Soul vs spirit

[BethM]

So I recently signed up for an online program on discernment by a teacher I greatly respect in the Christian mystical tradition (who is also an ordained Episcopal priest). In this teaching, she makes a differentiation between soul and spirit as follows:

Soul - the deeper voice of our deeper self
Spirit - the highest, most true and clear voice of our loftiest aspirations

Given the Padgett messages, it seems to me to be the other way around, and out of curiosity, I checked on what Christianity says in general about soul vs spirit, and more often than not found something like this:

While the two words are often used interchangeably, the primary distinction between soul and spirit in man is that the soul is the animate life, or the seat of the senses, desires, affections, and appetites. The spirit is that part of us that connects, or refuses to connect, to God.

Again, backwards from Padgett.

I did find this article on the subject of the original Greek and Hebrew in the Old and New Testaments, so bookmarked it for myself in case I really want to go down this rabbit hole (probably not a productive use of my time). But I thought I'd post here just in case someone had a thought. Eva maybe?

[Geoff]

Dear Beth,

One can talk about God's Spirit I guess, but my understanding of the human "spirit" is that it is no more and no less than a term for the life force that is sustained by God's Energy. Everything that is "higher" about us comes from soul.

hugs
Geoff

[Eva]

Hello Beth,

I only just saw this post and will respond briefly for now.

Soul is our being or identity -- each of us is a soul. It is connected with the heart and separate from the mind. It is what potentially connects us with God and what is in the image of God's soul, but can be transformed into Divine Substance by the Divine Love.

As far as spirit, that word can have several meanings and contexts. This message https://new-birth.net/padgetts-messages ... ol-1-pg76/ sheds a bit of light:

It is said that man is composed of body, soul and spirit, and this is true. From your life’s experience you know what the body is, and I have told you what the soul is, and now the question arises, what is the spirit? I know that there have been for centuries great differences of opinion among theologians and other wise men as to what the spirit is; some contending that it and the soul are the same thing, and others, that the spirit is the real ego3 of man and the soul something of less quality and subordinate to the spirit, and others having other views, and all wrong, for as I have said the soul is the ego, and everything else connected with man and forming a part at his creation when he was pronounced to be “very good,” is subordinate to the soul, and only its instrumentality for manifesting itself.

As Jesus has told you, the spirit is the active energy of the soul and the instrumentality by which the soul manifests itself; and this definition applies to the spirit of man while a mortal as well as when he becomes an inhabitant of the spirit world. The spirit is inseparable from the soul, and has no function in the existence of man, except to make manifest the potentialities of the soul in its activities. Spirit is not life, but it may become an evidence of life - it is life’s breath.

And as man was created in the image of his Maker - and as spirit is only the active energy of the soul, by the application of the principle of correspondences, which one of your former psychics declared to exist, it may be assumed and it is truth, that the Holy Spirit is the active energy of the Great Soul of the Father, and, as we know from our experiences and observations, is used as the messenger of the Father to convey to mankind His Divine Love. And I do not mean to restrict the mission of the Holy Spirit to mankind in the flesh, for it also conveys and bestows this Great Love upon the souls of the Father’s children who are spirits without the bodies of bone and flesh, and who are inhabitants of the spirit world. And so, it is a truth that the Holy Spirit is not God and no part of the Godhead, but merely His messenger of Truth and Love emanating from his Great Soul and bringing to man Love and Light and Happiness.

So you see there is no mystery of the Godhead, and no secret that God does not wish man to know and understand, and no truth that it is contrary to God’s laws and will that man shall search for and possess. It is said that God is Spirit, and it is true; but spirit is not God, only one of his instruments used to work with mankind and the spirits of men. To worship the instrument is blasphemy, and only God alone must be worshiped. Jesus must not be worshiped as God, the Holy Spirit must not be so worshiped, and the sooner men learn this Truth and observe it the sooner they will get in at-onement with the Father, and please the master, who, as some may not know, is the greatest worshiper of the Father in all his universe.

I hope this helps.

Love,
Eva