soulish
Definition
Soulish (Greek: ψυχικός, psuchikos) describes a mode of existence in which the soul (psuche) — with its faculties of emotion, mind, and will — functions as the primary source and governor of life, rather than the spirit. The term distinguishes soulish (psuchikos) life from spiritual (pneumatikos) life, in which the human spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, takes the lead.
In the corpus authors — particularly Nee/Lee — “soulish” describes the condition of the unbeliever, whose spirit is dead (Eph. 2:1) and who lives exclusively from soul-and-body life. But even in the believer the soul can act as an autonomous source; overcoming this is part of the process of spiritual growth.
Usage variants by author
Nee/Lee
Lee develops the term soulish as a description of the unbeliever’s life and as a warning for the believer. The unbeliever has no functioning spirit and lives solely from soul and body:
“Unbelievers have only physical life in the body and human or psychological life in the soul. They do not have God’s eternal life in their spirit, because they have not received Christ as the eternal life into their spirit. Before we were saved, we all lived, walked, and had our being in the soul.” [Basic Elements of Christian Life, Vol. 1, chap. 5]
After regeneration, the believer must learn to release the soul-life as the source of living — not to destroy the soul’s faculties but to let them function as instruments of the spirit rather than as their own source:
“It is not the mind, emotion, and will that need to be rejected and destroyed; rather, it is the life of the soul that we must give up. We must realize that this natural, soulish life has already been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6:6) and that we must now take Christ as our life. But the faculties of our soul remain as instruments to be used by the Spirit to express the Lord Himself.” [Basic Elements of Christian Life, Vol. 1, chap. 5]
The contrast soulish vs. spiritual is for Lee not a division between two types of people but a dynamic tension within the believer: walking from the soul or from the spirit. Spiritual life requires active cooperation (Phil. 2:12) to prevent the soul-life from reclaiming the lead.