SOUL of man, The, Sylvester Hassell “Dichotomy maintains that human nature has only two distinct sub-stances or elements —body and soul or spirit. Trichotomy maintains that there are in man three elements, body, soul, and spirit. In the account of man’s creation (Gen. 2:7) and of man’s death (Eccl. 12:7) only two principles are mentioned—that which is called soul in Genesis being called spirit in Ecclesiastes. See also II Cor. 5:1-8, Phil. 1:23, 24, Acts 7:59. The Hebrew and Greek terms, in the Scriptures, translated soul, spirit, mind, heart, and life, are often used interchangeably, and denote the immaterial principle that man derived from God, each of these terms, however, being frequently employed to denote a particular aspect or function of attribute of that principle. The Greek and Roman philosophers taught that man had three constituent elements; and, in conformity with the usage of his contemporaries, Paul says “spirit, soul, and body,” to express the whole of man’s nature (I Thess. 5:23). In Hebrews 4:12, the term “herat” includes the two terms “soul and spirit,” the lower and higher faculties of the mind. In Luke 1:46, 47, soul and spirit are the same principle.” (Hassell)
As to the origin of the souls of Adam’s posterity, it should forever abase the pride of human philosophy that it is unable to solve this first and nearest mystery of man’s existence—it cannot tell whether each soul is derived by direct creation from God, or by traduction from parents according to divine arrangement. (Hassell)