Adam, Where Are You?

[dave c]

HEALING SHELTER MINISTRIES #131az Re-Written 16MAY09

Save Me Today—Part Fifty Two: Adam, Where Are You?

by rev dave c

Ezekiel 18:1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: "`The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'? 3 "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. 4 For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son--both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die (NIV).

In spite of our culture’s proclivity to confuse the two, throughout Scripture there are significant distinctions made between the human spirit and the human soul. AMG Publisher’s The Complete Word Study New Testament (1992), edited by Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D., has this to say on page 931 concerning the Greek words for the human spirit and soul: Pneuma (#4151—spirit) is the element in man which gives him the ability to think of God. It is man’s vertical window, while psuche (#5590—soul) is man’s horizontal window making him conscious of his environment. The animals do not have a spirit, but they do have a soul. When carefully read, there are a number of important points to consider, both stated and implied, in this brief description.

While spirit and soul may be viewed as two aspects of the inner man, according to Dr. Zodhiates it is the spirit that provides us the ability to think, and it is the soul that makes us conscious. I must ask, “Then what is it that does the thinking and what is it that is conscious?” The answer, of course, is our mind-self. The mind is that part of us that abstracts and interprets input, stores and retrieves data, organizes information, develops plans, and exercises logic. As a “window” the soul exists between our rational mind and the material existence that includes our body. Through the five senses (to see, to touch, to hear, to taste, and to smell), the soul makes us conscious of our environment. The mind-self is aware of the physical world through information brought to it by the conduit of the soul. This is the sentient process.

I once heard a Christian teacher state, “We have a soul...but we are spirit.” I have to agree, but I would add, “...we are spirit, and mind, and body.” If the soul (as the sentient process) exists as a conduit for information between the mind and body, then there should be a conduit between the mind and the spirit. Besides the cognitive functions of the mind-self listed in the last paragraph, there is also an aspect of our inner person that is capable of comprehension, that is inquisitive and intuitive—an aspect that inspires creativity; that experiences joy and sorrow; and that is capable of recognizing truth, integrity, and moral behavior. The conduit between the mind and the spirit is our intellect (#1271, dianoia)—the sapient process.

To modify AMG Publisher’s comments above, I would say that the soul (sentience) is the horizontal window between our rational and material existence, and that the intellect (sapience) is the actual vertical window between our rational and spiritual existence. We share sentient life with all animals [i.e., all animals possess the breath of life as living souls (Ge 2:7), and we currently possess soul-ish bodies—soma psuchikon (1Co 15:44)]. Unlike the animals, however, we were created in God’s image and likeness by also being given the breath of the Almighty (Job 32:8), and so we were also given a spirit (or pneuma in Greek). Upon resurrection, Christians will be given spiritual bodies (soma pneumatikon) that are like Christ’s (1Co 15:42-50).

If there is a conduit between the mind and body (the soul/sentience), and there is a conduit between the mind and the spirit (the intellect/sapience), then there should also be a conduit between our spiritual existence and our material existence. This conduit is the will, or the volition process. That humanity has the gift of volition is a part of being made in God’s likeness. God is spirit and it was through the will of His spoken word that He brought the material universe into being. Mankind is specifically formed out of God’s desire to have us as the objects of His love, and for us to choose to return that love (Jn 3:14-18). Love cannot be mandated, love cannot be taken, and love cannot be purchased. Love is always a choice. Love is always a gift.

Within the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were in full communion with God. What if they experienced His presence through both the conduit of their sentience (their souls), and through the conduit of their sapience (their intellect)? That is, they could rationally witness creation and Creator simultaneously within their material and spiritual existences. Then, in Genesis Chapter Three, we learn of their disobedience, and so, per God’s warning, they died...spiritually. As a result they could no longer see each other clothed with spiritual righteousness, but only as physically naked in their sin. Genesis 3:8&9 tells us, Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" Given that God is omniscient, we have to believe that God knew full well Adam’s location and condition. God was speaking ironically because He knew that Adam could no longer “see” Him. Consequent to the Fall and expulsion from the Garden, all descendents of Adam and Eve have been left without the ability to directly discern the spiritual world through the sapient process. We are left with a terrible yearning to find that which was lost in the gap between the existence of our intellect and our will— and with a desperate need to stop the pain of that loss as we transit the time between birth and death. Praise God, "the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost" (Lu 19:10; NIV).