Watchman Nee — Anthropology
For Watchman Nee, knowledge of life—spiritual life—is inseparable from understanding the composition of man. In The Knowledge of Life, he exposes how man consists of three layers (spirit, soul, body) and how the soul (ego, personality, mind/emotion/will) can be both liberation and obstacle. Anthropology here is not theoretical but practically soteriological: man must know himself in order to be transformed by God’s life.
I. The Tripartite Composition: Spirit, Soul, Body
Nee’s anthropology departs from trichotomy. Against psychologists who divide man into merely two parts (physical and psychical), he posits:
The so-called psychologists analyze man and divide him into two parts: the metaphysical and the physical. The physical part refers to the body, and the metaphysical refers to the psyche, which is the soul spoken of in the Bible. They say that within the body of man there is only the psyche, the soul. But the Bible tells us that within man, besides the soul, there is the spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 does not say only “soul” but “spirit and soul.” The spirit and the soul are two things and are different. Thus, Hebrews 4:12 speaks of the dividing of soul and spirit.
This distinction is not merely speculative. The difference between spirit and soul determines whether man lives (through God’s spirit) or merely functions (via his own soul). For this reason: “If we desire to have true spiritual growth in life, we must know that the spirit and the soul are two different things, and we must be able to discern what is the spirit and what is the soul.”
II. The Soul as Personality and Hindrance
Nee analyzes soul (psyche) as the ego of man—personality, mentality, character structure. It consists of three parts: mind, emotion, and will. These three are not in themselves evil, but they can dominate life and suffocate the spiritual:
The soul is our individual personality, our ego; therefore, the soul is our self. That which is included in the soul, analytically speaking, is the mind, the emotion, and the will—these three parts. The mind is the organ of man’s thinking… Man after the fall, especially today’s man, lives largely in the mind and is directed by the thoughts of the mind.
Nee illustrates how different temperaments dominate these three. Some live via mind (intellectuals); others via emotion (feeling persons); still others via will (strong personalities). None of these is sin, but all three keep man in the soul, not in the spirit:
Regardless of whether a man is in the mind, in the emotion, or in the will, he is soulish. Regardless of whether a man lives in the mind, in the emotion, or in the will, he lives in the soul… A soulish man often is what man calls “a good man.” He is frequently faultless in man’s eyes.
This is critical: even a morally faultless man who lives via soul cannot receive God’s things.
III. Soulish Man versus Spiritual Man
The core difference between soulish man and spiritual man is not morality but source of life:
If a man is spiritual, he can then discern and receive the things of the Spirit of God; if, however, he is soulish, he cannot receive such things, and he cannot even know them. This makes it clear that the soul is in contrast to the spirit. The spirit can communicate with God and discern the things of the Spirit of God. To the soul the things of the Spirit of God are incongruous and inept.
God’s salvation leads not to morality but to transformation from soul to spirit:
The salvation of the Lord delivers us not only from sin and the flesh, but also from the soul. The purpose of the Lord’s salvation is not only that we should not be in sin and in the flesh, but also that we should not be in the soul, but in the spirit. His salvation would save us not only to the degree of morality that we become a moral man, but even more to the degree of spirituality so that we become a spiritual man.
A spiritual man still has mind, emotion, and will—but they are subordinate to the spirit; they serve the spirit rather than dominate.
IV. Regeneration as Anthropological Transformation
Nee explains that regeneration means not merely sin-forgiveness but fundamental anthropological change. God’s intention for man was never mere improvement program but implanting a new life:
God created man with the aim that man may be like Him and be a GOD-man, possessing His life and nature. But when He created man, He did not put His life into man. He wanted man to exercise his own will to choose to receive His life… even if we created human beings had not fallen, we would still need to obtain God’s life in addition to our original human life.
Regeneration occurs as God’s Spirit touches and quickens the human spirit:
According to the Scripture, to be regenerated is to be born of the Spirit (John 3:3-6). Originally our spirit was dead, but at the time we believed, God’s Spirit came to touch our spirit; thus, our spirit obtained God’s life and was made alive… to be regenerated is to be born once again, to be born of God (John 1:13), or, apart from our original human life to obtain God’s life.
Through this man gains three things: sonship with God, new creation (divine nature), union with God as one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17).
V. Heart, Conscience, Emotion, Mind, Will: The Five Layers of Expression
Nee establishes that God’s life in the spirit requires outlets—the heart must be purified, conscience cleared, emotion earnestly loving, mind renewed, will pliable. This is anthropologically crucial:
Having seen where life is, the exit of life, and the passage of life, we know that if we want the life of God to have a way to grow out from us, we must deal with our spirit, heart, conscience, emotion, mind, and will until there are no problems in them. This is because the life of God takes our spirit as its abode, and it takes our heart, conscience, emotion, mind, and will as the outlet.
The spirit is dwelling place; heart, conscience, emotion, mind, will are channels. Block one channel (e.g., stubbornness of will), and God’s life cannot flow through:
If any one of these six organs has trouble, the life of God is blocked and cannot emerge. Therefore, if we desire to seek growth in life, it really is not so simple. Not only should we touch the spirit and know the spirit; we also should deal with every part of the heart.
VI. Life versus Behavior: Growth as Nature, Not Achievement
A common misconception: spiritual maturity = virtuous conduct. Nee reverses this. Life is growth (natural); behavior is work (artificial). A man can be highly moral, highly kind, highly humble—all through his own effort—but have no life:
That which is produced by exerting our own human effort is behavior, whereas only that which is produced from the growth of the life of God within us is life. Some brothers and sisters are very loving, patient, humble and meek. At first glance, it seems that they really have life, but actually these virtues are only a certain form of behavior worked out by themselves, not life grown out from within.
Life endures tests. True virtue of God’s life survives pressure; artificial behavior collapses:
All that stems from life can stand the change of environment; though it suffers blows, it can still survive. It is not so with behavior. The moment a blow comes, the behavior is either changed in nature or is extinguished… Because the life of God contains the great power of resurrection; it does not fear blow, destruction, or death, and cannot be suppressed by any adverse environment.
This insight makes anthropology practical: man is not calling for morality but hungering for life—God’s life that grows like a tree, not works like a building.