Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 2:14

"Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged." — 1 Corinthians 2:14 (ASV)

But the natural man.—To understand this and other passages in which Saint Paul speaks of “natural” and “spiritual” men, it is important to remember that our ordinary way of speaking of man as consisting of “soul and body”—unless “soul” is taken in a non-technical sense to denote the whole immaterial portion—is altogether inaccurate.

True psychology regards man as a trinity of natures. (See Note on Matthew 10:28.) In accordance with this, Saint Paul speaks of man as consisting of body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma). The soma is our physical nature; the psyche is our intellectual nature, also embracing our desires and human affections; and the pneuma is our spiritual nature.

Thus, in each of us there is a somatical man, a psychical man, and a pneumatical man; and as one of these parts of nature predominates over the others, so is the character of the individual person determined. One in whom the soma is strongest is a “carnal,” or “fleshly,” man. One in whom the intellect or affections predominate is a “natural,” or “psychic,” man. And one in whom the spirit rules (which it can do only when enlightened and guided by the Spirit of God, which acts on it) is a “spiritual” man. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:23.)

Natural.—This term refers, literally, to that part of our nature which we call “mind.” It hence signifies the man in whom pure intellectual reason and the merely natural affections predominate. Now, such a one cannot grasp spiritual truth any more than the physical nature, which is made to discern physical things, can grasp intellectual things. Spiritual truth appeals to the spirit of the man, and therefore is intelligible only to those who are “spiritual”—that is, those in whom the pneuma is not dormant but quickened by the Holy Pneuma.