What is Spirit? What is Soul? And What is Body?

Now, imagine you have three cups. The first cup is very hot. The second cup is very cold. The third cup is room temperature. Now, imagine that it is raining outside. You get up from your stool beside the window and take the three cups outside, so they can catch rain water. The three cups become full with rain water after you have set them outside in the downpour. Because the first cup is very hot, the water it catches heats up and is hot as well. You use it for your coffee. Because the second cup is very cold, the water it catches cools significantly. You use it to quench your heated throat. Because the third cup is room temp, the water it catches remains lukewarm. You splash it on your face and say, "Ah, feels good!" You return to your stool beside the window and continue to peer out into the pouring rain outside.

Imagine the rain is the Spirit. The bible says that "the spirit moves where it pleases" (John 3:8). Next, imagine that each of the three cups are three human bodies: A, B, and C. Then imagine that the hot water which you used to make coffee was soul A; the cold water which you drank to quench the heat of your throat was soul B, and the lukewarm water which you splashed on your face was soul C. Each of these three souls served different purposes. Do you catch my drift? This is reality. Your spirit is different from your soul. Your spirit, like the rain water falling into cups, is that portion of the spirit of God that your body was able to catch within itself. ["Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 6:19).] Your body, like the cup, is the material the spirit mingles with, works with, has intercourse with. And your soul is the product, the result, of the intercourse, the co-mingling, of the spirit and the body. And because the characteristics of different bodies differ, the soul that results from the spirit mixing with each differs one from another. 

Okay, let's do this: Imagine the entire earth (planet earth, the universe) as a body. Now, think of the Holy Spirit. Genesis 1:2 says: "Now the earth was formless and empty; darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." So, before the Spirit started to create - started to work, mingle and have intercourse with the formless body called earth - the formless body called earth was just that - a formless body. But as soon as the Spirit entered into it by its work, its intercourse, the world resulted. The world is not the earth. The world is: people, and cars, and vegetable gardens; and radios, and televisions, and microwaved chicken fingers. And so, we have the Spirit, the world, and the earth. [Spirit, soul and body.] Next, think of the Virgin Mary. Think of her as a body (the body that Jesus needed to participate in humanity). Then think of her spouse, the Holy Spirit. Then think of Jesus. The Holy Spirit had intercourse with Mary by his powerful word, and she conceived and bore the soul, Jesus Christ. The male principle of spirit perennially interacts with the female principle of body, to bear the principle of soul.

Let's return to the human condition. God's spirit, the Holy Spirit, always seeks to create. It is a creator spirit. But it always creates in a body - material body as in the earth, or spiritual body as in the angels, as Aquinas would say. And by the creative intercourse of spirit with body (material or otherwise), a soul results. You are a soul. I am a soul. Properly speaking, there are over 7 billion souls on earth today. And each of us is a product of our spirit having intercourse with our body. We are not our spirit. No. Only one being is his spirit, and that is God. He is what is called a simple being. We rather are composite beings, the product of spirit and body. In mathematical terms (to spur your imagination): spirit+body=soul. [Spirit plus body equals soul.] Think about that. You see, your body (your material, or potential, principle) has various characteristics: it is temporal; it is from such and such a father and such and such a mother; it is of such and such a DNA design; of such and such a color; of such and such a height; of such and such a weight - all these characteristics. When the spirit enters such a body, because of the characteristics of the body, the soul that the intercourse of the spirit in that body produces turns out a certain way - just like the water in the hot cup turned out hot, and the water in the cold cup turned out cold, and so forth. 

Now, none of what I have just said contradicts Church teaching. The Church teaches that it is appointed for people to die once, and after that comes judgment. No soul can be reincarnated; and for every soul, there are three possible destinations: heaven, hell or purgatory. All these things are true. Holy Mother Church, when she teaches on matters of faith (Creed) or morals (good or bad behavior), is always right. The Magisterium, which is Francis and his Princes, are always 100% correct when speaking ex cathedra. Every soul is a product of spirit and body, whether a material body (people) or a spiritual body (angels). According to Aquinas, even when being does not actually exist, its essence is always a composite of spirit and body. And so, even when you think of a dead person, you always think of the person in terms of spirit and body. Think say of a dead relative: don't you still see the person's body in your mind's eye? Also, even when a thing does not exist - not that it once existed and is now dead - but never did exist - like a unicorn; when you think of it (a unicorn), you still think of it in terms of a body - like a rhino on a diet. 

In the same way, when we die, we are still embodied to our earthly experience. A soul never changes to another thing. [It is an act, and according to Parmenides, cannot change or transform into anything else.] A soul is always thought of, even after it has shed its particular body upon death, in terms of spirit and body. All the characteristics that positioned it to live a certain way in a certain time on earth can never be replicated. The fact that a soul lived in such and such a country at such and such a time, and ate such and such a meal, and was born of such and such a father and such and such a mother, and did such and such a thing - none of these things can be replicated. They happened in time. And so, Mother Church is right. A soul can only die once and that's it. No transmigration of soul; no reincarnation of soul. Samuel Nze cannot die and then come back again. No. 

Now, if a soul was good while it lived on earth, it joins its spirit after shedding its body and returns to God in heaven. If the soul was bad, it cuts itself off completely from the spirit of God and remains eternally damned. It devolves completely into nothingness. It loses its substance, its principle of animation (spirit), and becomes eternal potentiality; eternal non-being. If however the soul was neither too bad nor good enough, it goes to purgatory. Again, Mother Church is right when it says that the souls in purgatory cannot help themselves, but only the church militant - we, by our prayers, or simply good works, since laborare est orare - can help them. How does this happen? You see, when say, Samuel Nze dies, he lets go his spirit. The body returns to the earth and decays; and the soul, which was the product of the spirit (now let go of) mixing with the body (decayed and turned back to earth), goes to wait in purgatory. Now, the spirit knows it did not complete its work. It did not do all it could - very likely because the bodily characteristics of Samuel Nze's body - which has now decayed and gone back to earth - could not allow it to do all it could. But if Samuel Nze tried hard while on earth, and did his best, the spirit, emboldened and strengthened, finds a better body, a body in which it could better do what it can, and has intercourse with that new body. The spirit that Samuel Nze let go of, finding a new body and having intercourse with it, produces a new soul, say Michael Davies. This Micheal Davies is an entirely new soul. Completely new. Completely unique. It too, like Samuel Nze (another different soul), is entitled to live once, and then comes judgment. 

Now, if this Michael Davies does good (prays fervently as a church militant), he could accomplish all his spirit was supposed to. [Notice how I now call it his spirit, because it is now Michael Davies' spirit, even though it was once Samuel Nze's spirit. Cool, eh?] He could perfect himself as a child of God. If he does this, he doesn't simply let go of his spirit, so that the latter can go find yet another body to make yet another soul. No. Michael Davies (a soul; because he did all things right eventually, unlike Samuel Nze) goes together with his spirit to God in heaven. But not just him; also Samuel, and all the other souls which that spirit produced by mixing with different bodies over the ages. Recall that when the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree he said he could finally see all the previous incarnations of his spirit. But all the while Michael Davies was on earth praying (doing good), Samuel could do nothing for himself, but only cheer Michael Davies on. Samuel's joy would come from the fact that, in Michael Davies, all he could not do eventually get done. But only because Samuel wanted to do them while he was on earth. He wanted God's will to be done. He did not fall into despair. He said, "Even if I cannot do this now, it shall be done, because it is the work of the all-powerful God."

Now, think of the earth as the global body. Think also of the Spirit. Then think of the world. The world is not yet as perfect as the plan God's Spirit (God himself) has for it. The work of creation still goes on. Into over 7 billion bodies, the eternal spirit keeps pouring himself out, so that the different souls that result can work in sync with the united spirit to create a beautiful, harmonious world. Jesus prayed: "Father, let them be one as you and I are one" (John 17:21). Also, concerning his spirit, God says: "So will my word be which goes forth from my mouth; It will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). What do you think the Church means when it says "resurrection of the body"? She means that the earth will eventually be so mixed in intercourse with the eternal spirit that the world that will result from this mixing will finally - after successive "worlds"; in other words, after successive global changes and evolutions - be what God wants it to be. The entire earth will be so totally leavened out by the Spirit of God that everything will come alive as a perfect world - no more just earth; no more accidents; no more non-being - all will be soul; all will be being. All will be life. Death will be no more, and the principle of death will similarly be no more. Each soul will have a spiritual body that cannot die, and no body will be made of earth that can die - because there will be no more earth, but only world. 

Proof of the foregoing is had in the fact that the Holy Spirit in and through Jesus, the perfect soul, fulfills all it can in the Church (the body of Christ, and Mary - quickly recall the Immaculate Conception). Recall that after Jesus died, he went ahead and joined his father in heaven; but he did not go by himself; he went with all the souls of the just that could not help themselves, but were helplessly hamstrung in limbo. All Christians, all whose bodies contain the spirit of Jesus but whose souls could not live up to the ideals of that spirit proceeding from Jesus (filioque) while on earth go to wait and cheer Jesus on. And after Jesus has triumphed over death, he joins his father in heaven, but he takes all the many souls in whom his spirit dwelt. This is a sign of the resurrection of the body; the sacrament of Eucharist, in Holy Mother Church. This paragraph serves to underscore and to prove the previous. And so the resurrection of the body is first the becoming of world of that which was earth; secondly, the becoming of the kingdom of heaven of that which was church on earth (all Christians becoming saints and participating eternally in the Eucharist), and each individual soul eventually, after successive evolutions of spirit, becoming eternally one with the Spirit.

Berkeley was way ahead of us on this point. He saw, eminent philosopher that he was, that matter did not really exist. His principle of immateriality was a perennial call to all who believe in the work of the spirit to look beyond our current temporal situation to an everlasting life; an everlasting living; where everything will be act, and nothing will be potency; where everything will be form, and nothing will be matter. Where everything will be soul and nothing will be body; where God alone will be all in all. Where we could ask, "Death, where is thy sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55). And all this will take place in eternity, saecula saeculorum. All this will take place in infinity; in the grand eschatology, in "the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen."