Who’s Who (1)

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.  1 Corinthians 2:14-15  NASB 1995

Natural man – Who is the “natural man”?  Discovering the answer to this question is going to take some time, and some serious paradigm shift.  Consider a typical conservative Christian commentary on the Greek word psuchikos.

This verse does not define the natural man, as such; rather, it uses the term to describe one who does not understand God’s words and thoughts. The one who can understand God’s words is a “spiritual” man (verse 15).

Dr. Henry Morris, in the New Defender’s Study Bible, gives this comment on verse 14: “The ‘natural’ man, still unsaved, cannot appreciate spiritual truths. He must first understand Christ’s atoning sacrifice for him, but even that is ‘foolishness’ to him (1:18) until the Holy Spirit Himself convicts him of its reality (John 16:7-11).” Basically, the “natural” man is one who does not have the Holy Spirit residing within him. As Jesus said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6).

Let’s look at some other uses in the Bible of the word natural. In Romans 11:21 we read, “For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.” In 1 Corinthians 15:44-46, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, then there is also a spiritual body. …However the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.” Ezekiel 44:31speaks of a natural death. Daniel 10:8 speaks of a natural color. James 1:23 speaks of a natural face, and James 3:15 states, “This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.”

In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul uses the word natural to refer to someone still in his original (sinful) state. The Greek word psuchikos (“natural”) can be defined as “animal,” as opposed to “spiritual.” Natural men are those who are occupied with the things of this material world to the exclusion of the things of God. They are led by instinct rather than by the Spirit of God. They intuitively choose sin over righteousness. They are the “pagans” Jesus refers to in Matthew 6:32 who only seek after the things of this world.

The supernatural work of God is to change the natural man into a spiritual one. When a person trusts Christ, God exchanges what is natural (received from Adam) for what is spiritual (received from Christ). “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). The Christian life is, therefore, a supernatural one. We do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1).[1]

Now let’s think about Paul’s vocabulary from a Hebrew perspective.  In order to grasp the Hebraic paradigm behind Paul’s Greek, we will need to investigate how psuchikos was understood in the first century from both the Greek and Hebrew viewpoints.  To do this, we need to look at the root, psychḗ, and see how it developed in classical Greek and how it was used in Jewish Greek (i.e., the LXX).  Let’s start with Homer.

1. Jacob notes: “In Homer sṓma is the dead body, words like mélea are used for the living organism, and psychḗ is the vital force that resides in the members and finds expression in the breath.”^[2] This Homeric idea sounds very much like nep̱eš in Hebrew. Jacob goes on to write, “The psychḗ has nothing to do with mental or spiritual functions. Terms like nóos, kardía, or thymós are used to denote such functions.”^[3]  In summary:

Older and Classical Usage. psychḗ becomes a master concept in the sixth century B.C. The idea of retribution helps to bring this about. The psychḗ in the underworld assures continuity between this world and the next. The psychḗ, then, is the epitome of the individual. The sṓma (body) comes to be seen as the sḗma (tomb) of the soul.   Transmigration of the soul also finds supporters (Pythagoras). After 500 B.C. the psychḗ represents the essential core embracing thought, will, and emotion and not sharing the body’s dissolution.^[4]

“In popular thinking the psychḗ is the impalpable essential core of a person, the agent of thought, will, and emotion, the quintessence of human life. The soul embraces the conscience.” ^[5]

Now compare this Greek background to the Hebrew idea.  “The Hebrew term which psychḗ renders is a fluid and dynamic one which it is hard both to define and to translate. The root means ‘to breathe’ in a physical sense. Breathing is a decisive mark of the living creature; its cessation means the end of life.”^[6]  The closest Hebrew term is probably nep̱eš.  Jacob notes:

nep̱eš denotes the total person, what he or she is. Gen. 2:7 expresses this truth, although more in relation to the external aspect than to the modalities of life. What is meant is the person comprised in corporeal identity. Yet the total personality, the ego, is also involved.^[7]

Flesh and Spirit. The OT sets these in antithesis in, e.g., Gen. 6:1ff.; Is. 31:3, but only in the sense of human weakness and divine strength. In view of creation, the two are not irreconcilable except when flesh trusts in self instead of God (Jer. 17:5ff.).^[8]

Rabbinic thought terms this conflict as yetzer ha’ra and yetzer ha’tov.  Flesh and spirit are not irreconcilable opposites in human being, but rather irreplaceable functions of what it means to have freedom of choice.

On the very few occasions where the Greek term psychikós appears in the LXX or rabbinic material, Jacob notes:

This term is common in religious and philosophical speech and then enters ordinary usage as the adjective of psychḗ. In 2 Macc. 4:37 psychikōs means “from the heart” or “very much” in intensification of a verb of emotion; Greek usually has ek psychḗs for this. In one instance psychikós also has the sense “brave” or “manly.”^[9]

“Some desires are mental, others are physical, and reason obviously rules over both” (4 Maccabees 1:32).

This person is always seen in a totality that finds expression, not in the antithetical concepts of body and soul, but in the complementary ones of body and life.^[10]

LXX: In works with a Hebrew original psychḗ mostly translates nep̱eš either as: vital force or as seat of the mind or spirit (cf. Num. 35:11; Dt. 11:18). The idea of the soul as an essential core, however, is alien to the OT, which posits no antithesis of body and soul.^[11]

4 Maccabees reproduces popular philosophical psychology. Platonic trichotomy appears in 3:2ff., in 14:6 the soul is the center of consciousness and feeling, and in 15:25 it is the organ of intellectual functions.^[12]

What have we learned so far (and we’re not done).  If Paul uses the term psychikós in Jewish Greek, he does not mean that the “natural” man is somehow defective, and not fully what God created.  The Christian claim that “Paul uses the word natural to refer to someone still in his original (sinful) state”[13] is not correct.  The further suggestion that “the Greek word psuchikos (‘natural’) can be defined as ‘animal,’ as opposed to ‘spiritual” casts negative aspersions on the term, implications that Paul would never have imagined.  This conflict between “natural” and “spiritual,” equated to the conflict between “life-saved” and “death-lost” is a theological construct of Christian anthropology.  It does not represent the thinking of a Jewish rabbi.  And this means we have to look deeper.  Next.

Topical Index: psuchikós, psychikós, natural man, spiritual, psychḗ, nep̱eš, person, 1 Corinthians 2:14-15

[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/natural-man.html

^[2] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 1342). W.B. Eerdmans.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid., pp. 1342–1343.

^[5] Ibid., p. 1343.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Ibid., p. 1344.

^[8] Ibid., p. 1345.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Ibid., p. 1346.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] Ibid.

[13] https://www.gotquestions.org/natural-man.html