It is peculiar to the
theology of the Latter-day Saints that we regard the body as an essential part
of the soul. Read your dictionaries, the lexicons, and encyclopedias, and you
will find that nowhere, outside of the Church of Jesus Christ, is the solemn
and eternal truth taught that the soul of man is the body and the spirit
combined. It is quite the rule to regard the soul as that incorporeal part of
men, that immortal part which existed before the body was framed and which
shall continue to exist after that body has gone to decay; nevertheless, that
is not the soul; that is only a part or the soul; that is the spirit-man, the
form in which every individual of us, and every individual human being, existed
before called to take tabernacle in the flesh. It has been declared in the
solemn word of revelation, that the spirit and the body constitute the soul of
man; and, therefore, we should look upon this body as something that shall
endure in the resurrected state, beyond the grave, something to be kept pure
and holy. (James E. Talmage in Conference
Report, October 1913, p. 117)
