The tri-partite option hails from Greek philosophy. Oddly, Greek philosophers saw man quite naturally as a body and a spirit but felt compelled to introduce the soul as an intermediary element or agent to make possible a mutual or vital relationship between body and spirit. This trichotomy (another name for the tri-partite view) slipped into Christian theology like a trojan horse. Origen, Clement of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa all held to the tri-partite view. Though their implementations of trichotomy weren’t identical to each other or to that of the Greek philosophers, trichotomy was a fairly widespread view in the early church i.e. the third and fourth centuries A.D. Thanks to Apollinarius who employed this view and with it derived a seriously flawed Christology, the Christological debates which dominated this era resulted in the trichotomy position being abandoned. As well, Augustine among others challenged that view and gradually dichotomy held sway in the church pretty much without exception all the way well past the Reformation and even into the modern church.
The chair passage for the dichotomy position – and one that should settle the matter for any believer – is Gen 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (nephesh chayyah). This explicitly states the dichotomist position. There is no possible room for a third element. These words of Jesus himself offer more evidence, as if any was needed, for the dichotomist position. Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell“.
Again, consider this: Luke 1:46-47 “And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Agreeably, a virtual carbon of this verse, albeit with different context, is found in Isaiah 26:9 My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. The side-by-side placement of the soul and spirit in these two instances clearly point out that scripture uses soul and spirit interchangeably. The soul and the spirit thus are two aspects – amongst several other aspects – of the immaterial portion of man.
Trichotomists resort to 1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.“and Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Sadly, they ignore the rest of scripture and conclude that man is a tri-partite being. My own observation about the seemingly more difficult Hebrews passage is that this verse actually supports the dichotomist position. Why would it require a living, active and sharp sword to divide what ostensibly are already two parts of man’s being? Rather, this verse suggests the difficulty man has in sorting out the various aspects of the non-material portion of man’s makeup.
Enough of this for now. My next post will detail some of the bad things that result when the trichotomist position is held.
Powered by Qumana
