Summary 

If we went to the Apostle Paul for biblical counseling, he would focus on our whole person as embodied-soul.

A Facebook Q&A 

On Facebook, through RPM Ministries, I created and moderate a group called Gospel-Centered Biblical Counseling and Equipping. It is a very active group with over 5,200 members.

Yesterday, I posted some quotes from Herman Bavinck’s Biblical and Religious Psychology. Those quotes were from my recent post on Unity of Body and Soul: Embodied-Souls in Herman Bavinck.

“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).

“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).

What Garners the Majority of a Biblical Counselor’s Attention? 

A friend named Brian, responding indicating that he believed a biblical counselor should focus the majority of their attention on the soul/spirit, not on the body. Here’s his statement, without edit:

“I don’t think anyone denies the general truth above (though I’m not sure how “matter” is inherently wise (?); I would need to see what he’s saying in that context). But that truth must be balanced with the reality that the body is decaying (2 Cor 4:16) and will return to dust one day (Gen 3:19; Ecc 12:7), while the spirit is being renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16). Those theological realities point us to consider which one (spirit or body) should garner the majority of a counselor’s attention (while not neglecting the health of either).

Focusing on the soul is an increasingly common refrain that I am hearing in our modern biblical counseling world. Honestly, it surprises me, since the Bible does not dichotomize body and soul (as Bavinck quote aptly explains).

My Response to Brian 

So, I shared these thoughts in interacting with Brian.

“Thanks for interacting, Brian. Here’s a link to the post which also has the link to Bavinck’s book: so you can see what he is saying in context.

Unity of Body and Soul: Embodied-Souls in Herman Bavinck.

You ask which—soul OR body—should garner the majority of a counselor’s attention.

My answer: Biblically, we are not a “which;” we are not either body or soul. We are a unity. There is no such thing as counseling just the soul or just the body. None of us has never counseled a disembodied soul. We are a complex, interrelated, interconnected, inter-impacting body/soul—embodied-soul.

So, I believe many are asking the wrong question and coming to wrong, unbiblical answers.

The wrong question: “Should the body OR soul garner the majority of a counselor’s attention?”

The wrong answer: “The soul should garner the majority of a counselor’s attention.”

It’s the wrong question and the wrong answer because we are not either soul or body; we are embodied-soul. We can’t un-unite them. We can’t counsel just “the soul.” We can’t counsel just “the body” We counsel human beings and human beings are embodied-souls.

The more biblical/theological question is, “How do we biblically, practically, effectively counsel embodied-souls ?” Or, “Biblically, what does it look like to be soul physicians of embodied-souls?” Or, “Biblically, what does it look like to be embodied-soul physicians of embodied-souls?”

Further Thoughts 

This comprehensive care follows the model of Christ who cared comprehensively for people body/soul. You might appreciate my half-dozen recent articles on The Gospels, Traumatic-Suffering, and Embodied-Souls. You also might find of interest my recent (free) 87-page collation of 560 biblical passages on who we are as embodied-souls. And you also might find of interest my collation of 90 free resources on embodied-souls.

This embodied-soul theme is important to us because it is important to the Bible. It is vital to biblical counselors. What should garner the majority of a biblical counselor’s attention? Not just the body, not just the soul, but the embodied-soul. We are a unity of body/soul. Or, as Jay Adams described us, we are a “duplex” or a “duplexity”—a complex, interconnected, interrelated embodied-soul.[i]

When we minimize the body, we smuggle in unbiblical, secular Platonic dualism. It is not “spiritual” to divide and demean how God fearfully and wonderfully created us as embodied-souls. It is not “spiritual” nor biblical to deem the body as less valuable than the soul.”[ii]

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. Paul does not view human beings as essential spiritual or immaterial, for he exhorts Christians in Rome to ‘offer your bodies as a living sacrifice’ (Rom 12:1).” (What Does Spiritual Formation Form?, Kevin Vanhoozer in Tending Soul, Mind, and Body: The Art and Science of Spiritual Formation, 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).

“Man is one person who can … be looked at from two sides as psychosomatic duality. Some prefer to speak of ‘psychosomatic holism’ out of a concern that duality ‘implies that the distinction between soul and body is more basic than its unity. The important point is … the ‘real self’ is the whole self—body and soul” (Vanhoozer, 57).

“The Greek fathers use ‘heart’ to designate the human being as a psycho-somatic whole” (Vanhoozer, 57).

The Bible views us as:

• Embodied-souls
• Psycho-physical unities
• Dualistic holism
• Holistic dualism
• Psycho-somatic whole

A Brief Response to My Response 

Then, another friend, Parker, responded. He said, speaking to my first friend about my first response (I share his response without edit):

“hm, I think I’d like to see how he interacts with ROM 8:10-11??” 

My Engagement: If We Went to the Apostle Paul for Biblical Counseling, He Would Focus on Our Whole Person 

I wrote my response “off the top of my head,” typing as I was thinking. This is an attempt to briefly, quickly respond to a Facebook interaction, not a final theological analysis. Still, I think this conversation is worth sharing…

“Brother, Thank you for your kind invitation for me to interact with you about Romans 8:10-11. For context, I will expand our conversation to Romans 8:8-11. I would be glad to seek to apply this passage, along with the rest of Romans 8, Romans 7, Romans 6, and Romans 12, to the issue of where a biblical counselor focuses their counsel: on the soul, on the body, or on the whole person–on the embodied-soul. I also would love to hear how you would interact with Romans 8:8-11 in the context of the rest of Romans and in the context of the rest of the Bible’s teaching on who we are as embodied-souls.

The Passage: Romans 8:8-11:

8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.” 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

First, “the realm of the flesh” (Romans 8:8) is not the body. It is the whole person (embodied-soul) previously conditioned by living as a fallen person in a fallen world—and still impacted until glorification by that old person/nature/”flesh.” Paul emphasizes at the end of Romans 7 that he was not yet glorified and is still in a battle between the old person and influences (“flesh”) and the new person (who is rescued by Christ alone).

Second, verse 9 is not contrasting body and soul. It is contrasting “flesh”—the old way of living in self-sufficiency, self-dependence, self-centered, selfish, one’s own power, one’s own strength—with the new way of living by the Spirit: dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit, humbly recognizing our total inability to live a godly, Christlike life in our own power, humbly yielding to the Spirit, humbly reckoning on what Christ has done in us (Romans 6). We are saved by Christ alone; we are progressively sanctified by the Spirit as we yield to, surrender to, and cooperate with His power that works within us–within our entire embodied-soul being.

Third, Romans 8:10-11 is addressing the same truth that Paul addresses in 8:17-27: we currently live in finite, fallen, not yet glorified bodies. Until our future glorification, we groan as our finite bodies are subject to pain, suffering, trauma, weakness…and ultimately death. That is vital truth for all of us to remember as biblical counselors. We minimize this truth of unglorified, finite, frail, suffering bodies to the peril of our counselees. We are embodied-souls saved, but not yet glorified. So, according to Romans 8:10-11, in what power do we live? We live in the power of the Spirit—as finite embodied-souls, not in the power of the flesh—the old person conditioned by the fallen world.

Fourth, this is why Paul says in Romans 6 that we must present the members of our body to Christ as instruments of righteousness. Paul’s model of sanctification is very embodied! This is why Paul says in Romans 12:1-2—the classic New Testament passage on progressive sanctification—that we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices.

Paul, being an inspired theologian, taught that we are embodied-souls (this is Pauline theological anthropology). So he is calling each of us as embodied-souls to present our bodies, our whole selves to God, to offer our whole selves as living sacrifices—body/soul—embodied-soul. Paul is a soul physician of embodied-souls. His model of progressive sanctification clearly and consistently focused on the whole person” body/soul = embodied-soul.

It is not only in Romans where Paul has this emphasis. It is in all his writings. Take 1 and 2 Corinthians as one example. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul highlights our being “jars of clay” and how this is vital to understanding our Christian lives. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul emphasizes his own embodied-weakness and his “thorn in the flesh” which God uses to cause him to depend not upon himself, but upon Christ. In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Paul emphasized in his own progressive sanctification his need to discipline his body (his embodied-soul) (1 Cor 9:24-27). In 2 Corinthians 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul crafts a biblical creation, fall, redemption, consummation anthropology of embodied-souls. Perhaps 1 Thessalonians 5:23 is the best summary of Paul’s sanctification/glorification model of people. “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

If we went to Paul for biblical counseling, he would focus on our whole person. He would be our soul physician of our embodied-soul. 

Fifth, for a look at 560 biblical passages on embodied-souls, and how central this comprehensive biblical anthropology is throughout the Bible, see:

560 Biblical Passages on Embodied-Souls.

From this collation, I summarized five foundational principles for biblical counselors:

1. The Bible consistently emphasizes that we are not only bodies; we are not only souls; we are embodied-souls.
2. As biblical counselors, if we minimize or neglect ministry to the whole person—to the embodied-soul—then we are not Jesus-like soul physicians.
3. No biblical counselor has ever counseled a disembodied-soul.
4. Comprehensive, compassionate biblical counseling ministers to the whole person—body and soul—embodied-soul.
5. Biblical counselors are soul physicians of embodied-souls.

Please feel free to suggest other passages for us to interact about. I love discussing comprehensive, biblical counseling: being soul physicians of embodied-souls.

Blessings, my friend.

Bob”

Notes

[i] Jay Adams, in The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body, Part 1, contrasts the positive biblical view of the body with the negative Gnostic view. “The body is respected in the Scriptures. Scripture repudiates the Gnostic idea that matter is evil. Gnosticism taught that spirit is good and matter is evil. Many harmful ideas came from this basic Gnostic teaching which early got a grip upon non-biblical thinkers…. The Bible knows nothing of the body being evil. Matter was created by God and it was created good. When God finished creating matter He looked upon creation and He said, ‘It’s good. It’s all very good.’ The redeemed body is called the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit.’ I Corinthians 6:19, for example, contains a clear statement on that point. There God tells us how He looks upon the body of a redeemed saint. He says, ‘Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God. You are not your own since you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.’ Not only is the body called the temple of the Holy Spirit, but it becomes a means by which a Christian is capable of glorifying God. Christ died not just for the Christian’s soul, as some seem to think, but also for his body which was included in the price that He paid. Since the redemption of the body is part of redemption Paul says, ‘You’re not your own.’ That means that the body, which God calls His, is now to be used for God to do good. But, to those who have come to Christ, he says: ‘Don’t present your bodily members to sin as ‘instruments’—there it is—of unrighteousness, but rather present yourselves to God as persons who have been resurrected from the dead and are living, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness (v. 13).’ God wants the bodies of believers as instruments to perform righteousness in this world. You must see the body as a tool that God wants used in His service. Sin was your slave-master. You were born into that slavery to be used by sin. But, Christ redeemed and freed you from sin’s dominion by the cross so that you could serve Him. Those very same members of your body – hands, feet, eyes, nose, brain—the members or organs of your body that once were instruments for sin, may now become instruments for righteousness. That is a critical point for you to keep in your mind as you think of bodies.”

[ii]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.