16th century woodcut of a soothsayer delivering a prophecy to a king, deriving it from stars, fishes, and noises from the mountains
In religion, mythology, and fiction, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a prophet) by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or preternatural
knowledge, for example of future events. They can be revealed to the
prophet in various ways depending on the religion and the story, such as
visions, or direct interaction with divine beings in physical form. Stories of prophetic deeds sometimes receive considerable attention and some have been known to survive for centuries through oral tradition or as religious texts.
Etymology
The English noun "prophecy", in the sense of "function of a prophet" appeared from about 1225, from Old Frenchprofecie (12th century), and from prophetia, Greekpropheteia "gift of interpreting the will of God", from Greek prophetes (see prophet). The related meaning, "thing spoken or written by a prophet", dates from c. 1300, while the verb "to prophesy" is recorded by 1377.
Definitions
The revolution of 1831. As prophesied by that learned astrologer General Ikey Wether-Bridge
The views of Maimonides closely relate to the definition by Al-Fârâbî, who developed the theory of prophecy in Islam.
Much of the activity of Old Testament prophets involved conditional warnings rather than immutable futures. A summary of a standard Old Testament prophetic formula might run:
Repent of sin X and turn to righteousness, otherwise consequence Y will
occur.
Saint Paul emphasizes edification, exhortation and comfort in a definition of prophesying.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
defines a Christian conception of prophecy as "understood in its strict
sense, it means the foreknowledge of future events, though it may
sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memory, and to
present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of
reason".
According to Western esotericist Rosemary Guiley, clairvoyance has been used as an adjunct to "divination, prophecy, and magic".
From a skeptical point of view, a Latin maxim exists: "prophecy written after the fact" (vaticinium ex eventu). The Jewish Torah already deals with the topic of the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:2-6, 18:20-22).
In 1863, Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, claimed to have been the promised messianic figure of all previous religions, and a Manifestation of God, a type of prophet in the Baháʼí writings that serves as intermediary
between the divine and humanity and who speaks with the voice of a God. Bahá'u'lláh claimed that, while being imprisoned in the Siyah-Chal in Iran, he underwent a series of mystical experiences including having a vision of the Maid of Heaven who told him of his divine mission, and the promise of divine assistance; In Baháʼí belief, the Maid of Heaven is a representation of the divine.
Buddhism
The Haedong Kosung-jon (Biographies of High Monks) records that King Beopheung of Silla
desired to promulgate Buddhism as the state religion. However,
officials in his court opposed him. In the fourteenth year of his reign,
Beopheung's "Grand Secretary", Ichadon,
devised a strategy to overcome court opposition. Ichadon schemed with
the king, convincing him to make a proclamation granting Buddhism
official state sanction using the royal seal. Ichadon told the king to
deny having made such a proclamation when the opposing officials
received it and demanded an explanation. Instead, Ichadon would confess
and accept the punishment of execution, for what would quickly be seen
as a forgery. Ichadon prophesied to the king that at his execution a
wonderful miracle would convince the opposing court faction of
Buddhism's power.
Ichadon's scheme went as planned, and the opposing officials took
the bait. When Ichadon was executed on the 15th day of the 9th month in
527, his prophecy was fulfilled; the earth shook, the sun was darkened,
beautiful flowers rained from the sky, his severed head flew to the
sacred Geumgang Mountains, and milk instead of blood sprayed 100 feet in
the air from his beheaded corpse. The omen was accepted by the opposing
court officials as a manifestation of heaven's approval, and Buddhism
was made the state religion in 527.
According to Walter Brueggemann,
the task of prophetic (Christian) ministry is to nurture, nourish and
evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness
and perception of the dominant culture. A recognized form of Christian prophecy is the "prophetic drama" which Frederick Dillistone describes as a "metaphorical conjunction between present situations and future events".
Later Christianity
In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr argued that prophets were no longer among Israel but were in the Church. The Shepherd of Hermas, written around the mid-2nd century, describes the way prophecy was being used within the church of that time. Irenaeus confirms the existence of such spiritual gifts in his Against Heresies. Although some modern commentators claim that Montanus
was rejected because he claimed to be a prophet, a careful examination
of history shows that the gift of prophecy was still acknowledged during
the time of Montanus, and that he was controversial because of the
manner in which he prophesied and the doctrines he propagated.
Prophecy and other spiritual gifts were somewhat rarely
acknowledged throughout church history and there are few examples of the
prophetic and certain other gifts until the Scottish Covenanters like Prophet Peden and George Wishart. From 1904 to 1906, the Azusa Street Revival occurred in Los Angeles, California and is sometimes considered the birthplace of Pentecostalism. This revival is well known for the "speaking in tongues"
that occurred there. Some participants of the Azusa Street Revival are
claimed to have prophesied. Pentecostals believe prophecy and certain
other gifts are once again being given to Christians. The Charismatic Movement also accepts spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and prophecy.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a denomination that traces its history to the Millerite Movement and the Great Disappointment.
Seventh-day Adventists "accept the biblical teaching of spiritual gifts
and believe that the gift of prophecy is one of the identifying marks
of the remnant church." The church also believes Ellen G. White to be a prophet and that her writings are divinely inspired.
Since 1972, the neo-PentecostalChurch of God Ministry of Jesus Christ International
has expressed a belief in prophecy. The church claims this gift is
manifested by one person (the prophesier) laying their hands on another
person, who receives an individual message said by the prophesier.
Prophesiers are believed to be used by the Holy Ghost
as instruments through whom their God expresses his promises, advice
and commandments. The church claims people receive messages about their
future, in the form of promises given by their God and expected to be
fulfilled by divine action.
In the Apostolic-Prophetic Movement, a prophesy is simply a word delivered under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that accurately communicates God's "thoughts and intention".
The Latter Day Saint movement maintains that its first prophet, Joseph Smith, was visited by God
and Jesus Christ in 1820. The Latter Day Saints further claims that God
communicated directly with Joseph Smith on many subsequent occasions,
and that following the death of Joseph Smith God has continued to speak
through subsequent prophets. Joseph Smith claims to have been led by an
angel to a large hill in upstate New York, where he was shown an ancient
manuscript engraved on plates of gold metal. Joseph Smith claimed to
have translated this manuscript into modern English under divine
inspiration by the gift and power of God, and the publication of this
translation are known as the Book of Mormon.
Following Smith's murder, there was a succession crisis that resulted in a great schism. The majority of Latter-day Saints believing Brigham Young
to be the next prophet and following him out to Utah, while a minority
returned to Missouri with Emma Smith, believing Joseph Smith Junior's
son, Joseph Smith III, to be the next legitimate prophet (forming the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now the Community of Christ). Since even before the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, there have been numerous separatist Latter Day Saint sects that have splintered from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
To this day, there are an unknown number of organizations within the
Latter Day Saint movement, each with their own proposed prophet.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is the largest Latter Day Saint body. The current Prophet/President of the LDS Church is Russell M. Nelson. The church has, since Joseph Smith's death
on June 27, 1844, held a belief that the president of their church is
also a literal prophet of God. The church also maintains that further
revelations claimed to have been given through Joseph Smith are
published in the Doctrine and Covenants, one of the Standard Works. Additional revelations and prophecies outside the Standard Works, such as Joseph Smith's "White Horse Prophecy",
concerning a great and final war in the United States before the Second
Coming of Jesus Christ, can be found in other church published works.
In the sense of predicting events, the Quran
contains verses believed to have predicted many events years before
they happened and that such prophecies are proof of the divine origin of
the Qur'an. The Qur'an itself states "Every ˹destined˺ matter has a
˹set˺ time to transpire. And you will soon come to know." [Quran 6:67] Muslims also recognize the validity of some prophecies in other sacred texts like in the Bible;
however, they believe that, unlike the Qur'an, some parts of the Bible
have been corrupted over the years, and as a result, not all of the
prophecies and verses in the Bible are accurate.
David and Saul, detail from an 1878 oil painting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
The Hebrew term for prophet, Navi (נביא), literally means "spokesperson"; a prophet speaks to the people as a mouthpiece of their God, and to their god on behalf of the people. "The name prophet, from the Greek meaning "forespeaker" (πρὸ being used in the original local sense), is an equivalent of the Hebrew Navi, which signifies properly a delegate or mouthpiece of another."
Sigmund Mowinckel's account of prophecy in ancient Israel distinguishes seers and prophets - both in their origins and in their functions:
According to Mowinckel, the early seer and the ecstatic prophet
derived from two distinctly different social and institutional
backgrounds. The seer belonged to the earliest stratum of Israelite
society and was related to the priest who 'was not originally in the
first instance a sacrificer, but as with the old Arabs, custodian of the
sanctuary, oracle priest, "seer" and holder of the effective
future-creating and future-interpreting word of power, the blessing and
the curse.' [...] Ecstatic prophecy - nebiism - and temple
priests were indigenous to Canaanite culture and represented elements
adopted by the Israelites. With the fusion of the functions of the
seer-priest with the functions of the temple-sacrificial priests and
ecstatic prophets, two main groups developed: the priests occupied with
cult and sacrifice [...] and the 'prophets' who 'continued the more
"pneumatic" aspect of the character and work of the old "seers"' and
'were mediums of the divinely inspired "word" which was "whispered to"
them, or "came to them"' [...] The prophets retained, in guild fashion,
the old seer relationship to the cult [...].
According to Judaism, authentic Nevuah (נבואה, "Prophecy") got withdrawn from the world after the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple. Malachi is acknowledged to have been the last authentic prophet if one accepts the opinion that Nechemyah died in Babylon before 9th Tevet 3448 (313 BCE).
The Torah contains laws concerning the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:2-6, 18:20-22). Prophets in Islam, like Lot, for example, are false prophets according to Jewish standards.
In the Torah, prophecy often consisted of a conditioned warning by their God
of the consequences should the society, specific communities, or their
leaders not adhere to the Torah's instructions in the time contemporary
with the prophet's life. Prophecies sometimes included conditioned
promises of blessing for obeying their god, and returning to behaviors
and laws as written in the Torah. Conditioned-warning prophecies feature
in all Jewish works of the Tanakh.
Notably Maimonides
(1138–1204), philosophically suggested that there once were many levels
of prophecy, from the highest (such as those experienced by Moses)
to the lowest (where the individuals were able to apprehend the Divine
Will, but not respond or even describe this experience to others, citing
for example, Shem, Eber and most notably, Noah, who, in the biblical narrative, does not issue prophetic declarations).
Maimonides, in his philosophical work The Guide for the Perplexed, outlines twelve modes of prophecy from lesser to greater degree of clarity:
Audiovisual waking revelation/Divine speaker (that refers implicitly to Moses)
The Tanakh contains prophecies from various Hebrew prophets (55 in total) who communicated messages from God to the nation of Israel, and later to the population of Judea
and elsewhere. Experience of prophecy in the Torah and the rest of
Tanakh was not restricted to Jews. Nor was the prophetic experience
restricted to the Hebrew language.
Native American prophecy
There exists a problem in verifying most Native American prophecy, in that they remain primarily an oral tradition,
and thus there is no way to cite references of where writings have been
committed to paper. In their system, the best reference is an Elder,
who acts as a repository of the accumulated wisdom of their tradition.
In another type of example, it is recorded that there are three Dogrib prophets who had claimed to have been divinely inspired to bring the message of Christianity's God to their people. This prophecy among the Dogrib involves elements such as dances and trance-like states.
China
In ancient Chinese, prophetic texts are known as Chen (谶). The most famous Chinese prophecy is the I Ching (易經)and the Tui bei tu (推背圖).
Nostradamus
Esoteric prophecy has been claimed for, but not by, Michel de Nostredame (1503–1566), popularly referred to as Nostradamus, who claimed to be a converted Christian.
It is known that he suffered several tragedies in his life, and was
persecuted to some degree for his cryptic esoteric writings about the
future, reportedly derived through a use of a crystal ball. Nostradamus was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of foreknowledge of future events. He is best known for his book Les Propheties ("The Prophecies"), the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Since Les Propheties
was published, Nostradamus has attracted an esoteric following that,
along with the popularistic press, credits him with foreseeing world
events. His esoteric cryptic foreseeings have in some cases been
assimilated to the results of applying the alleged Bible code, as well as to other purported pseudo-prophetic works.
Most reliable academic sources maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains
are largely the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations
(sometimes deliberate) or else are so tenuous as to render them useless
as evidence of any genuine predictive power. Moreover, none of the
sources listed offers any evidence that anyone has ever interpreted any
of Nostradamus's pseudo-prophetic works specifically enough to allow a
clear identification of any event in advance.
Explanations
According to skeptics, many apparently fulfilled prophecies can be explained as coincidences,
possibly aided by the prophecy's own vagueness, and others may have
been invented after the fact to match the circumstances of a past event
(an act termed "postdiction").
Bill Whitcomb in The Magician's Companion observes,
One
point to remember is that the probability of an event changes as soon
as a prophecy (or divination) exists. . . . The accuracy or outcome of
any prophecy is altered by the desires and attachments of the seer and
those who hear the prophecy.[40]
Many prophets make a large number of prophecies. This makes the
chances of at least one prophecy being correct much higher by sheer
weight of numbers.
Psychology
The
phenomenon of prophecy is not well understood in psychology research
literature. Psychiatrist and neurologist Arthur Deikman describes the
phenomenon as an "intuitive knowing, a type of perception that bypasses
the usual sensory channels and rational intellect."
"(P)rophecy can be likened to a bridge between the individual
'mystical self' and the communal 'mystical body'," writes religious
sociologist Margaret Poloma. Prophecy seems to involve "the free association that occurred through the workings of the right brain."
Psychologist Julian Jaynes proposed that this is a temporary
accessing of the bicameral mind; that is, a temporary separating of
functions, such that the authoritarian part of the mind seems to
literally be speaking to the person as if a separate (and external)
voice. Jaynes posits that the gods heard as voices in the head were and
are organizations of the central nervous system. God speaking through
man, according to Jaynes, is a more recent vestige of God speaking to
man; the product of a more integrated higher self. When the bicameral
mind speaks, there is no introspection. In earlier times, posits Jaynes,
there was additionally a visual component, now lost.
Child development and consciousness author Joseph Chilton Pearce remarked that revelation typically appears in symbolic form and "in a single flash of insight." He used the metaphor of lightning striking and suggests that the revelation is "a result of a buildup of resonant potential." Pearce compared it to the earth asking a question and the sky
answering it. Focus, he said, feeds into "a unified field of like
resonance (and becomes) capable of attracting and receiving the field's
answer when it does form."
Some cite aspects of cognitive psychology
such as pattern forming and attention to the formation of prophecy in
modern-day society as well as the declining influence of religion in
daily life.
Poetry and prophecy
For the ancient Greeks, prediction, prophesy, and poetry were often intertwined. Prophecies were given in verse, and a word for poet in Latin is “vates” or prophet. Both poets and oracles
claimed to be inspired by forces outside themselves. In ancient China,
divination is regarded as the oldest form of occult inquiry and was
often expressed in verse. In contemporary Western cultures, theological revelation and poetry are
typically seen as distinct and often even as opposed to each other. Yet
the two still are often understood together as symbiotic in their
origins, aims, and purposes.
Middle English
poems of a political nature are linked with Latin and vernacular
prophecies. Prophecies in this sense are predictions concerning kingdoms
or peoples; and these predictions are often eschatological or apocalyptic. The prophetic tradition in English derives in from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (1136), otherwise called "Prophecies of Merlin;" this work is prelude to numerous books devoted to King Arthur. In 18th century England, prophecy as poetry is revived by William Blake who wrote: America: A Prophecy (1783) and Europe: A Prophecy (1794).
The soul is the purported immaterial aspect or essence of a living being. It is typically believed to be immortal
and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories
that describe the relationship between the soul and the body are interactionism, parallelism, and epiphenomenalism. Anthropologists and psychologists
have found that most humans are naturally inclined to believe in the
existence of the soul and that they have interculturally distinguished
between souls and bodies.
The soul has been the central area of interest in philosophy since ancient times. Socrates envisioned the soul to possess a rational faculty, its practice being man's most godlike activity. Plato believed the soul to be the person's real self, an immaterial and immortal dweller of our lives that continues and thinks even after death. Aristotle sketched out the soul as the "first actuality" of a naturally organized body—form and matter arrangement allowing natural beings to aspire to full actualization.
Medieval philosophers expanded upon these classical foundations. Avicenna
distinguished between the soul and the spirit, arguing that the soul's
immortality follows from its nature rather than serving as a purpose to
fulfill. Following Aristotelian principles, Thomas Aquinas
understood the soul as the first actuality of the living body but
maintained that it could exist without a body since it has operations
independent of corporeal organs. During the Age of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant
defined the soul as the "I" in the most technical sense, holding that
we can prove that "all properties and actions of the soul cannot be
recognized from materiality".
Different religions conceptualize souls in different ways. Buddhism generally teaches the non-existence of a permanent self (anattā), contrasting with Christianity's belief in an eternal soul that experiences death as a transition to God's presence in heaven. Hinduism views the Ātman ('self', 'essence') as identical to Brahman in some traditions, while Islam uses two terms—rūḥ and nafs—to distinguish between the divine spirit and a personal disposition. Jainism considers the soul (jīva) to be an eternal but changing form until liberation, while Judaism employs multiple terms such as nefesh and neshamah to refer to the soul. Sikhism regards the soul as part of God (Waheguru), Shamanism often embraces soul dualism with "body souls" and "free souls", while Taoism recognizes dual soul types (hun and po).
Etymology
The English noun soul stems from the Old Englishsāwl. The earliest attestations reported in the Oxford English Dictionary are from the 8th century. In the Vespasian Psalter 77.50, it means 'life' or 'animate existence'. In King Alfred's translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae,
it is used to refer to the immaterial, spiritual, or thinking aspect of
a person, as contrasted with the person's physical body. The Old
English word is cognate with other historical Germanic terms for the same idea, including Old Frisiansēle, sēl (which could also mean 'salvation', or 'solemn oath'), Gothicsaiwala, Old High Germansēula, sēla, Old Saxonsēola, and Old Norsesála. Present-day cognates include Dutch ziel and German Seele.
Religion
Buddhism
Bhavachakra describing the cycle of saṃsāra; the wheel of life caused by craving to a self, thus giving raise to rebirths in one of the six realms of existence.
The concepts of anatman (not-self) is fundamental to Buddhism.
Early Buddhists were suspicious about the spiritual value of a soul.
They wanted to clearly reject the notion of a mortal body and eternal
soul dualism that Jainism posited and that lead to ascetics starving themselves to death to free the soul from the mortal prison. From a historical perspective, the doctrine of anatman evolved out of two main philosophico-religious beliefs: eternalism (sassata-vada) and annihilationism (anuyoga). The eternalists assert the eternity of the soul; ritual purity, celestial beings, heaven and hell, mortification of the body, etc. In contrast, the annihilationists deny the immortality of the soul and
believe that the soul only exists as long as the body does. Since they believe that the soul dies with the body, they prescribe practising self-indulgence (kamasukhallikanuyoga) in order to enjoy pleasures experienced through the senses. The Buddha rejects both views and identifies their origins to be caused
by two cravings: Desire for immortality drags people to eternalism,
when life is pleasurable, while when unpleasant states lead to
annihiliation because of the craving for self-discontinuity. Buddha
identifies both views as soul-theories, as both identify a self through
craving.
The idea of an unchanging soul conflicts with the principles of
dependent origination and cessation of all of the five aggregates. Due to their impermanence, they are considered "empty" or "without essence". Through the lens of impermanence, Buddhists recognize that all
phenomena—whether physical or mental—are in a continuous cycle of
arising and dissolving, with nothing being permanent, including the
perception of a self or soul. In Buddhism, the only absolute is Śūnyatā. The self is a retrospective evaluation of sensual experience. This
sensory experience then leads to craving and the formation of the
thought "this is mine", whereby creating the notion of a self. It is this continuity of craving to a self, which gives raise to a new birth. Buddhists regard the identification of an independent soul with
perception as mistaken, since our perception of the world depends on the
sense organs. In the Cetana-sutta, the flow of consciousness maintains the connection between one birth to another, and also determines the conditions of the conceptions into the mother's womb, where they forget about their previous lives. The Mahavedalla-sutta mentions three modes of self-continuity: sensual self-continuity (kama-bhava), fine-material mode (rupa-bhava), and immaterial self-continuity (arupa-bhava), the latter two take place among those who practise absorption meditations (jhana) and become brahmas.
However, even this transmission of consciousness cannot be
identified with a soul, for the very possibility of losing consciousness
would be inexplicable. Were there a soul, Buddhists would associate it
with something entirely devoid of sensibility—yet such an entity would
lack any basis for being identified as "me". Another argument against an autonomous soul is that it could will
itself to never die or get sick, however, death and sickness happen
against the will of individuals. The final argument is that, within Buddhist thought, nothing has been identified as unchanging or permanent. Since consciousness too is impermanent, an unchanging soul cannot exist. Thus, every individual is a complex interplay of physical and mental
phenomena, all dependent on countless conditions; once these phenomena
and conditions are removed, no enduring self can be found.
Unanswerable question
The Buddha left ten questions unanswered,
one of which concerned the existence of a soul ("Is the soul one thing
and the body another?" and "Who is it that is reborn?"). This led some people believe that the Buddha only rejected a soul defined through one (or more) of the five aggregates (Skandha). Another interpretation holds that he remained silent, because the
Buddha considered the question irrelevant to the pursuit of
enlightenment. Whether he knew the answer remains a matter of debate. Yet another view argues that the Buddha remained silent, because the question itself is invalid.
Those who argue that the Buddha affirmed a self, independent from
body and mind, as proposed by the eternalists or annihilists, argue
that the soul is something transcending the five aggregates. Some Buddhists of the Mahayana
tradition believe that the soul is not absolute, but immortal; the soul
cannot die, although influenced by karma, since the soul is unborn and
unconditioned. In support for that view, Christopher Gowan points at Buddhist texts
possibly implying some sort of self, such as references to personal
pronouns, and the need for a self who suffers in order to aim for release in nirvana. Due to the implicit references in the Buddhist doctrines, Gowan also
rejects the view that they are merely conventions of speech, rather the best way to understand Buddha's teachings coherently would
be to distinguishing between a substantial self and an ever changing
self beyond the five aggregates. The Buddha would have rejected the former, but implicitly affirmed the latter.
In contrast, others hold that the Buddha remained silent on this matter, because they are invalid questions. When asked such a question ("Who is reborn?") the existence of a self is presupposed. However, if souls do not exist, no one can be reborn in the first place, and thus, there is no accurate answer to the question. This view also disapproves of later responses within traditional Buddhist schools, such as Theravada, who answered the question on identity in paradoxical terms, yet whereby implicitly affirming some sort of Self or soul.
Two Truths
In the early Buddhist text Milinda's Questions,
the nature of the enduring self is examined through a dialogue between
the Greek king Milinda and the monk Nāgasena. When asked about his
identity, Nāgasena explains that in truth, there is no Nāgasena, because
his name is merely a label. To illustrate his point, he refers to
Milinda's chariot and asks whether its essence lies in the axle, the
wheels, or the framework. Milinda concedes that the chariot's essence is
not found in any single part, but maintains that the term 'chariot' is
still meaningful, as it refers to the combination of all its parts. Nāgasena agrees—and adds that this is precisely his point: there is no
Nāgasena beyond the five aggregates that constitute him. Like the
chariot, the person is a conventional designation applied to a
collection of interdependent components.
The example of Milinda's chariot relates to the Buddhist Two truths doctrine. Accordingly, the conventional truth refers to phenomenal truths of the
perceptive world, including persons, but ultimately, they are devoid of
essence and independent existence. Upon realization of the self as a mere convention, fear of death and
attachment to self-permanence would cease, as there is no self to attach
to in the first place. This interpretation of Milinda's Questions was also compared to David Hume's bundle theory.
The Bible teaches that upon death, souls are immediately welcomed into heaven, having received forgiveness of sins through accepting Christ as Savior. Believers experience death as a transition where they depart their physical bodies to dwell in God's presence. While the soul is united with God at death, the physical body remains in the grave, awaiting resurrection. At the time of the resurrection, the body will be raised, perfected, and reunited with the soul. This fully restored, glorified unity of body and spirit will then exist
eternally in the renewed creation described in Revelation 21–22.
Paul the Apostle used psychē (ψυχή) and pneuma (πνεῦμα) specifically to distinguish between the Jewish notions of nephesh (נפש), meaning soul, and ruah (רוח), meaning spirit(also in the Septuagint, e.g. Genesis 1:2 רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים = πνεῦμα θεοῦ = spiritus Dei = 'the Spirit of God'). This has led some Christians to espouse a trichotomic view of humans, which characterizes humans as consisting of a body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma). However, others believe that "spirit" and "soul" are used interchangeably in many
biblical passages and so hold to dichotomy: the view that each human
comprises a body and a soul. The author of Hebrews
said, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any
two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and
spirit."
The "origin of the soul" has proved a vexing question in Christianity. The major theories put forward include soul creationism, traducianism, and pre-existence.
According to soul creationism, God creates each individual soul
directly, either at the moment of conception or at some later time.
According to traducianism, the soul comes from the parents by natural
generation. According to the pre-existence theory, the soul exists
before the moment of conception. There have been differing thoughts regarding whether human embryos have souls from conception, or whether there is a point between conception and birth where the fetusacquires a soul, consciousness, and personhood.
Corruptionism is the view that following physical death, the
human being ceases to exist (until resurrection) but their soul persists
in the afterlife. Survivalism holds that both the human being and their
soul persist in the afterlife, as distinct entities, with the soul
constituting the human. Most Thomists hold to the corruptionist view, arguing that a human person is a composite of matter and soul. Survivalists argue that while a person is not identical to their soul, it is sufficient to constitute a person. In recent years, a middle view has been put forward: that the separated soul is an incomplete person. It argues that the soul meets most of the criteria of a person but that
the survivalist view fails to capture the unnaturalness of a person
surviving death.
Ātman is a Sanskrit word that means inner self or soul. In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism, Ātman is the first principle, the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. In order to attain liberation (moksha), a human being must acquire self-knowledge (ātma jñāna), which is to realize that one's true self (Ātman) is identical with the transcendent self Brahman according to Advaita Vedanta.The six orthodox schools of Hinduism believe that there is Ātman ('self', 'essence') in every being.
In Hinduism and Jainism, a jīva (Sanskrit: जीव, jīva; Hindi: जीव, jīv) is a living being, or any entity imbued with a life force. The concept of jīva in Jainism is similar to Ātman in Hinduism; however, some Hindu traditions differentiate between the two concepts, with jīva considered as an individual self, but with Ātman as that which is the universal unchanging self that is present in all living beings and everything else as the metaphysical Brahman.The latter is sometimes referred to as jīva-ātman (a soul in a living body).
Islam uses two words for the soul: rūḥ (translated as 'spirit', 'consciousness', 'pneuma', or 'soul') and nafs (translated as 'self', 'ego', 'psyche', or 'soul'). The two terms are frequently used interchangeably, although rūḥ is more often used to denote the divine spirit or "the breath of life", while nafs designates one's disposition or characteristics. The Taj al-'Arus min Jawahir al-Qamus lists several meanings of nafs, including two from the Lisān al-ʿArab, including spirit, self, desire, evil eye, disdain, body. Lane's Lexicon notes that humans consist of nafs and rūḥ. The former applies to the mind and the latter to life. Attribution of nafs to God (Allah) is avoided. Al-Bag̲h̲dādī also rejected that God has rūḥ in order to have life, as Christian beliefs, and proposes that all spirits (arwāḥ) are created.
In the Quran, nafs (plurals: anfus and nufūs) refers in most cases to the person or a self. It is used for both humans and djinn (but not to angels). When referring to the soul it is of three types: the commanding self (ammāra bi ’l sūʾ), remniscient of the Hebrew nefes̲h̲ (physical appetite) and the Pauline idea of "flesh" (φυχή) and is always evil, its greed must be feared, and it must be restraint. The accusing self (lawwāma) is the soul of the deserters. Lastly, there is the tranquil soul (muṭmaʾinna). This typology of the soul is the foundation for later Muslim treatises on ethics and psychology.
Islamic philosophy (falsafa)
1543 illustration of Muhammad's Night Journey. His ascension to the heavens is often interpreted as an allegory for the human soul ascending to the celestial realms in Islamic philosophy.
Most Muslim philosophers (Arabic: falsafa), aligned with their Greek predecessors, broadly accepted that the soul is composed of non-rational and rational elements. The non-rational dimension was subdivided into the vegetative and
animal souls, while the rational aspect was split into the practical and
theoretical intellects. While all agreed that the non-rational soul is tied to the body,
opinions diverged on the rational part: some deemed it immaterial and
naturally independent of the body, whereas others asserted the entirely
material nature of all soul components. Ibn Hazm uses nafs and rūḥ interchangeably. He also rejected metempsychosis that all souls were already created then the angels were commanded to bow before Adam, waiting in Barzakh until the blown into the embryo.
Consensus held that during its union with the body, the
non-rational soul governs bodily functions, the practical intellect
manages earthly and corporeal matters, and the theoretical intellect
pursues knowledge of universal, eternal truths. These thinkers maintained that the soul’s highest purpose or happiness
lies in transcending bodily desires to contemplate timeless universal
principles. All agreed the non-rational soul is mortal—created and inevitably
perishable. However, views on the rational soul’s fate varied: al-Farabi suggested its eternal survival was uncertain; Ibn Sina claimed it was uncreated and immortal; and Ibn Rushd argued that the entire soul, including all its parts, is transient and ultimately ceases to exist.
For Ibn Arabi, the soul is human potential, and the purpose of life is the actualization of that potential. Human experience is whereby always between the body (jism) and spirit (rūḥ), and thus the indivual experience is limited to imagination (nafsânî). Wavering between its body and spirit, the soul can choose (free-will)
between either ascending to realization or descending to the
materialistic mind, which Ibn Arabi compares to Muhammad'sNight Journey (miʿrāj). This allows the soul to determine its own tragectory in a karmic chain of causalities, towards paradisical or infernal levels, depending on the person's understanding, traits, and actions.
Theology (kalam)
A visual rendition of the Islamic model of the soul showing the position of nafs relative to other concepts
Al-Ghazali (fl. 11th century) reconciles the Sunni views on the soul with Avicennan philosophy (falsafa). Al-Ghazali defines human as a spiritual substance (d̲j̲awhar rūḥānī), neither confined, nor joined, nor separated from the body. It possesses knowledge and perception. He identifies the immaterial self with the al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna and al-rūḥ al-amīn of the Quran and nafs for bodily desires which must be disciplined. He, however, refuses to elaborate on the deepest nature of the soul, as he claims it is forbidden by sharīʿah, on grounds that it is beyond comprehension.
According to al-Ghazali, nafs consists of three elements: animals, devils, and angels. The term for the self or soul is heart (ḳalb). The nafs, in al-Ghazali's concept of the soul, is best be understood as psyche, a 'vehicle' (markab) of the soul, but yet distinct. The animalistic parts of nafs
is concerned with bodily functions, such as eating and sleeping, the
devilish part with deceit and lies, and the angelic part with
comtemplating the signs of God and preventing lust and anger. Accordingly, the inclinations towards following either nafs or the intellect is associated with supernatural agents: the angels inspire to follow the intellect (ilhām) and the devils tempt to give in into evil (waswās).
Al-Baydawi's psychology shows influence from the writings of al-Ghazali, whom he also mentions explicitly. His classification of souls is elaborated in his Ṭawāliʿ al-anwār, authored c. 1300. Like, al-Ghazali, he is in support of the existence of the soul as
independent from the body and offers both rational as well as Quranic
evidence. He further adds that nafs is created when the body is completed, but is not embodied itself, and is connected with rūḥ.
When discussing the souls, al-Baydawi establishes a cosmological hierarchy of heavenly Intellects. Accordingly, God, in his unity (tawḥīd), first creates the Intellect (ʿaḳl),
which is neither body, nor form, but the cause of all other
potentialities. From this Intellect, a third Intellect is produced up to
the tenth Intellect, which in turn influences the elements and bring
fourth the spirits (arwāḥ). Below these Intellects are the "souls of the spheres" (al-nufūs al-falakiyya) identified with the heavenly angels. Below them are the incorporeal earthly angels, both good and evil angels (al-kurūbiyyūn and al-s̲h̲ayāṭīn), angels in control of the elements and the "souls of reasoning" (anfus nāṭiḳa), as well as djinn.
Ismailism
Muhammad ibn Muhammad Shakir Ruzmah-'i Nathani – A Soul Symbolized as an Angel (1717)
Ismaili cosmology is largely described through Neo-Platonic and Gnostic ideas. Two influential Ismaili teachers are Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani during the 10th century and Nasir Khusraw during the 11th. One of Sijistani's key doctrines is the immateriality of the soul,
which belongs to the spiritual domain but is captured in the body of the
material world. In his soteriological teachings, the soul needs to discard sensual pleasures for the sake of intellectual gratification through spiritual ascension. One of Sijistani's arguments is, that sensual pleasure is finite, and thus cannot be part of the eternal soul. Although not made explicit by Sijistani himself, other Ismaili authors
propose that a soul attached to material pleasure will be reborn in
another sensual body on earth, first as a dark-skinned person, a Berber,
or a Turk, then as an animals, an insects, or a plant, all believed to
be progressively less likely to pursue spiritual or intellectual
virtues.
In this context, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi identifies the earthly world with sijjīn. The zabaniyah
are identified with the nineteen evil forces that distract human being
from heavenly truths and diverge them to material and sensual concerns,
including distorted imagination (khayāl). The paradisical houris
are conceptualized as items of knowledge from the spiritual world, the
soul is united with in a form of metaphorical marriage, per Surah 44:54. This type of knowledge is inaccessible to those souls remaining in the earthly domain or hell.
Nasir Khusraw equates the rational soul of humans with a spirit potentially angel and demon. The soul is a potential angel or potential demon, depending on their obedience to God's law. The obedient soul is growing to a potential angel and becomes an actual
angel upon death, while the soul seeking out sensual delights is a
potential demon and turns into an actual demon in the next world.
Depiction of the concept of soul (in transmigration) in Jainism. The color gold represents nokarma, the quasi-karmic matter, Cyan depicts dravya karma, the subtle karmic matter, orange represents the bhav karma, the psycho-physical karmic matter, and white depicts sudhatma, the pure consciousness.
In Jainism, every living being, from plant or bacterium to human, has
a soul and the concept forms the very basis of Jainism. According to
Jainism, there is no beginning or end to the existence of soul. It is
eternal in nature and changes its form until it attains liberation. In
Jainism, jīva is the immortal essence or soul of a living organism, such as human, animal, fish, or plant, which survives physical death. The term ajīva in Jainism means 'not soul', and represents matter (including body), time, space, non-motion and motion. In Jainism, a jīva is either samsari (mundane, caught in cycle of rebirths) or mukta ('liberated').
According to this belief until the time the soul is liberated from the saṃsāra (cycle of repeated birth and death), it gets attached to one of these bodies based on the karma
('actions') of the individual soul. Irrespective of which state the
soul is in, it has got the same attributes and qualities. The difference
between the liberated and non-liberated souls is that the qualities and
attributes are manifested completely in case of siddha
('liberated soul') as they have overcome all karmic bondage, whereas in
case of non-liberated souls they are partially exhibited. Souls who
rise victorious over wicked emotions while still remaining within
physical bodies are referred to as arihants.
Concerning the Jain view of the soul, Virchand Gandhi
said that, "the soul lives its own life, not for the purpose of the
body, but the body lives for the purpose of the soul. If we believe that
the soul is to be controlled by the body then soul misses its power."[84]
Judaism
The Hebrew terms נפשnefesh ('living being'), רוחruach ('wind'), נשמהneshamah ('breath'), חיהchayah ('life') and יחידהyechidah ('singularity') are used to describe the soul or spirit.
Jewish beliefs concerning the concept and nature of the soul are
complicated by a lack of singularly authoritative traditions and
differing beliefs in an afterlife. The conception of an immortal soul
separate from and capable of surviving a human being after death was not
present in early Jewish belief, but became prevalent by the onset of the Common Era. This conception of
the soul differed from that of the Greek, and later Christian, belief
in that the soul was viewed an ontological substance which was
intrinsically inseparable from the human body. At the same time, a burgeoning belief in an afterlife required some
form of continued existence following the end of mortal life in order to
partake in the world to come. This need for apparent dichotomy is
reflected in the Talmud,
where the biblical psychophysical unity of the soul remains, but the
possibility of the soul's simultaneous existence on both a physical and a
spiritual level is embraced. This essential paradox is only reinforced
by subsequent Rabbinical works. Ultimately, the specific nature of the soul was of secondary concern to
rabbinical authorities, and indeed remains as such in most modern
traditions.
As spiritual and mystic traditions developed, the Jewish concept of the soul underwent a number of changes. Kabbalah
and other mystic traditions go into greater detail into the nature of
the soul. Kabbalah separates the soul into five elements, corresponding
to the five worlds:
Yechidah, essence of the soul, which is bound to God.
Kabbalah proposed a concept of reincarnation, the gilgul (nefesh habehamit, the 'animal soul'). Some Jewish traditions assert that the soul is housed in the luz bone, although traditions disagree as to whether it is the atlas at the top of the spine, or the sacrum at bottom of the spine.
Soul dualism, also called "multiple souls" or "dualistic pluralism", is a common belief in Shamanism, and is essential in the universal and central concept of "soul flight" (also called "soul journey", "out-of-body experience", "ecstasy", or "astral projection"). It involves the belief that humans have two or more souls, generally
termed the "body soul" (or "life soul"), and the "free soul". The former
is linked to bodily functions and awareness when awake, while the
latter can freely wander during sleep or trance states. In some cases, there are a plethora of soul types with different functions. Soul dualism and multiple souls appear prominently in the traditional animistic beliefs of the Austronesian peoples, the Chinese people (hun and po), the Tibetan people, most African peoples, most Native North Americans, ancient South Asian peoples, Northern Eurasian peoples, and among Ancient Egyptians (the ka and ba).
Belief in soul dualism is found throughout most Austronesianshamanistic traditions. The reconstructed Proto-Austronesian word for the 'body soul' is *nawa ('breath', 'life', or 'vital spirit'). The body-soul is located somewhere in the abdominal cavity, often in the liver or the heart (Proto-Austronesian *qaCay). The "free soul" is located in the head. Its names are usually derived from Proto-Austronesian *qaNiCu
('ghost', 'spirit [of the dead]'), which also apply to other non-human
nature spirits. The "free soul" is also referred to in names that
literally mean 'twin' or 'double', from Proto-Austronesian *duSa ('two'). A virtuous person is said to be one whose souls are in harmony with
each other, while an evil person is one whose souls are in conflict.
The "free soul" is said to leave the body and journey to the spirit world during sleep, trance-like states, delirium, insanity, and at death. The duality is also seen in the healing traditions of Austronesian shamans, where illnesses are regarded as a "soul loss"—and
thus to heal the sick, one must "return" the "free soul" (which may
have been stolen by an evil spirit or got lost in the spirit world) into
the body. If the "free soul" cannot be returned, the afflicted person
dies or goes permanently insane. The shaman
heals within the spiritual dimension by returning 'lost' parts of the
human soul from wherever they have gone. The shaman also cleanses excess
negative energies, which confuse or pollute the soul.
In some ethnic groups, there can be more than two souls. Among the Tagbanwa people
of the Philippines a person is said to have six souls—the "free soul"
(which is regarded as the "true" soul) and five secondary souls with
various functions. Several Inuit
groups believe that a person has more than one type of soul. One is
associated with respiration, the other can accompany the body as a
shadow. In some cases, it is connected to shamanistic beliefs among the various Inuit groups. Caribou Inuit groups also believed in several types of souls.
Sikhism
In Sikhism, the soul, referred to as the Ātman, is understood as a pure consciousness without any content. The soul is considered to be eternal and inherently connected to the divine (Paramatman), although its journey is shaped by karma—the
cumulative effect of one's actions, thoughts, and deeds. According to
Sikh teachings, the soul undergoes cycles of rebirth (transmigration)
until it achieves liberation (mukti) from this cycle, a process governed by the principles of divine order (hukam) and grace (nadar).
The cycle of rebirth is influenced by the individual's attachment to worldly desires and ego (haumai),
which obscures the soul's innate connection to the divine. Sikh
scripture warns that preoccupation with material wealth, familial ties,
or sensory pleasures at the moment of death can lead to rebirth in lower
life forms, such as animals or spirits. Conversely, meditation on God's
name (Nam Simran) and remembrance of the divine (Waheguru) during life—and especially at death—enable the soul to merge with the eternal truth (Sach Khand), ending the cycle of reincarnation.
Central to Sikh doctrine is the belief that while karma
determines the soul's trajectory, divine grace can transcend karmic
limitations. The Guru Granth Sahib claims that liberation ultimately depends on God's will. Ethical living, including honest labor (Kirat Karo), sharing resources (Vand Chhako), and community service (seva).
Taoism
In Taoism,
the idea of the "soul" is not a single, unchanging entity like in many
Western traditions. Instead, it is seen as a dynamic balance of
energies. Two key parts are the hun and po. The hun
is the "ethereal soul", linked to light, spiritual awareness, and the
mind. It is considered yang ('active, upward energy') and is said to
depart the body after death. The po is the "corporeal soul", tied
to the body, instincts, and physical senses. It is yin ('passive,
earthly energy') and stays with the body after death, dissolving back
into the earth over time.
There is significant scholarly debate about the Taoist understanding of death. The process of death itself is described as shijie or "release from the corpse", but what happens after is described variously as transformation, immortality or ascension of the soul to heaven. For example, the Yellow Emperor was said to have ascended directly to heaven in plain sight, while the thaumaturgeYe Fashan was said to have transformed into a sword and then into a column of smoke which rose to heaven.
Taoist texts such as the Zhuangzi
suggest the soul is not separate from the natural world but part of the
flow of the Tao (the universal principle). One passage states, "Heaven
and earth were born at the same time I was, and the ten thousand things
are one with me." Similarly, the Daodejing
teaches that harmony with the Tao dissolves rigid boundaries between
self and cosmos: "Returning to one's roots is known as stillness. This
is what is meant by returning to one's destiny."
Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, understood that the soul (ψυχή, psykhḗ) must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. At his defense trial, Socrates even summarized his teachings as nothing
other than an exhortation for his fellow Athenians to excel in matters
of the psyche since all bodily goods are dependent on such excellence (Apology
30a–b). Aristotle reasoned that a man's body and soul were his matter
and form respectively: the body is a collection of elements and the soul
is the essence. Soul or psyche (Ancient Greek: ψυχή psykhḗ, of ψύχειν psýkhein, 'to breathe', cf. Latinanima) comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, free will, feeling, consciousness, qualia, memory, perception, thinking, and so on. Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal.
The ancient Greeks used the term "ensouled" to represent the concept of being alive, indicating that the earliest surviving Western philosophical view believed that the soul was that which gave the body life. The soul was considered the incorporeal or spiritual "breath" that animates (from the Latin anima, cf. "animal") the living organism. Francis M. Cornford quotes Pindar
by saying that the soul sleeps while the limbs are active, but when one
is sleeping, the soul is active and reveals "an award of joy or sorrow
drawing near" in dreams. Erwin Rohde writes that an early pre-Pythagorean belief presented the soul as lifeless when it departed the body, and that it retired into Hades with no hope of returning to a body. Plato was the first thinker in antiquity to combine the various
functions of the soul into one coherent conception: the soul is that
which moves things (i.e., that which gives life, on the view that life
is self-motion) by means of its thoughts, requiring that it be both a
mover and a thinker.
Likeness of Plato after an engraved gem. The Psyche-wings fastened to his temples allude to his doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
Drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, Plato considered the psyche to be the essence
of a person, being that which decides how humans behave. He considered
this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. Plato
said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He
believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn (metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies; however, Aristotle believed that only one part of the soul was immortal, namely the intellect (logos). The Platonic soul consists of three parts, which are located in different regions of the body:
The logos, or logistikon (mind, nous, or reason), which is located in the head and is related to reason.
The thymos, or thumetikon (emotion, spiritedness, or masculine), which is located near the chest region and is related to anger.
The eros, or epithumetikon (appetitive, desire, or feminine), which is located in the stomach and is related to one's desires.
Plato compares the three parts of the soul or psyche to a societal caste system.
According to Plato's theory, the three-part soul is essentially the
same thing as a state's class system because, to function well, each
part must contribute so that the whole functions well. Logos keeps the other functions of the soul regulated.
The soul is at the heart of Plato's philosophy. Francis Cornford described the twin pillars of Platonism as being the theory of forms on the one hand, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul on the other. Plato was the first person in the history of philosophy to believe that
the soul was both the source of life and the mind. In Plato's
dialogues, the soul plays many disparate roles. Among other things, Plato believes that the soul is what gives life to the body (which was articulated most of all in the Laws and Phaedrus)
in terms of self-motion: to be alive is to be capable of moving
yourself, and the soul is a self-mover. He also thinks that the soul is
the bearer of moral properties (i.e., when one is virtuous, it is their
soul that is virtuous as opposed to, say, their body). The soul is also
the mind: it is that which thinks in them. This casual oscillation
between different roles of the soul in observed many dialogues,
including the Republic:
Is there any function of the soul that you could not accomplish with anything else, such as taking care of something (epimeleisthai),
ruling, and deliberating, and other such things? Could we correctly
assign these things to anything besides the soul, and say that they are
characteristic (idia) of it?
No, to nothing else.
What about living? Will we deny that this is a function of the soul?
That absolutely is.
The Phaedo
most famously caused problems to scholars who were trying to make sense
of this aspect of Plato's theory of the soul, such as Dorothea Frede
and Sarah Broadie. 2020s scholarship overturned this accusation by arguing that part of
the novelty of Plato's theory of the soul is that it was the first to
unite the different features and powers of the soul that became
commonplace in later ancient and medieval philosophy. For Plato, the soul moves things by means of its thoughts, as one
scholar puts it, and accordingly the soul is both a mover (i.e., the
principle of life, where life is conceived of as self-motion) and a
thinker.
The structure of the souls of plants, animals, and humans, according to Aristotle, with Bios, Zoê, and Psūchê
Aristotle defined the soul, or Psūchê (ψυχή), as the "first actuality" of a naturally organized body, and argued against its separate existence from the physical body. In
Aristotle's view, the primary activity, or full actualization, of a
living thing constitutes its soul. For example, the full actualization
of an eye, as an independent organism, is to see (its purpose or final cause). Another example is that the full actualization of a human being would
be living a fully functional human life in accordance with reason (which
he considered to be a faculty unique to humanity). For Aristotle, the soul is the organization of the form and matter of a
natural being which allows it to strive for its full actualization.
This organization between form and matter is necessary for any activity,
or functionality, to be possible in a natural being. Using an artifact
(non-natural being) as an example, a house is a building for human
habituation but for a house to be actualized requires the material, such
as wood, nails, or bricks necessary for its actuality (i.e., being a
fully functional house); however, this does not imply that a house has a
soul. In regards to artifacts, the source of motion that is required
for their full actualization is outside of themselves (for example, a
builder builds a house). In natural beings, this source of motion is
contained within the being itself.
Aristotle addressed the faculties of the soul. The various faculties of the soul,
such as nutrition, movement (peculiar to animals), reason (peculiar to
humans), sensation (special, common, and incidental), and so forth, when
exercised, constitute the "second actuality", or fulfillment, of the
capacity to be alive. For example, someone who falls asleep, as opposed
to someone who falls dead, can wake up and live their life, while the
latter can no longer do so. Aristotle identified three hierarchical
levels of natural beings: plants, animals, and people, having three
different degrees of soul: Bios ('life'), Zoë ('animate life'), and Psuchë
('self-conscious life'). For these groups, he identified three
corresponding levels of soul, or biological activity: the nutritive
activity of growth, sustenance and reproduction which all life shares (Bios); the self-willed motive activity and sensory faculties, which only animals and people have in common (Zoë); and finally "reason", of which humans alone are capable (Pseuchë). Aristotle's discussion of the soul is in his work, De Anima (On the Soul).
Although mostly seen as opposing Plato in regard to the immortality of the soul, a controversy can be found in relation to the fifth chapter of the
third book: in this text both interpretations can be argued for, soul as
a whole can be deemed mortal, and a part called "active intellect" or
"active mind" is immortal and eternal. Advocates exist for both sides of the controversy; it is argued that
there will be permanent disagreement about its final conclusions, as no
other Aristotelian text contains this specific point, and this part of De Anima is obscure. Furthermore, Aristotle states that the soul helps humans find the
truth, and understanding the true purpose or role of the soul is
extremely difficult.
Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafis
Avicenna was a Muslim philosopher who integrated the Aristotelian theory of the soul into an Islamic framework.
Following Aristotle, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ibn al-Nafis,
an Arab physician, further elaborated upon the Aristotelian
understanding of the soul and developed their own theories on the soul.
They both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit, and the Avicennian
doctrine on the nature of the soul was influential among later Muslims.
Some of Avicenna's views on the soul include the idea that the
immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a
purpose for it to fulfill. In his theory of "The Ten Intellects", he
viewed the human soul as the tenth and final intellect.
While he was imprisoned, Avicenna wrote his famous "Floating man" thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantial nature of the soul. He told his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argues that in this scenario one would still have self-consciousness. He thus concludes that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms but as a primary given, a substance. This argument was later refined and simplified by René Descartes in epistemic
terms, when he stated, "I can abstract from the supposition of all
external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness."
Avicenna generally supported Aristotle's idea of the soul originating from the heart, whereas Ibn al-Nafis rejected this idea and instead argued that the soul "is related to the entirety and not to one or a few organs".
He further criticized Aristotle's idea whereby every unique soul
requires the existence of a unique source, in this case the heart.
Al-Nafis concluded that "the soul is related primarily neither to the
spirit nor to any organ, but rather to the entire matter whose
temperament is prepared to receive that soul", and he defined the soul
as nothing other than "what a human indicates by saying "I"".
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas was a Christian theologian who greatly developed the Aristotelian theory of soul in his Summa Theologica.
Following Aristotle and Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas understood the soul to be the first actuality of the living body. Consequent to this, he distinguished three orders of life: plants,
which feed and grow; animals, which add sensation to the operations of
plants; and humans, which add intellect to the operations of animals. Concerning the human soul, his epistemological theory required that, since the knower becomes what he knows,
the soul is definitely not corporeal—if it is corporeal when it knows
what some corporeal thing is, that thing would come to be within it. Therefore, the soul has an operation which does not rely on a body
organ, and therefore the soul can exist without a body. Furthermore,
since the rational soul of human beings is a subsistent form and not
something made of matter and form, it cannot be destroyed in any natural
process.
The full argument for the immortality of the soul and Aquinas' elaboration of Aristotelian theory is found in the Summa Theologica. Aquinas affirmed in the doctrine of the divine effusion of the soul, the particular judgement of the soul after the separation from a dead body, and the final resurrection of the flesh. He recalled two canons of the 4th century, for which "the rational soul is not engendered by coition", and "is one and the same soul in man, that both gives life to the body
by being united to it, and orders itself by its own reasoning". Moreover, he believed in a unique and tripartite soul, within which are
distinctively present a nutritive, a sensitive, and intellectual soul.
The latter is created by God and is taken solely by human beings,
includes the other two types of soul and makes the sensitive soul
incorruptible.
According to Thomas Aquinas, the soul is tota in toto corpore. This means that the soul is entirely contained in every single part of
the human body, and, therefore, ubiquitous and cannot be placed in a
single organ, such as the heart or brain, nor is it separable from the
body (except after the body's death). In the fourth book of De Trinitate, Augustine of Hippo states that the soul is all in the whole body and all in any part of it.
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant has criticized the rationalist project of understanding the soul’s nature by analyzing the proposition "I think".
In his discussions of rational psychology, Immanuel Kant
identified the soul as the "I" in the strictest sense, and argued that
the existence of inner experience can neither be proved nor disproved.
He said, "We cannot prove a priori the immateriality of the soul, but
rather only so much: that all properties and actions of the soul cannot
be recognized from materiality." It is from the "I", or soul, that Kant
proposes transcendental rationalization but cautions that such rationalization can only determine the limits of knowledge if it is to remain practical.
Kant critiques the metaphysics of the soul—an investigation he calls "rational psychology"—in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason.
Rational psychology, as he defines it, seeks to establish metaphysical
claims about the soul’s nature by analyzing the proposition "I think".
Many of Kant’s rationalist
predecessors and contemporaries believed that reflecting on the "I" in
"I think" could demonstrate that the self is necessarily a substance
(implying the soul’s existence), indivisible (to argue for the soul’s
immortality), self-identical (pertaining to personal identity), and
separate from the external world (leading to skepticism about external reality). Kant, however, asserts that such conclusions stem from an error of reasoning.
Kant believes this error arises when the conceptual thought of
the "I" in "I think" is conflated with genuine cognition of the "I" as
an object. Cognition, for Kant, requires both intuition (sensory experience) and concepts,
whereas the "I" here involves only abstract conceptual thought. For
example, consider whether the self can be known as a substance. While
the "I" is always the subject of thoughts (never a predicate of
something else), recognizing something as a substance also requires
intuiting it as a persistent object. Since a person lacks any intuition
of the "I" itself, they cannot cognize it as a substance. Thus, in
Kant's view, although a person will inevitably conceive of the "I" as a
soul-like substance, true knowledge of the soul’s existence or nature
remains out of their reach.
Contemporary philosophy
The notion of soul often relies on a theory called mind-body dualism, which posits that mental phenomena are non-physical. If body and soul (or mind) are of two distinct realms, the question remains how these two are related. Contemporary philosophy of mind distinguishes three major dualist theories about the relationship between mental properties and the body: interactionism, parallelism, and epiphenomenalism.
Interactionism holds that physical events and mental events
interact with each other. This view is often considered to be the most
intuitive: one perceives the mind reacting upon physical stimulation and
then thoughts and feelings act upon the physical body, such as by
moving it. Thus, humans are naturally inclined in favor of
interactionism. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
states, "[t]he critical feature of interactionism is its commitment to
'two-way' causation – mental-to-physical causation and
physical-to-mental causation."
Parallelism sidesteps debates about mind-body interaction by
proposing that both operate in parallel. Under this framework, mental
and physical events do not causally influence one another; they merely
coincide. When causation occurs, it is strictly confined within each
domain: mental events only trigger or result from other mental events,
and physical events exclusively cause or are caused by other physical
events.
Epiphenomenalism posits that physical events generate mental
events, but mental events themselves lack causal power—they cannot
influence physical events or even other mental phenomena. This stance
partially accommodates interactionism by permitting causation in a
single direction (physical to mental), thereby rejecting parallelism,
which denies any causal link between the two realms. In this framework,
the mind is likened to a bodily shadow: while the body actively produces
effects, the mind is merely a passive byproduct, incapable of driving
outcomes or interactions.
Non-dualist theories include physicalism, the view that everything is physical, and idealism, the conviction that a prioriintelligence grounds all phenomena (science). George Howison put the question about (the necessity of logically prior) souls in context thus:
The question whether we have not
some knowledge independent of any and all experience – whether there
must not, unavoidably, be some knowledge a priori, some knowledge
which we come at simply by virtue of our nature – is really the
paramount question, around which the whole conflict in philosophy
concentrates, and on the decision of which the settlement of every other
question hangs.
Psychology
"Seelenglaube" or "soul-belief" is a prominent feature in Otto Rank's work. Rank explains the importance of immortality in the psychology of
primitive, classical and modern interest in life and death. Rank's work
directly opposed the scientific psychology that concedes the possibility
of the soul's existence and postulates it as an object of research
without really admitting that it exists. He says, "Just as religion represents a psychological commentary on the
social evolution of man, various psychologies represent our current
attitudes toward spritual belief. In the animistic era, psychologizing
was a creating of the soul; in the religious era, it was a representing of the soul to one's self; in our era of natural science it is a knowing of the individual soul." Rank's work had a significant influence on Ernest Becker's understanding of a universal interest in immortality. In The Denial of Death, Becker describes "soul" in terms of Søren Kierkegaard use of "self":
Kierkegaard's use of "self" may be a bit confusing. He
uses it to include the symbolic self and the physical body. It is a
synonym really for "total personality" that goes beyond the person to
include what we would now call the "soul" or the "ground of being" out
of which the created person sprang.
According to Cognitive scientistJesse Bering and psychologist Nicholas Humphrey,
humans are initially inclined to believe in a soul and are born as
soul-body dualists. As such, religious institutions did not need to
invent or inherent the idea of the soul from previous traditions, rather
the concept has always been present throughout human history. Echoing that sentiment, American philosopher Steward Goetz
has claimed that according to anthropologists and psychologists,
ordinary human beings are soul-body substance dualists, who, at all
times and in all places, have believed in the existence of a distinction
between the soul and the body.
Parapsychology
Duncan MacDougall was a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts, who wished to scientifically determine if a soul had weight
Some parapsychologists attempted to establish, by scientific
experiment, whether a soul separate from the brain exists, as is more
commonly defined in religion rather than as a synonym of psyche or mind.
One such attempt became known as the "21 grams experiment". In 1901, Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts,
who wished to scientifically determine if a soul had weight, identified
six patients in nursing homes whose deaths were imminent. Four were
suffering from tuberculosis, one from diabetes, and one from unspecified
causes. MacDougall specifically chose people who were suffering from
conditions that caused physical exhaustion, as he needed the patients to
remain still when they died to measure them accurately. When the
patients looked like they were close to death, their entire bed was
placed on an industrial sized scale that was sensitive within two tenths
of an ounce (5.6 grams). One of the patients lost "three-fourths of an ounce" (21.3 grams),
coinciding with the time of death, which led MacDougall to the
conclusion that the soul had weight.
The physicist Robert L. Park wrote that MacDougall's experiments "are not regarded today as having any scientific merit", and the psychologist Bruce Hood wrote that "because the weight loss was not reliable or replicable, his findings were unscientific".
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