How is this possible? Why does the natural man not receive the things of the Spirit of God , and how can he even consider them foolishness ? And what does it mean to judge spiritually ?
In secular language, a "natural man" is usually defined as someone who displays the best qualities of the soul—a kind, warm-hearted person. Why then can such a person reject what is "of the Spirit of God" and even consider it "foolishness"? Haven't we been taught from childhood that man consists of soul and body, and that although the body is created from the earth, the soul is the highest principle in man, of divine origin and striving for God? How then can such a soul be alien to God and reject what comes from the Spirit of God? But the Apostle Jude, the brother of the Lord, in his epistle to the Church, speaking of how "in the latter times there will arise mockers, walking according to their own ungodly lusts, who will separate themselves from the unity of the faith," then adds, as if by way of clarification, "these are natural men, who do not have the Spirit" ( Jude 1:19 ).
What kind of spiritual people are these? And why does God's Word disapprove of them?
The idea that man consists of a soul and a body is too elementary and primitive, while in reality the human structure is much more complex. When they say that man consists of a soul and a body, they usually mean that man consists not only of dead matter, but also of that higher principle that animates this matter, makes it alive. "And man became a living soul," says the Book of Genesis ( Genesis 2:7 ), after God , having created man from the dust of the ground, "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ." In this sense, every living creature, every animal, also has a soul. "And God said, Let the waters bring forth the moving creature that has the living soul... And God created great whales, and every living creature that moves... And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living soul after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so” ( Gen. 1:20–24 ). Consequently, the soul is essentially only the life principle in every living being – nothing more.
From this perspective, the Lord's utterance, which without such a preliminary explanation seems incomprehensible and even tempting to many, becomes entirely understandable: "Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel's will save it" ( Mark 8:35 ). By "soul" here is meant the vital principle in man, that is, what gives life to the body, even though it is dead, but nothing more. The entire text takes on this now quite clear meaning: "Whoever desires to save his life, that is, whoever values his earthly life too much, will lose it; but whoever gives his life for the sake of Christ and the Gospel will acquire true life, not this temporary, earthly life, but the eternal, future one."
Thus, the idea that a person consists of a body and a soul is a primitive notion, far from exhaustive of the full complexity of human nature. In the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Hebrews, we find a more detailed understanding of the composition of human nature. Paul says that "the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" ( Hebrews 4:12 ). Here, as we see, a distinction is made between "soul" and "spirit." We find this difference between “soulfulness” and “spirituality” in man in many other places in the Holy Scriptures , which is why the Church decided to consider that man by his nature is three-component or three-part and consists of: 1) spirit, 2) soul and 3) body, and the highest principle in man is the spirit, and the soul, although higher than the body, since it is immaterial, non-material, but it, in the words of our great psychologist and expert on spiritual life, BishopAccording to Theophan Vyshensky , "the soul is entirely directed exclusively toward the organization of our temporary existence—the 'earthly' one—and its 'knowledge is built solely on the basis of what the experience of the surrounding life provides, and its activity is directed toward satisfying the needs of this temporary life" ("What is Spiritual Life," p. 31). Therefore, the soul is a lower principle in man compared to the spirit, and it is closely connected to the body and bodily life, but at the same time it serves as a connecting principle between body and spirit, representing a bridge from body to spirit.
So, man is tripartite. What does each of the three components of his nature represent?
The body was created by God "from the dust of the ground" ( Gen. 2:7 ), and therefore it belongs to the earth: "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return" ( Gen. 3:19 ), was said to the first man. Human bodily life consists of satisfying the needs of the body. In their bodily life, humans are no different from other living beings—animals. The needs of the body vary according to the different organs of the body, but in general they all boil down to satisfying two fundamental instincts: 1) the instinct of self-preservation and 2) the instinct of procreation.
Both of these instincts were implanted by the Creator into the physical nature of every living being for a perfectly understandable purpose—to prevent this living being from perishing or being destroyed without a trace. To communicate with the outside world, the human body is endowed with five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Without these, a person would be completely helpless in this world. This entire apparatus of the human body is extraordinarily complex and ingeniously designed, but by itself it would be a dead machine if not animated by the soul.
The soul is given by God as the animating principle of the body, to govern it. All actions, or rather, movements of the soul, are so varied and complex, so intertwined, so changeable and often difficult to grasp, that for convenience they are usually divided into three types, three categories: thoughts, feelings, and desires. These movements of the soul are studied by a special science called psychology. In accordance with the division of the soul's movements into three parts, psychology is also usually divided into three sections: 1) the psychology of cognition, 2) the psychology of feeling, and 3) the psychology of will. The field of cognition includes imagination and memory, which the intellect uses to acquire certain concepts and knowledge about things. Concepts and knowledge, brought into order or system by mental effort, give rise to one or another science. The organ of the body through which the soul performs mental work is the brain.
The human heart is considered the organ of sense. This is because every feeling—joy or sorrow, grief or pleasure, sympathy or antipathy, anger or peace, calm or anxiety—always reflects on the heart, strengthening or weakening its activity. The heart is the measure of what is pleasant or unpleasant to us, and since a person naturally strives for what is pleasant and wants to avoid what is unpleasant, the heart is naturally the center of human life, the center that contains everything that enters the soul from without and from which emanates everything that the soul reveals externally.
Human desires are guided by the will, which has no material organ in our body, and the instruments for the execution of its plans are our limbs, set in motion by one or another decision of the will with the help of muscles and nerves.
The result of the activity of our mind and feelings generated by the heart exerts this or that pressure on the will, and our body produces this or that action or movement.
Thus, the soul and body are closely connected. The body, through its external senses, conveys certain impressions to the soul, and the soul, depending on these impressions, controls the body in one way or another, directing its activities. Because of this close connection between soul and body, this life is often referred to by the general term "soul-body life."
However, it is still necessary to distinguish between physical life, as the satisfaction of the needs of the body, and spiritual life, as the satisfaction of the needs of the soul.
We already know what physical life consists of. It consists of satisfying the demands of two fundamental instincts: the instinct of self-preservation and the instinct of procreation. Spiritual life consists of satisfying the needs of the mind, emotions, and will: the soul desires to acquire knowledge and experience certain feelings.
But human life is far from exhausted by satisfying the needs of body and soul. Body and soul are not the whole person, not the complete person. Above body and soul stands something higher, something that often acts as a judge of both soul and body and evaluates everything from a special, higher perspective. This higher principle in man is the spirit, which is of Divine origin. It is the power breathed into the person of man, completing his creation. Animals also have a soul, but, according to the account in the Book of Genesis, it was produced by the earth along with the body: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth" ( Gen. 1:24 ). The human soul is in many ways similar to the soul of animals, but in its highest aspect it incomparably surpasses the soul of animals, and this depends on the union of the human soul with the spirit, which is from God.
What kind of spirit is this and what are its manifestations?
"The spirit," says Bishop Theophan of Vyshensky , "as a force emanating from God, knows God, seeks God, and finds peace in Him alone. By some hidden spiritual intuition, ascertaining its origin from God, it senses its complete dependence on Him and recognizes its obligation to please Him in every way and to live only for Him and by Him" (What is Spiritual Life). "You, God, created us with a desire for You," said Blessed Augustine , "and our heart is restless until it finds rest in You."
What are the manifestations of the spirit in man? How and in what ways are they expressed? The great psychologist and spiritual teacher, Bishop Theophan, points out three such manifestations: 1) the fear of God, 2) conscience, and 3) the thirst for God.
1. "All people, no matter what their stage of development," says Bishop Theophan, "know that there is a Supreme Being, God , Who created all things, maintains all things, and governs all things; that they, too, are dependent on Him in everything, and must please Him; that He is the Judge and Rewarder of all according to their deeds. Such is the natural symbol of faith , written in the spirit. Confessing it, the spirit reveres God and is filled with the fear of God."
2. "Conscious of its obligation to please God, the spirit would not know how to satisfy this obligation if conscience did not guide it." "Conscience indicates to a person what is right and what is wrong, what pleases God and what is not, what should be done and what should not be done." But conscience does more than indicate what is proper; it also "rewards fulfillment with consolation and punishes non-fulfillment with remorse. Conscience is the legislator, the guardian of the law, the judge, and the retributor." It is not without reason that people call conscience "the voice of God" in the human soul.
3. It is the spirit's nature to seek God, to strive for union with God, to thirst for God. The spirit cannot be satisfied with anything created or earthly. No matter how many earthly blessings one has, nothing seems enough; one always desires something more. This eternal dissatisfaction, this constant discontent, demonstrates that our spirit yearns for something higher, something ideal, as they say, and therefore nothing earthly can replace this higher and ideal, and the human soul suffers, finding no peace. Only in God, in living communion with Him, does man find complete satisfaction and find peace, acquiring the highest—a contented peace and tranquility.
So, these are the manifestations of the spirit in man. Now it's clear what spiritual life consists of, as distinct from physical and mental life. Spiritual life consists of satisfying the needs of the spirit, and the needs of the spirit consist of man's striving for God, the search for a living union, communion with God, and the desire to live according to God's will.
Is this how we, in our time, understand spiritual life? Our time, in general, is distinguished by all manner of disguise, falsehood, manipulation, perversion, and malicious distortion. This is understandable. For the spirit of self-asserting human pride in its completely naked, open form is very unattractive, just like its father, Satan himself. Therefore, this spirit must disguise itself, concealing itself in various plausible guises. It is not without reason that Satan himself, in the words of the apostle, is transformed "into an angel of light" ( 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 ) . Therefore, much in modern concepts has been distorted and distorted beyond recognition. This is also the case with the question of spiritual life. Modernity completely ignores the human spirit as such, merging spirit and soul into one. Even in modern scientific psychology, the phenomena of spiritual life are relegated to the category of mental life: religious feeling, moral feeling, and conscience are supposedly functions of the soul itself. And since the soul is denied by materialists and its functions are viewed merely as functions of the brain and nervous system, the phenomena of spiritual life are also materialized and viewed as functions of the brain, nervous system, and so on. The result is a gross and absurd profanation of the phenomena of mental life. Modern man often fails to distinguish between the phenomena of physical, mental, and spiritual life, resulting in a conflation of these concepts and terrible confusion. It is therefore not surprising that when we hear the expression "spiritual life" today, it turns out that the concept of spiritual life refers to anything but the true manifestation of spiritual life. The realm of spiritual life includes not only science, all manner of discoveries and inventions, but even cinema, theater, ballet, and even the circus. In other words, "soulfulness" is passed off as "spirituality," and what pertains to the realm of "spiritual life" is mistakenly called "spiritual life."
Why did this forgery occur and why did spiritual life become the lot of only a few chosen individuals?
This is precisely because the spirit of self-affirming human pride has become the dominant spirit of our time. Authentic spiritual life, that is, the human spirit's striving toward God, naturally presupposes, first and foremost, a living faith in a personal God and a sincere desire to live guided by the voice of conscience, and this is precisely what most modern people lack. As we have already said, the spirit of self-affirming human pride strives to replace faith in God with faith in oneself, and to lull and suppress the voice of conscience, which exposes this error and generally hinders freedom of action in this direction. The existence of the spirit is denied and ignored, while the soul—that is, the realm of the mind, feeling, and will—comes to the forefront. And it is this soul, a principle inferior to the spirit, that occupies the first place in a person's life. Therefore, the Word of God calls such a person a "soulish" person, asserting that the spiritual is incomprehensible to them, the spiritual realm is alien to them, and therefore they cannot understand and accept what comes from the Spirit of God.
But no matter how much a person suppresses the demands of the spirit, they still assert their rights. The spirit yearns for God, and, unable to find an outlet for its aspirations under the brutal violence inflicted upon it by self-asserting human pride, it settles for, so to speak, "surrogates" that human pride invents to appease it. Instead of true religion , there is some vague philosophical teaching, or theosophy, or spiritualism, or something similar; and instead of church, there is a temple of science, or theater, or ballet—in short, anything from the realm of spiritual life that can captivate a person. This manipulation, the substitution of spirituality for soulfulness, is especially characteristic of our time. For example, many in Russia have recently attended, and still attend, church only for the aesthetic pleasure of listening to beautiful singing. There's no disputing that aesthetic feeling is, of course, a lofty emotion, for the sense of beauty in the human soul is a reflection of the highest Divine beauty. However, since it is unconscious, unrelated to any conscious attraction or striving for God, it nevertheless pertains solely to the realm of the soul and is alien to true spirituality. In general, at their highest levels, soulful feelings become so closely related to spiritual ones that modern man finds it difficult to distinguish them, mistaking the "soulful" for the "spiritual," and sometimes believes that this "soulful" experience provides him with complete spiritual satisfaction, although this, of course, is only self-deception and delusion. One highly intelligent and spiritually developed, but unfortunately unspiritual, person admitted to me that he experienced a prayerful mood when listening to music. How can one distinguish a state of the soul from a truly spiritual one? A truly spiritual state is always completely dispassionate, it is so elevated that it seems to lift a person away from the earth and does not give him any physical sensations, but any state of mind, no matter how elevated it may be, inevitably causes some physical sensations, such as, for example, an increased heartbeat, a pleasant tickling of the nerves or the so-called “goosebumps down the spine,” which are especially felt by lovers of beautiful singing and beautiful music.
It is precisely this predominant "soulfulness" of modern man that explains why true, strict church singing, singing that satisfies only "spirituality," seems incomprehensible, boring, and unappealing to the majority of even those seemingly church-minded. In place of this strictly church singing, we have in the last two centuries developed a new kind of singing—Italian, concert-style singing—that satisfies "soulfulness" and therefore appeals to modern man, mired in the mire of "soulfulness." Similarly, modern man dislikes ancient iconography, since his spiritual intuition is too undeveloped to understand and appreciate the "spiritual" beauty of these sacred images of antiquity, completely detached from the earth. "Soulful" people prefer modern Madonnas, plump and rosy-cheeked, reminiscent more of this earthly life than of the exalted spiritual world. So in everything else, modern man is dull and deaf to true “spirituality” and is sensitive only to “soulfulness”, which he often takes for “spirituality”, even officially calling his “spiritual” life a “spiritual” life in literature, the press, and public speeches.
Why is “spiritual” life so suppressed in our time and why has “spiritual” life come to the forefront?
We have already said that this was the work of that same spirit of modernity, the spirit of self-asserting human pride, which set out to erase the concept of God from the lives of modern people and made man himself into its own god. The entire life of modern people is therefore structured in such a way that there is no room for genuine spiritual life, and every person seeking spirituality rushes about in despair, sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of soulfulness. The very pace of modern life, a nervous pace that allows no room for solitary self-concentration, is not conducive to the pursuit of a spiritual life. Modern man is like a cog or a wheel in the vast machine of today's materialistic culture: he loses his personality, his individuality, and truly, in the apt popular expression, spends the entire day, and often the night, "spinning like a squirrel in a wheel." "Time is money"—that's the fundamental motto of modern humanity, and so there's no time to delve within, to focus, to listen to the stirrings of one's spirit, to the voice of one's conscience. This frantic and nervous pace of life is extremely tiring and exhausting, leaving one with little energy for the essential self-improvement that spiritual life demands. All that remains is the desire to somehow amuse oneself, to relax, to escape for a while from this oppressive mechanization of life. This is why cheap, frivolous entertainment, such as movies, dances, and other leisure activities, has become so widespread. This is an undoubted scourge of modern times, corrupting all sense of well-being, but it is an inevitable product of modern human culture, which has renounced God and made the spirit of self-affirming human pride the foundation of its life.
All these amusements and entertainments act like vodka and cocaine on modern man; they further lull his spiritual life, paralyze spiritual movements, suppress the voice of conscience and all moral demands, and man little by little descends from the realm of "soulfulness" even lower - into the realm of "corporeality" and becomes, as it were, "soulless flesh," in the words of the Psalmist: "Man, who was not honored, has become like the senseless beasts, and has become like them" ( Psalm 49:13 ). And the terrible judgment of God, pronounced on the contemporaries of righteous Noah, who perished in the flood, is carried out on them: "My Spirit shall not dwell in these men... because they are flesh" ( Genesis 6:3 ). And, of course, when man, created in the image and likeness of God, renounces his lofty dignity and, becoming "soulless flesh," is "converted to the senseless beasts and made like them," he himself pronounces a death sentence. The events of recent times are the best proof for us of how destructive it is for man to forget the spiritual life, to replace it with "soulfulness," and to descend into the realm of "corporeality." Forgetting God and proclaiming man himself as God leads to ever greater moral decline, and ultimately to brutalization and self-destruction.
Therefore, it is clear as daylight that the only way to save humanity from this final destruction is the path of spiritual life, but not the “spiritual” life that modern man is offered by his cultural leaders, who commit fraud and substitution with “spirituality,” but genuine spiritual life, the manifestations of which lie in man’s striving for God, the search for communion with God and the desire to live according to His holy will.
Source: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Averkij_Taushev/duhovnost-i-dushevnost/