Biblical vs. Biological

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

(Acts 17:24-28) ESV

Body, soul and spirit establishes the Biblical pattern for life. However, Biblical life and biological life aren’t the same. Biblical life refers to sentient beings which have the breath of life and self-determination.

In the case of us humans, we also have accountability. Biblical life is based on a trinity of aspects, body, soul and spirit.

Aspects and Attributes of Life

Aspect Trinity	Visibility	State	Attribute
Body	Visible	Solid/Liquid	Body Blood
Spirit	Invisible	Vapor	Breath
Soul	Invisible	Gravity Node	Mind Soul Heart

Our body is made from the dust of the Earth. Literally the same atoms and molecules that everything else is made of. It’s animated by a spirit from God which powers metabolism. Sentience, an awareness of self, is the soul: our consciousness and personality. Each soul is unique, and each one is a tiny part of the gravitational singularity, an assembly of souls, which was created on the second day. “He giveth to all life, and breath..” isn’t metaphysical or poetic, it’s accurate physics.

Biological life is anything which has metabolism, grows and reproduces. Biological life includes bacteria and plants but Biblical life doesn’t. In the Bible life is considered to be anything with hemoglobin based metabolism.

Why does it matter?

And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

(Genesis 7:21-24) ESV

You don’t see this very often any more but an old atheist science troll (AST) tactic was to claim that there’s a contradiction in the Bible because it says that Noah’s flood “blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground…” but plants survived. It’s not a contradiction, it’s been taken out of context. The text goes on to clarify what is referred to by the word “life” and plants aren’t part of what the Bible describes as living.

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