Contrasting Views on Trauma and the Body 

A biblical counselor on X recently wrote,

“Your response to trauma reveals what has been stored in your heart, not your body.”

That sentence offers a concise summary of a significant amount of thinking coming from some segments of the modern biblical counseling movement. It succinctly captures common themes that are important for us to consider about traumatic suffering and the embodied-soul.

My post today is less about that one sentence. It is more about how that sentence was a catalyst for me to collate today’s summary of years of biblical study about embodied-souls and suffering.

I am motivated to examine Scripture further when some in the modern biblical counseling movement deny that suffering has an ongoing effect on the body. For example, such comments spur me to ask, “How do such claims stand the biblical test of Romans 8:18-27 which teaches that suffering can have a lingering impact on the body all the way up to our future glorification?”

Secular behavioral psychology was a catalyst for Jay Adams to study the Scriptures further. Trauma theory is a catalyst for many biblical counselors to examine the Bible more robustly.

For me, modern trauma theory has been a catalyst to study in even greater depth the Bible’s teaching on the effect of the evils of suffering on the embodied-soul. For example, modern trauma theory says that the body keeps the score and that trauma is stored in the body. Without having to accept everything associated with those concept, I have examined Scripture to assess how suffering effects the embodied-soul and if that impact might be lasting. For my overall thinking on embodied-souls and traumatic suffering, see, 161 Free Resources for Counseling the Whole Person: Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls.

“Trauma”? 

Personally, I am not “hung up” on the word “trauma.” However, since the X post used “trauma,” and since “trauma is frequently discussed in our world today, in this post I will use words and phrases like: suffering, traumatic suffering, and trauma. I use these words in a biblical theology sense of:

The evils of sin and suffering in our fallen world that can have an ongoing impact on our finite, fallen embodied-soul (Romans 8:18-27).

A Snapshot Introduction

My summary has grown from a blog-size interaction to an article-length interaction. So, perhaps a snapshot of my biblical theology of embodied-souls and traumatic suffering might be helpful:

“Traumatic suffering can have both an immediate and a lingering impact on our body and soul—on our embodied-soul.”

“Our response to trauma reveals how we experience, remember (‘store’), and respond to suffering in our heart and body—as a comprehensive, complex, inseparably intertwined unity of body/soul—embodied-soul.”

“We respond to traumatic suffering comprehensively as embodied-souls. Our response is both immediate and lasting—‘stored’ in our entire embodied-soul.”

I base my summaries on the following ten biblical principles which form a biblical theology of traumatic suffering and embodied-souls.

• #1: To Think Biblically About Trauma, We Need a Theology of the Embodied-Soul
• #2: Trauma Has Both an Immediate and an Ongoing Effect on Both the Body and the Soul—On the Embodied-Soul
• #3: Biblical Trauma Counseling Does Not “Blame It on the Brain,” Does Not Minimize the Brain/Body, but Cares for the Whole Person
• #4: By Thinking Theologically About Trauma, We Avoid Unbiblical Dualistic Ideas
• #5: Experiencing Traumatic Suffering in Our Fallen World Leaves a Lasting, Lingering (“Stored”) Effect on the Embodied-Soul
• #6: The Old Testament Consistently Depicts Trauma’s Lingering Effect on the Embodied-Soul—Ministering to the Whole Person
• #7: In the Gospels, Jesus Is the Soul Physician of Embodied-Souls
• #8: The New Testament Teaches Stewardship of the Embodied-Soul and Embodied Sanctification
• #9: Romans 8 Provides a Trauma Response Paradigm: “Groaning Until Glory;” “Growing Until Glorification”
• #10: Biblical Counselors Are Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls—Ministering to the Whole Person

Biblical Trauma Principle #1: To Think Biblically About Trauma, We Need a Theology of the Embodied-Soul

To address biblically what our response to trauma reveals, we need a sound biblical understanding of embodied-souls.

• Creation: How did God design us as embodied-souls?
• Fall: How does the fall into sin impact us as embodied-souls?
• Redemption: How does our redemption in Christ impact us as embodied-souls?
• Consummation: What is our eternal hope as embodied-souls?

Theologians call this a creation, fall, redemption, consummation theological anthropology. For a collation of 560 biblical passages from which we can develop a CFRC Theological Anthropology of Embodied-Souls, see:

560 Biblical Passages on the Embodied-Soul.

If I had to summarize in one sentence the Bible’s teaching on God’s original design for the embodied-soul, then I might say it like this:

God fearfully and wonderfully designed us as a comprehensive, complex unity of body/soul—embodied-soul—inseparably and intimately intertwined and intricately linked with a continual interaction, interconnection, and mutual ongoing effect flowing bidirectionally between our body/soul.

Biblical Trauma Principle #2: Trauma Has Both an Immediate and an Ongoing Effect on Both the Body and the Soul—On the Embodied-Soul

Our trauma discussions in the modern biblical counseling world hinge on twin contrasting views.

1. Where is trauma remembered or “stored”? Some say, only in the soul/heart. Others of us say, trauma impacts us both in the soul and body—the embodied soul.

2. When does trauma impact us? Some say, only immediately. Others of us say, trauma impacts us both immediately and in lasting, lingering, “stored” ways.

Here in principle #2, you’ll find a bullet point summary of the biblical view that traumatic suffering has both an immediate and an ongoing effect on both the body and the soul. Then, in principles #3-10, you’ll read point-by-point biblical/theological teaching supporting this view.

Because God designed us as embodied-souls, we can summarize trauma’s relationship to our body/soul in several overlapping ways:

“Our response to trauma reveals how we experience, remember (‘store’), and respond to trauma in our heart and body—as a comprehensive, complex, inseparably intertwined unity of body/soul—embodied-soul.”

“Our response to trauma reflects both what’s happening in our heart and what’s happening in our body. We are embodied-souls. Trauma impacts the whole person—body and soul—and God ministers grace to both.”

“Our response to trauma reveals how suffering has immediate and ongoing (“stored”) impact on our whole person, our body/soul—our embodied-soul.”

“Our embodied-soul response to trauma reveals how God fearfully and wonderfully designed us as comprehensive, complex embodied-souls with a continual interaction, interconnection, and mutual ongoing impact between our body/soul.”

“Because of the gift of memory, traumatic suffering is stored in our brain and mind—in our embodied-soul.”

“Because of the gift of salvation, when our embodied-soul remembers trauma, we can remember God our Healer and invite Him into our suffering.”

Biblical Trauma Principle #3: Biblical Trauma Counseling Does Not “Blame It on the Brain,” Does Not Minimize the Brain/Body, but Cares for the Whole Person

Let’s return to the catalytic quote:

“Your response to trauma reveals what has been stored in your heart, not your body.”

I assume that this statement is meant to protect against the false belief that we do not have moral responsibility for our responses to trauma because we can blame our bodies/brains. However, every biblical counselor agrees that traumatic suffering does not remove our moral responsibility.

We can maintain a biblical view of the “stored” impact of traumatic suffering on the heart and body (embodied-soul):

• Without rejecting personal responsibility.
• Without blaming the body/brain.
• Without saying that the body “determines” the soul’s response (because we respond as whole persons).
• Without unbiblically dividing (dichotomizing) the body/soul.
• Without minimize the role of the brain/body.
• Without rejecting compassionate, comprehensive ministry to the embodied sufferer.

I also assume that the statement is a sincere attempt to guard against materialistic reductionism—the view that we are only body/brain.

Biblically, we also need to guard against spiritualistic reductionism—the view that our response to trauma reveals only what is stored in our heart. We must build on a foundation of the Bible’s teaching on the unity of body/soul. We must acknowledge the Bible’s teaching about the united body/soul role in our whole person response to life in our fallen, evil world of suffering and sin.

Our next trauma principle addresses this important factor.

Biblical Trauma Principle #4: By Thinking Theologically About Trauma, We Avoid Unbiblical Dualistic Ideas 

Since God created us as a complex, interconnected, interrelated body/soul—embodied-soul, it is not theologically accurate to say that our response to trauma “reveals” only what is “stored” in our “heart.”

• My whole person (body/soul, embodied-soul) experiences traumatic suffering as it happens to me.
• My whole person (body/soul, embodied-soul) experiences the lingering, lasting impact of traumatic suffering upon me.
• My whole person (body/soul, embodied-soul) responds to traumatic suffering. We respond to life as embodied-souls. We respond to trauma as united brain-body-soul-mind beings.

God did not create us as disembodied spirits, but as embodied-souls (Genesis 2:7). No biblical counselor has ever counseled a disembodied spirit.

Neither “Materialism” (Biologize) Nor “Angelism” (Spiritualize)

Our materialistic world wants to make everything the physical brain. If we are not careful as biblical counselors, we move to the opposite extreme and make everything the soul. This is “angelism.” It is platonic dualism, neo-platonic dualism, and gnostic dualism that dualistically separates the body from the soul and teaches that the soul is “housed” in a body.[i] As Paul Tripp notes, we must avoid unbiblical extremes. The world’s extreme is to “biologize” every issue. The biblical counseling counter-extreme is to “spiritualize” every issue.

Biblically, we are a unity of body/soul—embodied-soul.

• “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” (Bavinck, Biblical and Religious Psychology, 84). 
• “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).
• “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).

Jay Adams on the Unity of Body/Soul

Rather than dividing body and soul and creating a dichotomy between them, Jay Adams saw them as inseparably united except by death.

• “The union of ‘mind’ or spirit with the body forms a functioning unit oriented toward the material world” (22).
• “This union of body and spirit, rather than called ‘dichotomy,’ as some people call it (meaning ‘to cut into two’), I would rather call ‘duplexity,’(which means two things folded together, two things brought together). Dichotomy speaks of taking the two apart, and we might call that what happens at death (you are dichotomized), but what you are now is a duplex person” (23).

Inseparably Intertwined 

Darby Strickland, in When It’s Trauma, explains our embodied-soul so well.

• “When God made us, he inseparably intertwined the physical and the spiritual within us (see Gen. 2:7; Matt. 10:28). Humans are not just souls with bodies, nor are we just physical beings with some spiritual component tacked on. While our bodies and our souls are distinct, they exist together in a relationship that profoundly shapes our experiences” (82, emphasis added).
• “The Bible tells us that our spiritual and bodily conditions are intricately linked and that the impacts of each flow bidirectionally. Western culture tends to biologize every issue—to overplay the effect the body has on it—but it would also be wrong to counter this by reducing every issue to a spiritual Wisdom and God’s Word tell us that our hearts and our flesh are united: distinguishable yet inseparable” (83).

Biblical, Whole-Person Trauma Theology

In biblical thinking, the “body” equals the whole person, just as much as “heart” equals the whole person.

• “The Old Testament employs many terms to speak of human beings, including basar (flesh) and lev (heart), and most scholars agree with H. Wheeler Robinson’s judgment that ‘the final emphasis must fall on the fact that the four terms [nephesh, ruach, lev, and basar] simply present different aspects of the unity of personality” (What Does Spiritual Formation Form?, Kevin Vanhoozer in Tending Soul, Mind, and Body: The Art and Science of Spiritual Formation, 53).
• “Paul does not view human beings as essentially spiritual or immaterial, for he exhorts Christians in Rome to ‘offer your bodies as a living sacrifice’ (Rom 12:1)” (Vanhoozer, 53).
• “Biblical scholars agree that such terms as body, soul, and spirit are not different, separable faculties of man but different ways of viewing the whole man” (Vanhoozer, 56).

The complex unity of the whole person is why, on the one hand, Solomon can say, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). But on the other hand, Paul can say, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).

God’s all-sufficient Word teaches that both “heart” and “body” represent the whole person. This is why Jesus when discussing storing up treasures (Matthew 6:19-20), uses both the “heart” (Matthew 6:21) and the “body” (Matthew 6:22-23) to illustrate the essence of the whole person.

It is not biblical to cherry-pick Proverbs 4:23, Matthew 6:21, or any other verse in isolation, and use them as proof-texts that our response to trauma exclusively reveals what is stored in our heart and not in our body. Instead, we need a comprehensive biblical understanding of God’s teaching on His wholistic design for us as embodied-souls.

As the title of today’s post indicates:

We experience, remember, and respond to trauma as embodied-souls, that is, in our whole, integrated, undivided, complex, interactive person—body/brain/soul/mind/heart.

“Who” experiences trauma? Me. All of me. Embodied-soul me.

“Who” responds to trauma? Me. All of me. Embodied-soul me.

“Where” is trauma “stored”? In me. In all of me. In embodied-soul me.

Biblical Trauma Principle #5: Experiencing Traumatic Suffering in Our Fallen World Leaves a Lasting, Lingering (“Stored”) Effect on the Embodied-Soul

Principle #4 developed the biblical truth that trauma is “stored” in the entire person—the embodied-soul. Principle #5 develops the biblical truth that trauma has a “stored” effect on the whole person—the embodied-soul.

As I noted, trauma theory can have a catalytic effect on our study of Scripture, driving us to robustly examine God’s Word and to use Scripture as the authoritative, sufficient lens through which we assess trauma theory. So, we at least need a basic understanding of current trauma theory. (What follows is quite basic and introductory.)

What Is Meant by “Stored” Trauma?

To discuss where trauma is “stored,” we need at least a beginning awareness of what is and is not meant by “stored” trauma. Importantly, “stored” is often a metaphor—trauma isn’t literally trapped somewhere like a filing cabinet. Rather, the body continues to react as if the trauma is ongoing due to how memory and physiology have been impacted or imprinted.

What Is Meant by “the Body Keeps the Score”? 

Likewise, it is helpful to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the concept that “the body keeps the score.” This includes at least the twin ideas that:

• The initial impact of trauma effects the body/brain, impacting neural networks and setting in place physiological patterns, which lead to the second idea:
• The ongoing impact of trauma remains evident in the body/brain/mind/soul via both somatic memory (brain/body) and cognitive memory (brain/soul/mind).

The notion of “stored” trauma and the body keeping the “score” both express the perspective that trauma is not only a cognitive memory issue, but also a whole body experience that can persist physiologically. Stored trauma and the body keeping the score also assert that trauma’s impact can remain in the body and mind unless addressed well and wisely.

What Philosophical Perspective Undergirds Modern Trauma Theory? 

It is also important to understand that many trauma theorist are “materialists” who view trauma only through the lens of the physical brain/body. Other trauma theorists view trauma psychosomatically through the lens of both the physical brain and metaphysical mind. The Bible, as I have been highlighting, views us as image bearers designed by God as embodied-souls with the body/soul united in a complex interactive, interconnected relationship.

A Theological Anthropology Assessment 

How might we think through “stored” trauma using a biblical understanding of personhood? We’ll examine this further under principles #6, 7, 8, and 9 (the Old Testament, the Gospels, the New Testament, and Romans 8). Here in principle #5, I briefly explore theologically the concept of “stored trauma” (the lingering impact of the evils of sin and suffering on the embodied-soul).

Ongoing Embodied-Soul Groaning: There is an ongoing, “stored” body/soul impact of suffering and sin on the whole person.

• Because we live in fallen, finite bodies in a fallen, sinful world, our embodied-souls will continue to groan our entire lives until glorification (Romans 8:22-27).
• Paul’s past experiences of traumatic suffering in Acts, and with the Corinthians, still had current, lingering effects on him. He was still hard pressed on every side, still
• As “jars of clay” we always carry around in our bodies the impact of living in a fallen world (2 Corinthians 4:7-12).

Past Traumatic Suffering and Current Embodied-Soul Responses: The trauma that happens to us can continue to impact us deeply as embodied-souls—long after our initial experience of the event.

• Paul’s past experience of traumatic suffering (“the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia”) had an ongoing, lingering, lasting effect on him such that he despaired of life and felt the sentence of death (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
• Our bodies are “wasting away” (2 Corinthians 4:16), moving headlong toward decay and death (1 Corinthians 15:42-44; Romans 8:21). So, until heaven, we cry out, “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Romans 7:24).
• While our inner person can find rest in the Lord, our outer person will always fight an ongoing battle with the impact of sin and suffering on our embodied-soul (2 Corinthians 4:8-9; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
• While we can experience peace in Christ, in this world we will have trouble and trauma (John 16:33) that leads to emotional and physical distress (Revelation 7:17; Revelation 21:4) until that future day when all suffering and sorrow, decay and death, are swept away forever (1 Corinthians 15:50-57; Revelation 22:1-5).
• While we can, in Christ, experienced progressive embodied-soul healing in this life, our final healing awaits our future glorification (Romans 7:25; Romans 8:18-27; 1 Thessalonians 5:23).
• While external events that happen to us do not control us, they can significantly harm us in ways that linger well beyond the initial event. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4) Exasperate (parorgizō) (provoke to anger) is present active indicative and communicates an ongoing provocation that forms a child, creating a trajectory of lasting embodied discouragement and anger.
• “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged” (Colossians 3:21). The present active indicative of discouraged (athymeō) conveys ongoing, progressive action, not simply a one-time experience. Paul is not merely warning against a momentary, transient feeling of discouragement. He is warning parents against provoking their children to a continuing state or pattern of inner collapse, disheartenment, and loss of courage in which the child becomes emotionally-physically spent or broken. Provoke (erethizō) conveys the capacity of external relational suffering to influence (not control) internal responses. Positively, provoke means to spur on and stimulate as in 2 Corinthians 9:2 where the enthusiasm of the Corinthians stirred others up toward positive action. Negatively, provoke means to incite toward ongoing exasperation and irritation.

The Biblical Counseling Coalition Confessional Statement recognizes how external relational suffering causes internal embodied-soul trauma. The Confessional Statement also encourages biblical counselors to help counselees to address such trauma comprehensively.

“We recognize the complexity of the connection between people and their social environment. Thus we seek to remain sensitive to the impact of suffering and of the great variety of significant social-cultural factors (1 Peter 3:8-22). In our desire to help people comprehensively, we seek to apply God’s Word to people’s lives amid both positive and negative social experiences. We encourage people to seek appropriate practical aid when their problems have a component that involves education, work life, finances, legal matters, criminality (either as a victim or a perpetrator), and other social matters.”

Clearly, the Bible teaches that traumatic suffering effects the entire body/soul. The Bible also teaches that the body/soul stores, remembers, groans, carries around, and reexperiences the effects of our traumatic suffering long after the event itself—in some respects all the way until our final glorification.

Jay Adams and the Habituation of the Body by the Soul

Jay Adams’s concept of habituation seems pertinent to these discussions of the lingering effects of traumatic suffering. In February 1992, Adams gave a lecture on The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem. That lecture was later published in a two-part series by The Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine. You can read Part One here. You can read Part Two here.

Adams taught that the body/brain responds to suffering by being habituated to react in certain ways. He explained that the sinful nature,

“…habituates the body, so that when adverse things happen (people say something critical, problematic situations develop, pressures come), the body is taught to respond habitually to those circumstances, in sinful ways. This sinful nature programs the body to respond wrongly” (Part One, 17, emphasis added).

This is a soul-body interaction. Might we say that the physical body/brain, influenced by the sin nature, keeps the score—by responding to trauma (“adverse things”) in habituated, programmed ways?

In this context of the habituated body, Adams explained that sanctification includes becoming,

“…more efficient in the use of this body to evaluate things properly and to store the right kinds of memories” (Part Two, 6, emphasis added).

According to Adams, the body stores memories and nouthetic counselors need to equip Christians to be “more efficient in the use of this body.”

Let’s recap what Adams taught about suffering, the sin nature, and the body:

• Suffering and the sin nature habituate and program the body/brain.
• The body/brain stores memories.
• Sanctification includes the body.
• Sanctification includes teaching people to use their physical body/physical brain more efficiently.

Next, we turn our attention to a sample of what the Old Testament teaches about the lasting effect of trauma on the whole person…

Biblical Trauma Principle #6: The Old Testament Consistently Depicts Trauma’s Lingering Effect on the Embodied-Soul

The Old Testament consistently describes two significant aspects of traumatic suffering and embodied-souls.

• We are embodied-souls and traumatic suffering impacts the whole person—body/brain/soul/heart/mind/spirit.
• As embodied-souls, traumatic suffering has a lasting, lingering “stored” impact on the whole person.

Here is a small sampler of these twin biblical truths from the Old Testament.

Adam: God fearfully and wonderfully designed us as embodied-souls. “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). 

Joseph: Imagine Joseph’s trauma. First thrown in a cistern to die—by his brothers. Then sold into slavery—by his brothers. Years later Joseph encounters his brothers. His embodied-soul responds uncontrollably—years later. “Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, ‘have everyone leave my presence!’ And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him” (Genesis 45:1, 2). His brothers respond as embodied-souls—paralyzed with terror. “But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence” (Genesis 45:3).

Hannah: The continual provocation of Hannah’s rival impacted Hannah body and soul. “Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, ‘Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?’” (1 Samuel 1:6-8).

Tamar: Tamar experienced immediate and lasting impact from the trauma of her rape. The impact of trauma was “stored” in her embodied-soul—living the rest of her life a desolate woman (2 Samuel 13:20). The Hebrew word for “desolate” portrays ongoing inner and outer responses—emotional and physical—lifeless, frozen, appalled, a condition of paralysis, utter emptiness, laid waste inside and out.

Elijah: Overwhelmed by trauma, Elijah cries out to God, “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life” (1 Kings 19:4). God responds to exhausted, fearful, and depressed Elijah, with the embodied-soul intervention of food, drink, and rest (1 Kings 19:5-8). God also responded with empathy, acknowledging Elijah’s fragility. “The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you’” (1 Kings 19:7).

Job and the Immediate Body/Soul Impact of His Traumatic Suffering: Has anyone experienced more trauma than Job? His trauma had an immediate and continuing impact on him body and soul. Job paints portraits of soul anguish and his body anxiety. “If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—no wonder my words have been impetuous. The arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are marshaled against me. Does a wild donkey bray when it has grass, or an ox bellow when it has fodder? Is tasteless food eaten without salt, or is there flavor in the sap of the mallow? I refuse to touch it; such food makes me ill” (Job 6:1-7). Job’s flesh and spirit fail him. “What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? Do I have the strength of stone? Is my flesh bronze? Do I have any power to help myself, now that success has been driven from me?” (Job 6:11-13). Job is sleepless in Uz. “When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn” (Job 7:4). “Surely, God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household. You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me” (Job 16:7-8). “I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust. My face is red with weeping, dark shadows ring my eyes” (Job 16:15-16).

Job and the Lasting, Lingering, Stored Impact of His Past Traumatic Suffering: After Job’s experience of traumatic suffering, he cries out, “For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil” (Job 3:24-26). His body and soul are impacted daily long after the initial trauma had occurred. What Job first shared in Job 3, continues over twenty chapters later. “And now my life ebbs away, days of suffering grip me. Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest…. The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me” (Job 30:16-17, 27). Long after his specific traumatic suffering, Job experiences embodied-soul “stored” trauma. “I still dread all my sufferings” (Job 9:28). “Only grant me these two things, God, and then I will not hide from you: Withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors…. “So man wastes away like something rotten, like a garment eaten by moths” (Job 13:21, 28). “My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever. My lyre is tuned to mourning, and my pipe to the sound of wailing” (Job 30:30-31). What a word picture—his embodied-soul has become tuned—altered, adjusted, changed, modified, attuned—to mourning and wailing. Long after the trauma of the loss of his family, Job’s pain remains. “Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away” (Job 16:6). Job’s past trauma breaks his spirit today. “My spirit is broken, my days are cut short, the grave awaits me” (Job 17:1). Job’s past trauma breaks his body today. “My eyes have grown dim with grief; my whole frame is but a shadow” (Job 17:7). 

David in Psalm 6: David cries out to God as an embodied-soul for embodied-soul relief for his embodied-soul agony. David experiences and recognizes the body’s impact on the soul, the soul’s impact on the body, and suffering and sin’s impact on the body and soul. “LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint; heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, LORD, how long? Turn, LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave? I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping  and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes” (Psalm 6:1-7). See also: Psalm 13:2-3; Psalm 22:14-15; Psalm 31:9-10; Psalm 38:1-10; Psalm 77:1-4; Psalm 102:3-7.

David in Psalm 39: In Psalm 39:9-10, David pictures his complex ongoing body/soul responses of emotional distress. His eyes growing weak with sorrow. His body and soul growing weak with grief. His life consumed with anguish. Years consumed with groaning, years of strength failing due to affliction, and years of bones growing weak—David’s ongoing, lasting, “stored” body/soul responses to trauma.

The Gift of Memory and Psalm 42: When God created us, He designed us with the gift of memory—a physical brain that can store memories and a metaphysical soul that can reflect on those memories. In Psalm 42, the psalmist pours out his soul as he remembers people mocking him, “Where is your God?” (42:3). His embodied-soul reacts to these stored memories—his soul thirsting for God, and his sleepless body without any appetite (“my tears have been my food day and night”) (42:1-3). The psalmist’s past memories of joyful communal worship cause him great distress now that he is in isolation, away from the people of God (42:4). Speaking of memory, the psalmist feels as if God has forgotten him (42:9). Remembering his separation from God’s people and his feelings of separation from God, the psalmist’s entire embodied-soul reacts: sleepless, tearful, longing, panting, downcast soul, disturbed soul, continual mourning, his bones suffering “mortal agony” (42:1-11). These stored memories—stored in his brain and his mind, in his body and his soul—call forth another memory. “Therefore I will remember You” (42:6). As the traumatic waves of life crash over him repeatedly, sweeping him again and again under the tsunami of trauma (42:7), the psalmist is:

• An emotional being who experiences life intensely,
• An embodied-soul, impacted in body and soul by stored memories in his brain and mind,
• A spiritual being, social being, self-aware being, relational being, responsible being, rational being, and volitional being who can choose to recall stored memories (42:6) of his God of hope (42:5), God His Savior (42:5), God of love (42:8), the God who is his life (42:8), and God his Rock (42:9).

Solomon in the Wisdom Literature: Solomon (and the Psalmists) consistently teach the inseparable connection between body and soul, and the impact of sin and suffering on both the body and soul. 

• Solomon (and the Psalmists) consistently teach that the body impacts the soul and the soul impacts the body: Psalm 131:2; Proverbs 4:20-22; Proverbs 14:13; Proverbs 14:30; Proverbs 15:4; Proverbs 15:13; Proverbs 15:30; Proverbs 16:24; Proverbs 17:22; Ecclesiastes 8:1; Ecclesiastes 11:10.
• Solomon (and the Psalmists) consistently teach that suffering in our evil, fallen, sinful world impacts us both body and soul: Psalm 42:9-10; Psalm 77:1-4; Psalm 102:3-7; Psalm 109:21-25; Proverbs 15:13; Proverbs 18:14; Ecclesiastes 3:18-21.
• Solomon (and the Psalmists) consistently teach that ungodly, sinful living and unconfessed sin impacts us body and soul: Psalm 6:1-16; Psalm 32:3-4; Psalm 38:1-10; Psalm 51:8-9; Psalm 102:9-11; Proverbs 5:23; Proverbs 6:12-15; Proverbs 8:35-36; Proverbs 10:27; Proverbs 14:30.
• Solomon (and the Psalmists) consistently teach that godly living impacts us body and soul: Psalm 16:9; Psalm 34:5; Psalm 130:3-6; Psalm 143:3-8; Proverbs 3:1-2; Proverbs 3:7-8; Proverbs 3:15-18; Proverbs 3:21-22; Proverbs 4:4-6; Proverbs 4:10-13; Proverbs 4:20-22; Proverbs 8:35-36; Proverbs 9:11; Proverbs 10:27; Proverbs 14:30; Ecclesiastes 8:1.

Jeremiah: The gift of memory allows for certain experiences to reawaken past wounds and trigger current lament. “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me” (Lamentations 3:19-20). Scripture gives language for ongoing, stored, embodied-soul distress. 

Ezekiel: Ezekiel 21:6-7 provides a graphic description of the impact of the body on the soul and the soul on the body. “Therefore groan, son of man! Groan before them with broken heart and bitter grief. And when they ask you, ‘Why are you groaning?’ you shall say, ‘Because of the news that is coming. Every heart will melt with fear and every hand go limp; every spirit will become faint and every leg will be wet with urine.’”

Jonah: When Jonah was so angry that he wished he were dead (Jonah 4:9), God responded to angry Jonah by giving him “shade for his head to ease his discomfort” (Jonah 4:6). Later, God confronted angry Jonah with an object lesson by providing “a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint” (Jonah 4:8). God both comforted and confronted Jonah as an embodied-soul.

Old Testament Words for Embodied Emotions: Hebrew language scholar, Hans Walter. Wolff, in Anthropology of the Old Testament, explained that the Semitic languages used “stereometric thinking.” This synthetic thinking uses a physical organ of the body to describe a psychological function. Rather than a dichotomy of the body from the soul, there is a seamless unity of the body with the soul. This is beautifully portrayed in the Old Testament concept of emotions, which are portrayed by various Hebrew words such as the bowels, belly, stomach, intestines, womb, or liver. Emotional states are designated by the physical organ the emotion affects. Think of “bowels of compassion”—the deep inner experience we “feel” both emotionally and physically. In Job 30:27, Job’s trauma caused his “bowels to boil” (direct translation from the Hebrew). The NIV’s translation loses the Hebrew connection between the body and soul. “The churning inside me never stops” (NIV). “Boiling bowels” is an apt physical description of the psychosomatic experience of traumatic suffering. Job 32:18-19 is another case where our modern translation diminishes the Hebrew emphasis. The NIV has “Inside I am like bottled-up wine, like new wineskins ready to burst. The Hebrew would say, “The spirit in my belly constrains me. My belly is as wine which has no vent, it is ready to burst.” The Old Testament pictures feeling states in physical terms, uniting the physical and the emotional. The Old Testament portrays an intricate, intimate interaction between the body/soul, including between the body/emotions. Biblically, trauma imprints on our body—bowels, stomach, gut, belly as we experience life deeply—physically/psychologically. (For more on the Old Testament understanding of humanity, see my Th.M. thesis, Hebrew Anthropological Terms as a Foundation for a Biblical Counseling Model of Man.)

In Summary: If we understand and engage the Old Testament, then it is not enough to say, “Well, of course the Bible teaches that suffering impacts the whole person, but that doesn’t mean that the body stores suffering!” No. the consistent testimony of the Old Testament is that the body/soul continues to experience, remember, respond to, and react long after the traumatic suffering originally occurred. The body/soul remembers and stores the past experiences of traumatic suffering—and reacts today to those past experiences.

Our role as soul physicians of embodied-souls is not to deny this reality of post-traumatic embodied-soul suffering. Instead, our role is to enter this reality, empathize with the traumatic sufferer, hear their past and present story of suffering, and patiently help them, like the psalmist in Psalm 42 and like Jeremiah in Lamentations 3, not only to remember their suffering, but also to remember their God.

“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:19-22).

Every time the embodied-soul remembers and reexperiences traumatic suffering, we seek to remember and reexperience our Father of compassion and God of all comfort.

Biblical Trauma Principle #7: In the Gospels, Jesus Is the Soul Physician of Embodied-Souls—Ministering to the Whole Person

The Bible is consistent and clear on addressing how the body impacts the soul, how the soul impacts the body, how sin impacts the body and soul, and how suffering impacts the body and soul. Here are just a few biblical examples from the life and ministry of Jesus.

Jesus ministered to the whole person.

• The Gospels provide at least 618 passages illustrating Jesus’s comprehensive, compassionate ministry to the embodied-soul. See, Jesus: Soul Physician of Embodied-Souls.
• Jesus focused not just on the soul, not just on the body, but on the embodied-soul. See, The Gospels, Traumatic Suffering, and the Embodied-Soul.
• Jesus and His disciples modeled and practiced the need for embodied-soul renewal and rest. See, 48 Gospel Passages about Jesus and Solitude: Rest, Renewal, Withdrawal for Reflection, and Prayer to His Father.

Jesus, in responding to the ultimate trauma of His impending crucifixion, had an intense embodied-soul response. He was sorrowful, troubled, deeply distressed, and His soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death (Matthew 26:36-39; Mark 14:32-38; John 12:27). Being in soul anguish, His sweat was like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). This was a whole person comprehensive, complex body/soul response.

Jesus’s body told His soul’s story. The visible, embodied sweat like drops of blood witnessed to His invisible soul anguish.

His embodied-soul was so distressed that an angel appeared from heaven to strengthen (enischuō) Jesus (Luke 22:43). The New Testament uses “strengthen” only one other time—in Acts 9:19 for Paul being strengthened with food after three days of blindness and not eating or drinking.

Jesus’s disciples, to a less intense degree, experienced an embodied-soul response in the Garden. They were exhausted from sorrow (Luke 22:45). Their spirit was willing but their flesh was weak (Matthew 26:41).

Biblical Trauma Principle #8: The New Testament Teaches Stewardship of the Embodied-Soul and Embodied Sanctification 

In New Testament thinking, the body is spiritual. The New Testament teaches embodied sanctification/spirituality. Here’s a small sampler of the New Testament’s teaching on the sacredness of the body, embodied living, and embodied-soul sanctification.

• Our sanctification is embodied sanctification. We are to discipline our embodied-souls: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.
• Our sanctification is embodied sanctification. We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is our true and proper worship: Romans 12:1.
• God commands us not to let sin reign in our bodies: Romans 6:12.
• God commands us to yield our bodies as instruments of righteousness: Romans 6:13.
• Our sanctification includes learning how to control our bodies in a way that is holy and honorable: 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4.
• Our embodied-soul is vital in our present sanctification and in our future glorification: 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”
• Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are to glorify God with our bodies and through the stewardship of our bodies: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
• We are to steward our bodies in holiness: Matthew 5:29-30.
• It is in the life we now live in the body through which we live by faith in the Son of God: Galatians 2:20.
• Our daily physical lives are an opportunity to glorify God in even the seemingly most “mundane” of activities—like glorifying God through our eating and drinking: 1 Corinthians 10:31.
• The New Testament illustrates the ongoing impact of trauma on our embodied-soul: 2 Corinthians 1:8-9; 2 Corinthians 4:7-10; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
• The New Testament teaches the ongoing impact of the fall on our body, and the ongoing groaning of our embodied-soul: Romans 8:19-25.
• The New Testament teaches the relationship between our bodily weakness, our emotional/spiritual weakness, and Christ’s grace and strength: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.
• The New Testament values bodily exercise and physical training, seeing it as profitable and useful during our time on earth: 1 Timothy 4:8.
• The New Testament presents the validity of physical treatments and interventions for our embodied-soul: 1 Timothy 5:23.
• The New Testament commands pastors/elders to use the medicinal means and physical interventions current in their day: James 5:14 (see Jay Adams’s interpretation and application of James 5:14).

We Sin and We Are Sanctified as Embodied-Souls 

Recently another biblical counselor shared on X his dualistic understanding of sin and the body.

“Sin comes from our hearts—not our bodies.”

This opinion does not align with the Bible’s theological anthropology of embodied-souls that we have been examining. I’ve searched and cannot find any biblical counselors who say sin comes only from our bodies. That would be unbiblical. It is equally unbiblical to say that sin comes only from our hearts. The Bible teaches that we are created, we are fallen, we are redeemed, and we are glorified as embodied-souls.

• Creation: We are an intricate, intimate, inseparable union of body/soul (heart/body)—embodied-soul. God created us as embodied-souls (Genesis 2:7).
• Fall: We sin as embodied-souls (Psalm 51; Romans 6:1-14; 1 Corinthians 6:13-17).
• Redemption: We are saved and sanctified as embodied-souls (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
• Consummation: We are glorified as embodied souls (1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

Biblical Trauma Principle #9: Romans 8 Provides a Trauma Response Paradigm:  “Groaning Until Glory;” “Growing Until Glorification” 

In the hearts of some biblical counselors, there seems to be a fear that allowing for a lingering, lasting impact of trauma on the body and soul might lead to dismissing personal responsibility. There seems to be an anxious concern that someone might “blame it on the brain.”

However, I know of zero biblical counselors, zero clinically-informed biblical counselors, and zero trauma-informed biblical counselors who teach that trauma’s lasting, lingering impact on the embodied-soul in any way dismisses personal responsibility.

Instead, competent soul physicians of embodied-souls hold together the twin truths of the horrors of traumatic suffering and the affectionate sovereignty of our Father of compassion and God of all comfort. Romans 8:17-39 provides a powerful and beautiful combination of groaning until glory and growing until glorification.

Groaning Until Glory

In the context of traumatic suffering (Romans 8:17-18), Paul expresses the candid, honest, intense lament of the sufferer who experiences the bondage of decay—the brokenness of bodies subjected to frustration, which lead to persistent groanings as in the pains of childbirth, as we long daily for the final redemption of our finite, fallen, frustrated bodies (Romans 8:19-27). We will groan and lament sin’s deep impact on our embodied-soul until that future day when we experience our final redemption. A compassionate soul physician of embodied-souls will enter into a trauma sufferer’s groaning until glory. We will listen to and empathize with the longing lament for the end of the body’s bondage. We will minister comprehensively to the whole person.

Growing Until Glorification

No loving biblical counselor will omit Romans 8:17-27 from their understanding of trauma’s impact on the embodied-soul. Likewise, no loving biblical counselor will omit Romans 8:28-39 from their understanding of God’s compassionate care and comfort for the trauma sufferer. In His affectionate sovereignty, God does “work all things together for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). God does enlighten us to see His loving heart even in the midst of the hatred of the world (Romans 8:31-36). God does empower us through Christ-dependence to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Competent soul physicians of embodied-souls “integrate” the twin biblical truths of groaning until glory and growing until glorification.

Biblical Trauma Principle #10: Biblical Counselors Are Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls—Ministering to the Whole Person 

In our modern biblical counseling world, there are two different ways to understand traumatic suffering and the embodied-soul.

One common modern perspective claims that:

“Your response to trauma reveals what has been stored in your heart, not your body.” 

By contrast, these ten biblical trauma principles teach that:

“Our response to trauma reveals how we experience, remember (‘store’), and respond to trauma in our heart and body—as a comprehensive, complex, inseparably intertwined unity of body/soul—embodied-soul.”

“We respond to traumatic suffering comprehensively as embodied-souls. Our response is both immediate and lasting—‘stored’ in our entire embodied-soul.”

In summary:

• Our body impacts our soul. Our soul/heart impacts our body. Suffering and sin impact our embodied-soul.
• We are jars of clay—finite, fallen, frail, feeble, and the horrors of sin impacts our inner and outer person (2 Corinthians 4:7-18).
• Until we are glorified, we will live in groaning bodies in a fallen world (Romans 8:22-27)—our embodied-souls “groan until glory.”
• Trauma sufferers are saints, sons, daughters, and more than conquerors, who, like Paul, feel the sentence of death and rely not on themselves but on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)—as embodied-souls we “grow until glory.”

Therefore, since Jesus is the Soul Physician of embodied-souls (Psalm 147:3; Isaiah 53:4; Isaiah 61:1-3), as biblical counselors:

We seek to be soul physicians of embodied-souls who help people to address comprehensively how to respond in a Christlike way to traumatic suffering as relational, spiritual, social, self-aware, rational, volitional, emotional, physical beings—embodied-souls.

We seek to share comprehensive, compassionate care for the whole person, empathizing with them as they groan until glory, and equipping them to grow until glorification.

My Personal Story of Embodied-Soul Suffering 

What might it look like in real life to apply these ten biblical trauma principles for biblical counseling? My own life provides one such example. You can read about it here:

I’m Never More Christ-Dependent Than When I’m Doing Deep Breathing Exercises.

In this post, I share my story of eighteen months of constant 24/7 care for my wife after her life-threatening stroke. At the end of those eighteen months, I crashed. My embodied-soul was spent, exhausted. If you read the post you’ll see what it was like for me to apply God’s Word and spiritual disciplines to my embodied-soul traumatic suffering. You’re also read what it was like to applying physiological interventions to my embodied-soul suffering. And you’ll see further biblical-theological support for the spirituality of physiological interventions.

And what might it look like for a biblical counselor to help someone experiencing embodied-soul traumatic suffering? Once again, you can look at my own life experience here:

The Counselor Sees a Counselor.

In that post, I describe how my biblical counselor served me faithfully as a soul physician of my embodied-soul.

Endnotes

[i]Platonic dualism did not teach the utter disregard for the body. Platonic dualism emphasized the existence of two distinct realms: the immaterial world of perfect forms and the imperfect material world. In Platonic dualism, the immaterial is perfect; the material is imperfect. We can become Platonic-infected if we allow this worldly philosophy to infiltrate our thinking with the idea that: 1.) The immaterial and material realms are separate in human beings (rather than united as embodied-souls). 2.) The immaterial realm is of greater value than the material realm.