Dualism or Trichotomy?
Based on a small handful of passages, many Christians have concluded that
the soul is something distinct from the spirit and that man is therefore made
of three distinct parts. In my judgment this is false. In most if not all of
the passages in the previous section, the two elements (outward/inward,
body/soul, flesh/spirit, etc.) seem to be intended to represent man in his
entirety. They seem to include the whole of human nature. See, e.g., Matt
10:28; 1 Cor 7:34; 2 Cor 7:1.
Also, where soul and spirit are referring to a part of man’s nature,
they are synonymous and interchangeable. For example, both terms are used to
refer to that part of man that survives death, i.e., the disembodied element in
the intermediate state: soul (Matt 10:29; Rev 6:9; 20:4), spirit (Heb 12:23).
Both terms are used for that part of man that departs at the moment of death:
soul (Gen 35:18; 1 Kgs 17:21), spirit (Ps 31:5; Luke 8:55; 23:46; Acts 7:59;
Jas 2:26).
This interchangeability is also seen in the fact that the highest spiritual
activities of man are experienced by both the soul and the spirit (see Murray, Writings,
11:25-27). This is significant because for most trichotomists, man’s spirit is supposed
to be the seat of God-consciousness and spiritual experience (Nee, 1:26); the
soul is the seat of baser passions. But this distinction is not found in the
Bible. For example, religious sorrow or spiritual grief is attributed to Jesus’s
spirit (Mark 8:12; John 11:33; 13:21) and his soul (Matt 26:38; John 12:27).
See Ps 77:2-3. Also, in poetic parallelism Mary expresses spiritual joy and
praise to God in both her soul and spirit (Luke 1:46-47). Contrary to the lower
position trichotomy usually gives to the soul, the Bible pictures it as the subject
of the highest exercises of devotion toward God. “At night my soul longs for You,
indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently” (Isa 26:9). In Phil 1:27 Paul
exhorts us to stand firm in one spirit and strive together with one soul (psyche).
Love for God, the highest virtue, comes from the soul (Mark 12:30). Hope is an
anchor for the soul (Heb 6:19). We should obey God’ will from the soul (psyche,
Eph 6:6). See Acts 14:22, see the parallel thoughts in 1 Kgs 21:5 and Ps 42:11.
Laidlaw says that such passages as these “render it impossible to hold
that “spirit” can mean exclusively or mainly the Godward side of man’s inner
nature, and ‘soul’ the rational or earthward. The terms are parallel, or practically
equivalent, expressions for the inner life as contrasted wit the outer or
bodily life” (90).
But what about the biblical passages that seem to teach trichotomy?
These may be readily understood in harmony with dualism. First of all, a close
look at Gen 2: shows that it gives absolutely no basis for a threefold view of
man. In fact this verse contains no direct reference to the spiritual nature of
man at all; it refers neither to the spirit nor to the soul. Trichotomists
wrongly think it refers to both. How do they arrive at such a conclusion?
First of all, the KJV translation, “and man became a living soul,” Is the
basis for assuming that this verse refers to man’s soul. It is falsely assumed
that the word “soul” (Hebrew, nephesh) in this verse refers to an ontological
part of man rather than to the whole being or person. As we shall see shortly
both the Hebrew and the Greek words for “soul” have other meanings, including “being”
or “person.” This is the meaning in Gen 2:7; the NASB and NIV rightly translate
the Hebrew phrase nephesh chayah as “a living being.” The very same
phrase is used of animals in Gen 1:20, 21, 24; 9:10, 15, where the NASB
translates it “living creature.” The soul as distinct from the body is not
mentioned here at all.
The other false assumption is that the word “breath” in the statement that
God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” is equivalent to the human
spirit. This is based on the fact that the usual Hebrew word for spirit, ruach,
can mean either breath or spirit. Thus, it is assumed that we can just
substitute the word “spirit” for the word “breath” in Gen 2:7. Foe example, Saucy
says, “God used the matter of the earth and his own breath (i.e., spirit) to
create Adam” (39). This is faulty thinking, though, because the word translated
“breath” in this verse is not ruach but neshamah, which usually
means the ordinary breath of ordinary physical life, not the metaphysical
spirit.
Thus Gen 2:7 refers neither to the soul nor to the spirit. Its main
point is the unique manner in which the first human being became a “living
creature” endowed with the “breath of life,” in contrast with the way the
animals became living creatures with the breath of life. The divine inbreathing
is probably the point of time when the soul or spirit was created and implanted
in Adam’s body, but this is an inference and is not specifically stated.
We turn now to 1 Thess 5:23, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you
entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Does this verse not make a distinction
between spirit and soul? Not necessarily. The emphasis here is on the wholeness
of man rather than on any divisions within him. The point is that the whole
person should be sanctified. In 1 Cor 7:34 and 2 Cor 7:1 the same point is made
by referring only to “body and spirit” and “flesh and spirit.”
Why then does 1 Thess 5:23 speak of “spirit and soul and body,” if spirit
and soul are not distinct elements? The answer is that the Bible sometimes
lists synonymous terms together to express completeness, without intending to
imply that each term refers to a separate, distinct item. An example is Deut
18:10-11, where right Hebrew expressions are used to prohibit three basic kinds
of occult activity. For example, the last three (a medium, a spiritist, one who
calls up the dead) all refer to the same thing, spiritism. Another example is
Mark 12:30, where Jesus says we must love God with heart, soul, mind, and
strength. We do not say that heart, soul, and mind are three distinct entities.
Even in Heb 4:12 trichotomists do not try to distinguish the heart from the
soul and spirit. This approach is an adequate explanation of 1 Thess 5:23, and
it is consistent with the dualism overwhelmingly represented in the texts
previously listed.
How, then, can he explain Heb 4:12, “For the word of God is living and
active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division
of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts
and intentions of the heart”? The assumption of trichotomy is that this text speaks
of a division between the soul and the spirit, a dividing or separation of the
one form the other. Soul and spirit are seen as distinct but adjacent elements,
which the word can disconnect.
We reject this interpretation for three reasons (see Murray, Writings,
II:29-31). First, the verse does not speak of a division between soul and
spirit, or a division of soul from spirit; it speaks of a division of soul and
of spirit (which do not have to be two different things, as we have just seen).
Second, the word family from which “division” (merismos) comes does not
refer to a division between two things, but to a division within a single thing
(e.g., Matt 12:25-26; Luke 12:13; 1 Cor 1:13). Here it means a division within
the soul, within the spirit. Third, the main point of the verse is the
piercing, penetrating power of the Word of God. It penetrates not between but
into—into the most secret, inaccessible recesses of our being, laying them bare
(v. 13). Just as a sharp sword can penetrate to the inmost part of the body (to
the joints and marrow of a limb, e.g.), so God’s Word penetrates to the inner spiritual
being (soul, spirit, heart) and lays bare its most secret elements, i.e., its
thoughts and intents.
How, then, shall we understand the difference between the psychikos
(natural) man and the pneumatikos (spiritual) man in 1 Cor 2:13-15? The
spiritual man is one who is indwelt, indirect, and controlled by the Holy
Spirit; the natural man is one who ignores spiritual things and devotes his
life to this natural, material world alone. Thus, the contrast is not between
man’s soul and man’s spirit, but between the natural and the supernatural.
We conclude that the few passages taken to support trichotomy are actually
quite consistent with anthropological dualism. The biblical testimony to the
dualistic nature of man remains convincing. Man is a physical body plus a spiritual
entity sometimes called soul and sometimes called spirit.
Is anything really at stake in this dispute? Does it matter whether we
view man as one, two, or three parts? Indeed, it is very important that we understand
the man has at least a twofold nature, physical and spiritual contrary to the
false doctrine of monism. Positing a threefold nature by distinguishing between
the soul and the spirit is not as serious an issue, but still we should abandon
it because it has no true basis in the Bible and because it leads to an
unwarranted speculation as to the respective functions of the two. (Jack
Cottrell, The Faith Once for All: Bible Doctrine for Today [College
Press, 2002, 2023], 141-44)
