When Stephen was dying, he knew he would immediately pass into the presence of the Lord, for he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). A trichotomist might argue that these passages are still treating the soul and spirit as different things, for when a person dies both soul and spirit go to heaven. But Scripture never says that a person’s “soul and spirit” departed or went to heaven or were yielded to God. If soul and spirit were separate things, we would expect that would be affirmed somewhere, if only to assure the reader that no essential part of the person is left behind. But the biblical authors do not seem to care whether they say that the soul departs or the spirit departs at death, for both seem to mean the same thing. 3. Man is said to be either “body and soul” or “body and spirit.” I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” —Revelation 20:4 We certainly have spiritual abilities that make us different from animals: we are able to relate to God in worship and prayer, and we enjoy spiritual life in fellowship with God who is spirit. But we shouldn’t assume that we have a distinct element called “spirit” that allows us to do this. We can use our minds we can love God, read and understand his words, and believe his Word to be true. Our souls can worship God and rejoice in him. Our bodies will also be resurrected and live with God forever.

Many trichotomists say that they have a spiritual perception or awareness of God’s presence that affects them differently than their ordinary thinking processes and emotional experiences. Trichotomists also argue that when we become Christians our spirits come alive: “But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10). If all people have souls, but only Christians have spirits that are “alive,” doesn’t this imply a distinction between soul and spirit? Finally, let’s look at the reasons some scholars believe people have the soul and spirit are distinct. While many of these reasons start with Scripture, most scholars challenge them. We’ll look at the counter-arguments as well. Paul lists body, soul, and spirit together As we mentioned in our discussion of monism, Scripture is very clear that we do have a soul that is distinct from our physical bodies, which not only can function somewhat independently of our ordinary thought processes (1 Corinthians 14:14 and Romans 8:16), but also, when we die, is able to go on consciously acting and relating to God apart from our physical bodies.

Here the word “soul” clearly refers to the part of a person that exists after death. It cannot mean “person” or “life,” for it would not make sense to speak of those who “kill the body but cannot kill the person,” or who “kill the body but cannot kill the life,” unless there is some aspect of the person that lives on after the body is dead. Furthermore, when Jesus talks about “soul and body” he seems to be clearly talking about the entire person even though he does not mention “spirit” as a separate component. The word “soul” seems to stand for the entire nonphysical part of man.

Those who advocate trichotomy face a difficult problem defining exactly what the difference is between the soul and the spirit. If Scripture clearly supported the idea that our spirit is the part of us that directly relates to God in worship and prayer, while our soul includes our intellect (thinking), our emotions (feeling), and our will (deciding), then trichotomists would have a strong case. But Scripture doesn’t appear to allow such a distinction. Outside the realm of evangelical thought we find yet another view, the idea that man cannot exist at all apart from a physical body, and therefore the “soul” can’t exist separately after the body dies (although this view can allow for the resurrection of the whole person at some future time).

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Paul certainly distinguishes a person who is “natural” ( psychikos, “soul-ish”) from one that is “spiritual” ( pneumatikos, “spiritual”) in 1 Corinthians 2:14–3:4. But in this context “spiritual” seems to mean “influenced by the Holy Spirit,” since the entire passage is talking about the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing truth to believers. But the passage doesn’t imply that Christians have a spirit and non-Christians don’t, or that the spirit of a Christian is alive and the spirit of a non-Christian isn’t. Paul isn’t talking about different parts of man at all, but about being influenced by the Holy Spirit. Paul appears to make a distinction between his spirit and his mind When Paul says, “Your spirits are alive because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10), he apparently means “alive to God,” but he doesn’t imply that our spirits were completely “dead” before, only that they were living out of fellowship with God and were dead in that sense. In the same way, we as whole persons were “dead” in “trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), but we were made alive to God, and we now must consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God” (Romans 6:11).

When Paul says, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful” (1 Corinthians 14:14), isn’t he implying that his mind does something different from his spirit? And doesn’t this support the trichotomist’s argument that our mind and our thinking are part of our souls, not our spirit? Thessalonians 5:23 appears to suggest there are three parts to every person: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”If we believe that lists of terms tell us about the distinct parts to a person, then when we add spirit to this list (and perhaps body as well), we have five or six separate parts! It’s far better to understand Jesus as simply piling up roughly synonymous terms for emphasis to demonstrate that we must love God with all of our being. Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Paul is not saying that soul and spirit are distinct entities, but simply that, whatever our immaterial part is called, he wants God to continue to sanctify us wholly to the day of Christ. The Word of God divides soul and spirit When we look at the usage of the biblical words translated “soul” (Hebrew “ nephesh” and Greek “ psychē”) and “spirit” (Hebrew “ rûach” and Greek “ pneuma”), it appears that they are sometimes used interchangeably. Christians have a “spiritual perception” or inner awareness of the presence of God experienced in worship and in prayer. At this deep inward level we can also at times feel spiritually troubled, or depressed, or perhaps have a sense of the presence of hostile demonic forces. Often this perception is distinct from our conscious, rational thought processes. As we discussed above, Paul realizes that at times his spirit prays but his mind does not understand (1 Corinthians 14:14). However, man is also sometimes said to be “body and spirit.” Paul wants the Corinthian church to deliver a sinful brother to Satan “for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 5:5). Paul hasn’t forgotten that the man’s soul would be saved, too; he simply uses the word “spirit” to refer to the man’s entire immaterial existence.