SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY Supplement I Anthropology

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
Supplement I
Anthropology

TRIPARTITISM or TRICHOTOMY

I. MAN IS A TRIPARTITE BEING (Composed of spirit, soul and body)

From this chapter title it is seen that we hold to the TRICHOTOMOUS viewpoint. This has been the psychological riddle for 3000 years. Here we need the light of Revelation more than anywhere else. It won't do to follow the light of natural reason or science. I am afraid the Biblical Psychologists have followed the unsanctified guesses of the scientists rather than the light of Revelation, making too many concessions to their ignorances rather than the "thus saith the Lord." Even our Theologians have done likewise. There is no doubt at all that the Bible teaches a form of Dichotomy, or better a Dualism; i.e., that man is made up of the material and
the Spiritual. Yet, the secular psychologists have denied that also, why follow them in the Trichotomy? We believe that though Trichotomy is more obscure, it is still taught in the Scriptures. Only the regenerated and especially the "Spiritual Ones", the "Pneumatikios" are conscious of this tripartite makeup. Two objections to Trichotomy:

(1) This answers the accusation of the dualists; or objections "We are not conscious of any division between soul and spirit." I say we are i.e. The Saved -- "We are conscious of the strivings of two wills, etc. (Gal. 5:17) The Secular Psychologists use this same argument to prove their "monism". Only one part = all physical. "We are not conscious of any division between soul and body." No, not the natural man (the unsaved), he lives in the materialistic realm entirely, until the Holy Spirit begins His work. Certainly then he is awakened to another part of His being worth saving, and even of a higher part which was dead before.

(2) It has been further held by the dichotomists that no serious Bible doctrine is affected whether one holds the dichotomous or the trichotomous view. This is not the case. I cannot conceive how anyone can arrive at a clear understanding of Paul's theology without trichotomy. The Atonement through Christ is not seriously affected, but Christian victory is. But wise and sanctified men have contended for both views, nevertheless we consider it important in both Christian Psychology and Pauline Theology as an explanation of the conflict in the believers victory over the flesh, and the doctrine of the resurrection.

DEFINITIONS - The root Greek words from which we get trichotomy and dichotomy are - in both "temne" which is "to cut" and in dichotomy "dicha" equaling "in two" and in Trichotomy "tricha" equaling "in three." Another method of terming them is Tripartite vs Bipartite. Trism vs Dualism

While the most of modern theology is Dichotomous, most of the early church and
all of the Eastern church was Trichotomous. In the time of Christ all the

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Jews were Trichotomous so .Josephus 1:1,2. So was Justin Martyr, Tertulian, Origin, John of Damascus, Tatian, Clement Alexandrinus. In fact, no writing of the earliest church Fathers contains any idea of Dichotomy. It was only as the Western church became prominent, that dichotomy was taught at all. Strong, in his systematic theology even quotes from some evolutionists to prove his dichotomy. P. 486, Leslie Olshausen well says on I Thess. 5:23
quoted in Smith's Bible Dictionary, p. 9l5--"It is indispensable, under a purely historical view, to acknowledge the triple division of human nature as a doctrine of the Apostolic age (and in agreement with our own belief)." In fact, it follows that many points of Christian Doctrine can be made intelligible only by assuming the distinction between spirit and soul.

A. LET US SEE HOW THE DICHOTOMISTS TEACH THEIR DUALISM

There is a lot of truth in dualism, and it rightly emphasizes the truth that man is not just materialistic. There is a part of man which outlives the tomb, which goes not back to the dust, but to the God who gave it.

The Bible over 450 times differentiates between the soul and the body. So this truth needs emphasizing. Man is made up of a physical or materialistic part, and a spiritual, unmaterial part. So a part of man not based upon the physical laws of nature, not fed on the same food from
dirt. In this sense I am dual. Soul and spirit are so closely joined and related and mystical as to comprise a seeming entity. After death, the soul and spirit are still inseparably linked and acting jointly. Only the Word of God is sharp enough and powerful enough to divide between the two. (Heb 4:12-13) There is but one argument worth considering of the dichotomists, i.e.; the many times where the two terms, soul and spirit are used interchangeably, so they argue, they are
synonymous. Most, call it the double aspect theory - the Spirit - is the soul looking Godward; the soul is the soul looking manward, but same entity, just two aspects of the same thing. I grant you that the two terms are used generically to indicate the spiritual or immaterial part of man. This is common to all language. But the generalizations are never to interfere with, or to interpret the specific texts; the general portions are to be interpreted by the specific, not vice versa. So with all doctrine, the doctrine of the resurrection is generalized throughout the Bible until we get to the specific teachings of the latter part of the New Testament, where we have the two resurrections mentioned in Rev.20 there is taught that there is a 1000 year difference in time between them.

LET US SEE WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS THEORY: (Of Dichotomy)

1) It proves too much by trying to use this argument, "Interchangeable usage of soul and spirit for the inmaterial part of man shows they are the same." You ban prove unochotomy or monism by that same argument. Just one part of man, for the soul of man is used for the whole man, body and soul in many places. (Acts 27:37) "We were in all in the ship, 276 souls." But~ bodies too, not disembodied ghosts.

This an idiom of speaking, called Synechdoche-- "A part for the whole", inclusive not divisive. As "man" for all mankind, taking in women, also.

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As "100 head of cattle." As "many mouths to feed." As the whole science of zoology, Generic terms, Feline, for the cat family. Yet takes in lynx, lion, tiger, tabby, etc. You can call a Persian kitten a feline, without losing its other distinctions. So soul and body used interchangeably, yet no dichotomist would say, "They are synonymous." The many times they are used generically for the whole will not mitigate against the few specific times each is used to divide. This generalization especially in the Old Testament usage of "spirit" is further seen in using the term for animals, yet no real theological dichotomist will make the animal dual as man. (As in Ecc. 3:21)

2) If man is only dual, how different from the animal? They have a rudimentary soulish activity. The difference is not in degree as evolutionists advocate, but in kind. "Who knoweth the spirit of the animal that goeth downward, and the spirit of man that goeth upward?" Spheres different. (Ecc. 3:21)

3) How is man made in the image of God? God is Spirit. Soul is only postulated of God athropomorphicly, even as a body is, in a theophany. The image is spiritual, not soulish. (Gen. 2:7 shows that Man's soul is to enable his God in-breathed spirit to express itself in his
God-fashioned body.)

4) The word for flesh, "sarkinos" and "sarx" is used interchangeably for the body and the old man, old nature. Yet no mistaking Paul's meaning, and the two are not synonymous. Is it strange then that soul and spirit are so used?

5) Paul distinctly proves the Spirit's sphere of activity is not in the flesh (Soulish realm), but in the pneuma, spirit. (Phil. 3:3) So whole "walking in the spirit, not in the flesh."

6) Note all dichotomists must per force distinguish between the operation of soul and spirit while denying any real separate entities. (So say, "Only two sides of same thing," yet separate spheres in the New Testament). We shall see more of what is wrong with dichotomy as we study the Scriptural proofs of trichotomy.

B. SCRIPTURAL PROOFS OF TRICHOTOMY

We shall see that the many times soul and spirit are used interchangeably does not mitigate against the few times where a definite difference is taught between the two. Paul is the great revelator of the pneuma (spirit). It wasn't until the new creation in Christ Jesus, and the believer was taken out of the realm of the flesh, and put into the spirit that there was any need of the God-given Revelation of the Tripartite man.

Definition--Let me state first of all what I mean by trichotomy. I cannot hold to the definitions of some of the great trichotomists. I must part paths as thoroughly with them, as I do the monists who deny any soul, or the dichotomists who confuse soul and spirit as one teaching dualism. So I part paths with the vague dualists and many other trichotomists.

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They holdÄÄ(l) man consists of body or matter, (2) animal life, or some
call it "vegetable life," in common with the animal and this is soulish
life, (3) then spirit, connected with God. I cannot ascribe to the
belief that all of man's rational, emotional, and volitional life is
seated in spirit. But I rather believe that all these personality
qualities are seated in the soulish nature. The vitalizing principle of
life in his body, that mysterious thing called life in every cell of his
body is not to be confused with his soulish nature. In the animal when
the principle of life leaves the body it dies. So in man, but the body
continues to die for days and weeks after the soul has departed. (I
teach that the soul animates the whole body, yet if arm is amputated a
part of the soul is not lost). The ascribing to the spirit all the
rational functions of the soul is not Scriptural; it has a higher
function connected with God, and lies in death in the sinner, until
quickened by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. But the death of the body,
does not destroy soul or spirit, but both are seen active and conscious
in the slain witnesses Ä souls under the altar in Rev. 6:9-il.

The soulish life is related to life in the body and self consciousness.
The spirit of man is endowed with a different set of attributes with
which man was to be related to God, in communion, worship, and "seeing
God."

PROOFS OF TRICHOTOMY

(1) Using the very same text the dichotomists use--Gen. 2:7. Here there seems to be three parts to man's creation. First, there is the forming of the materialistic part of man - his body - from the "clean dust of the ground." (Not the mud, as the evolutionists sneeringly carp). the Hebrew has the idea of moulding as a potter, the vessel. (Job 10:9) So Gen. 3:9--"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." God made this moulded clay figure, a senseless physical man. It must have had vegetable life but no soul. Then we read, "He breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives." The Hebrew is not singular but plural. Many think only for the Hebrew idiom of moral excellency, but I believe it was for the plurality of lives with which he was endowed. His soulish life and his spiritual life. Man was certainly made to live on two planes. Sensual life, and spiritual life. Then, "Man became a living soul." Note three things---"God moulded, God breathed and Man became." God made a body, God in-breathed a breath-spirit into man, and the union of the Spirit with the body became a living soul. Spirit and body have naught in common, spirit could not live in body alone, at least this kind of body, gross earthly body. The communion, the link, the life between was the soul of man.

Tertullian well says, "The flesh is the body of the soul, and the soul is the body of the spirit." Justin Martyr says, "The spirit resides in the soul-house, as the soul resides in the body-house." In Adam there was a perfect blending of the three into one harmonious unity; God pervading
all, glorified in all, with none of the spiritual strivings we experience.

The body was to be ruled by the soul (Paul, "Master your own vessels.") And the spirit was to rule the soul, and God the Holy Spirit was to rule

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our spirits as the "Father of Spirits." This is proved from Prov. 20:27, where this God inbreathed spirit or breath is called, "The candle of the Lord." "The Spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly." (Rotherham--"Searching all the chambers of the inner man.") Belly is used by metonomy for the soul of man the inner life of man as Christ said, (Jno. 7:38,39) "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." This verse in Proverbs shows that the spirit in man was to be God's candle guiding, searching, regulating, the soul of man. This the New spirit, jof pneuma, in man does when he walks after the spirit so as not to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We shall see that this is the heart of Paul's doctrine of the saints victory in Christ. The new pneuma created of the Holy Spirit rules instead of the soulish nature, so not psukikos (soulish) but pneumatikos, (spiritual). (How is this possible in dichotomy?) "Walking after the spirit, and not fulfilling the desires of the flesh" (Soul) Gal. 5:16

(2) Continuing from this story in Genesis, I find a further proof of the trichotomist viewpoint. God told Adam, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Gen. 2:17) This was not a spiritualization by Cod, figurative language, but real death. If language means ought, that very day of transgression a part of man died. We ask, "What part?" His soul? - No, it began to die that day, but not consummated for 930 years. "What part then? - God has said, "Surely die" and I know he did die - not of man." The candle of the Lord went out in darkness. That part of man God intended for "an habitation -- of God through the Spirit", where God was to reside, died. Here is one of the great truths of Scripture reiterated again and again, the natural man is dead. Death--and darkness reigns supreme in one department of his being. Paul calls it, "Dead in trespasses and in sins." ([ph. 2:1 and "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." I Tim. 5:6) Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their dead." (Mt.. 8:22, that cannot be physical or soulish death, but Spiritual Death.)

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Where in the natural man, the unconverted man, is there God-consciousness? The faculties to know God, see God, love God, worship God. For Jesus said, "They that worship God must worship Him in Spirit," not soulishly. For Paul said, "The natural man (Gr. Soulish man) cannot know the things of God--for they are spiritually discerned." What did he mean? The natural soulish man is dead in that realm of spirit, and has no faculties with which to lay hold of spiritual things. The paralysis of death lies over all those God-given faculties within, "The spirit of man which was to be Candle of the Lord." So the Bible terms them "natural man," what they are by only natural generation. Jude l0--"Brute beasts" or "irrational beasts" and then Jude 19 reveals
what the natural man is, "These be those who separate themselves, sensual (Roth-mere men) (Lit. psuchikoi-soulish ones)." Then he defines what he means, "Having not the spirit." (Omit the definite article "the" not in the Greek text - "Having not spirit.") Death reigns there. Be careful not to fall into the error of conditional immortality here. Death is never annihilation, but disorganization, and disintegration. The dead fallen man, still has spirit, but wrecked and ruined by the fall until it ceases to function as "the candle of the Lord." So God calls it "dead." So here is the need of the new birth; Jesus demanded, "Ye must be born from above." So "Or ye cannot see the kingdom of God." There can be no comprehension. Why? Because that part of man with all those spiritual faculties died in the day Adam fell. And is dead in all Adam's posterity until touched by the Spirit of God into Newness of life. At natural birth a new nature is born, new faculties to lay hold of physical life. So at regeneration. So many, even of the dichotomists, are ignorant of what salvation really is; not the re-education, reformation, whitewashing, of the old nature; but the impartation of a brand new nature, "New creatures in Christ and this new
Creation has new faculties and can "see the kingdom of God," yea - "see God." It is not physical or soulish, but Spiritual (Jno. 3:6) "That which is born of the spirit is Spirit."

(3) Before we go further into this argument let us consider a few other Scriptures. Note Ä the prayer of Mary under inspiration (Luke 1:46,47). Here there is a clear intimation that the spirit can only act upon the body through the soul. "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit
hath rejoiced in God my Savior." Here the change of tense signifies the spirit first conceived joy in God, and communicating with the soul roused it to magnify God. This is expressed through the song she sang, by the bodily organs of mouth and brain. (Like the candle of the Lord.)

THIS IS AS GOOD A PLACE AS ANY TO BRING IN THE TRUTH, WITH THE BODY MAN IS WORLD - CONSCIOUS, WITH THE SOUL HE IS SELF-CONSCIOUS, AND WITH THE SPIRIT HE IS GOD-CONSCIOUS. (First stated by C.A. Auberlon) Even the
dichotomists use some such formula for a distinction between soul and spirit. i.e. Manward vs. Godward, while denying and distinction.

(4) This naturally brings up another Scripture (Jude 19) "These be they.. .sensual (Cr. Soulish) having not spirit." Or Paul - (I Cor. 2:14) "The natural man (soulish man) receiveth not the things of the Spirit.. .neither can he know them." He doesn't have the right set of faculties in working order, for in that part of his tripartite being death reigns. "So he cannot see the Kingdom of God." The very part of

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man's being created by God to lay hold of the things of God, to see God, worship God, is dead. Only in the resurrected saint, quickened by the Spirit of God, are these faculties back in tune with God. Now he can "worship God in the Spirit" (Phil. 3:3) And "see God" (Jno 3:3,6) That is neither physical nor soulish, it has to be man's spirit, his newly created spirit within his natural spirit.

(5) Further deduced from these truths is the Scripture very embarrassing to the dichotomists--I Cor. 15:44, etc. The two kinds of bodies of the saints, the one we have now - the image of the earthly, the same psuchikos or soulish body; then the one we shall get in the resurrection, the image of the heavenly, the same pneumatikos or spiritual body. The first has the idea that the motivating principle of life, and expression is the soulish life. The second that the motivating principle of life and expression will no longer be the soul, but the new creation, the pneuma. So Paul says, "No longer flesh and blood, since it cannot inherit the kingdom of God." But if there is no difference in soul and spirit, as the dichotomists maintain then what is the difference in these two bodies? Let them answer that one if they can! If so then Paul is dealing in tautology when he calls one body soulish and the other spiritual; one with soul principle controlling it,
the other with spirit. As Scofield says, "To assert, therefore, that there is no difference between soul and spirit is to assert that there is no difference between our mortal and our resurrected bodies." (See his footnote on I Thess. 5:23, p. 1270) Scofield Reference Bible, old
edition.

(6) Paul is the greatest revelator of the pneuma in man. The deeper truths of the believer as taught by Paul are a riddle if man is not tripartite. His revelation of the two natures of the believer, of some believers as sarkikos, fleshy, carnal, and walking after the flesh; and others as
pneumatikos, spiritual, walking after the spirit; also of the warfare in the believer depends upon trichotomy. This is a truth growing out of all we have considered, theretofore, Paul is the great revealer here. It is the truth that at salvation God did not patch up the old nature, nor straighten it out, but completely set it aside as crucified with Christ, assigning it to death in identification with Christ on the cross, so that when Christ died, I died. (Rom. 6:1-11; Col. 3:1-4; Gal. 2:20, etc.) And God implanted in me a new creation, born from above, making me a partaker of the divine nature called by Paul pneuma, after the pneuma Hagion, (The Holy Spirit) Who quickens it. These two natures then are at war one with the other (Gal. 5:16,17). They are diametrically opposed the one to the other, since one has a corruption and death at work in it (Rom. 8:6, 13; Gal. 6:8). This is called by Paul, "sarx" or "flesh." The other, the new creation has life as its
principle, holiness as its fruit, (Rom. 8:6; Gal. 6:8) and is called "pneuma" or "spirit." Since the pneuma is holy and delights in the Law of God (Rom. 7:22, (inner man) 1:4), but the flesh mind is at enmity with God and not subject to His law (Rom. 8:7). These two have contrary wills, affections, principles, desires, thoughts, and fruits. How will the dichotomists explain them? He must perforce allegorize them, robbing them of Paul's meaning. Let me illustrate--Augustus Hopkins, Strong Systematic Theology, Judson Press, Phild,., PA; Vol 2, P 486. Strong, following the double aspect theory of the dichotomists - ...The

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pneuma (spirit) is man's nature looking Godward and capable of receiving and manifesting the pneuma Hagion; the psuche (soul) is man's nature looking earthward." But Paul makes this new deposit "Created in the image of God in true Holiness," so impossible of corruption. The dichotomists would have their incorruptible seed of the Holy Spirit, vacilating, first Godward then the same entity earthward, and warring all the time within itself rather than with another contrary entity. How untrue to all Paul's great revelation!

(7) Now to consider the two plainest portions, each in itself enough to clinch the fact that the Bible teaches trichotomy instead of dichotomy. The first is Heb. 4:12. "For the Word of God is quick (living) and powerful (energetic-actively at work-effectively at work) and more cutting than any sword with two blades, piercing (piercing, cutting through to) even to the dividing asunder (Cr. division, or separation - line of separation) of soul and spirit (where is the separating line if same entity?) and of the joints and marrow." And tells us why--"to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart" (reflections and conceptions of the heart) purposes and motives. Berk., - ponderings and meditations, Lit.-- "critic of the heart."

"Joints and marrow" has given a lot of trouble to the interpreter. Conybearre makes it but figurative language, but rest of the verse isn't so, neither is this. This is a picture of the Word of God doing what the priest did in the Old Testament as he dissected the sacrifice to search for flaws. We now know that the marrow is the blood builder, here the red corpuscles are manufactured, and Cod says, "The fear of the Lord is health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones." Umbilical cord source of all life of the fetus, and marrow the regimenting course of
the life stream, "Fatness of the bones" for good life. Since the bones form the marrow, it would seem soulish life from the physical body. So verse 13--"Neither is there any creature that is not manifest (without disguise) in His sight, for all things are naked (no covering) and open (no hiding) unto the eyes of Him with whom we must make account."

Let us ask this question--"How is this text ought but nonsense under the teaching of dichotomy?" If the test of the livingness, the ability to work or its energy, and the test of its extreme sharpness of the Word of Cod is its ability to divide to the line of demarkation between soul and spirit, if there is no line between soul and spirit, but they are one and the same thing? Dean Alfred was the first to try to escape this dilemma and Wuest follows him by trying to make the Creek text only mean a penetration into two things, but why name both if there is but one? The Creek text demands that the sharp Word of God does lay bare (vs. 13) each soul and spirit by penetration, but it also lays bare the line of demarkation between the two to separate the spiritual from the soulish. (How necessary this latter is if our worship is to be spiritual and not carnal, or soulish.)

(8) The second and most conclusive is I Thess. 5:23 - "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray Cod your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ." Note - there are two different Greek words for wholly and whole here - The first "wholly" (olotoleis) Here the only time in the N.J. equals "through and through." (As Luther translates it, Lit. - "the whole of

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each of you, or every part of each of you," - the idea is "completely" so the diaglett - "entirely," but it has the idea of "penetration.") The second "whole" - (olokleron) - carries the idea of "complete coverage," all of the man, no intrinsic part omitted. So rendering it "The very God of peace sanctify you through and through and altogether - a sanctification that misses no part." And a preserving of them blameless, the whole man, nothing omitted - and to make sure he names each individual part, separated, with a separate conjunction "and" between each, and to doubly make sure adds the definite article in the Greek before each - "preserve the whole man, the spirit, and the soul, and the body." How could Paul say it more emphatically, or if he wished
to teach trichotomy, how could he have said it more plainly? The dichotomy folks build their doctrine of dualism on all the generalizations, and then like Vincent, say Paul here is using poetical language???

Note - Not as we say, "body, soul and spirit" from outward inward. But "spirit, soul, and body" from inward, where God begins His work in creating a new spirit in the regenerated, then outward to purify and sanctify the whole man. First, God clears up the spirit or spring or fountain of life, then the streams.

This then is the distinction we shall adhere to, i.e., man as a tripartite being, made up of spirit, soul and body, as harmonizing with all the Scriptures, and explaining the Pauline doctrine of the believer. These two last Scriptures are of more value in formulating a doctrine of the Biblical psychology of man's nature than all the Old Testament generalizations where spirit and soul are used interchangeably to designate the immaterial part of man's nature.