Nous” is the manifestation of divine consciousness in man - editor's note). The fact that this word is considered a synonym for the word “intelligence” is part sad story our loss of understanding of the meaning of this concept. Nous, of course, also understands and perceives, but not at all in the same way as the intellect.
Origin of the soul
The origin of the soul of each individual person is not fully revealed in the word of God, as “a mystery known to God alone” (St. Cyril of Alexandria), and the Church does not offer us a strictly defined teaching on this subject. She decisively rejected only Origen’s view, inherited from Plato’s philosophy, about the pre-existence of souls, according to which souls come to earth from the mountainous world. This teaching of Origen and the Origenists was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
However, this conciliar definition does not establish: is the soul created from the souls of a person’s parents, and in this only general sense constitutes a new creation of God, or is each soul directly created separately by God, then united at a certain moment with the forming or formed body? According to the view of some Fathers of the Church (Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Theodoret), each soul is created separately by God, and some date its union with the body on the fortieth day of the formation of the body. (Roman Catholic theology has decisively leaned towards the point of view of the separate creation of each soul; it is dogmatically carried out in some papal bulls; Pope Alexander 7 associated with this view the doctrine of immaculate conception Holy Virgin Maria). - According to the view of other teachers and Fathers of the Church (Tertullian, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, St. Macarius, Anastasius the Presbyter), about substance, soul and body simultaneously receive their beginning and are perfected: the soul is created from the souls of parents, like the body from the bodies of parents . Thus, “creation is here understood in in a broad sense, as the participation of the creative power of God, inherent and necessary everywhere for all life. The basis for this view is that in the person of the forefather Adam, God created the human race: “ from one blood He produced the entire human race” (Acts 17:26). It follows that in Adam the soul and body of every person are potentially given. But God's determination is carried out in such a way that both body and soul are created, created by God, for God holds everything in His hand, “ Himself giving all life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). God, having created, creates.
St. Gregory the Theologian says: “Just as the body, originally created in us from dust, later became a descendant human bodies and does not cease from the primordial root, enclosing others in one person: so the soul, breathed in by God, from now on co-enters into the formed composition of man, being born again, from the original seed (obviously, according to the thought of Gregory the Theologian, spiritual seed) given to many, and in mortal members, always maintaining a constant image... Just as breathing in a musical pipe produces sounds, depending on the thickness of the pipe, so the soul, which turns out to be powerless in a weak composition, appears strengthened in the composition and then reveals its entire mind” (Gregory the Theologian, word 7, O soul). This is the same view of Gregory of Nyssa.
Father John of Kronstadt in his Diary argues this way: “What are human souls? This is one and the same soul or the same breath of God, which God breathed into Adam, which from Adam has spread to the entire human race to this day. Everyone is human, so it is the same as one person or one tree of humanity. Hence the most natural commandment, based on the unity of our nature: “ Love the Lord your God(The prototype of yours, of your Father) with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Love your neighbor(for who is closer to me like me, a half-blooded man), like yourself“. There is a natural need to fulfill these commandments” (My Life in Christ).
From the book of Protopresbyter Mikhail Pomazansky
Soul, spirit and body: how do they relate in Orthodoxy?
The soul, while not being a “part” of a person, is an expression and manifestation of the integrity of our personality, if we look at it from a special angle. The body is also an expression of our personality, in the sense that although the body is different from the soul, it complements it and is not opposed to it. “Soul” and “body” are thus only two ways to display the energies of a single and indivisible whole. A true Christian's view of human nature must always be holistic.
John Climacus (7th century) says the same thing when he describes his body in bewilderment:
“It is my ally and my enemy, my helper and my adversary, protector and traitor... What kind of mystery is this in me? By what law is the soul connected to the body? How can you be both your friend and your enemy at the same time?
However, if we feel this contradiction in ourselves, this struggle between soul and body, it is not at all because God created us this way, but because we live in a fallen world, subject to the influence of sin. God for His part created man as an indivisible unity; and through our sinfulness we have violated this unity, although we have not completely destroyed it.
When the Apostle Paul speaks of “this body of death” (Rom. 7:24), he is referring to our fallen state; when he says: “...your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you... Therefore glorify God in your bodies” (1 Cor 6:19-20), he is talking about the pristine human body created by God and what it will become, saved, restored by Christ.
Likewise, John Climacus, when he calls the body “enemy,” “adversary,” and “traitor,” means its current fallen state; and when he calls him “ally,” “helper,” and “friend,” he refers to his true, natural state before the Fall or after the restoration.
And when we read Scripture or the works of the Holy Fathers, we should consider every statement about the relationship between soul and body in its context, taking into account this most important difference. And no matter how acutely we feel this internal contradiction between physical and spiritual needs, we should never forget the fundamental integrity of our personality, created in the image of God. Our human nature is complex, but it is unified in its complexity. We have different sides or inclinations, but this is diversity in unity.
The true character of our human personality, as a complex integrity, diversity in unity, was beautifully expressed by Saint Gregory the Theologian (329-390). He distinguished two levels of creation: spiritual and material. Angels are only of the spiritual or immaterial level; although many Holy Fathers believe that only God is absolutely immaterial; angels, compared to other creations, can still be called relatively “incorporeal” ( asomatoi).
As Gregory the Theologian says, each of us is “earthly and at the same time heavenly, temporary and at the same time eternal, visible and invisible, standing in the middle of the path between greatness and insignificance, one and the same being, but also flesh and spirit". In this sense, each of us is “a second cosmos, a huge universe inside a small one”; We contain within us the diversity and complexity of all creation.
Saint Gregory Palamas writes about the same thing: “The body, once having rejected the desires of the flesh, no longer pulls the soul down, but soars with it, and man becomes entirely a spirit.” Only if we spiritualize our body (without dematerializing it in any way) can we spiritualize the entire creation (without dematerializing it). Only by accepting the human personality as a whole, as an inseparable unity of soul and body, can we fulfill our mediatorial mission.
According to the Creator's plan, the body must obey the Soul, and the soul must obey the spirit. Or, in other words, the soul must serve as a working organ for the spirit, and the body is intended to carry out the activities of the soul. For a person undamaged by sin, this is exactly what happened: the Divine voice was heard in the very sanctuary of the spirit, the person understood this voice, sympathized with it, wanted to fulfill its instructions (that is, the will of God) and fulfilled it with deeds through the medium of his body. So now, most often, a person who has studied with God's help always be guided by the voice of the Christian conscience, capable of correctly distinguishing between good and evil, thereby restoring the image of God in oneself.
Such a restored person is internally whole, or, as they also say about him, purposeful or chaste. (All words have one root - whole, the same root in the word “healing”. Such a person, as the image of God, is healed.) There is no internal discord in him. Conscience proclaims the will of God, the heart sympathizes with it, the mind ponders the means for its implementation, the will desires and achieves, the body submits to the will without fear or grumbling. And after committing actions, conscience gives a person consolation on his morally correct path.
But sin has perverted this correct order. And in this life it is hardly possible to meet a person who always lives chastely, wholeheartedly, according to his conscience. In a person who has not been regenerated by God's grace in ascetic asceticism, his entire composition acts at odds. Conscience sometimes tries to get its word in, but the voice of spiritual desires, mostly oriented towards carnal needs, which are often unnecessary and even perverted, is heard much louder. The mind is directed towards earthly calculations, and more often it is completely turned off and is content only with incoming external information. The heart is guided by fickle sympathies, which are also sinful. The person himself does not really know why he lives, and therefore, what he wants. And in all this discord you won’t understand who the commander is. Most likely - the body, because its needs for the most part come first. The soul is subordinate to the body, and last place spirit and conscience turn out to be. But since such an order is clearly not natural, it is constantly violated, and instead of integrity in a person, there is a continuous internal struggle, the fruit of which is constant sinful suffering.
Immortality of the soul
When a person dies, one of his lower components (the body) “turns” into soulless matter and is given over to its owner, mother earth. And then it decomposes, becoming bones and dust, until it disappears completely (what happens to dumb animals, reptiles, birds, etc.).
But the other, higher component (the soul), which gave life to the body, the one that thought, created, believed in God, does not become a soulless substance. It does not disappear, does not dissipate like smoke (because it is immortal), but passes, renewed, into another life.
Belief in the immortality of the soul is inseparable from religion in general and, even more so, constitutes one of the main objects of the Christian faith.
She couldn't be alien and... It is expressed in the words of Ecclesiastes: “ And the dust will return to the earth as it was; and the spirit will return to God, who gave it”(Eccl. 12:7). The entire story of the third chapter of Genesis is with the words of God’s warning: “if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then you will die by death - is the answer to the question about the phenomenon of death in the world and, thus, it itself is an expression of the idea of immortality. The idea that man was destined for immortality, that immortality is possible, is contained in the words of Eve: “ ...only from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, do not eat it or touch it, lest you die” (Gen. 3:3).
Liberation from hell, which was the subject of hope in Old Testament, was an achievement in New Testament. God's Son " descended before to the underworlds of the earth“, ” captivity captivated” (Eph. 4:8-9). In a farewell conversation with the disciples, the Lord told them that He was going to prepare a place for them, so that they would be where He Himself would be (John 14:2-3); and he said to the robber: “ today you will be with me in paradise”(Luke 23:43).
In the New Testament the immortality of the soul is the subject of a more perfect revelation, constituting one of the main parts of the Christian faith, animating a Christian, filling his soul with the joyful hope of eternal life in the kingdom of the Son of God. “ For for me life is Christ, and death is gain... I have a desire to be resolved and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:21-23). “ For we know that when our earthly house, this hut, is destroyed, we have from God a dwelling in heaven, a house not made with hands, eternal. That is why we sigh, wanting to put on our heavenly dwelling.” (2 Cor. 5:1-2).
It goes without saying that St. The fathers and teachers of the Church unanimously preached the immortality of the soul, with the only difference that some recognized it as immortal by nature, while others - the majority - as immortal by the grace of God: “God wants it (the soul) to live” (St. Justin Martyr); “The soul is immortal by the grace of God, who makes it immortal” (Cyril of Jerusalem and others). The Fathers of the Church thereby emphasize the difference between the immortality of man and the immortality of God, Who is immortal by the essence of His nature and therefore is “ the only one who has immortality” according to Scripture (Tim. 6:16).
Observation shows that faith in the immortality of the soul is always internally inseparable from faith in God, so much so that the degree of the former is determined by the degree of the latter. The more alive the faith in God is in someone, the stronger and more undoubted is the faith in the immortality of the soul. And vice versa, the weaker and lifeless one who believes in God, the more hesitation and greater doubt he approaches the truth of the immortality of the soul. And whoever completely loses or drowns out faith in God usually stops completely believing in the immortality of the soul or in future life. This is understandable. A person receives the power of faith from the Source of Life Himself, and if he breaks the connection with the Source, then he loses this flow of living force, and then no reasonable evidence and convictions are able to infuse the power of faith into a person.
It can rightly be said that in the Orthodox Church, the Eastern, the consciousness of the immortality of the soul takes its due place, central place in the system of teaching and in the life of the Church. The spirit of the church charter, the content of liturgical rites and individual prayers support and revive in believers this consciousness, faith in afterlife the souls of our deceased loved ones and into our personal immortality. This faith casts a bright ray on the entire life work of an Orthodox Christian.
Soul powers
“The powers of the soul,” writes St. John of Damascus, - are divided into reasonable power and unreasonable power. The irrational force has two parts: ... vital force and a part divided into irritable and lustful.” But since the activity of the vital force - the plant-animal nutrition of the body - manifests itself only sensually and completely unconsciously, and therefore is not included in the doctrine of the soul, it remains in the doctrine of our soul to consider the following forces: verbal-rational, irritable and concupiscible. These three forces are what St. points to. The Fathers of the Church recognize these very forces as the main ones in our soul. “In our soul,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, - three forces are discerned from the initial division: the power of the mind, the power of lust and the power of irritation.” We find such a teaching about the three powers of our soul in the works of St. Church Fathers of almost all centuries.
These three forces must be directed towards God. This is precisely their natural state. According to Abba Dorotheus, who here agrees with Evagrius, “the rational soul then acts according to nature when the concupiscible part of it desires virtue, the irritable part strives for it, and the rational soul indulges in the contemplation of created things” (Abba Dorotheus, p. 200). And the Monk Thalassius writes that “ distinctive feature The rational part of the soul should be served by exercise in the knowledge of God, and the desirable part should be served by love and abstinence” (Good. T.3. P.299). Nicholas Kavasila, touching on the same issue, agrees with the mentioned fathers and says that human nature was created for a new man. We have received “a mind (λογισμό) in order to know Christ, and a desire in order to strive for Him, and we have acquired memory in order to carry Him in it,” for Christ is the prototype of people.
Lust and anger constitute the so-called passionate part of the soul, while reason constitutes the rational part. In the rational part of the soul of a fallen person pride reigns, in the lustful part - mainly carnal sins, and in the irritable part - the passion of hatred, anger, and memory of malice.
Reasonable
The human mind is in constant motion. Various thoughts come into it or are born in it. The mind cannot remain completely idle or withdrawn into itself. He demands external stimuli or impressions for himself. A person wants to receive information about the environment around him. This is the need of the rational part of the soul, and the simplest one at that. A higher need of our mind is a craving for reflection and analysis, characteristic of some to a greater extent, and to others to a lesser extent.
Irritable
Expressed in a craving for self-expression. For the first time she wakes up as a child, along with the first words: “I myself” (in the sense: I will do this or that myself). In general, this is a natural human need - not to be someone else’s tool or machine gun, but to make independent decisions. Our desires, being affected by sin, require the greatest educational work in order to be directed towards good and not towards evil.
Lustful
The sensitive (emotional) side of the soul also requires impressions characteristic of it. These are, first of all, aesthetic requests: to contemplate, listen to something beautiful in nature or in human creativity. Some artistic and gifted natures also have a need for creativity in the world of beauty: an irresistible urge to draw, sculpt or sing. A higher manifestation of the sensitive side of the soul is empathy for the joys and sorrows of other people. There are other cardiac movements.
The image of God in man
The sacred writer tells about the creation of man:
“And God said: Let us make man in Our image and likeness... And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26-27).
What is the image of God in us? Church teaching only instills in us that man in general is created “in the image,” but it does not indicate exactly which part of our nature reveals this image. The Fathers and Teachers of the Church answered this question differently: some see it in reason, others in free will, and others in immortality. If you combine their thoughts, you get a complete picture of what the image of God in man is, according to the instructions of St. Fathers.
First of all, the image of God must be seen only in the soul, and not in the body. God, by His nature, is the purest Spirit, not clothed with any body and not involved in any substance. Therefore, the concept of the image of God can only relate to the immaterial soul: many Fathers of the Church consider it necessary to make this warning.
Man bears the image of God in the highest properties of the soul, especially in its immortality, in free will, in reason, in the ability for pure, selfless love.
- The Eternal God endowed man with the immortality of his soul, although the soul is immortal not by its very nature, but by the goodness of God.
- God is completely free in His actions. And he gave man free will and the ability, within certain limits, to act freely.
- God is wise. And man is endowed with a mind capable of not being limited only to earthly, animal needs and visible side things, but to penetrate into their depth, to cognize and explain them inner meaning; a mind capable of rising to the invisible and directing its thoughts to the very creator of all that exists - to God. A person’s reason makes his will conscious and truly free, because he can choose for himself not what his lower nature leads him to, but what corresponds to his highest dignity.
- God created man out of His goodness and has never left and will not leave him with His love. And a person who has received a soul from the inspiration of God strives, as if for something akin to himself, to his Supreme Beginning, to God, seeking and thirsting for unity with Him, which is partly indicated by the sublime and straight position his body and his gaze turned upward to the sky. Thus, desire and love for God express the image of God in man.
To summarize, we can say that all the good and noble properties and abilities of the soul are such an expression of the image of God.
Is there a difference between the image and likeness of God? Most of St. The Fathers and Teachers of the Church answers that there is. They see the image of God in the very nature of the soul, and the likeness in the moral perfection of man, in virtue and holiness, in the achievement of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, we receive the image of God from God along with being, and we must acquire the likeness ourselves, having received only the opportunity from God to do so. Becoming “in our likeness” depends on our will and is acquired through our corresponding activities. That is why it is said about the “council” of God: “Let us create in Our image and likeness,” and about the very action of creation: “In the image of God He created it,” argues St. Gregory of Nyssa: by the “council” of God we have been given the opportunity to be “in the likeness.”
This publication addresses a question that almost everyone asks themselves in one form or another. thinking man. Even small children are often interested in the mysteries of the universe, asking their parents where and how it came from. the world. The following questions are also asked: “What is the Soul?”, and “If it lives inside me, then where does it go after my death?” Years pass and many people switch their attention to solving certain problems, while others follow the Path Spiritual Quest.
In order to understand what the Soul is, you need to ask what sources of spiritual knowledge say about it. For example, it could be the Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita. One of the messages says that the Spirit, Soul and body should not have any vice. There are several biblical meanings of the term we are interested in:
- Creature: person or animal.
- Personality.
- Life.
Reflecting on the previously mentioned message of the Apostle Paul and on other passages of Holy Scripture, we can draw the appropriate conclusion: The soul is the personality of a person. You can say it another way: “Man is a Spirit who has a Soul and He lives in a body.” There are other opinions, since the topic itself has been raised for many centuries. Can you remember Greek philosopher Democritus, who gave the Soul the properties of a material substance. He considered its components to be light, mobile atoms of fire.
Plato had an understanding that was closer to the interpretation that we proposed based on the texts of the Holy Scriptures - the Bible. This student of Socrates recognized the Soul as an independent substance living in the body. Plato, considering this issue, assumed that this essence is divine and eternal, sublime and invisible. A student of Plato, Aristotle created a famous treatise, which is called “On the Soul”. It denies that it can be a substance.
However, Aristotle, unlike idealist philosophers, does not accept the consideration of the term separately from the living body (matter). He calls the main function of the Soul the implementation of the biological functions of the body. If we return to Socrates, this learned man devoted a lot to studying the secrets of the universe and considering human essence. If we could ask him what the Soul is, the answer might also seem similar to biblical meaning words.
Socrates argued that during his life on Earth, a person prepares his Soul for its further existence. He believed that her real life begins only after the death of her physical body. This is roughly how religion views this term, implying by it a certain essence that connects God with man. It is also written that after the Lord breathed into the crown of His creation He became a living Soul.
Moreover, if you study carefully, you can pay attention to the fact that God also has a Soul. It also says that She can show certain emotions. For example: love, enjoy, hate, rejoice, be sad, be sad, be embarrassed. It is noteworthy that, according to the Bible, animals also have a spirit. The book of Ecclesiastes says that no one knows where he goes after they die. And in chapter 17 of the book “Leviticus” (verses 10-14), there is a prohibition on eating the blood of animals.
It is prescribed to let the blood flow out onto the ground, and only then cook the caught bird or animal. The reason is precisely that this substance contains the soul of the animal.
It turns out that to the question of what a human or animal Soul is, the following answer can be given: “This is an immortal, immaterial essence that continues to live after the death of the physical body.” We cannot ignore psychology, which owes its name to such a phrase as “the science of the soul.” In fact, it does not give a clear answer to the question posed in this study.
Modern psychology is characterized by such a term as “psyche”, which, in turn, consists of the Subconscious, Consciousness and Superconsciousness. Indeed, it is somehow impossible to study the Soul in laboratory conditions. Accordingly, each person has the right to personal understanding of this issue.
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