Natural
Natural
1. In Rom 1:26 f., Rom 11:21; Rom 11:24 (cf. Jud 1:10 naturally) natural is the rendering of . In Romans 1 St. Paul denounces certain forms of sexual vice as against nature. To indulge in them is to pervert and degrade human nature. Its constitution is violated when the lower impulses refuse to be controlled. History confirms the Apostles judgment that natural instincts and passions unbridled by reason and conscience lead to unnatural crimes which are dishonouring alike to man and to God. To Renans outburst, Nature cares nothing about chastity, the true reply is, Instead of saying that Nature cares nothing about chastity, let us say that human nature, our nature, cares about it a great deal (Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America, London, 1896, p. 60). In Romans 11 St. Paul, using figurative language, describes the Jews as natural branches in contrast with the Gentiles, who are represented as artificially grafted into the tree of Gods people. The process described is one that in horticulture is never performed. The cultivated branch is always engrafted upon the wild stock, and not vice versa. This Paul knew quite well (see , v. 24), and the force of his reproof to the presuming Gentile turns on the fact that the process was an unnatural one (J. Denney, Expositors Greek Testament , Romans, 1900, p. 680).
2. In 1Co 2:14; 1Co 15:44; 1Co 15:46, natural is the rendering of . It is also used twice in Revised Version margin as an alternative to another translation of the same word. In 2Pe 2:12 mere animals is in the Revised Version text, but in Jud 1:19 sensual is found, animal being a second marginal rendering. In all these passages has a disparaging sense, being opposed to (as is not to ), and almost synonymous with or (1Co 3:1 f.). This epithet describes to the Corinthians the unregenerate nature at its best, the man commended in philosophy, actuated by the higher thoughts and aims of the natural life-not the sensual man (the animalis of the Vulg. [Note: Vulgate.] ) who is ruled by bodily impulses. Yet the , (Jud 1:19) may be lower than the , where the latter, as in 1Co 3:3 and Gal 5:17; Gal 5:25, is already touched but not fully assimilated by the life-giving (G. G. Findlay, Expositors Greek Testament , 1 Cor., 1900, p. 783, note on 1Co 2:14). To this helpful discrimination may be added a brief quotation from T. C. Edwards Commentary on First Ep. to Corinthians2, London, 1885: the word was coined by Aristotle (Eth. Nic. III. x. 2), to distinguish the pleasures of the soul, such as ambition and desire of knowledge, from those of the body. As used by St. Paul, the , contrasted with the , is the noblest of men. But to the he is related as the natural to the supernatural. The indwelling spirit is the Holy Spirit; and he in whom that Spirit dwells is at once supernatural and holy (p. 65f., note on 1Co 2:14 f.).
is sometimes rendered psychic, and sometimes soulish in 1Co 15:44, with the intention of emphasizing the contrast between the natural and the spiritual body. But though inadequate, natural is the best available rendering of this adjective; it indicates the moulding of mans body by its environment, and its adaptation to existing functions; the same body is in respect of its material (v. 47). In this context, however, is only relatively a term of disparagement; the psychic body has in it the making of the spiritual (G. G. Findlay, op. cit. p. 937). The body which, in our present state, is adapted for the service of the soul, is contrasted by St. Paul with the body which, in the future state, will be adapted for the higher service of the spirit. An organism fitted to be the seat of mind, to express emotion, to carry out the behests of will is already in process of being adapted for a still nobler ministry. Hence in v. 46 the history of man is said to be a progress from Adam to Christ, from soulish to spiritual, from the present life to the future (T. C. Edwards, op. cit. pp. 441, 445).
3. (a) In two passages (Rom 1:31, 2Ti 3:3) the phrase without natural affection is the rendering of . By this word St. Paul describes those who are so regardless of the claims of nature as to be lacking in love for their own kindred. He assumes that love of kindred () should naturally arise from such human relationships as parent and child, husband and wife, brother and sister. Here, as in those passages in which natural is the rendering of , the word denotes not what is in harmony with our environment, but what is in accord with our own true nature or constitution.
(b) In Jam 1:23 his natural face is the rendering of the phrase , lit. [Note: literally, literature.] the face of his birth (Revised Version margin). The meaning is the face which is native to man. The contrast is between the face which belongs to this transitory life, of which a reflexion may be seen in a mirror, and the character which is being here moulded for eternity, of which a reflexion may be seen in the Word (J. B. Mayor, Epistle of St. James 3, London, 1910, p. 71, note on 1:23).
Literature.-J. Laidlaw, Bible Doctrine of Man, new ed., Edinburgh, 1895; H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, do., 1911.
J. G. Tasker.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Natural
is the rendering in the A.V. of the N.T. for two Greek words of somewhat kindred signification:
1, as opposed to artificial, , applied only to the animal nature of men (Rom 1:26-27; Jud 1:10) or beasts (2Pe 2:12);
2, as opposed to spiritual, , applied to inanimate objects (1Co 15:44; 1Co 15:46), and to men in their unconverated state (1Co 2:14), or as depraved (Jam 3:15; Jud 1:19). SEE CARNAL.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Natural
NATURAL.The contrast between natural (Gr. psychikos) and spiritual (pneumatikos) is drawn out by St. Paul in 1Co 15:44-46. The natural body is derived from the first Adam, and is our body in so far as it is accommodated to, and limited by, the needs of the animal side of the human nature. In such a sense it is especially true that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God (1Co 2:14). Man derives his spiritual life from union with Christ (the last Adam), but his present body is not adapted to the needs of this spiritual existence; hence the distinction made by St. Paul between the natural body (called the body of death, Rom 7:24) and the spiritual body of the resurrection. The transference from the one to the other begins in this life, and the two beings are identical in so far as continuity creates an identity, but otherwise, owing to the operation of the union with Christ, distinct.
T. A. Moxon.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Natural
That which is according to nature.
1. , ‘origin, birth.’ Man beholds his natural face in a glass. Jam 1:23.
2. , ‘according to nature.’ The Israelites are called the natural branches of the olive tree which God planted on earth. Rom 11:21; Rom 11:24. , ‘that which belongs to nature.’ Rom 1:26-27; 2Pe 2:12; Jud 1:10.
3. , from ‘life, soul.’ “The natural man [that is, a man characterised by the natural life of the soul, without the teaching and power of the Holy Spirit] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” 1Co 2:14. The body of the Christian is sown ‘a natural body’ (having had natural life through the living soul); it will be raised ‘a spiritual body.’ 1Co 15:44-46.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Natural
(in Scholasticism) As opposed to supernatural, is that which belongs to (or is due to) a thing according to its nature, as it is natural to man to know; as opposed to voluntary and free, it is that which is done without the command and the advertence of the will, but of nature’s own accord, e.g. to sleep, as opposed to chance, it is that which happens through natural causes, as the falling of a stone. Sometimes it is used to refer to a physical body composed of matter and form. — H.G.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Natural
psychikos (G5591) Natural, Sensual, “Soulish”
sarkihos (G4559) Fleshly, Carnal
Psychikos occurs six times in the New Testament. On three occasions, where it refers to the lowliness of the Christian’s present soma (G4983) psychikon as contrasted with the glory of his future soma pneumatikon (G4152; 1Co 15:44 [twice], 1Co 15:46), it does not have a distinctly ethical sense. In the other three cases, however, psychikos is used with a negative moral emphasis. Paul declared that the psychikos cannot and does not receive the things of the Spirit of God (1Co 2:14). James (Jam 3:15) characterized the wisdom that is psychike as epigeios (G1919, earthly) and as daimoniodes (G1141, devilish). Jude described the psychikoi as “not having the Spirit” (Jud 1:19). Psychikos does not appear in the Septuagint, but psychikos is used twice in the Apocrypha (2Ma 4:37; 2Ma 14:24) in the sense of “heartily.”
At first this use of psychikos (and the words with which it is associated) comes as something of a surprise, since in current parlance the soul is referred to as a person’s highest part. We might expect to find psychikos closely related to pneumatikos, separated only by a slight shade of meaning. But this is not the case. The way psychikos is used in the New Testament should not surprise us, since it is characteristic of the inner differences between a Christian and a secular viewpoint. The meaning of psychikos is indicative of those better gifts and graces brought into the world by the gift of the Spirit. Psychikos is always used as the highest term in later classical Greek literature and is opposed to sarkikos or, where there is no ethical antithesis, to somatikos. In Christian terminology, then, psychikos must be replaced by an even loftier term. Secular Greek philosophy knew of nothing higher than the soul of man, but God’s revelation reveals that the Spirit of God makes his habitation with people and calls out an answering spirit in them. There was some intimation of this higher level in the distinction Lucretius and others made between the anima (soul) and the animus (mind), which is a more noble term. According to Scripture, the psyche, no less than the sarx (G4561), belongs to the lower region of man’s being. Since psychikos often is applied to man’s lower level, it is no more honorable a word than sarkikos. According to Scripture, the psychikos is one for whom the psyche is the highest motivation of life and action. On the one hand, such a person suppresses the pneuma (G4151), the organ of the divine pneuma. On the other hand, the pneuma of the psychikos is as good as extinct, because the divine Spirit has never lifted such a person to the spiritual realm (Rom 7:14; Rom 8:1; Jud 1:19).
According to Scripture, both the sarkikos and the psychikos are opposed to the pneumatikos.Sarkikos and psychikos refer to different ruling principles, each of which is antagonistic to the pneuma. When Paul reminded the Ephesians of how they once behaved, “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Eph 2:3), he described them first as sarkikoi and then as psychikoi. In unregenerate people, who live their lives apart from God, there are two forms of life. Although every unregenerate person partakes of both forms, either form may predominate. In the sarkikoi, the sarx predominates; in the psychikoi, the psyche rules. Sarx often is used in the New Testament to refer to the entire domain of our fallen nature, to the source of sin (Rom 7:18; Rom 8:5). Thus the erga (G2041) tes sarkos (Gal 5:19-21) not only are sinful works done in and through the body but also include sinful acts of the mind. More than half of the sins listed in Gal 5:19-21 belong to the latter class. Although sarx can include everything in man that is alienated from God and from his life, it is limited when contrasted with psyche.
Bishop Reynolds’ Latin sermon on 1Co 2:14 includes a helpful discussion on the difference between sarkikos and psychikos. The following is the most important paragraph:
It is true thatsince people consist of flesh [sarx] and soul, although the soul is the more significant part of a personour apostle very frequently terms the unregenerate sarkikoi because their desire is prone to vices and their impulses incline to concupiscence. He names people of this type from their most significant part, demonstrating that he understands them not to be those who are slaves of passion and who bury their natural talent through crass concupiscence (for these the apostle calls ‘brute beasts’ [aloga zoa,2Pe 2:12]), but persons eager for wisdom, who are accustomed to respect only those things which are foolish and absurd. Thus psychikoi are those who “do not have the Spirit” (Jud 1:19), however much they shine with the most exquisite natural gifts, cultivate the mind, the most excellent part, with all types of education, and direct their life very strictly according to the dictates of reason. Finally he calls psychikoi those to whom he previously had appealed as the wise, the scribes, the scholars, and the leaders of that age that they suppress any natural or acquired rank, in order that human reason may be able to increase with its natural strength”psychikos is one who yields in everything to the reasonings of the soul [psyche], not thinking there is need for help from above,” as Chrysostom has rightly statedhe is one who has nothing extraordinary in himself except a rational soul, the light and guidance of which alone he follows.
Grotius made similar observations:
A psychikos person is not the same as a sarkikos individual. Psychikos is one who is led only by the light of human reason; sarkikos is one who is controlled by bodily desires. But usually psychikoi are in some way sarkikoi as the Greek philosophers, fornicators, corrupters of boys, snatchers of fame, slanderous, envious. Nothing else is denoted here (1Co 2:14) but a person who thrives on human reason alone such as most of the Jews and the Greek philosophers.
The question of how to translate psychikos is not easy to answer. “Soulish,” which some have proposed, has the advantage of having the same relation to “soul” that psychikos does to psyche, but the word would certainly convey no meaning at all to ordinary English readers. Wycliffe translated psychikos as “beastly,” which is equivalent to “animal” (animalis occurs in the Vulgate). The Rhemish Version has “sensual,” and this was adopted by the Authorized Version in Jam 3:15 and Jud 1:19, instead of “fleshly,” which appears in Cranmer’s Version and in the Geneva Version. The other three times psychikos is used in the New Testament, it is translated as “natural.” “Sensual” and “natural” are both unsatisfactory translations, but “sensual” is even more so now than at the time when our Authorized Version was made. The meanings of sensual and of sensualityhave been modified considerably and now imply a deeper degradation than they formally did.
Fuente: Synonyms of the New Testament
Natural
, is a term that frequently occurs in the apostolic writings: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned, 1Co 2:14. Here it is plain that by the natural man, is not meant a person, devoid of natural judgment, reason, or conscience, in which sense the expression is often used among men. Nor does it signify one who is entirely governed by his fleshly appetites, or what the world calls a voluptuary, or sensualist. Neither does it signify merely a man in the rude state of nature, whose faculties have not been cultivated by learning and study, and polished by an intercourse with society. The Apostle manifestly takes his natural man from among such as the world hold in the highest repute for their natural parts, their learning, and their religion. He selects him from among the philosophers of Greece, who sought after wisdom, and from among the Jewish scribes, who were instructed in the revealed law of God, 1Co 1:22-23. These are the persons whom he terms the wise, the scribes, the disputers of this worldmen to whom the Gospel was a stumbling block and foolishness, 1Co 1:20; 1Co 1:23.
The natural man is here evidently opposed to, , him that is spiritual, 1Co 2:15, even as the natural body which we derive from Adam is opposed to the spiritual body which believers will receive from Christ at the resurrection, according to 1Co 15:44-45. Now the spiritual man is one who has the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, Rom 8:9, not merely in the way of miraculous gifts, as some have imagined, (for these were peculiar to the first age of the Christian church, and even then not common to all the saints, nor inseparably connected with salvation, 1Co 13:1-4; Heb 6:4-7,) but in his saving influences of light, holiness, and consolation, whereby the subject is made to discern the truth and excellency of spiritual things, and so to believe, love, and delight in them as his true happiness. If therefore a man is called spiritual because the Spirit of Christ dwells in him, giving him new views, dispositions, and enjoyments, then the natural man, being opposed to such, must be one who is destitute of the Spirit, and of all his saving and supernatural effects, whatever may be his attainments in human learning and science. It is obviously upon this principle that our Lord insists upon the necessity of the new birth in order to our entering into the kingdom of heaven, Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5.