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Please click on a question below.
# 1 Is the human body good, or is it a hindrance to spiritual growth?
# 2 What is the human soul?
# 3 Can we change ourselves and/or others?
# 4 Does my thinking affect what I do and feel?
# 5 What is the importance of the human heart?
# 6 What is the correlation between the Jewish Temple and the Human Heart?
# 7 What is the human spirit?
# 8 What is grace?
# 9 How can we compare and contrast the human soul, spirit, and heart?
# 10 What is the difference between living by the flesh and living by the Spirit?
# 11 What does it mean to live by the Spirit?
# 12 How do we learn to be obedient to God's will?
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Our body is good. God created us with bodies because God wanted us to have bodies. God considers the body so good that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (cf. John 1:14). Ever since the Incarnation, Jesus has had a body and will continue to have His body, now raised from the dead, for all eternity. Even though our body is good, we can use our body in ways that are not good.
If we use our bodies to fulfill God's will, then we can glorify God in our bodies.
If we are ever to become spiritual men and women, we need the cooperation of our body. With the help of God's grace, our spirit will discern God's will and communicate that “knowing” to our soul. Then our soul will communicate its commands to our body of what we can do (or not do) to fulfill God's will.
Sometimes this is something pleasant or neutral, easy for the body to accept. Instinctively, our body desires to seek pleasure and avoid pain. However, we cannot let our desire for pleasure prevent us from deciding to follow God's will. The purpose of our body is to glorify God by doing those things that please God.
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The human soul is:
- the life principle that animates the human body.
- unique to each person, meaning that it is the personality and the individuality of each person.
- immaterial, meaning that it cannot be perceived objectively by the senses. Subjectively, we can “see” the effect of the presence of the soul in a live body and the absence of the soul in a cadaver.
- immortal, meaning that it continues to exist even after the body dies. Therefore, the soul does not depend upon the body for its being or its activity. However, while the soul and body are joined, the soul maintains some dependence upon the body, for it needs the body's senses to provide it with information to which it responds.
- spiritual, meaning that it differs from the animal soul in its higher faculties, especially intellect and free will. God, who has thoughts far above our human capacity for thought, nevertheless chooses to share His divine essence with humans through the gifts of intellect and free will. In this way, all human beings have been given the aptitude for knowing and loving God.
- the source of dignity, meaning that each human being is created in the image of God. As an expression of His great love for us, God breathed into human nature His own image and likeness. Whether male or female, young or old, productive or unproductive, believer or unbeliever — every person is created in the image of God.
The soul consists of three main faculties:
- free will: the ability to choose, to decide
- intellect: the ability to think, to reason, to imagine, to remember
- emotion: the ability to desire, to feel feelings
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We can change ourselves, our own thought patterns, our attitudes and our actions. However, we can't compel anyone else to change. We can only influence others to the extent that they want to be influenced. When they want to change, they'll change because they want to change. Therefore, we don't bring about their eventual change; they do as they respond to God's grace. So when change is necessary, rather than expending energy on trying to compel others to change, we need to expend that energy on changing ourselves for the better.
Since our thought patterns and our perceptions are learned, we can change them, learning new and healthier thought patterns. The Bible teaches us correct thinking patterns. As we learn and obey the teaching of God's Word, we progress on the path of both mental and emotional stability.
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Yes. My thinking affects what I do and what I feel. When I first heard this, I was surprised. For many years, I had avoided my negative feelings. I didn't like to feel mad or sad. Sometimes I didn't know what to do when I felt that way, so it seemed safer to ignore my feelings and to just keep going on. Now I know that changes in my actions and in my feelings are rooted in my thinking. There are times when I can and must change my thinking.
In the Bible, we read that God's Word commands us to pursue a changed heart, that is, to change our attitude in the core of our person. This heart change is the result of God's grace to us and our response to His grace. A changed heart means our thinking about everything will be affected and must change — about ourselves, others and God, and about life in general.
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God wants to meet us in our hearts. To meet Him there, we must be open to our heart with its yearnings and desires, its hopes and fears. God doesn't turn away from our hearts, and He doesn't want us to turn away from our hearts either. The Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church both speak of the heart as God's dwelling place. It is the place to which we withdraw. If we avoid our heart, then we avoid ourselves, and we avoid God's personal and individual love for us.
Listening to our hearts and our losses thaws us to hear our true desires and intentions. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Bible reminds us that:
Indeed, God's word is living and effective … [and] it judges the reflections and thoughts of the heart. Nothing is concealed from him; all lies bare and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account. (Hebrews 4:12-13 NAB) (Italics added.)
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The Old Testament describes God as most present in the Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the temple. The New Testament indicates we are the temple of God. A correlation exists in that, in us as the temple of God, He is most present in our human spirit, the innermost core of our being. The Bible often refers to this inner core as our heart, as a holy place where God can dwell. It is where He encounters us, and where we encounter Him. This is why we are called to listen to our hearts as they truly are. God helps us to listen to our hearts by giving us His word.
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The human spirit is the innermost core of the human soul. When we are conceived and then born physically, our spirit functions on a natural plane, devoid of God's presence. As a result of Original Sin, our spirit, which lacks the life of grace, has no ability within that deadened spirit to know God personally.
When we are born again, our spirit functions on a supernatural plane. This means that when our spirit is transformed by God's gratuitous gift of sanctifying grace, He fills our spirit with His presence so we can live in loving communion with Him as He guides us and abides within the depths of our heart.
We are transformed and saved by grace through faith in Jesus. We express our faith through baptism of water or desire. Our spirit is alive, filled with God's eternal life. Then God is personally present in our spirit, in the innermost region of our soul. There, God communes and communicates with us. In our spirit, we know: God's love, God's goodness and God's will.
Our spirit consists of three main functions:
- communion: the ability to know God's love and to love God
- conscience: the ability to know God's goodness from evil
- intuition: the ability to know God's will from our own will
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Grace is God's love. Grace is God's life. Grace is God's unmerited favor which elevates humans, through the merits of Jesus Christ, to an infinitely higher supernatural level where we can intimately participate in the divine love and life of the Trinity.
Here's another way of saying it: Grace is God giving us Himself. If we need patience, God gives us His patience. If we need courage, God gives us His courage. God has everything we need and He is willing to share everything He has to give us everything we need.
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An example of the distinctive use of soul and spirit is found in Mary's words of praise:
And Mary said:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” (Luke 1:46 NAB)
SOUL: Here Mary's whole being or soul, including what has impacted her through her senses, proclaims God's greatness.
SPIRIT: Her spirit, as her conscious, interior and innermost aspect of her soul, rejoices in God whom she has personally and mysteriously experienced in the depths of her being.
As human beings, we are a unity of body and soul. The soul can't be divided into parts as the body can be; nevertheless, we can speak of the soul with its different faculties. Also we can speak of the innermost region of the soul, the spirit, addressing the different aspects of the spirit. However, we can't fully describe or differentiate the soul and spirit. It is a mystery, something about which we can come to understand and experience more and more, but which we will never completely comprehend.
For centuries, Christian spiritual authors have written of these spiritual realities with phrases such as:
- core of the soul
- essence of the soul
- interior of the soul
- soul's own depths
- soul's finest point
- innermost aspect of the soul
- profound regions at the center of the soul
HEART: Along with the words soul and spirit, the word heart refers to the interior and spiritual aspect of human beings. Frequently, the word heart and the word spirit are used in an interchangeable way in Scripture.
The words spirit and heart are similar when they:
- emphasize figuratively the hidden springs of the soul
- convey the sphere of Divine influence
- note the interior and true self at the core of one's being
Mystery can be explored, even if it cannot be exhausted. Whatever words we use to describe it, it is a wondrous mystery that God dwells in the innermost region of our being, inviting us into an ever-deepening love relationship with Him.
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When I live by the flesh, I seek to please myself by looking for whatever seems to be the easy, comfortable, or pleasant way, apart from God. This way leads to sin and the pain of spiritual sickness and death.
When I live by the Spirit, I seek to please God by looking for His will and choosing to align my will with God's will. This is death to self-will. It feels painful. Yet this way leads to abundant life and the pleasure of being in a love relationship with Him.
God gives us a choice. We can choose disobedience and choose death. Or we can choose obedience and choose life. Because we have free will, we have a choice about how we respond to God's will:
- When we accept God's will as our own and obey God, then we choose to live by the Spirit, that is, to be led by the Spirit of God.
- When we reject God's will and disobey God, then we choose to live by the flesh, that is, to be led by the fallen human nature.
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The spiritual person has learned how to live by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, alive within, communicates knowledge of Himself and knowledge of His will. Our mature spirit perceives God's communication and then guides our soul and body to fulfill His will. Our flesh (the fallen human nature) is always present, seeking any opportunity to exert its self-will. However, through the power of God's grace, our spirit establishes leadership over the soul and body.
I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. ... Now those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit. (Galatians 5:16, 24-25 NAB)
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Even though Jesus was God's own Son, He still had to learn how to be obedient. How did He learn? From what He suffered. Obedience points straight to the cross. Obedience requires death. We must die to self-will, die to the flesh. Obedience leads to life. Each decision to obey God means that we are learning to live by the spirit.
We are able to consistently obey our Father's will only when we submit ourselves to the leadership of our spirit, following the leading of the Holy Spirit. When we are consistently obedient to God's will, we will have the nourishment we need to grow strong in the spirit. For obedience is our food. As food sustains and nourishes us physically, our obedience to God's will sustains and nourishes us spiritually.
Meanwhile the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:31-34 NAB)
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