soul

According to many religions, an intangible part of a human being that survives the death of the physical body. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all teach that at the end of the world each soul will be judged and assigned to heaven or hell on its merits.

According to orthodox Jewish doctrine, most souls first spend time in purgatory to be purged of their sins, and are then removed to paradise. In Christianity the soul is that part of the person that can be redeemed from sin through divine grace.

In other religions, such as Hinduism, the soul is thought to undergo reincarnation until the individual reaches enlightenment and is freed from the cycle of rebirth. According to the teachings of Buddhism, no permanent self or soul exists.

In his 1990 New Year's message, Pope John Paul II asserted that ‘animals possess a soul and that man must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren’. This statement is still a source of considerable debate within the Roman Catholic Church.