This series has explored the three most common beliefs about the human constitution, exploring what it is that we’re made of. We’ve looked at whether we are:
- One part, making us purely natural creatures (called “Monism”)
- Two parts, with our souls existing within our bodies (Dichotomy)
- Three parts, with our soul and spirit dwelling within our bodies (Trichotomy)
We’ve discussed the merits and problems of each theory. Meanwhile, I’ve been hinting at another option. As we conclude this series, let’s look at a view that we rarely discuss within general church culture, but that may answer many problems faced when we compare the other views to God’s word. This theory is called “Conditional Unity.”
The basics of Conditional Unity
Conditional Unity isn’t widely known, but it’s certainly not new. The term itself seems to be recent through the works of Millard Erickson, but it has also been known as “holistic dualism.” The first time it was officially stated in writing may be as far back as Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s.
This theory is a middle ground between humans being made of one and two parts. It agrees that humans are both body and soul but also sees those two aspects as totally necessary for a human being to be “complete.” Conditional Unity doesn’t reject our spiritual parts, but its essential points set it far apart from the more common theories of the soul.
The popular belief that we are made of two or three parts sees our bodies and souls as separate things, similar to how a car is entirely separate from its driver. We can see the truth of this when we talk about death – we mistakenly believe that death is exciting because we leave our bodies and spend eternity with God in Heaven, showing that we place a much greater value on the soul than the body. Put bluntly, those who hold to this believe that the body isn’t a complete person without a soul, but a soul is a complete person without the body.
An imperfect example is the color green – it’s 2 colors mixed together, but it’s not “green” if we separate the blue from the yellow.
Conditional Unity insists that we cannot naturally separate our physical and spiritual parts because they are two components of the same thing. Our bodies affect our souls, and our souls affect our bodies. Likewise, they both need one another to form a whole and complete person. It doesn’t view our bodies as vehicles that propel our souls around the physical world, but instead as a vital component to who we truly are.
How Conditional Unity fits the whole story of the Bible
Most discussions about the human soul are bound up in specific verses. However, we must never neglect the importance of making sure our beliefs are consistent with the entire Bible, including those areas that may not speak directly about the body, soul, and spirit. Here are some critical ways that Conditional Unity is consistent with God’s word in a way that no other theory can match.
Revelation and resurrection
The book of Revelation doesn’t exist to tickle our imaginations, inform our political policies, or be something we endlessly argue about. The book primarily exists to show the fulfillment of God’s plan of redemption and the absolute victory of our Savior.
During His earthly ministry, Christ said that all people would be resurrected.
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:28-29)
We see these resurrections toward the end of Revelation.
First, we see a resurrection of the saints – those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and trusted Him as Lord and Savior, and who will not see judgment for their sins because Christ already suffered God’s wrath for them:
Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4-6)
Then, we see another resurrection of all of those who died as enemies of God. These are people who have broken God’s law and are still being held guilty for their crimes:
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. (Revelation 20:12-13)
God doesn’t do things unnecessarily. In His good and perfect ways, everything He does is for a purpose. So there’s a reason that God doesn’t just send souls to Hell or Heaven forever but instead resurrects our physical bodies to stand before Him.
Conditional Unity provides a clear and straightforward answer: Our entire being must stand before God, and our entire being must take part in eternity with Him or eternity in the Lake of Fire. This is because our bodies aren’t just containers to keep our souls on the earth, but they are an absolute and inseparable part of who we are. Thus, Conditional Unity supports why humans are resurrected before the judgment.
Heaven, Hell, and our true eternity
This is linked closely to the resurrection, but it’s necessary to understand how Conditional Unity stands against how we falsely talk about Heaven and Hell.
If you ask most conservative Christians about the afterlife, you’ll get a pretty standard answer:
- Christians who die will spend eternity in Heaven
- Unbelievers who die will spend eternity in Hell
It may be surprising to realize that the Bible doesn’t say this. Both Heaven and Hell are effectively God’s waiting rooms. Yes, death sends us to Heaven or Hell, but not permanently. The previous point discussed the resurrection of those in Heaven and Hell, but let’s look at what happens when our souls reunite with our bodies and God’s plan sees its full completion.
First, we see what awaits for those of us who are in Christ:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
Our eternity will be as complete beings, with glorified bodies that won’t experience sickness or pain. God will create a new physical universe (note that “heaven” here is similar to the sky or universe that we see in Genesis 1:1, not the spiritual location), and we will live on it forever with our God. There’s no indication here that we are spending forever in Heaven.
Likewise, God also shows us what awaits those who are currently in Hell:
And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
After Hell is emptied and its original inhabitants are resurrected and judged, the whole place is thrown into the Lake of Fire. Likewise, we see that the eternal judgment of those who died in their sins is for their entire being, body and soul, to be thrown into the Lake of Fire as well.
Conditional Unity explains the need for a physical resurrection and likewise explains why our eternities aren’t in Heaven or Hell. Both of these are temporary places where our souls go. This is known as an intermediate state, which is the time where our bodies and soul are unnaturally separated. It’s only when we are whole and complete that we can spend eternity with our God as we were always meant to, and likewise, it’s only when an unbeliever is whole that God can fully judge them for breaking His law.
The origin of the soul
I won’t spend much time retreading old ground, but I’ve discussed where we get our souls. We’ve looked at the three main options for the soul – the most popular are that God has a large collection of souls that He puts in humans at conception, or He handcrafts each soul.
The third option believes that God designed human beings to reproduce naturally, both physically and spiritually. This theory, called traducianism, says that your soul was created by joining your parents’ “spiritual DNA” that is carried in the sperm and egg, just as your body was created through those same things.
Conditional Unity is a natural extension of the biblical understanding of where we get our souls. If God designed our souls to be so linked to our DNA that our children’s souls are created through sex, then it becomes impossible to view the soul as somehow a separate entity from our bodies. Instead, it’s almost necessary to view them as not only dependent on one another but to realize that separating them is unnatural.
The link between physical and spiritual suffering
If we’re honest, many of us struggle with our spiritual disciplines when we’re sick or in pain. Things like Bible reading, prayer, or getting excited about the things of God become much more of a struggle when our physical bodies are suffering.
Likewise, the state of our soul can have a noticeable impact on our physical bodies. People with depression and anxiety are more likely to have physical health problems. Stress makes our muscles tense and our stomachs upset. Anger in our metaphorical “hearts” deals noticeable damage to our physical hearts. We even see this when David tried to hide his sin and noticed that his physical body suffered alongside his soul:
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:3-5)
When David was harboring his sin (likely the sin of Bathsheba), his body suffered. In the second half of this part of his poem, we can know that this physical suffering stopped because the cause of it was dealt with when he confessed his sin to God. And if you’ve ever tried to hide sin, you probably know exactly how he felt.
If we try to be consistent with the popular beliefs about the soul, this doesn’t make sense. If our bodies are separate from our souls, then the two shouldn’t influence one another. Sickness and pain shouldn’t impact our desire to pray or serve others. Our thoughts and emotions shouldn’t send up red flags to medical professionals.
This is why naturalism and monism can be so appealing. As science advances, we can see that our thoughts are linked to our bodies. The secular idea of “positive thinking,” or doctors telling cancer patients to take care of their emotional health, sees success because it accidentally hits on what Conditional Unity understands. It works because our thoughts do have an impact on our physical health, but not for the reason science may assume.
Going back to an earlier metaphor, think of a car and its driver. A driver with the flu doesn’t mean the car gets a flat tire. Likewise, the “check engine” light won’t cause nausea for the driver (until they learn how expensive the repair will be). If body and soul are two separate things, then they should share a relationship like this. The fact that we see them interacting with one another so intimately should challenge our held beliefs about the body and soul.
The sum it all up, our souls affect our bodies (and vice versa) because they’re two links that create a single person.
Original creation and why death is so unnatural
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31a)
Before the Fall, the world was as it should be. Animals, the planet, and humanity all functioned as they their Creator intended. God called these things “very good.”
As we’ve discussed, we know that God is making everything new. God’s original creation will be restored, but Christ’s victory over sin and death means we won’t have the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This also means that our new, glorified bodies will be whole, complete, and perfect. Body and soul, reunited, is God’s perfect desire and design for humans.
This helps us understand why death is so very painful and unnatural. Death, and our soul’s separation from our bodies, was never meant to be something we experienced. That was never part of God’s perfect creation but was a consequence of sin.
The unnatural state of death is part of the reason we praise Jesus Christ for His victory over it:
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 51-57)
The daily, painful cycle of a human soul separating from the body is coming to an end. Christ has already purchased our victory over sin and its punishment, and at the resurrection, we will be made whole again. Never again will death be a part of God’s perfect creation, and never again will it make us incomplete beings by making us exist in a way that divides our body from our soul.
This makes us rejoice no matter what. Yet when we understand our body and soul as two things that make up a complete person, we see just how much weight Christ’s victory over death holds.
(For a fuller look at why our souls will look forward to our glorified bodies, read 1 Corinthians 15:35-58)
Explaining the value of human life
I’ve written extensively about abortion and why a “fetus” that doesn’t yet look human is still a fully human life. Understanding how our bodies and souls are tied together gives us a fuller understanding of why this is the case. If even a tiny embryo has a complete human soul, then we have no choice but to see them as entirely human.
Agreements with body/soul
Finally, Conditional Unity lines up with many of the arguments I made for human beings having a body and soul. Click that link if you want to see what the Bible says about that, but where we often go wrong is treating our souls as something utterly distinct from our bodies. We think about who we are in terms of our spiritual selves, often painting a picture of a human soul riding around in a body.
This thinking has led to many strange teachings throughout history. One example is a heresy that may have been present in the church of Thyatira in Revelation 2:18-29. We don’t know the exact nature of how a false teacher was leading Christians astray, but a popular teaching of that time was this: Our souls and bodies are disconnected, so what we do to one won’t affect the other. Therefore, people are free to indulge in worldly pleasures because the physical realm can do nothing to impact the spiritual.
That’s just one example. History is filled with Christians and pagans coming up with all sorts of ways to set our bodies and souls against one another. Conditional Unity takes the good understanding of our bodies and souls but tries to see them in full view of God’s word.
Arguments against Conditional Unity
Despite its absence from general Chrisitan discussions, I find Conditional Unity (or Holistic Dualism) to be the most robust and biblically sound way to explain how God designed us. However, it’s not without its faults, and those are just as important to consider as its strengths.
Diminishes the excitement of Heaven
If we fully buy into the implications of this understanding, then Heaven isn’t nearly as exciting as we make it out to be. After all, not only is it not our permanent residence (which is biblical), but we may have a sense of restlessness or incompleteness since we won’t be complete. Not only that, but it can easily stand against many verses that speak about the excitement and joy of being in God’s presence after death.
Logically and philosophically frustrating
I tried using the color green to explain how we can think of our bodies and souls – two separate things that depend on one another to make a single “color.” However, this isn’t necessarily how we experience life. If you think about where your consciousness resides, you’ll likely picture your consciousness in your head. We don’t see ourselves as our foot, but instead, we see our foot as a tool we use to do something we want.
The idea of our whole selves requiring our body and soul is difficult to understand at a practical level. What happens if we donate organs? What happens if a human being is successfully cloned one day? If a brain injury changes our personality, what does that mean for our souls? How does something like sickness affect the health of our soul? What does this imply about addictions and how we treat spiritual issues tied to body chemistry?
The more time we spend thinking about what Conditional Unity means for our daily lives, the more we may find ourselves frustrated and overwhelmed with how it may go against our experience.
Not explicitly taught in the Bible
The Bible isn’t a rulebook that perfectly lays out everything we must believe. People still debate the existence of the Trinity because it’s assumed, but never stated.
However, it’s worth realizing that this theory is based on some assumptions. It takes various truths throughout the entire Bible and brings them together in a way that makes sense from Genesis to Revelation. But just because it can connect some important dots or answers important questions doesn’t mean it’s true.
Why isn’t it talked about more?
When I’m evaluating any kind of theology, I’m very hesitant with anything that hasn’t been a part of traditional Chrisitan doctrine for the past few centuries. Especially in our current age of “newer is better,” I want to be very careful that I’m not drawn into something just because it challenges tradition. I certainly won’t argue that we should believe something because it’s part of our tradition, but there is something to be said for why those who came before us accepted or rejected (or ignored) a teaching.
When trying to do my research on this topic, it was incredibly frustrating to find more extensive discussions about it. Despite being written about 800 years ago (and likely believed and taught long before that), this belief is rarely discussed on its own and even less discussed when people are looking at the various theories of the body/soul/spirit debate.
Again, that doesn’t make it wrong by any means. Things like the Protestant Reformation or the teaching of Dispensationalism (that there will be a Rapture, a literal 7-year tribulation, etc.) came about because people rejected tradition and looked at what God’s word says. However, it’s essential to examine why a belief isn’t being discussed, rather than accepting or rejecting it because it’s new or goes against the grain.
Final thoughts on the “constitution of man”
This 4-part series has been thorough, but it’s a difficult topic worth considering. What we believe about the physical and spiritual parts impacts how we view the rest of God’s word. Things like Heaven, Hell, and even salvation depend on what we think about how we’re made.
As always, I desire that you don’t just believe what I do or just believe what’s familiar. Instead, I hope you’re more equipped to understand why you believe it. For some, that means rejecting a belief they’ve held for decades because they realize it doesn’t hold up to what the Bible truly says. For others, they feel strengthened in their belief because they see that it does have biblical merit.
Wherever you fall on how God designed our physical and spiritual components, make sure that your greatest desire is to glorify God by being a good student of His word. Dig deeper into what the Bible says, fighting the temptation only to find things that reinforce what you want to believe. In the end, rest knowing that you’re aren’t holding beliefs based on tradition or because they’re familiar, but because your study of God’s word has left you with nothing else you could believe.
