What is a Human?

The human is a trinity of body, soul and spirit. The spirit, which is a child of the Spirit, needs an environment where it can learn how to imitate the Creator, to imitate Christ, to become in our full potential. The ideal such environment is a virtual school called 'life', or 'the human condition', to be more precise. To be able to attend this school the spirit must take to itself a rational, emotive soul (mind) through which it can experience a variety of higher and lower senses. The spirit clothed in a soul garment also need to add another garment, one that should enable it to be mobile in a three dimensional physical world. The spirit willfully enters this restricted state clothed in heavy clothes (like an astronaut walking on the moon) to start learning at grade school level.

The eternal spirit is thus clothed in a fine, temporary, soul/mind garment, over which yet another, much grosser, biological garment is added. The two garments have many arcade game-type fun things built in (like a space suit). It is rather awkward to move around, but it has some stunning toys; like five different types of environment sensors, ten finger-like tools, two hand like tools, fascinating sexual toys, and some sense stimuli with addictive potential, etc. A sort of amnesia sets in and the player seems to forget where it, oops! the spirit in the body now has a gender, s/he comes from. The player seems to think of the game as real as opposed to virtual reality, and experiences this state with the same intensity as if it were for real.

The spirit, so clothed in mind and biological garments, is a child at play in the human condition. The game is called Life, the winner gains simplicity, compassion, humility and gets to go home as a better qualified spirit. The loser gets play-credits and must play the game over and over until, one day within the next few millennia it gets to win.

What is the difference between Body, Soul and Spirit?

The human made up of three parts--Body, Soul and Spirit. To make it simpler, we experience life through three forms--our bodies (physical), our minds (psyche or soul), and our spirits (pneuma). People have studied these different parts of humankind for many years. They call the study of the body physiology. They call the study of the mind psychology and the study of the spirit is called pneumatology.

The spirit is the only part of the three that is immortal; it is the only part that cannot die. Our spirits move on to other places, waiting to be reincarnated. They wait to be put into another body with another soul. This is the only way the spirit can learn how to be perfect. The functions of the three parts are explained in brief below:

The Body

The main function of the body is to provide movement on this three-dimensional planet and sensory input. The body also acts as a 'house' for the soul and the spirit. The soul needs to experience emotions, surroundings, etc. The only way that the soul can move is when it is inside a body. The body is not immortal it cannot live forever.

The Soul

Everything the soul experiences, like emotions or thoughts, print impressions onto the spirit. The spirit needs all these impressions, these images, to grow. The soul takes its emotions and expressions from the body, which travels to different places, meets different people and meets many, many emotions. The soul transfers these emotions onto the spirit, which then uses it to learn, to grow - and finally to become perfect. Like the body, the soul is a temporary vehicle - if one defines "death" as a passing from an animate to an inanimate state then the soul may be said to die  soon after the body.  The soul is referred to by Jesus (and his predeccessors) as psyche which the Latin Scriptures translated as anima -- thus a souled being is animated, is an animal--and a dead being is inanimate or the anima departed from the being.

more about soul--->

The Spirit

The spirit is the essence of a person. Its goal is to become perfect, to become like Christ through the process of theosis. That is the only reason the spirit exists, to become perfect. The spirit gets certain of it stimuli from the soul, and body. The spirit is the only part of humanity that is immortal - it does not die and can never die. Until the spirit is perfect, like Christ, it will keep reincarnating. It will keep taking up a body and soul until it becomes like Christ, even if it takes another billion years.

Why the confusion in the West between Soul and Spirit?

This is a most valid question.  The early (pre 4th century) western church fathers doctors were well read in both Greek, the language the earliest Bible scriptures were written.  But then the Empire split in a Greek and Latin section and the Roman church would have no Greek in it so they had to translate the Scriptures into Latin (see Jerome).  Of course the translators knew both languages very well and were obviously confronted with the two different words used by Jesus and his following: psyche, soma and pneuma (spirit, soul, body).  Why then in the translations do we not see those words correctly translated?  Why, today, do priests and theologians of the western churches not know the difference between these two concepts but the East had it proper since Jesus?  Look to politics in the church around the early 6th century and particularly the year 533 for the reason.  Jesus' teaching of eternal spirit, temporary soul and reincarnation did not serve the church's (read state) purpose to have absolute control over a cult member's destiny.  It would be better if there was but one life followed by eternal bliss (if you paid your dues and was a good subject) or eternal pain (if you were a difficult subject).  What fear could the state (church) yield over members if they could believe in a loving, peaceful God and reincarnation?  In 533 the western church formally banned Jesus' teaching of reincarnation and the eternal spiritual being--and along with the ban came the burning of thousands of books and even theologians.

PS.

The Pope formally reversed Galileo's excommunication (for saying the earth is not the centre of the universe) and subsequent residence in hell about 10 years ago.  They realized they made a mistake.  Maybe it is time the western churches realize they have no power over the new breed of literate and thinking people -- maybe it is time to believe Jesus again.