Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

occasionally seems to waver, and Beck and Oehler admit that the Biblical representation
of man is fundamentally dichotomic. Their defense of a Biblical trichotomy can hardly
be said to imply the existence of three distinct elements in man. Besides these two
theological views there were, especially in the last century and a half, also the
philosophical views of absolute Materialism and of absolute Idealism, the former
sacrificing the soul to the body, and the latter, the body to the soul.
2. THE TEACHINGS OF SCRIPTURE AS TO THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF HUMAN NATURE.
The prevailing representation of the nature of man in Scripture is clearly dichotomic. On
the one hand the Bible teaches us to view the nature of man as a unity, and not as a
duality, consisting of two different elements, each of which move along parallel lines
but do not really unite to form a single organism. The idea of a mere parallelism
between the two elements of human nature, found in Greek philosophy and also in the
works of some later philosophers, is entirely foreign to Scripture. While recognizing the
complex nature of man, it never represents this as resulting in a twofold subject in man.
Every act of man is seen as an act of the whole man. It is not the soul but man that sins;
it is not the body but man that dies; and it is not merely the soul, but man, body and
soul, that is redeemed in Christ. This unity already finds expression in the classical
passage of the Old Testament — the first passage to indicate the complex nature of man
— namely, Gen. 2:7: “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The whole
passage deals with man: “God formed man . . . and man became a living soul.” This
work of God should not be interpreted as a mechanical process, as if He first formed a
body of clay and then put a soul into it. When God formed the body, He formed it so
that by the breath of His Spirit man at once became a living soul. Job 33:4; 32:8. The
word “soul” in this passage does not have the meaning which we usually ascribe to it
— a meaning rather foreign to the Old Testament — but denotes an animated being,
and is a description of man as a whole. The very same Hebrew term, nephesh chayyah
(living soul or being) is also applied to the animals in Gen. 1:21,24,30. So this passage,
while indicating that there are two elements in man, yet stresses the organic unity of
man. And this is recognized throughout the Bible.
At the same time it also contains evidences of the dual composition of man’s nature.
We should be careful, however, not to expect the later distinction between the body as
the material element, and the soul as the spiritual element, of human nature, in the Old
Testament. This distinction came into use later on under the influence of Greek
philosophy. The antithesis — soul and body — even in its New Testament sense, is not
yet found in the Old Testament. In fact, the Hebrew has no word for the body as an
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