  Preceeding the discussion of resurrection, and following a few chapters after his analyses of creation, Saadya addresses the nature of soul. Although rejecting Plato's creation view, Saadya rests his own theory of soul upon a Platonic tripartite psychology. And so, after rejecting a number of other views of soul, Saadya describes the soul's three faculties as “the faculty of discernment, the faculty of appetite, and the faculty of courage” (147). Of course, to this Platonic foundation, he adds a number of Tradition-rooted descriptions of soul as well. In fact, even before any philosophical consideration of the nature of soul, Saadya begins his discussion with a quote from Zechariah 12:1 about God's forming “the spirit of man within him.” Also before any philosophical considerations, Saadya — following on this opening Scriptural text — speaks of God's “set[ting] a time-limit to the combined existence of body and soul” (141), to His “separating” body and soul at the time of death “until the time when the number of souls which His wisdom has decided to call into being is completed” (141), and to the time when “He re-unites [souls] with their respective bodies and metes out their reward” (141). Scriptural citations coupled with doctrines of resurrection and final judgement set the stage for Saadya's discourse on the nature of soul, leading us once again to consider the delicate interplay of reason and revelation in the pages of his thought. This interplay can be further seen in Saadya's own Plato-plus-Tradition understanding of soul. In addition to coupling Platonic tripartite psychology with Jewish beliefs about resurrection, Saadya actually links each of Plato's three discrete soul-fuctions to three discrete Hebrew terms for “soul” found in Scriptures (nefesh as corresponding to the appetitive function, ruah as corresponding to the faculty of passion and courage, and neshamah in correspondence to the faculty of knowledge) (147). Saadya additionally cites the Scriptural tendency to speak of “heart and soul together” (148) in support of what he takes to be provable on empirical grounds (upon which he elaborates), viz. that “the soul is in the heart of man” (148).