https://christianchat.com/bible-dis...ercise-free-will.218061/page-783#post-5581086
To whoever cares:
More on the so-translated “natural man” in
1Cor2:14:
“natural” is “psuchikos”
One of the things in exegesis is to understand words and writings from the times they are written. There is still ongoing work on exegeting Paul. Much more is being considered about his use of rhetoric and his interactions with the Greek world and the Hebrew world he was tasked to be integrating. As he states in Romans, his mission is faith-obedience among the nations on behalf of the name of Jesus Christ. Simply put, he’s to bring the Gentiles to faith-obedience to the Jewish Messiah.
When Paul uses the word “psuchikos” in
1Cor2:14 he’s interacting with a word that’s been used among the Greek Philosophers for nearly 600 years as best I can see from our lexical data. Through the centuries it became used to speak of men who we might call the “scholars” among the Greeks – philosophers, morally reflective citizens.
In
1Cor2:14 Paul is comparing and contrasting these psuchikos-Greek scholars first with the teleios-mature Christian
1Cor2:6 and the pneumatikos-spiritual Christian
1Cor2:15. Paul uses both of these words – teleios-mature and pneumatikos-spiritual – basically synonymously to speak of the spiritually mature Christian who he can speak advanced Christian doctrines to. He also contrasts pneumatikos-spiritual (and thus teleios-mature) to the nepios-infant-child Christian to whom he cannot yet speak to re: these advanced Christian doctrines
1Cor3.
Paul is drawing a contrast mainly between the Greek scholar and the mature-spiritual Christian who has the Spirit of God. The best of the Greek scholars does not welcome advanced Christian teaching because they think it’s nonsense. And they can’t know it because they don’t have God’s Spirit. I’ve already dealt with the grammatical structure of the language in these verses. The main issue is they think God’s wisdom is nonsense. They in their self and culturally inflated minds place their own wisdom above anything supposedly of the Jewish God. And this was also part of the problem – the cultural multitude of gods.
So, back to the issue on this and other threads on this forum re: the psuchikos-Greek scholar and the Gospel:
- The issue here is not about the basic message of the Gospel.
- The issue is about the best of the Greek scholars without the Spirit of God vs. men like Paul and other mature-spiritual Christians with the Spirit of God. The best of the Greeks cannot understand the advanced teachings of Christianity. Their main problem is self-inflated human wisdom makes them unreceptive to God’s wisdom which they view as nonsense. This view keeps the best of the Greeks from welcoming the advanced teachings of God’s Spirit.
- Regarding the basics of the Gospel of Christ:
- Paul has not been speaking of the Gospel since 1Cor2:5
- Paul from 1Cor2:6-16 is dealing with the best of the Greeks compared to the mature-spiritual Christian with the Spirit. The best of the Greeks cannot know what the spiritually educated Christian knows.
- Nor can the nepios-baby Christian who is still fleshly-sarkikos know these advanced Christian doctrines 1Cor3. So the issue is not basics of the Gospel, but the advanced Christians doctrines that neither the baby and still carnal Christian, nor the psuchikos-soulish Greek scholar can know.
- To explain more of how the Bible presents the psuchikos-soulish man and why Paul is not dealing with the basics of the Gospel, we can compare him with Jude and James re; the psuchikos-soulish man:
- Jude is summoning Christians to exert intense effort for the once-for-all delivered faith – our common salvation. The faith is all Christian doctrine having to do with our salvation.
- In Jude1:19 he identifies the enemies as the psuchikoi-soulish men (plural of psuchikos-soulish man). Jude is speaking of these men’s condition and ungodliness and not limiting to Greek scholars but including all the soulish, ungodly.
- A few of their characteristics are:
- They are ungodly – irreverent towards God
- They change God’s grace into licentiousness – no moral restraints
- They refuse-disdain-deny-repudiate the only despotēs – the only absolute legal authority – God and/even our Lord Jesus Christ. So, according to Jude these psuchikoi-soulish men do understand the issue of who God is but they refuse Him, they disdain (loathe), deny, repudiate Him. They know who God is – they know who Jesus Christ is – they know the Gospel of Jesus Christ – they simply loathe Him.
- James tells us more about their so-called “wisdom”. Remember this is what Paul is dealing with – the human wisdom of the Greek scholars:
- It’s not from above
- It’s of the earth
- It’s psuchikos-soulish (doesn’t pertain to the Spirit)
- It’s demonic - originates from the lower realm of spirits
FWIW, I’ve looked at this many times and I’ve read others on this forum and elsewhere who see this similarly to the way I see it. This morning, I looked again through the lexical data and the lengthy history in Greek philosophy of the mention of psuchikos. Paul is interacting with it. Jude tells us it was known well before NC times and draws from a lengthy Biblical history.
- 1Cor2:14 is simply not about the ability to understand the foundational Gospel of Jesus Christ.
- In fact, when we include the information from Jude, he specifically tells us these psuchikoi-soulish men do know and understand the foundational Gospel of Jesus the Christ.
- These psuchikoi-soulish men specifically reject and loathe the authority of Jesus Christ which is to reject the foundational Gospel message that Jesus is the Christ (which is Paul’s foundational Gospel) which Jude states as being the faith we need to fight for – our common salvation – Jesus Christ is the only absolute legal authority (despotēs).
There’s just no way that I can see the deterministic interpretation of the “natural” man not being able to understand the foundational message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They know it and think it’s nonsense and they loathe it and Him. They think they’re wiser than the Hebrew God. That’s their issue.
There are other Scriptures that are difficult to interpret in regard to deterministic vs. non-deterministic traditions.
1Cor2:14 IMO is simply not one of them.
