# Christian Evolutionists. When did man acquire a soul ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 16, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344 "2010-04-16T14:42:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Aelita\_Daystar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Aelita\_Daystar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aelita_Daystar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/81 "2010-04-20T02:58:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No doubt it’s because attempts to prove religious concepts using science result in science disproving the religious concept, instead. Or no results at all. Somehow I missed this one.. How about because you can’t make testable hypotheses about it? Isn’t that a prerequisite for scientific study? You can’t even have “no results at all” without a test. :smack: So tell me… How is it going to be investigated. I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer is essentially to shut up and stop asking questions because YOU say so. There is no need to take positions contrary to science because you hate religion. Especially given that the thing you seem to be raging against is the idea of a soul. Souls, if they exist, don’t necessarily have anything to do with any god, nor do they necessarily have anything to do with an afterlife. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/82 "2010-04-20T04:15:20Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > Hey, maybe we can create soul particles at the LHC. Has anyone submitted a proposal for this yet? They’re looking for the god particle, so maybe it’s part of their protocol when they aren’t busy making planet-eating black holes. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/83 "2010-04-20T04:51:37Z")
> [@Aelita\_Daystar](#): > > Somehow I missed this one.. > > How about because you can’t make testable hypotheses about it? Of course you can; it’s been done. That sort of attempt to demonstrate the truth of religion through science has largely vanished, because it systematically did the opposite. This idea that religion is beyond science, that it doesn’t speak about verifiable, testable things; that’s just revisionism. That’s religion pretending that “we meant that all along!” Religion these days mostly makes claims that can’t be tested, because that’s all that’s left to it. Every time religion has actually made claims about something that science can check, its been wrong. Relentlessly. If anything, it’s worse than guessing at random. A soul that did the things people claim it does should have a detectable influence on the world; as has been pointed out, the effects would be noticeable in the brain at the very least. But no one is going to perform such research, because the serious scientists don’t want to waste the time, and the believers deep down know that they would only be proven wrong yet again. So yes, there IS a testable hypothesis; but no one is going to bother testing it because believers and unbelievers alike, we all really know what the result would be. Souls are a religious claim, and when is religion EVER right? ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/84 "2010-04-20T05:13:47Z")
People claim that the soul exists, we just don’t have the scientific knowhow to detect it yet? That’s handy. That isn’t how the real world works. I can’t claim that there’s an elephant on your bed and assume that it’s true only until you’ve proven otherwise. But no. If it’s a _holy_ elephant, then it’s up to the scientific community to hunt it to the ends of the Earth and prove its nonexistence. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/85 "2010-04-20T05:23:07Z")
If it were discovered that the soul does have a material existence, imagine the theological mischief we could make! We’ve already done stuff like grown extra ears on the back of rats or given them bio-luminescence genes to make them glow in the dark. If we found the genetic component of a soul, could we inject one into a lab rat? What would happen then? ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/86 "2010-04-20T05:36:39Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > If we found the genetic component of a soul, could we inject one into a lab rat? What would happen then? Um, hello? [We’ve already done that.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_NIMH) ---
**Author:** ![Aelita\_Daystar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Aelita\_Daystar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aelita_Daystar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/87 "2010-04-20T08:59:10Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Of course you can; it’s been done. That sort of attempt to demonstrate the truth of religion through science has largely vanished, because it systematically did the opposite. > > This idea that religion is beyond science, that it doesn’t speak about verifiable, testable things; that’s just revisionism. That’s religion pretending that “we meant that all along!” Religion these days mostly makes claims that can’t be tested, because that’s all that’s left to it. Every time religion has actually made claims about something that science can check, its been wrong. Relentlessly. If anything, it’s worse than guessing at random. > > A soul that did the things people claim it does should have a detectable influence on the world; as has been pointed out, the effects would be noticeable in the brain at the very least. But no one is going to perform such research, because the serious scientists don’t want to waste the time, and the believers deep down know that they would only be proven wrong yet again. So yes, there IS a testable hypothesis; but no one is going to bother testing it because believers and unbelievers alike, we all really know what the result would be. Souls are a religious claim, and when is religion EVER right? Are you actually talking to me, or are you talking to an imaginary audience of strawmen? You seem to be very mistaken, I NEVER claimed religion is beyond science. Not having the proper understanding to address a question doesn’t make it it “beyond science”. That’s like saying that say… atoms were “beyond science” until the past few centuries. People could talk about the idea, and they had since ancient times (incidentally with no real scientific basis and typically being related to religious thought) but it wasn’t until much later that it could be proven. Of course certain aspects of each primitive idea of atoms turned out to be wrong - such as the idea they were indivisible. As to revisionism? That’s difficult to evaluate. Which religion do you mean, and how do you define it, what point does it end? At what point do the ideas of the mystics and philosophers turn transmute themselves into science for you? Because as far as I can tell, it seems like you’re either going to end up with religion coming up with the answers, or religion making only untestable claims as far back as you can go. Now, maybe I’m wrong here, I can’t think of any situation in which your assertions would be true, and so I’m going to have to say it’s false until someone can come up with a way it would make sense, does anyone have any ideas? As to the research thing… Can you please give an example as to the conception of a soul I used earlier in the thread would be testable right now? If such research were currently possible - which is a premise I reject - then your so-called “serious scientists” wouldn’t do so because they presuppose certain results, and your so-called “believers” wouldn’t do so because any positive results would be categorically rejected and they’d be ostracized. In the short term it doesn’t matter if their results are correct and their experiments executed flawlessly because of inertia. Within the scientific community there is a certain zeitgeist and if anyone strays to far from it they will be condemned, just because it’s science doesn’t mean it’s magical or holy. Science is a process, not magic. > [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > People claim that the soul exists, we just don’t have the scientific knowhow to detect it yet? That’s handy. > > That isn’t how the real world works. I can’t claim that there’s an elephant on your bed and assume that it’s true only until you’ve proven otherwise. But no. If it’s a _holy_ elephant, then it’s up to the scientific community to hunt it to the ends of the Earth and prove its nonexistence. I hope that isn’t a attempt to respond to my post. Because if it is then you’ve severely misconstrued possibly every single thing I’ve said. No it’s not how the real world works, but it doesn’t matter does it, because this ridiculous nonsense was proposed by non other than yourself. There have been a number of things in this thread that I have found problematic, but as far as I know, nobody has suggested what you are claiming. Now, I might have missed it, if I did then I apologize… but it seems like your charge has come out of thin air. The thing is… neither of us need to worry about the elephant. Now an elephant on the bed is a poor example because if I look and it’s not there, then unless there is a big hole in the wall it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. That’s a bit like the strawmen that I suspect Der Trihs was beating on. A concept of the soul that isn’t logically consistent. I’ll come up with another silly example, but one that is more fitting… I’ll use Der Trihs and Curtis Lemay in the example.. no offense to them. Our friends Der Trihs and Curtis Lemay and some others are staying at a house together. The power is out. It’s time to get to sleep but Curtis suspects there is an ugly looking spider in his bed, which is actually harmless but he is deathly afraid of it. Curtis says the spider is three feet long and has crawled under the bed. Der Trihs says there are no spiders that big. An vicious argument ensues… Curtis can’t sleep because of the spider, and Der Trihs is angry at Curtis… angry that he is keeping up the whole house, and because he is convinced the Curtis is outright lying. Someone calls from the other room and asks whats wrong, they shout back, and the person tells Der Trihs to look under the bed, but he replies back that he has no flashlight so he’d have to go to the store to get one. In addition nobody knows where under the bed to look, since there is all sorts of junk stored underneath which needs some tidying up. He doesn’t want to do that so everyone just argues more. A possible solution would be to switch beds and that way Curtis isn’t freaked out by the possible spider, and then Der Trihs can be finally relax too, and everyone gets to sleep. (The bed switching isn’t a metaphor for anything in this example.) There is no big ugly spider, sure. But there could still be a small spider of some kind under the bed. The other people in the house don’t care much if there is a spider under the bed, but it matters to Curtis, even it makes little sense for a prehistoric spider to be under the bed. (I suppose I could refine my example more… but I’m really too tired too… I’ll just go with it as is. Sorry if it turns out I was too tired and it came out too weird.) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/88 "2010-04-20T12:28:23Z")
For the inspiration for this brain fart I thank, with due reverence, **Curtis LeMay**. Brother, thanks for bringing me to insight … you be one funny guy. For that, I thank God for my sense of humor. At some point comes the realization, everything comes from nothing. Thus we, individually, are each left to postulate our origins. You have in my first post my postulation. So I asked myself, what could the postulated eternal, infinite, omnipotent,omniscient, etc, All There Was, Is And Wil Be, Alpha And Omega aka God (He, She and It), possibly lack and thus desire to create? Laughter. Yes, God alone knows not humor, which implies surprise which implies ignorance which by His Own Definition is simply impossible in Him Who is All Knowledge. Humor (and tragedy) also implies conflict among the different yet All is One in God. What to do? Short story: The Mind of God dreamed a space time continuum, a matrix, infinite yet bound in self-reference (WAG, more than one, many mansions? ). Into this dark void of fractal possiblilty, He injected a singularity of Light/Life/Love (big bang, let there be light etc.) to eternally evolve thru countless iterations into the multiplicity of form we look upon today. And what do we see? Until one recognizes that what he perceives is nothing more than his own attempt to project thought reflected back at himself (all karma is instant), the idea the of “enemies” has traction and there is no laughter, only tears. Time for mental floss. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/89 "2010-04-20T20:09:59Z")
> [@Aelita\_Daystar](#): > > As to the research thing… Can you please give an example as to the conception of a soul I used earlier in the thread would be testable right now? I’ve read back over your previous posts and I’m not sure I understand your conception of what souls are. What are you proposing that souls do? What makes a brain with a soul different from a brain without a soul. It’s hard to begin constructing an experiment until we know the specifics of the hypothesis that is to be tested. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/90 "2010-04-20T22:06:15Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > It wasn’t that hard for me to accept evolution and apply a non-literal view to Genesis to maintain faith in a special role for me and fellow humans in an afterlife. > > But what’s messing me up is the question I’ve recently pondered , " At what stage in the evolution of man did God imbue us with a soul ?" . First, one must show the existence of a god and a soul. Then one can try to answer the question. ---
**Author:** ![Aelita\_Daystar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Aelita\_Daystar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aelita_Daystar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/91 "2010-04-20T22:56:08Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I’ve read back over your previous posts and I’m not sure I understand your conception of what souls are. > > What are you proposing that souls do? What makes a brain with a soul different from a brain without a soul. It’s hard to begin constructing an experiment until we know the specifics of the hypothesis that is to be tested. The was referring to the concept of a soul being the thing that causes cognition to actually happen. Instead of cognition and consciousness occurring due to the architecture being sophisticated enough, it occurs because a soul able to attach itself to this architecture and function through it. A soul in this example wouldn’t have a great many properties of it’s own, but would serve simply as the animus. I suppose that sounds kinda Buddhist or something though - where the concept of self is an illusion and such. 😛 I have often heard definitions similar to that - give or take some details. It seems to be logically consistent as far as I can tell, but it seems to be unfalsifiable at this point. Perhaps we will eventually have the means to test such a thing, but right now we can’t - especially since we’ve only just started to figure out how brain function actually works. Maybe we will find out, maybe we won’t, but until then I’m not terribly concerned about it. * * * I should apologize if I’ve been a bit short… it’s just that, I quite frankly find it terribly irritating hearing either side of this this sort of argument. The thread didn’t start as one “those arguments” but it ended up that way, and so I may have been more aggressive than I should have towards one side. I should explain… I may find the believers to be wrong, but unless they start saying essentially “science is nonsense” they are easy enough to talk to. But certain groups of “non-believers” on the other hand tend to claim science as their own, so while I don’t mean any disrespect, I think a higher standard needs to be upheld if one side is going to use science as an ideological anchor. I feel that these people are doing little more than giving science a bad name, and in doing so while being so closely allied to it seems to be even worse than the “believers” who simply bash science outright. I hope that makes sense, and that I haven’t offended anybody. If I did it wasn’t my intention. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/92 "2010-04-21T00:54:35Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > First, one must show the existence of a god and a soul. Then one can try to answer the question. No, one doesn’t. This is an oft-repeated strawman. Can we talk about Hamlet’s motivation? Since he doesn’t exist… Can we know who was the Sumerian god of rain? Oh, no…they don’t exist. Even if we all accepted that gods and souls didn’t exist, we could still answer the question by accepting, for the purpose of the discussion, the axioms of Christian theology. Anything else is threashitting. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/93 "2010-04-26T11:25:33Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > I remember reading that in the 18th or 19th century, some scientists tried to find evidence for a soul by weighing a person right before and after their death and measuring any change. Theoretically, at the moment of death, the soul would be exiting the body, and this would cause the body to slightly decrease in mass. > > Of course, this assumes that souls are composed of baryonic matter (we can’t very well say that souls are massless, otherwise they would catastrophically exit the body at the speed of light, since anything with zero mass must always travel at _c_). Now perhaps souls are composed of some kind of exotic matter that’s not currently part of the standard model of particle physics. But given that the soul exists in this universe, it would have to be detectable somehow, and in some way interact with normal matter (in much the same way that dark matter is invisible and almost nonexistant except that it interacts with normal matter via gravity). > > Hey, maybe we can create soul particles at the LHC. Has anyone submitted a proposal for this yet? If the soul has weight it is material, not spiritual, and it could be that because the body starts to decay at death some small amount of weight could be lost, just as if a person hadn’t eaten in a short time a very small amount of weight could be lost, isn’t that a possibility? If the soul is spirit it would not be natural and would have no weight at all. How much weight does a small particle less than an atom weigh? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/94 "2010-04-26T13:42:49Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > If the soul has weight it is material, not spiritual Seems that way to me too. Heck, photons are material and they don’t even have weight. The problem here, I think, is that no one has ever defined “spiritual.” > [@](#): > > …and it could be that because the body starts to decay at death some small amount of weight could be lost, just as if a person hadn’t eaten in a short time a very small amount of weight could be lost, isn’t that a possibility? If mass (weight) is lost, that mass has to go somewhere. When you lose weight from not eating, the mass doesn’t just disappear, it’s that your body keeps less. When a person dies, he could still lose a slight amount due to the moisture in the last breath that he exhaled, any any skin moisture that evaporates. Other than that, I don’t think a body should lose weight at death. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2010, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/95 "2010-04-27T11:55:51Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Seems that way to me too. Heck, photons are material and they don’t even have weight. The problem here, I think, is that no one has ever defined “spiritual.” > > If mass (weight) is lost, that mass has to go somewhere. When you lose weight from not eating, the mass doesn’t just disappear, it’s that your body keeps less. When a person dies, he could still lose a slight amount due to the moisture in the last breath that he exhaled, any any skin moisture that evaporates. Other than that, I don’t think a body should lose weight at death. Where does the weight go? And a skeleton of an obese person has a lot less weight than it did when it had all the fat and flesh. Doesn’t the burning of fat go to energy? I ask, because I have no idea, just that the atoms of fat become energy when the fat is burned. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2010, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/96 "2010-04-27T13:01:18Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > Where does the weight go? And a skeleton of an obese person has a lot less weight than it did when it had all the fat and flesh. Doesn’t the burning of fat go to energy? I ask, because I have no idea, just that the atoms of fat become energy when the fat is burned. If you’re talking about mass converting directly to energy, that can’t account for any significant loss of mass, because even a slight amount of mass has a huge energy in a relativistic sense. The chemical reactions involved in metabolism and decay of tissue can be accurately figured without loss of mass. So if a corpse loses weight, there are actual atoms that have to leave the corpse somehow. My guess would be by the water in the corpse (you have a very large amount of water in your body) finding its way out and evaporating. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2010, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/97 "2010-04-28T11:46:24Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > If you’re talking about mass converting directly to energy, that can’t account for any significant loss of mass, because even a slight amount of mass has a huge energy in a relativistic sense. The chemical reactions involved in metabolism and decay of tissue can be accurately figured without loss of mass. > > So if a corpse loses weight, there are actual atoms that have to leave the corpse somehow. My guess would be by the water in the corpse (you have a very large amount of water in your body) finding its way out and evaporating. Thanks. Then the atoms return to part of the universe? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2010, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/98 "2010-04-28T13:49:29Z")
Well, yeah. More specifically, the water molecules evaporate into the air and join the water cycle here on Earth. Some of the molecules in that water you just drank evaporated from a human corpse at one time. Yum! Similarly, I had heard this before, and my calculations support that it’s true: with each breath of air you breathe, some of the molecules you’re breathing were exhaled by Julius Caesar with his last breath. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/99 "2010-04-28T13:54:10Z")
I’ll apologize for not reading the whole thread, but I recently came across a website that might help answer the OP’s question (and related ones) about reconciling evolution with Christian faith. It’s the [BioLogos Forum](http://biologos.org/), founded by Dr. Francis Collins (of the Human Genome Project and Director of NIH). Specifically regarding the OP’s question: > [@BioLogos](#): > > [At what point in the evolutionary process did humans attain the “Image of God”?](http://biologos.org/questions/image-of-god/) [snip] The soul is a complex, mysterious concept representing the essence of a person. Author Walter M. Miller, Jr., described it this way: “You don’t have a soul… You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”7 There are many opinions about the meaning of the soul, but nothing about its existence is threatened by the BioLogos view… there is no simple way to establish when it first makes sense to start referring to human souls. Perhaps the soul was bestowed as a part of humans receiving the image of God (Genesis 1:27).8 Perhaps human souls appeared with the breath of life that God breathes into his creation, as described in Genesis 2:7. We also cannot know whether God directly intervened in the evolutionary process at this point, or whether the unfolding evolutionary process produced the human soul.9 The Bible says that the same life-giving breath was given to animals, and some people have inferred from this that animals have souls as well. > > That humans live and breathe and have their being in relationship to God is one of the deepest mysteries of our existence. Perhaps we should not be surprised that no simple model for this has yet been developed. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/100 "2010-04-29T12:06:15Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I’ll apologize for not reading the whole thread, but I recently came across a website that might help answer the OP’s question (and related ones) about reconciling evolution with Christian faith. It’s the [BioLogos Forum](http://biologos.org/), founded by Dr. Francis Collins (of the Human Genome Project and Director of NIH). Specifically regarding the OP’s question: That is one man’s opinion,but it still doesn’t answer the question of what is the difference between soul and life. If we are souls in a body, why is the body responsible for the soul? according to Bible beliefs The body dies and the soul either suffers for all eternity, or spends eternity in total happiness depending on what the body does! It talks of losing one’s soul. Yet according to Genesis the punishment for sin was death. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344.md?page=6)