What is the difference between Paul’s mind and his flesh?

Explanation:

In Romans 7:25 Paul says that he serves the law of God with his mind, but with his flesh he serves the law of sin. At first, it sounds like he is breaking himself into two parts, namely, a mind and a body. In fact, this is not what he is doing. Rather, he uses an emphatic expression which indicates his intention here. In particular, he opens Romans 7:25b with the emphatic expression I myself. The emphatic expression indicates that what Paul writes in Romans 7:25 is about himself as a person. That is, when it comes to Paul as an individual unified person, he serves the law of God with his mind and with his flesh he serves the law of sin. In other words, although he is a single unified entity, he has contrary desires. On the one hand, he can detect that God’s law is good, but on the other, he is unable to uphold that law.

Counterargument:

According to the ESV, Paul is saying that he himself serves God with his mind, while his flesh serves the law of sin. That is, the ESV connects the emphatic expression I myself with the fact that Paul serves God with his mind. For the translation states, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. This suggests that Paul has a dualism in mind. With his mind, he himself serves the law of God, but with his flesh he serves sin. Of course, it was not uncommon for ancients to consider humans in a dualistic fashion consisting of body and soul. And in fact, even some Jews held such a dualistic view.⁴

 Response to counterargument:

The problem with this counterargument is that we ought to consider the original Greek in order to understand Paul’s meaning in Romans 7:25. For it could be that there is ambiguity or a mistake in the ESV translation. And when we consult the original Greek, we see that Paul has in mind that he is a unified person who experiences both approval of God’s law and an inability to uphold it. We can detect this nuance because of where Paul places the particle μέν (on the one hand) and the conjunction δέ (on the other). Paul includes these after introducing the emphatic expression I myself. Thus, a close literal translation of what Paul writes here is I myself, on the one hand, serve the law of God with my mind, and on the other, with my flesh serve the law of sin. In other words, I myself signals that Paul is a unified entity, and as a unified entity on the one hand, he serves God with his mind, and on the other hand, his flesh serves sin.

Explanation:

Paul opens Romans 7:25, with the phrase so then. The phrase indicates that Paul will summarize what he wrote previously, in Romans 7:15–23.⁵ There Paul explained the tension in his life between recognizing the good quality of the law and acknowledging his inability to keep it. And throughout this reflection, Paul has referred to himself as a single unified entity. For example, in Romans 7:15 he refers to himself as I, who cannot resist doing the thing he hates to do. By referring to himself as I, Paul makes clear that he is a single unified entity, who knows what he ought not to do but does it anyway. And he repeats throughout this section that he is a single unified entity that knows that the law is good but he cannot do it, before writing so then in Romans 7:25, which signals that he is about to summarize what he wrote previously. And what does he say? He repeats the fact that he is a single entity, who recognizes God’s law with his mind but is unable to keep it in his flesh.

Counterargument:

While it is true that Paul summarizes what he previously wrote with the expression so then, what he wrote is that he is composed of a body and a soul. We can detect this because Paul seems to distinguish the redeemed power of his mind from his sinful body throughout Romans 7:15–23.⁶ For example, in Romans 7:16–17 he explains that he knows the law is good, so it is no longer he who does it but sin that dwells in him. In other words, his mind was redeemed in Christ, but his flesh remained trapped in sin.⁷ Paul is even more specific in Romans 7:23 when he writes that his members wage war with his mind. In other words, his sinful flesh wages war with his redeemed mind. Thus, when Paul summarizes in Romans 7:25b what he wrote previously, he says that he serves God with his mind but with his flesh he serves sin, which emphasizes the notion that he is composed of soul and body.

Response to counterargument:

Unfortunately, this view confuses Paul’s description of the paradox of human existence with the notion that Paul was somehow split in two. The fact is, Paul constantly refers to himself as I in this section before stating that the same I both recognizes God’s law and cannot obey it. This is the problem that Paul wants to highlight, that as a human, while Paul is one unified being, he experiences the contrast between acknowledging what is good and a failure to do what is good. This is why he writes in Romans 7:24, What a wretched man I am! He detects the paradox of human existence, and praises God for rescuing him in Jesus Christ.

This view does not take seriously the duality that Paul introduces in Romans 7:23. There he explicitly writes that his members, that is, his body parts, wage war with his mind. Such a statement strongly suggests that Paul has a dualism between body and soul in mind in this section.

Explanation:

Paul writes that he serves the law of God with his mind, but the law of sin with his flesh. To understand what he means by this, it is important to understand that he associates flesh with the body. For example, in 1 Corinthians 6:16 he warns the Corinthians of engaging with prostitutes, for their bodies become one flesh. Likewise, in Colossians 1:22 Paul explains that Jesus reconciled believers in his body of flesh, again, associating flesh with the body.⁸ Of course, the mind is not the body, so when Paul says that the mind agrees with God’s law while the flesh is subject to sin, he seems to imply there are two parts to a human, namely, a mind and a body. So, the difference between Paul’s mind and body is that these are two distinct parts to a human.

Counterargument:

The problem here is that the term flesh has a variety of meanings for Paul. That is, while he might use flesh to refer to the physical body, he also uses it in a more spiritual sense to refer to things that are against the Spirit of God. For example, Paul will spend some time in Romans 8:1–39 explaining that those who are in the flesh are against the Spirit of God (Romans 8:9). Of course, Paul cannot simply equate the flesh with the body when he writes this because all humans are currently in physical bodies. Rather, his use of flesh in Romans 8:1–39 is related, not to being in the body but to living in sin against God. So, it is not the case that Paul simply divides himself into mind and body when he says in Romans 7:25 that he serves the law of God with his mind but the law of sin with his flesh. For the term flesh in Romans 7:25 is likely related to his inability to resist sin, not the simple fact that he has a body.

Explanation:

To understand what Paul means when he writes that he serves the law of God with his mind but the law of sin with his body, it is important to note that according to the Judaism of Paul’s day, humans are composed of a body and a soul.⁹Some Jews thought that the soul was immortal and that the body might experience resurrection.¹⁰ Likely, Paul has picked up on this line of thinking, so when he writes that the mind is subject to God’s law while the flesh serves sin, he has in mind that the human is composed of a soul and a body.

Counterargument:

There are two problems with this argument. First, it is not enough to say that the Jews of Paul’s day held that humans were composed of a body and soul, so Paul likely has the same notion in mind. Rather, in order to establish such a claim, this view must give us textual evidence that the Jews considered humans to be composed of body and soul, and must offer reasons to think that Paul would align with such a view.

Second, this view assumes that when Paul uses the term flesh in Romans 7:25, he uses it to refer to the body. The fact is, he uses the term flesh throughout Romans 7:1–25 in a more nuanced sense. For example, he writes in Romans 7:5 that while we lived in the flesh, we produced fruit for death. He does not use flesh there to refer to the body, but something like indulging in sin. Likewise, in Romans 7:14 Paul says that while the law is spiritual, he is of the flesh, sold under sin. There he does not contrast the spirituality of the law with his being in the body. Rather, he contrasts the spirituality of the law with his sinful tendencies. Of course, if flesh refers to something like indulging in sinful tendencies, it does not refer to the body in Romans 7:25. So Paul is not saying in Romans 7:25 that he is composed of a soul and a body.

The weakness of this view is that Jews did not generally think of themselves in dualist fashion. The notion that humans are composed of a body and soul and that the soul escapes the body at death was an ancient Greek philosophical idea. Jews, on the other hand, generally perceived humans as a unified entity composed of body and soul.