If you’ve read my blog at all, then you know that I’ve done a lot of reading, research, and writing on embodied-souls. For a collation of my writings, see: 90 Free Resources for Counseling the Whole Person: Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls.

This past week, I’ve been reading Herman Bavinck’s Biblical and Religious Psychology. Bavinck has much to say about embodied-souls. Here are some select quotes from Bavinck on body and soul.

Scripture Is Not Dualistic

“Scripture is by no means dualistic. The psychical and the physical phenomena do not walk parallel to one another without ever affecting one another or having any influence upon one another. Spirit and matter, soul and body, never stand dualistically juxtaposed or opposed to one another. Rather, they are always most intimately related, influencing one another and working together” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 23).

“Holy Scripture recognizes and maintains the essential distinction between Creator and creature, but knows nothing of an original dualism between spirit and matter. Creation, incarnation, and resurrection adequately prove that spirit and matter, however distinguished, are capable of union and cooperation” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 61).

“Through the Reformation, the old dualism between spirit and matter, which had entered into Christian theology from Greek philosophy through Neoplatonism, was fundamentally overcome and abolished. Not only the spirit, but matter has a divine origin. Not only the soul, but also the body is holy…. The earth and matter and the body are inherently holy, wise, and good” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 94).

Scripture Sees Us as a Unity 

“In Scripture the human is not philosophically dissected into its constituent parts, but is always viewed in its unity, occasionally seen more from one side and then from the other. In reading and explaining the Bible, we should always keep this in mind” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 27).

We are “ensouled beings” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 34).

“Man is a unity, an organic whole, a unity in diversity. This truth is of great importance in today’s world. There are psychologists and pedagogues who ignore the soul or the body, the intellect, or the heart, or the will, the self, or the diversity of the soul’s life (of the faculties). But the Scriptures do justice to the whole person in every aspect. Soul and body are not dualistic and do not run parallel to each other like two clocks side by side, but they are intimately united in the personality and so form the essence of man that the fatal separation caused by death is overcome in the resurrection. Man does indeed have a spirit, but he is a soul, a psychical being, naturally designed for a body. Therefore, neither monism nor dualism, but diversity in the unity of the personality” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 84).

“In man there is no natural conflict between his flesh and his spirit. There is no opposition or struggle from the outset that must be held down from above by a supernatural power and kept from bursting forth. If man is the image and likeness of God, then both flesh and spirit, soul and body, partake of this likeness in their own way and to their own degree, and then they work together to make man answer his calling, namely, to be a prophet, priest, and king to God” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 94).

Scripture’s Valuing of the Body

“The strikingly beautiful way in which holy Scripture speaks of the formation of the human body in the mother’s womb highlights the great value that it attaches to the body everywhere, from its first to its last page. There is never mention of a contempt of matter, of an ascetic oppression and chastisement of the body. In the beginning the whole man, according to soul and body, beautifully, each in its own way, is created in the image of God. And in the last day, he is raised and glorified according to the image of the glorious body of Christ (Phil. 3:21)” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 30).

Scripture Teaches That the Embodied-Soul Keeps the Score

“We live so differently from the Easterners, so much less deeply, and in our world of abstract concepts, we are often so far removed from living, full reality. But the Easterners, especially the men and women in holy Scripture, are in the midst of life. And all that happens there grips them in the depth of their souls, moves their hearts to the deepest depths, and the entire body also shares in the emotions of the soul, the face and appearance, the kidneys, the bowels and bones” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 70).

“The Easterners, including the Israelites, live close to their hearts; they are a people in whom deep feelings, rich affections, and fiery passions play a much larger role than in Western people, who have separated the head from the heart, thinking from feeling, and now live in a double world—on the one hand in the world of perception, and on the other hand the world of abstract concepts. Hence, we sometimes find it difficult to understand the language of holy Scripture; we convert its living, concrete representations into concepts and then create a system out of them!” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 72).