Body, Soul, and Spirit
We come now to an introduction to human psychology from a totally different standpoint from that based on atheistic and materialistic premises. It is well worth knowing that one of this century's most respected philosophers, Karl Popper, has some very deep criticisms to make of Freudian, and other similar schools of psychiatry. He basically rejected their claims to be scientific. On page 41, for instance, of his autobiographical 'Unended Quest' he calls Freud's psychoanalytical theories pseudo-scientific. For Popper they are not scientific in the way physics is scientific, for they do not present any objective means for validation by potential falsification. But you must read Popper's whole book to understand his position.
What I present here is not scientific either, but I want to emphasis that I am not unaware of alternative theories about the human psyche. Many of them have already been summarized above.
Let us begin with some etymology. The word 'psyche' is the Greek word usually translated 'soul'. The Latin equivalent is 'anima'. When Paul offers a prayer (1 Thess 5:23) for the well- being of his friends, the Thessalonians, he says: 'may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless ...', and this tripartite description of the human condition is found regularly in the New Testament.
The Latin words used in the earliest translation, following the same order, are 'spiritus, anima, corpus' and the original Greek words are 'pneuma, psyche, soma'. There are many words in English derived from this trio, and no doubt many will occur to each reader.
'Psychosomatic' refers to reactions in the body from conditions of the soul, and such an illness is not to be cured by attacking a virus, but by understanding that, for instance, acute anxiety can result in ulcers.
It is even, according to the writer to the Hebrews, a vital matter to distinguish rightly between soul and spirit.
So in this chapter I am going to try to summarise, and put very simply, how the Bible talks about our Body, Soul, and Spirit, and what lessons we can learn from this. Much of what follows has been influenced by reading (more than once) the three volume book 'The Spiritual Man' by Watchman Nee (translated from the Chinese), and some of the books referred to in it.
Let us begin with Soul. This word is used to mean the 'real' me, who I am, what it is that identifies me uniquely, what of me is still 'me' regardless of all the changes to my body. I am a living being, I am a soul. Everything else is what I have, especially my ever changing body. The Soul is not static either, but the Soul is the true me, the inward me, the core of my being. There is no word for any deeper part of me. All the other things are peripheral, whether we talk of mind, emotions, will, purpose, whatever. If you talk about my character you are really talking about what characterises me as me, hence my soul.
So what is the Body in relation to the Soul?
It is more than anything else the means by which the Soul experiences the Physical World.
Your body is a mobile set of instruments, to enable you to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the objects that surround you. Through our bodies we experience light, colour, sounds, aromas, tastes, warmth, cold, hardness, softness, shape, through the way our body's nervous system responds to every physical stimulus. All the processes by which we nourish the body, rest it, respond to injury, or get rid of waste matter, are there to support what the body does. It provides us with a continual stream of sensory experiences.
It is easy to think that mobility is what distinguishes our body, but even a body totally paralysed, and trapped in a wheel chair, is undiminished in its range of physical experiences. Only sleep gives us a rest from this continual flow of experience, and many think we need this regular pause to enable us to digest the input. Our dreams often reveal the digesting process, which we recall on waking.
All our pleasures are a combination of these physical experiences: art, music, gastronomy, books, and much more, are fed into our souls by means of the senses of our body. The way our soul responds, pain or pleasure, happiness or sadness, surprise or boredom, and so on through all the range of emotions and states of mind we experience, are essentially a combination of the response of the soul to data provided by the senses. We know it is our brain than does a lot of the data processing, whether through optical nerves, or other responses, and we know also that our mind uses the brain for imagination, and mathematics, and memory, and all these other intellectual activities. It is possible to detect and measure activity in the brain, and its absence means our body has died.
In many ways the relationship between our mind (Latin 'animus' masculine) and our soul (Latin 'anima' feminine) is the nearest and most confusing, as implied by the proximity of the words in Latin. When we decide to 'think of a number', or whatever, it is the soul telling the mind to engage in a particular mental task. The one thing that Descartes was sure of was that because he could instruct his mind to think, he therefore had a soul. Which is a possible translation of 'cogito, ergo sum' – I think, therefore I am.
Modern science is very interested in examining and measuring brain activity. A number of experiments are being designed to find out where in the brain certain types of activity take place. No doubt the end result of all this research will be that some scientists will use this expanding knowledge to claim that it shows we humans are just complex machines. But even when we know, as I dare say we will eventually, exactly what is happening, and where, in my brain when I am doing a crossword puzzle, it will not be able to answer the question: why did I chose to do a crossword puzzle? The decision to do something is not the same as the process of doing it.
The soul is the seat of decision making, the soul is my will, my desires, my intentions. I am the sum of all my decisions, and the current me is the sum of all my desires. This is what defines me. This is what needs most help, too.
Do I look to my body for all pleasures? Is this what I am? If so, then I am very dependent on the well-being of my body, and it is designed not to last for ever.
Which brings us to the Spirit. Consider this revealing question in a letter Paul wrote:
Who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? (1 Cor. 2:11 NIV)
While the English word 'unspiritual' a few verses later is the nearest we can come to what in the original is the Greek adjective from 'soul' ('soulish' literally).
The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14 RSV)
This aspect of my tripartite nature is the most difficult to be aware of, and for many the Spirit is effectively dormant. For the Spirit is to the Soul with regard to the unseen world what the Body is to the Soul for the seen world.
It is with my Spirit that I communicate with God and with my Spirit I listen to His voice. My Spirit is for seeing, hearing, experiencing, the unseen world in all its glory.
Paul describes this unseen world as the battleground of the Soul. He talks about principalities and powers and spiritual hosts, with whom we have to battle (Ephesians 5:12). By the Spirit we become aware of God, and of all the reality of the spiritual world, good and evil. The New Testament speaks of the fruits of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, and of living by the Spirit. Paul compares praying (and singing, and speaking) with his mind and praying (and singing, and speaking) with the Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:14-19). And he was not theorising; this was what he actually experienced. But to anyone who has no experience of these things, it has little meaning. It is as if their own capacity to perceive spiritual things is defunct. We are told that unless God brings our Spirit to life, we cannot experience these things.
Having thought about the soul in these last few pages, I turn next to what these days is described as a sickness of the soul.