Originally Posted by An old paper of mine on Plato

By simple definition, nothing can be said to be simultaneously moving and still at the same time. A car cannot be traveling at 30mph and be stopped at a red light at the same moment. And like wise, if someone countered and said, “Well I can stand still and move my arms at the same time,” we could retort, “Well your arms are moving and are not still, and simultaneously your feet are firmly planted on the ground and are not moving. Therefore you have not proven that the same thing is motionless and moving at the same time.”

Socrates uses this general principle to demonstrate that the soul within each individual has three distinct parts.

Building on the definition that the soul is the animating principle that differentiates a living thing from a non-living thing, Socrates explains that our most basic desires like, hunger, thirst, and the appetites as a whole, are found in this animating principle. Non-living matter does not crave anything, so desires must be found in the soul of living things- another factor, aside from rational capabilities, that demonstrates the difference between living things and non-living ones. And yet things get even more complex when we see someone’s soul crave or desire to eat and refuse to because they have rationally decided to diet for health reasons.

This animating principle, then, is struggling internally within itself between two opposites, to eat and not to eat. This scenario demonstrates that the soul has to have at least two parts because our earlier argument proved that the same thing will not do or undergo opposites like moving and not moving in the same part of itself at the same time.

Socrates calls this calculating contemplative side the rational part, and the side, which lusts, hungers, and thirsts the irrational appetitive part (439d3). Socrates then raises the question, “Now, is the spirited part by which we get angry a third part or is it of the same nature as either of the other two?” (439e) Glaucon suggests that he believes it to be more like the appetitive part, probably because anger seems on the surface irrational, I suppose. In any case, this answer is not satisfying to Socrates who attempts to convince Glaucon that the spirited part makes war, so to speak, against the appetitive part by being angry with the irrational part for its foolish actions taken in part by ones irrational desires after a calculated decision in oneself was formed. And in addition he says, “I don’t think you can say that you’ve ever seen spirit, either in yourself or anyone else, ally itself with the appetite to do what reason has decided must not be done.” (440b) This is a very interesting point. It doesn’t seem logical at all to assume that if the appetite had a legitimate desire, like hunger when the whole body is starving, that the rational side would say no to it. And conversely if the rational side decided not to eat, because it was full, but the appetitive part desired more dessert against the will of this rational decision, the spirited side would never become angry at the rational decision but the irrational since it was not thinking of what was best for the body as a whole. So from this conclusion it seems that there are at least two parts to the soul, and what seems like an additional faction, that part that arouses anger, Socrates calls the spirited side, which seems to be either one in the same with the rational part or allied with the rational part yet separate and distinct from it. The next question addresses this directly, “Is the spirited aspect of the soul a distinct part or is it just a form of the rational side since that is its ally?” Socrates thinks this spirited entity must be a third part. For one thing it conveniently parallels his tripartite kallipolis and additionally he describes how we notice very young children who lack a rational part but are full of spirit (441b). So from this last empirical observation and his other rational deductions Socrates satisfactorily demonstrates that the soul has three distinct parts, a rational, a spirited, and an appetitive from the general principle that the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same part of itself (436b6).

Originally Posted by Paul

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
(1 Thessalonians 5:23)

Originally Posted by Some Christian site

Man is a tri-partite being – spirit, soul and body. It is with his spirit that a man worships, and may contact God. The soul includes the conscious and subconscious minds, the realm of emotions and the will. Soul gives a man personality, self-awareness, rationality and natural feeling. The body is a complex physical creation by which a person relates to this world and to other people in the world. We now know that every person's body is in large measure a product of their DNA code which exists in every cell of the body to program its amazing development. As marvellous as the body may be, man has a non-physical aspect which consists of a different kind of materiality – spirit. It is this part of man that is eternal.

Originally Posted by dongiovanni1976x

What is the distinction of soul and spirit based upon Biblically?

Originally Posted by dongiovanni1976

In the Greek, however, spirit is “pneuma” and translated as "the immortal soul.”

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

None of the Bible's authors makes a clear distinction. Paul is one of the few who even suggests that there is one. Whatever it was, Paul apparently assumed that it was part of his readers' background knowledge.

Originally Posted by Solo

'pneuma' is conceived as divine faculty, i.e. animating, decision-making agency which originates with God, and which transcends life.

Originally Posted by Solo

Psyche in contrast is "the receptor" of the spirit, the seat of emotions, desires and phobias. Often the word is used as meaning "one's (earthly) life".