THE Scriptures teach that God formed the body of man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life and he became hy"t; vp,k,:, a living soul. According to this account, man consists of two distinct principles, a body and a soul: the one material, the other immaterial; the one corporeal, the other spiritual. It is involved in this statement, first, that the soul of man is a substance; and, secondly, that it is a substance distinct from the body. So that in the constitution of man two distinct substances are included.
The idea of substance, as has been before remarked, is one of the primary truths of the reason. It is given in the consciousness of every man, and is therefore a part of the universal faith of men. We are conscious of our thoughts, feelings, and volitions. We know that these exercises or phenomena are constantly changing, but that there is something of which they are the exercises and manifestation. That something is the self which remains unchanged, which is the same identical something, yesterday, to-day, and tomorrow. The soul is, therefore, not a mere series of acts; nor is it a form of the life of God, nor is it a mere unsubstantial force, but a real subsistence. Whatever acts is, and what is is an entity. A nonentity is nothing, and nothing can neither have power nor produce effects. The soul of man, therefore, is an essence or entity or substance, the abiding subject of its varying states and exercises. The second point just mentioned is no less plain. As we can know nothing of substance but from its phenomena, and as we are forced by a law of our nature to believe in the existence of a substance of which the phenomena are the manifestation, so by an equally stringent necessity we are forced to believe that where the phenomena are not only different, but incompatible, there the substances are also different. As, therefore, the phenomena or properties of matter are essentially different from those of mind, we are forced to conclude that matter and mind are two distinct substances; that the soul is not material nor the body spiritual. "To identify matter with mind," says Cousin, in a passage before quoted, "or mind with matter; it is necessary to pretend that sensation, thought, volition, are reducible, in the last analysis, to solidity, extension, figure, divisibility, etc.; or that solidity, extension, figure, etc.. are reducible to sensation, thought, will."1 It may be said, therefore, despite of materialists and idealists, that it is intuitively certain that matter and mind are two distinct substances; and such has been the faith of the great body of mankind. This view of the nature of man which is presented in the original account of his creation, is sustained by the constant representations of the Bible.
The Scriptures do not formally teach any system of psychology, but there are certain truths relating both to our physical and mental constitution, which they constantly assume. They assume, as we have seen, that the soul is a substance; that it is a substance distinct from the body; and that there are two, and not more than two, essential elements in the constitution of man. This is evident, (1.) From the distinction everywhere made between soul and body. Thus, in the original account of the creation a clear distinction is made between the body as formed from the dust of the earth, and the soul or principle of life which was breathed into it from God. And in Gen. iii. 19, it is said, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." As it was only the body that was formed out of the dust, it is only the body that is to return to dust. In Eccles. xii. 7, it is said, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Is. x. 18, "Shall consume . . . . both soul and body." Daniel says (vii. 15), "I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body." Our Lord (Matt. vi. 25) commands his disciples to take no thought for the body; and, again (Matt. x. 28), "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Such is the constant representation of the Scriptures. The body and son are set forth as distinct substances, and the two together as constituting the whole man. (2.) There is a second class of passages equally decisive as to this point. It consists of those in which the body is represented as a garment which is to be laid aside; a tabernacle or house in which the soul dwells, which it may leave and return to. Paul, on a certain occasion, did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. Peter says he thought it meet as long as he was in this tabernacle to put his brethren in remembrance of the truth, "knowing," as he adds, 'that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle." Paul, in 2 Cor. v. 1, says, "If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God." In the same connection, he speaks of being unclothed and clothed upon with our house which is from heaven; and of being absent from the body and present with the Lord, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. To the Philippians (i. 23, 24) he says, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." (3.) It is the common belief of mankind., the clearly revealed doctrine of the Bible, and part of the faith of the Church universal, that the soul can and does exist and act after death. If this be so, then the body and soul are two distinct substances. The former may be disorganized, reduced to dust, dispersed, or even annihilated, and the latter retain its conscious life and activity. This doctrine was taught in the Old Testament, where the dead are represented as dwelling in Sheol, whence they occasionally reappeared, as Samuel did to Saul. Our Lord says that as God is not the God of the dead but of the living, his declaring himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now alive. Moses and Elijah conversed with Christ on the Mount. To the dying thief our Lord said, "To-day shalt thou" (that in which his personality resided) "be with me in Paradise." Paul, as we have just seen, desired to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. He knew that his conscious personal existence was to be continued after the dissolution of his body. It is unnecessary to dwell on this point, as the continued existence of the soul in full consciousness and activity out of the body and in the interval between death and the resurrection, is not denied by any Christian Church. But if this be so it clearly proves that the soul and body are two distinct substances, so that the former can exist independently of the latter.
Man, then, according to the Scriptures, is a created spirit in vital union with a material organized body. The relation between these two constituents of our nature is admitted to be mysterious. That is, it is incomprehensible. We do not know how the body acts on the mind, or how the mind acts on the body. These facts however, are plain, (1.) That the relation between the two is a vital union, in such a sense as that the soul is the source of life to the body. When the soul leaves the body the latter ceases to live. It loses its sensibility and activity, and becomes at once subject to the chemical laws which govern unorganized matter, and by their operation is soon reduced to dust, undistinguishable from the earth whence it was originally taken. (2.) It is a fact of consciousness that certain states of the body produce certain corresponding states of the mind. The mind takes cognizance of, or is conscious of, the impressions made by external objects on the organs of sense belonging to the body. The mind sees, the mind hears, and the mind feels, not directly or immediately (at least in our present and normal state), but through or by means of the appropriate organs of the body. It is also a matter of daily experience that a healthful condition of the body is necessary to a healthful state of the mind; that certain diseases or disorders of the one produce derangement in the operations of the other. Emotions of the mind affect the body; shame suffuses the cheek; joy causes the heart to beat and the eyes to shine. A blow on the head renders the mind unconscious, i. e., it renders the brain unfit to be the organ of its activity; and a diseased condition of the brain may cause irregular action in the mind, as in lunacy. All this is incomprehensible, but it is undeniable. (3.) It is also a fact of consciousness that, while certam operations of the body are independent of the conscious voluntary action of the mind, as the processes of respiration, digestion, secretion, assimilation, etc., there are certain actions dependent on the will. We can will to move; and we can exert a greater or less degree of muscular force. It is better to admit these simple facts of consciousness and of experience, and to confess that, while they prove an intimate and vital union between the mind and body, they do not enable us to comprehend the nature of that union, than to have recourse to arbitrary and fanciful theories which deny these facts, because we cannot explain them. This is done by the advocates of the doctrine of occasional causes, which denies any action of the mind on the body or of the body on the mind, but refers all to the immediate agency of God. A certain state of the mind is the occasion on which God produces a certain act of the body; and a certain impression made on the body is the occasion on which God produces a certain impression on the mind. Leibnitz's doctrine of a preestablished harmony is equally unsatisfactory. He denied that one substance could act on another of a different kind; that matter could act on mind or mind on matter. He proposed to account for the admitted correspondence between the varying states of the one and those of the other on the assumption of a prearrangement. God had foreordained that the mind should have the perception of a tree whenever the tree was presented to the eye, and that the arm should move whenever the mind had a volition to move. But he denied any causal relation between these two series of events.
The Scriptural doctrine of the nature of man as a created spirit in vital union with an organized body, consisting, therefore, of two, and only two, distinct elements or substances, matter and mind, is one of great importance. It is intimately connected with some of the most important doctrines of the Bible; with the constitution of the person of Christ, and consequently with the nature of his redeeming work and of his relation to the children of men; with the doctrine of the fall, original sin, and of regeneration; and with the doctrines of a future state and of the resurrection. It is because of this connection, and not because of its interest as a question in psychology, that the true idea of man demands the careful investigation of the theologian.
The doctrine above stated, as the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the Church, is properly designated as realistic dualism. That is, it asserts the existence of two distinct res, entities, or substances; the one extended, tangible, and divisible, the object of the senses; the other unextended and indivisible, the thinking, feeling, and willing subject in man. This doctrine stands opposed to materialism and idealism, which although antagonistic systems in other respects, agree in denying any dualism of substance. The one makes the mind a function of the body; the other makes the body a form of the mind. But, according to the Scriptures and all sound philosophy, neither is the body, as Delitzsch2 says, a precipitate of the mind, nor is the mind a sublimate of matter.
The Scriptural doctrine of man is of course opposed to the old heathen doctrine which represents him as the form in which nature, der Naturgeist, the anima mundi, comes to self-consciousness; and also to the wider pantheistic doctrine according to which men are the highest manifestations of the one universal principle of being and life; and to the doctrine which represents man as the union of the impersonal, universal reason or lo,goj, with a living corporeal organization. According to this last mentioned view, man consists of the body (sw/ma), soul (yuch,), and lo,goj, or the impersonal reason. This is very nearly the Apollinarian doctrine as to the constitution of Christ's person, applied to all mankind.
It is of more consequence to remark that the Scriptural doctrine is opposed to Trichotomy, or the doctrine that man consists of three distinct substances, body, soul, and spirit; sw/ma, yuch,, and pneu/ma; corpus, anima, and animus. This view of the nature of man is of the more importance to the theologian because it has not only been held to a greater or less extent in the Church, but also because it has greatly influenced the form in which other doctrines have been presented; and because it has some semblance of support from the Scriptures themselves. The doctrine has been held in different forms. The simplest, the most intelligible, and the one most commonly adopted is, that the body is the material part of our constitution; the soul, or yuch,, is the principle of animal life; and the mind, or pneu/ma, the principle of our rational and immortal life. When a plant dies its material organization is dissolved and the principle of vegetable life which it contained disappears. When a brute dies its body returns to dust, and the yuch,, or principle of animal life by which it was animated, passes away. When a man dies his body returns to the earth, his yuch, ceases to exist, his pneu/ma alone remains until reunited with the body at the resurrection. To the yuch,, which is peculiar to man, belong reason, will, and conscience. To the pneu/ma which we have in common with the brutes, belong uuderstanding, feeling, and sensibility, or, the power of sense-perceptions. To the sw/ma belongs what is purely material.3 According to another view of the subject, the soul is neither the body nor the mind; nor is it a distinct subsistence, but it is the resultant of the union of the pneu/ma and sw/ma.4 Or according to Delitzsch,5 there is a dualism of being in man, but a trichotomy of substance. He distinguishes between being and substance, and maintains, (1.) that spirit and soul (pneu/ma and yuch,) are not verschiedene Wesen, but that they are verschiedene Substauzen. He says that the hy"t vp,k,, mentioned in the history of the creation, is not the compositum resulting from the union of the spirit and body, so that the two constituted man; but it is a tertium quid, a third substance which belongs to the constitution of his nature. (2.) But secondly, this third principle does not pertain to the body; it is not the higher attributes or functions of the body, but it pertains to the spirit and is produced by it. It sustains the same relation to it that breath does to the body, or effulgence does to light. He says that the yuch, (soul) is the avpau,gasma of the pneu/maand the bond of its union with the body.
In opposition to all the forms of trichotomy, or the doctrine of a threefold substance in the constitution of man, it may be remarked, (1.) That it is opposed to the account of the creation of man as given in Gen. ii. 7. According to that account God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life, and he became hy"t; vp,k, i.e., a being hy"t; vp,k, wOB-rv,a] in whom is a living soul. There is in this account no intimation of anything more than the material body formed of the earth and the living principle derived from God. (2.) This doctrine (trichotomy) is opposed to the uniform usage of Scripture. So far from the vp,k,, yuch,, anima, or soul, being distinguished from the x;Wr, pneu/ma, animus, or mind as either originally different or as derived from it, these words all designate one and the same thing. They are constantly interchanged. The one is substituted for the other, and all that is, or can be predicated of the one, is predicated of the other. The Hebrew vp,k,, and the Greek yuch,, mean breath, life, the living principle; that in which life and the whole life of the subject spoken of resides. The same is true of x;Wr and yuch,, they also mean breath, life, and living principle. The Scriptures therefore speak of the vp,k, or puch, not only as that which lives or is the principle of life to the body, but as that which thinks and feels, which may be saved or lost, which survives the body and is immortal. The soul is the man himself, that in which his identity and personality reside. It is the Ego. Higher than the soul there is nothing in man. Therefore it is so often used as a synonym for self. Every soul is every man; my soul is I; his soul is he. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul. It is the soul that sins (Lev. iv. 2); it is the soul that loves God. We are commanded to love God, evn o[lh| th/| yuch/|. Hope is said to be the anchor of the soul, and the word of God is able to save the soul. The end of our faith is said to be (1 Peter i. 9), the salvation of our souls; and John (Rev. vi. 9; xx. 4), saw in heaven the souls of them that were slain for the word of God. From all this it is evident that the word yuch,, or soul, does not designate the mere animal part of our nature, and is not a substance different from the pneu/ma, or spirit. (3.) A third remark on this subject is that all the words above mentioned, vp,k, x;Wr, and xm'v'k. in Hebrew, yuch, and pneu/ma in Greek, and soul and spirit in English, are used in the Scriptures indiscriminately of men and of irrational animals. If the Bible ascribed only a yuch, to brutes, and both yuch, and pneu/ma to man, there would be some ground for assuming that the two are essentially distinct. But such is not the case. The living principle in the brute is called both vp,k, and x;Wd,yuch, and pneu/ma. That principle in the brute creation is irrational and mortal; in man it is rational and immortal. "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" Eccles. iii. 21. The soul of the brute is the immaterial principle which constitutes its life, and which is endowed with sensibility, and that measure of intelligence which experience shows the lower animals to possess. The soul in man is a created spirit of a higher order, which has not only the attributes of sensibility, memory, and instinct, but also the higher powers which pertain to our intellectual, moral, and religious life. As in the brutes it is not one substance that feels and another that remembers; so it is not one substance in man that is the subject of sensations, and another substance which has intuitions of necessary truths, and which is endowed with conscience and with the knowledge of God. Philosophers speak of world-consciousness, or the immediate cognizance which we have of what is without us; of self-consciousness, or the knowledge of what is within us; and of God-consciousness, or our knowledge and sense of God. These all belong to one and the same immaterial, rational substance. (4.) It is fair to appeal to the testimony of consciousness on this subject. We are conscious of our bodies and we are conscious of our souls, i. e., of the exercises and states of each; but no man is conscious of the yuch, as distinct from the pneu/ma, of the soul as different from the spirit. In other words consciousness reveals the existence of two substances in the constitution of our nature; but it does not reveal the existence of three substances, and therefore the existence of more than two cannot rationally be assumed.
(5.) The passages of Scriptures which are cited as favouring the opposite doctrine may all be explained in consistency with the current representations of Scripture on the subject. When Paul says to the Thessalonians, "I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians v. 23), he only uses a periphrasis for the whole man. As when in Luke i. 46, 47, the virgin says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour," soul and spirit in this passage do not mean different things. And when we are commanded "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind" (Luke x. 27), we have not an enumeration of so many distinct substances. Nor do we distinguish between the mind and heart as separate entities when we pray that both may be enlightened and sanctified; we mean simply the soul in all its aspects or faculties. Again, when in Heb. iv. 12, the Apostle says that the word of God pierces so as to penetrate soul and spirit, and the joints and marrow, he does not assume that soul and spirit are different substances. The joints and marrow are not different substances. They are both material; they are different forms of the same substance; and so soul and spirit are one and the same substance under different aspects or relations. We can say that the word of God reaches not only to the feelings, but also to the conscience, without assuming that the heart and conscience are distinct entities. Much less is any such distinction implied in Phil. i. 27, "Stand fast in one spirit (evn e`ni. pneu,mati) , with one mind (mia/| yuch/|)." There is more difficulty in explaining 1 Cor. xv. 44. The Apostle there distinguishes between the sw/ma yuciko,n and the sw/ma pneumatiko,n; the former is that in which the yuch, is the animating principle; and the latter that in which the pneu/ma is the principle of life. The one we have here, the other we are to have hereafter. This seems to imply that the yuch, exists in this life, but is not to exist hereafter, and therefore that the two are separable and distinct. In this explanation we might acquiesce if it did not contradict the general representations of the Scriptures. We are constrained, therefore, to seek another explanation which will harmonize with other portions of the word of God. The general meaning of the Apostle is plain. We have now gross, perishable, and dishonorable, or unsightly bodies. Hereafter we are to have glorious bodies, adapted to a higher state of existence. The only question is, why does he call the one psychical, and the other pneumatic? Because the word yuch,, although often used for the soul as rational and immortal, is also used for the lower form of life which belongs to irrational animals. Our future bodies are not to be adapted to those principles of our nature which we have in common with the brutes, out to those which are peculiar to us as men, created in the image of God. The same individual human soul has certain susceptibilities and powers which adapt it to the present state of existence, and to the earthly house in which it now dwells, it has animal appetites and necessities. It can hunger and thirst. It needs sleep and rest. But the same soul has higher powers. The earthly body is suited to its earthly state; the heavenly body to its heavenly state. There are not two substances yuch, andpneu/ma, there is but one and the same substance with different susceptibilities and powers. In this same connection Paul says, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. Yet our bodies are to inherit that kingdom, and our bodies are flesh and blood. The same material substance now constituted as flesh and blood is to be so changed as to be like Christ's glorious body. As this representation does not prove a substantial difference between the body which now is and that which is to be hereafter, so neither does what the Apostle says of the sw/ma yuciko,n and the sw/ma pneumatiko,n prove that the yuch, and pneu/ma are distinct substances.
This doctrine of a threefold constitution of man being adopted by Plato, was introduced partially into the early Church, but soon came to be regarded as dangerous, if not heretical. It being held by the Gnostics that the pneu/ma in man was a part of the divine essence, and incapable of sin; and by the Apollinarians that Christ had only a human sw/ma and yuch,, but not a human pneu/ma, the Church rejected the doctrine that the yuch, and pneu/ma were distinct substances, since upon it those heresies were founded. In later times the Semi-Pelagians taught that the soul and body, but not the spirit in man were the subjects of original sin. All Protestants, Lutheran and Reformed, were, therefore, the more zealous in maintaining that the soul and spirit, yuch,, and pneu/ma, are one and the same substance and essence. And this, as before remarked, has been the common doctrine of the Church.6
1, Elements of Psychology, Henry's translation, N.Y. 1856, p. 370.
2. Biblische Psychologia, p. 64. 1, Elements of Psychology, Henry's translation, N.Y. 1856, p. 370.
3. August Hahn, Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, p. 324.
4. Goschel in Herzog's Encyklopadie Article "Seele."
5. Biblische Psychologie, § 4, p. 128.
6. See G. L. Hahn, Theologie des N. T. Olshausen, De Trichotoma Naturae Humanae. Ackermann, Studien und Kritiken, 1839, p. 888. R. T. Beck, Umriss d. biblishcen Seelenlehre, 1843.
Charles Hodge, "Systematic Theology"
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