What is a soul? Do I have one?

A soul is the part of a human being that is made by God to be like God.

And yes, you do have a soul! But there is a good reason why some people will tell you that you don't. It has to do with what people think about how the universe and the world and all the things on the earth were created. There are two versions of all that. One is the Scientific version, and one is the Biblical version.

The Scientific version says that in the beginning, there was a very, very dense thing called a singularity, and it exploded. The explosion caused an intense bright light of radiation. Particles of matter radiated, or streamed, out of the light and eventually formed the universe and everything in it, including human beings.

It took billions and billions of years for everything to get made, because some things started out all by themselves, other things evolved instead of starting out all by themselves, and still other things evolved out of the things that had themselves evolved. In fact, new things are still evolving out of old things even today.

Science has also shown that it is very likely that human beings and apes evolved like that. We both evolved from a common ancestor, like two branches growing from a single tree trunk. And although nobody knows what that ancestor might be, and no body knows where his bones might lie, lots and lots of people are looking for him all over the planet.

The Biblical version says that God created the universe and everything in it and then He created human beings in His own image. And He did all of these things in only six days. That's true enough. And some people say that because the Bible says we are made in the image of God, we can't possibly be descended from the same ancestor as the apes.

Just knowing what the two versions are doesn't help much, does it? Some people think we have to choose one or the other of these two theories, because they think the theories contradict each other.

But they don't really conflict as long as you are willing to look at the facts. We are supposed to know the facts and we are supposed to believe that nothing known to be true scientifically will ever conflict with anything God reveals to us. Doesn't that sound simple?

Let's see how we can reconcile the two versions. Remember, one version says it took billions of years for the universe and everything in it to form, and that human beings evolved from some other animal. The other version says it took six days for God to create the earth and everything in it, and that human beings are made in the image of God

Let's look at the six days business. Science has decided that a "day" is the amount of time it takes for a planet to rotate one time on its axis. This means that if one planet rotates one time in ten hours, its day is ten hours long. If another planet rotates one time in twenty-four hours, its day is twenty-four hours long. That's how long the earth's day is.

In the Bible, it tells us that the earth was created on the third day. This means that there was no such thing as an earth day for the first two days of creation. This means that the Bible has to mean some other kind of day; perhaps a Divine day. And because Scientific truth and Biblical truth cannot conflict with each other, the logical conclusion is that one Divine day is billions of earth years long.

Then there's the matter of whether we have souls.

The Bible says God created us in his image. But God isn't made of flesh and blood like we are. He doesn't have arms and legs and eyebrows and things like that, so how could He create our bodies, which do have these things, in His image? The answer is that He didn't. He made our bodies out of the dust of the earth, just like he made all the bodies of all the other animals out of the dust of the earth. We know this because Science has proven that our bodies are made of the same kinds of chemicals and stuff that other animal bodies are made of. So there must be some other part of us that is made in God's image, right?

Well, could it be our minds that are made in God's image? Most human beings have reason and the ability to use logic, and certainly these things are very powerful and worthy of being thought to be Godlike! And maybe they are Godlike. But some human beings are mentally retarded and do not have the ability to reason at all. If it were our minds that were made in God's image, then those people would not be able to be considered human beings! But we know they are human beings, so it can't be our minds that are made in God's image. There must be some other part of us that is made in His image. But what is left?

Well, what do we know about God? We know God is creative. After all, He created the universe and all the things in it. And we know that human beings are creative, too. Not as creative as God, because we can't create whole universes, but we can create stories about universes. And we can paint and sculpt and compose beautiful music. We can design houses and even make up new recipes for chicken soup. And all of this is proof that human beings are creative. Then there is our ability to make choices and our ability to make up our minds to do something , called our Will. And we know God has Will, because He made up His mind to create a universe and then just did it.

Then there is our ability to love other people. Everyone in the whole world loves someone or something. We can't help it. Even people who are angry and bitter and nasty and mean have still loved someone, somewhere, at some time in their lives. And we know God loves us because we can feel that love inside ourselves when we slow down and sit still and pay attention to it. Everyone can feel God's love, but some people won't let themselves. I don't know why they won't, but there it is.

Then there is our ability to laugh and to find things that are funny about the strangest situations. We know God has a sense of humor because He created things like the Dodo and the Ostrich and the Penguin. Humans can think about the future and make plans for it and then work the plan until we reach our goals. God thought about the future, too, when He sent Jesus to deliver the message of Salvation.

All these abilities in human beings are like very small reflections of God's abilities, but every human has them to one degree or another. So we can conclude that whatever part of human beings is responsible for these abilities is the part that is made in God's image. And we have chosen to call that part "soul."

In other languages, it is called something else, but all the words in all the languages that get translated into English as "soul" mean "that part of a human being that is made in the Image of God."

Someday, Science may very well be able to point to one small spot in our brains and say, "This is where we keep our feelings of love." and "Over here is where we store our creativity," and "This spot holds our sense of humor." And that's fine. It will be very nice to know where we store all these things.

And science may also be able to tell us how our emotions work, and how our creativity works and how our sense of humor works.

But Science will never be able to tell us why these things work the way they do, because Science will never be able to locate the human soul. Science will never be able to find it because Science can only deal with issues of matter and energy, and our souls are neither of these.

From all this, we can conclude that our souls are the part of us that make it possible for us to love, to laugh, to create, to achieve our goals, and to be virtuous and morally straight.

And that means that everyone can love, laugh, create, achieve his goals, and be virtuous and morally straight (whether or not he does any of these things) and that everyone has a soul, whether or not he believes he does.