CHAPTER III

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL

In this chapter it will be our object to enquire what view the apostle held with regard to the "natural man"; what substratum of powers, physical, mental, and moral, constituted the raw material of the new creature in Christ. We are bound to assume such a substratum. If man in a state of nature was without any knowledge of, or affinity for, the truth, and possessed no powers or faculties of body and mind to which the spirit could appeal, the Christian life would be simply a kind of magical phenomenon-a creation indeed, but a creation out of nothing, having no connection with the past history of the individual. But this is nowhere the view of scripture. It is not the teaching of our Lord nor of any of His apostles.

That Christian morality is the creation of God and is not to be accounted for on naturalistic principles, is indeed everywhere assumed in the New Testament. At the same time the moral life is nowhere regarded as an irresistible achievement, but is always viewed in its connection with human responsibility and human freedom. The spirit which takes hold of a man and renews his life, is not conceived as a foreign power which breaks the continuity of consciousness. It is not a new personality

so much as the completion and fulfilment of the old. The spirit of God does not quench the natural faculties of man, but works through them and upon them, raising them to a higher value. Hence the consciousness of Christians, that they are the recipients of a divine power enabling them to live a higher life, presupposes a natural capacity or disposition for the reception of such a supernatural influence. The natural is the ground of the spiritual. Man is made for God. And if there was not that in him which predisposed him for the higher life, Christianity would be but a mechanical or magical appearance without ethical import or significance. But this is by no means the view of Paul. While he regards the new principle acting in and upon man, all preChristian morality is not therefore vain and valueless. A large domain of conduct is common to the Christian and the non-Christian. Nor are the so-called Pagan virtues of honesty, truthfulness, temperance, justice, without their relative value. The heathen are neither incapable of right actions nor unaccountable for their doings. Man, as such, is not wholly averse from good or wholly disposed to evil. Degrees of depravity are to be distinguished in nations and individuals, and a measure of noble aspiration and earnest effort is to be recognized in ordinary human nature. It has been said by some, notably by Wernle, that the apostle in the interest of salvation grossly exaggerates the conditions of the natural man. "Paul," says Wernle, "first violently extinguished every other light in the world so that Jesus might then shine in it alone": and again, “"he made all men outside of the church as bad as possible." Surely this is an overstatement of the case. It must be admitted that no more scathing denunciation of sinful human nature was ever presented than

the account of heathen immorality to be found in the first chapter of Romans. Yet the apostle does not actually affirm, nor does he imply, that Pagan society was so utterly corrupt that it had lost all knowledge of moral good. Though it was so bad as to be beyond all hope of recovery of itself by natural means, it was not so bad that it had quenched in utter darkness the light which lighteth every man. When he declares that "the Gentiles which have no law do by nature the things of the law, these having no law are a law unto themselves: in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts," Paul plainly assumes some knowledge and performance on the part of the heathen. In another passage he rebukes the Christians of Corinth for permitting a vice which even the consciences of the heathen condemned. And in yet another epistle he appeals to the existing ethical standards of his day as standards for his own converts.1 "Whatsoever things are true, noble, just, pure, lovely and of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." The conclusion, then, to which we are led by these and other passages, and still more by the whole tenor of Paul's teachings, is that he not only assumed that man had originally a certain knowledge of duty, but also recognized a substratum of natural endowments and faculties upon which the Christian life was to be

reared.

The "Psychology of Paul" or the attempt to exhibit in their order and connection the Pauline presuppositions with regard to the nature of the unregenerate man, is a study which is attended with considerable difficulty. First, and chiefly, because the apostle nowhere states his

1See Expositor, vol. xi. p. 201, "Papers on Ethical Teaching of St. Paul," by Rev. Geo. Jackson.

conception of human nature previous to conversion in any definite and systematic form. He does not write as a philosopher. He has no interest in theoretic discussion, nor is he always careful to avoid contradictions. Also, he looks back upon man, from a Christian standpoint, with all the preconceptions of man, of sin, and of human freedom which that implies. Every word of his epistles flows from his Christian consciousness, and even those terms which refer to unregenerate man are tinged and suffused with the light of a Christian significance. That being so, it is no easy task to disentangle the apostle's pre-Christian from his post-Christian conceptions, or to determine with any exactness his view of the natural man. All we can attempt here is to

I. State and examine the various terms employed by Paul in reference to man's nature;

II. Show their relation and interdependence in the apostle's use of them;

III. Indicate their significance for the ethical life of the Christian.

I

It may be convenient to present in one view the principal terms of Pauline usage, and to state their generally accepted meanings. The Greek language is uncommonly rich in words expressive of man's natural powers, both of body and mind, and Paul has availed himself largely of the wealth which lay to his hands-a fact somewhat obscured in our English version with its more limited range of expression.

At least seven distinct terms play their part in the Pauline psychology: Flesh (Záp), Body (Zwua), Spirit (IIveûua), Soul (Yux), Heart (Kapdia), Mind (Noûs), Conscience (Συνείδησις, Συνειδός).

Regarding these terms more particularly we find: (1) Flesh, or Záp, is sometimes the living tissue which clothes the human skeleton; sometimes man's physical nature in its entirety, e.g. "the life which we now live in the flesh." Again, it is the medium through which natural relationships manifest themselves-descent, family and natural affinity-as, "born after the flesh.” More important, from an ethical point of view, is its frequent use to describe the natural side of man as contrasted with the spiritual. Here the term begins to be charged with ethical implications, and is used as interchangeable with "man" or the "old man," in contrast to πveμa and in close association with sin. The apostle also employs two adjectives-σαρκικός and σάρκινος, the former translated "fleshy," meaning composed of flesh, as "the fleshy tablets of the heart"; and the latter "carnal" or 'fleshly," that is belonging to man and not to God. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal."

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(2) Zua is the general term for "body" as an organism composed of parts (uéλn), and itself serving as an organ for the soul or spirit with which it is associated. This word is also used in a figurative sense of the Church, the "body" of Christ.

(3) IIveûua, the breath, denotes, in classical Greek, the vital principle, but is never so employed by Paul, who uses it rather in the psychological sense of spirit or mind of man, the inward self-conscious principle which feels, thinks and wills, e.g. 1 Cor. ii. 11: "For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him?" Apart from this application to man, it is most frequently employed in the spiritual sense of a divine power or influence belonging to God, and communicated in Christ to men, in virtue of which they become TVEVμаTIKOί or spiritual. Thus the apostle