---There does exist a relationship and a connection between the soul and the body. But what is this relationship and to what extent does it exist? It is a topic which we shall look at here.
Man is made up of body and soul. Each element alone does not constitute a man. St. Justin, the philosopher and martyr, says that the soul by itself is not a man, but is called `a man's soul'. In the same way the body is not called a man but is called `a man's body'. "Though in himself man is neither of these, the combination of the two is called man; God called man into life and resurrection, and he did not call a part, but the whole, which is the soul and the body" (32).

The soul, as we have pointed out, was created with the body at conception. "The embryo is endowed with a soul at conception." The soul is created at conception and "the soul at that time is just as active as the flesh. As the body grows so the soul increasingly manifests its energies" (33).

There is a clear distinction between soul and body, since "the soul is not body but bodiless" (34). Besides, it is altogether impossible for the body and soul to exist or be called body or soul unrelated to and independent of each other. "For the relationship is fixed" (35).

The ancient philosophers believed that the soul is at a specific place in the body, that the body is the prison of the soul and that the salvation of the soul is its release from the body. The Fathers teach that the soul is everywhere in the body. St. Gregory Palamas says that the angels and the soul, as incorporeal beings, "are not located in place, but neither are they everywhere". The soul, as it sustains the body together with which it was created "is everywhere in the body, not as in a place, nor as if it were encompassed, but as sustaining, encompassing and giving life to it because it possesses this too in the image of God" (36).

The same saint, seeing that there are some people (the Hellenisers) who locate the soul in the brain as in an acropolis and that others place it at the very centre of the heart "and in that element therein which is purified of the breath of animal soul" as the most genuine vehicle (Judaisers), says that we know precisely that the intelligent part is in the heart, not as in a container, for it is incorporeal, nor is it outside the heart, since it is conjoined. The heart of man is the controlling organ, the throne of grace, according to Palamas. The nous and all the thoughts of the soul are to be found there. The saint affirms that we received this teaching from Christ Himself, Who is man's Maker. He reminds us of Christ's sayings: "It is not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of it" (Matt.15,11), and: "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts" (Matt.15,19). The saint adds further that St. Makarios said: "The heart directs the entire organism, and when grace gains possession of the heart, it reigns over all the thoughts and all the members, for it is there in the heart that the nous and the soul have their seat." Therefore the basic aim of therapy, he says, is to bring back the nous, "which has been dissipated abroad by the senses from outside the heart", which is "the seat of thoughts" and "the first intelligent organ of the body" (37).

We shall return to this subject, but what we mainly wish to underline is that according to the teaching of the Fathers, the soul uses the heart as its organ and directs the body. The soul is in union with the body; it is no stranger to it. Nemesius of Emesa teaches that "the soul is incorporeal, and not circumscribed to a particular portion of space, but spreading entire throughout: like a sun that spreads wherever its light reaches as well as throughout the body of the sun, not being just a part of the whole that it illuminates, as would be the case if it were not omnipresent in it." Furthermore, "the soul is united to the body and yet remains distinct from it" (38).

The soul activates and directs the whole body and all the members of the body. It is a teaching of the Orthodox Church that God directs the world personally without created intermediaries, by His uncreated energy. Thus, just as God activates the whole of nature, in the same way "the soul too activates the members of the body and moves each member in conformance with the operation of that member" (39). Therefore just as it is God's task to administer the world, so also it is "the soul's task to guide the body" (40).

St. Gregory Palamas, who dwelt much upon the theme of the relationship between soul and body, says that what takes place through God takes place through the soul. The soul has within it in simple form "all the providential powers of the body". And even if some members of the body are injured, if the eyes are removed and the ears deafened, the soul is no less possessed of the providential powers of the body. The soul is not the providential powers but it has providential powers. In spite of the presence in it of the providential powers, it is "single and simple and not composite", not "compound or synthetic" (41).

It is very characteristic that in this passage St. Gregory links what takes place through the soul in relation to the body, with God's relation to the whole of creation. God directs the world with His providential powers. God had the providential powers even before the world was created. Yet God, who not only possesses many powers but is all-powerful, is not deprived of His unicity and simplicity because of the powers that are in Him (42). This shows clearly that the soul is "in the image of God". What takes place in God takes place analogously in the soul of man.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says that the soul is immaterial and bodiless "working and moving in a way corresponding to its peculiar nature, and evincing these peculiar emotions through the organs of the body" (43). The same saint epigrammatically teaches that the soul is not held by the body but holds the body. It is not within the body as in a vessel or bag, but rather the body is within the soul. The soul is throughout the body, "and there is no part illuminated by it in which it is not wholly present" (44).

The general conclusion with reference to the relationship between soul and body is that the soul is in the whole body, there is no sector of a man's body in which the soul is not present, that the heart is the first intelligent seat of the soul, that the centre of the soul is there, not as in a vessel but as in an organ which guides the whole body and that the soul, while distinct from the body, is nevertheless most intimately linked with it.----

this discussion like much of Western thought can be reduced to the metaphysical differences between Plato and Aristotle. In Plato, you have an Ideal reality and what we perceive is like shadows on the side of a cave wherein folk are moving in front of the fire. With Aristotle, you have more of what we take as the mechanistic-scientific view of the universe. Knowable, perceptions are accurate and so forth, use reason etc.

Though Aquinas endeavored to justify Aristotle's reason with the faith of the Catholic church, and his effort in my view was noble and impressive, I think there is still a gap. Today Plato's idealism has been reduced to the status of "mysticism" derided by such as the Randroids.

However, at the edges of science there are anamolous information which dont fit the metaphysical simplicty that we grew up with. Such as the odd behavior of subatomic particles which is the province of quantum mechanics. Where the Heisenberg uncertainty principle seems to defy our basic understanding of the law of causality.

For people interested in these questions of metaphysics, I recommend "Presence of the Past" by Rupert Shelldrake, which explores his hypothesis of "morphic resonance" which has the possibility of bringing about a scientific revolution of historic proportions. Anybody ever read Thomas Kuhn's "the structure of scientific revolutions" ? good book too.