4.3 A Living Soul

As I read through the first two lessons of this chapter, I realize that I have accomplished my purposes, and that is to cause for us a transfer of thinking from ignorance to wholeness. And part of that transfer requires changes in our language and in the words that we use. Feel free to continue using the language of this world in conversation with others; nonetheless, inside the study of Symmorphy, we must adhere to this new way of speaking.

In this lesson we want to talk about the personal you, the human soul existing at the junction of spirit and physic, inside a world of life, Jerusalem our Home, the full fusion of heaven and earth together. This is our life; this is our story.

Persons of Integrity. I once read someone boasting in ignorance. “I am a spirit being trapped temporarily in a physical body, and I have a soul.” This statement comes from the triumph of Gnostic ignorance, the victory of the tree of splitting apart, that is, of death.

God made humans as living souls, existing at the point of juncture between spirit and physic. God made each one of us as distinct persons of integrity.

The study of Symmorphy rejects Norman Grubb’s definition of the word “person,” that there is only one “person.” It also rejects the word “oneness.” The Spirit is one. But the importance of love one another requires us to define persons as distinct and of great value.

The Joining of Two. Then, consider where most life exists inside of Jerusalem. Yes, there are animals and spirits that live under the earth and that fly high in the heavens. But the vast majority of living beings, animals, humans, and angels, live and move in that thin layer right at the joining of atmosphere and earth. In the same way, our lives, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, happens right at this same junction of spirit and physic together.

Let’s bring in again our initial definition of a living soul. – As a human, I am a story of words inside of a spirit self-awareness. The spirit/heaven part of my being causes me to be aware of myself, and the physic/earth part gives form to my story.

The “Land.” Consider the word, “the land.” When you think of the land, you do not think of the air above the land, even though that air is part of the atmosphere of your thoughts. And when you think of the land, you do not think of the foundation of rock deep underneath, even though that foundation is part of the knowing of your thoughts. When you think of “the land,” you think of the story of life happening right at the juncture of the two.

I am a living soul. I am a story of words inside of a spirit self-awareness. As such, I know spirit as it breathes upon me and I know physic as it walks upon a rock. Nonetheless, my knowing of myself is all the words that describe for me both my memories of life and my every present moment.

Fellowship, Not “Oneness.” More than that, my soul, my story of self, is entwined entirely together with other things, both with other living persons, humans, angels, and animals, and with things inanimate and non-personal, whether primarily physic or primarily spirit. Yet it is not they themselves that are inside my story of self, rather, it is my thoughts concerning them. We are NEVER symmorphic with other humans, for that would be evil; the correct word for our relationship together, coming out from symmorphy, is “fellowship,” not “oneness.”

The human soul, then, is three parts always working together, mind, emotions, and desire. Notice that we have removed the word “will,” in this context, as something fixed and unmoving. Desire, rather, is a movement towards intention.

Three Aspects of Study. In this lesson, then, I want to consider the human soul from three points of view. First, we will look at the three parts of our soul – mind, desire, and emotions – what they are and how they work together. Notice, we do not say “brain,” which is part of our physic. Second, we will look at the integrity of our persons, the very essence of our humanity. It is this aspect of our soul that is connected directly with God’s thoughts concerning us. And third, we will look a bit more at the meaning of the “story” we tell ourselves about ourselves. This is referencing our thoughts concerning ourselves as well as concerning God and everything else.

The Mind. The human mind is the most complex of all of our parts – even after years of development, computers still are unable to replicate things the mind can do that are just natural to us. The reason is that computers are physic only. There can never be any spirit anointing of any kind upon their operation. That statement reassures us that “artificial intelligence” will never become the fantasies of those who imagine physical-only. All human thoughts are as anointed by spirit as spoken word.

Three organs of the body (and when we say, “body,” we mean our entire form, physic and spirit together) are involved with human thinking at various levels, the brain, the heart, and the gut. The relationships among these are unstudied and unknown.

The Thoughts of the Heart. Our perception of ourselves is found at the front part of our brain, just above and behind our eyes, the “nous” in the Greek. At the same time, our underlying definitions, how we truly view all things underneath the surface noise, including our real persons inside, is the operation of our heart-gut mind, or “phroneo” in the Greek. Yet all human thoughts occur only at the juncture of the “spirit-mind” with the brain and with the heart-gut.

The thoughts of the heart direct the flow and chatter of the thoughts of the mind. Thus changing the thoughts of the heart is a much bigger deal than any change in surface thinking. My primary goal as a teacher is to change your definitions of “God” and thus of yourself at the deepest levels of your heart-gut thinking.

Emotions and Desire. Human emotions, then, are found in a portion of the brain as well as scattered written through every cell of the physic. Thus emotions are tied closely to the molecules of our cells.

Human desire, the direction of the choices that we make, is found in the heart-gut and comes out from our deepest definitions of ourselves and of our world. Human desire is where we first join together with the Lord Jesus, His desire meeting our thirst. This is where we answer that most important question – What do you want? Faith, then, that gives God permission to enter into our souls, is part of human desire and its portion of our heart-gut mind.

Mind, emotions, and desires all express themselves by words. 

Three Domains. An educator is concerned with all three of these dimensions of the human soul, except the field of education refers to them as the cognitive domain, the motivational domain, and the affective domain. Educational researchers have mapped out seven levels of operation inside each of these three domains, in order to be sure that classroom instruction challenges and trains the students at every level of their souls. I have always loved these charts and pondered them deeply to know myself as well as to know how what I present in the classroom might challenge the entire fabric of their souls. Modern schooling, however, leaves children quite stunted.

Respect. The primary reason that children in modern education grow up stunted is the lack of respect for their persons. This lack of respect comes at them from every direction. Disrespect is the normal environment or context in the absence of love. Love is full respect and honor of another’s person.

When we say, “God loves me,” we mean that God respects me in all integrity and that He honors the thoughts, desires, and feelings of my human person. God-Love is not a superior and distant Being doing something to me. God-Love is a meek and lowly Being sharing my life with me because in His mind, that is simply the best thing He likes to do.

Full Completion. One who respects his own soul also respects God; one who respects God also respects his own soul. It is primarily in the human soul that we humans are the mirror image of God, for as we are whole, so our thoughts concerning ourselves reflect God’s thoughts concerning us.

Respecting the integrity of our own persons, then, is the quality that rules the heart-gut mind. And respecting the integrity of one another’s persons is God among us. Think of this – Receiving the full completion of your faith, the salvation and healing of your souls (1 Peter 1:9). – Receiving the respect that we ARE the expression of God’s thoughts concerning us and giving that same respect to God and others in return. Tithemi psuche – set forth soul.

Sharing Life Together. So – we live our lives at rest in God, that His thoughts concerning us, spoken as power-filled words by the Lord Jesus, become all the fabric of our human soul, our thoughts, desires, and emotions through that wondrously miraculous ability of Jesus that the Bible calls “symmorphy.” And then God our Father joins together with us inside of Jesus’ own soul, that we might share life together. This is the center and core of a wholesome story of self, the thoughts, feelings, and desires of a fully “saved” soul.

We are the thoughts that we think, the story of words about ourselves that we weave. Those thoughts are influenced by our emotions and directed by our desires, but they are us.

A Story of Words. Human consciousness is a story of words inside of a spirit self-awareness. What story do we tell ourselves about ourselves? What story lines govern our perceptions of who and what we are?

This course is not about human redemption, however, but human completion. And so we want to consider the story of self as God and you together released into all singing joy. God created you as His mirror image for a purpose, and that purpose is so that you would be so like Him, that He and you could walk in a shared fellowship together, enjoying unending rich communion in everything you personally enjoy.

Fellowship. And God made us members of one another as part of being like Him so that our fellowship with one another in shared life together could be the mirror image of God’s fellowship with us.

The human soul is what we are; the human soul is where we live with God, inside Jesus’ own soul. And the human soul is the richness of our shared life together, knowing God and knowing one another in all respect and honor – with pure hearts fervently. It is for this reason that the meaning of social and personal must be part of the definition of human construction.

Fellowship is how we are most like God, the avenue in our design through which God Himself enters into our world.

The Best Story of All. Our human person is the fusing together of heaven and earth, spirit and physic, a living soul. Consider, then, that Jerusalem is also the fusing together of heaven and earth, spirit and physic, a living planet. Then we must ask the question, does Jerusalem also have a “soul,” a story of words inside of a spirit-self-awareness?

Here is our answer. As you and I LOVE ONE ANOTHER, in the exact same way that Jesus loves us, then our story together, here inside this living context and location, is indeed the soul of Jerusalem, our home. It is Father through us at home inside our world.

And that is the best story of all.