# 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:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**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 29, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/101 "2010-04-29T15:06:11Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > 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. Anything you read on the subject will be somebody’s opinion. Like the part I quoted says, there are many different understandings of what it means to have a soul. But I would caution you to not think of our bodies as just a physical receptical for our souls, and that our bodies die and decay while the soul lives on. That’s Dualism and is not consistant with classic orthodox Chrisitanity. In Christian theology, our bodies are raised to eternal life again just as our souls are. We are given new “heavenly” bodies – think how the Bible describes Jesus after his resurrection: he still has a physical, but transformed, body. In other words, you are not a soul inside a body. Your body is as much a part of you as your soul is. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/102 "2010-04-29T15:49:10Z")
I hope I don’t have to suffer through an afterlife with my current set of feet. It would really suck to have to endure the fires of perdition while my feet hurt. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/103 "2010-04-29T16:36:53Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > If souls evolved gradually like other physical features, that raises the possibility that some animals alive today might have souls, or “proto-souls”. If true, that would have some profound ethical implications. Maybe, maybe not. I think _most_ people believe that we should treat intelligent animals better than, say, plants, but not elevate them to the same level as people. This is true both of people who believe in souls and those who don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/104 "2010-04-29T16:48:37Z")
I believe each of us is born with a soul. When we take our first breath till our last. Our soul is like a finger print and no two of us are alike. Working with the elderly and seeing people die in front of me you can almost see the soul leaving the body. The soul is the essance of us. Without our souls we would all be the same. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/105 "2010-04-29T16:52:54Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > Without our souls we would all be the same. That’s demonstrably not true. “Who we are” seems to be dependent on the neuron interconnections of our brains, and that’s different for every person. ---
**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 29, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/106 "2010-04-29T18:16:40Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I hope I don’t have to suffer through an afterlife with my current set of feet. It would really suck to have to endure the fires of perdition while my feet hurt. No worries, your body will be ‘fixed.’ Although, curiously, Jesus’ body still had the holes in his hands and feet. Anglican bishop and theologian N.T. Wright wrote an excellent book on heaven and bodily resurrection, some of which is excerpted [here](http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/april/13.36.html). > [@](#): > > There is no agreement in the church today about what happens to people when they die. Yet the New Testament is crystal clear on the matter: In a classic passage, Paul speaks of “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). There is no room for doubt as to what he means: God’s people are promised a new type of bodily existence, the fulfillment and redemption of our present bodily life. The rest of the early Christian writings, where they address the subject, are completely in tune with this. > > The traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage, postmortem journey represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. Bodily resurrection is not just one odd bit of that hope. It is the element that gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story of God’s ultimate purposes. His new book is called _Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church_ which I am looking forward to reading. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/107 "2010-04-30T00:30:04Z")
A personal conversation with a friend resulted in this reply…I think its relevant. \*History is not only writ large. The “bit players” of human history actually do change the universe. Literally. There are billions of folks throwing rocks of cause-and-effect into the universal pond and where the concentric cirles redound (not to mention how they interact with each other) is often hard to predict. Nevertheless, each person is absolutely unique and has a very specific relationship to the rest of the world. Once one is gone, that specific relationship cannot be replaced or replicated. So what we do does matter. There is a point. And though in most cases our lives will not become part of recorded history to be passed into remembrance (and honor and glory), they will have accomplished something more vital: for better or worse, each life changes the composition of the world. It’s one of the reasons why Leibniz called this “the best of all possible worlds.” Choose wisely and perhaps as important, choose with moderation. Think about where you fit into the scheme of things and accept the truth that even if our lives seem small, they are not. Talk about equality! You are just as important as George Washington–it just may not seem like it on the surface. We all have our trials and tribulations. And it all boils down to–"there’s one of you and there’s one of not-you, and we call the “not-you” the rest of the universe. Tough concept I’ll try to illustrate with some thoughts about the workplace. I’m an elitist and I’m also a proletarian. Nothing wrong about getting some dirt under the fingernails. Nothing wrong with being ambitious, either. Lots of nitty-gritty ways to earn consumption tickets are more honorable than the kinds of lifestyles we see splashed throughout the media. Who’s more useful to society, you or I with our blue-collarish work, or some banker who makes his daily bread fucking over many people and society-at-large? Or some corporate insurance asswipe who denies some kid the cancer treatment he needs on the basis of an actuarial table? We sell our labor, our sweat and our know-how, not our souls. Our souls require consideration far broader than that which is found in a workplace. Would that more people understood that because if they did, perhaps there would be a lot less evil around us, not only in the workplace but in the totality of life, too. So, if you get down on yourself amidst the mindless banality and bullshit found in all workplaces, or if someone “more socially respectful” than you looks down on you as though you were a nothing, a peon, remind yourself like this: “It’s a good thing I don’t locate my sense of identity merely in the way I sell my labor. I’m more than that.”\* ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/108 "2010-04-30T13:11:32Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Anything you read on the subject will be somebody’s opinion. Like the part I quoted says, there are many different understandings of what it means to have a soul. > > But I would caution you to not think of our bodies as just a physical receptical for our souls, and that our bodies die and decay while the soul lives on. That’s Dualism and is not consistant with classic orthodox Chrisitanity. In Christian theology, our bodies are raised to eternal life again just as our souls are. We are given new “heavenly” bodies – think how the Bible describes Jesus after his resurrection: he still has a physical, but transformed, body. > > In other words, you are not a soul inside a body. Your body is as much a part of you as your soul is. There is no proof of a soul living on, just belief, we like to think we are better than animals and do not like the idea of not living on. The Bible also has Jesus trying to prove he wasn’t a spirit, but still flesh and blood. But Jesus didn’t come back in glory with His angels as he told the people that he would, while some of them were still living. So, there are a lot of reasons not to believe what some person has written, we believe what we like to believe That is why religion is based on faith not fact. ---
**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 30, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/109 "2010-04-30T13:54:38Z")
I didn’t claim proof, **monavis** , I was just describing a classic theological understanding of the soul, and bodily resurrection. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/110 "2010-05-02T12:14:35Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I didn’t claim proof, **monavis** , I was just describing a classic theological understanding of the soul, and bodily resurrection. I understand, but theologins are just humans, giving their opinion about their beliefs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344.md?page=5)