Paul's take on the opposition between "spirit" & "flesh"

I meant to post this sooner, but, well... I was not motivated to do so until today. In our second reading last Sunday, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year C of the Sunday lectionary (a mouthful, I know!), which was from the fifth chapter of Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians, we heard about the opposition between "Spirit" and "flesh."

In Galatians 5:17, we hear/read: "For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other..." In the original Greek, "Spirit" is pneuma. The reason "Spirit" in this passage is capitalized is because the Greek word is taken to be referring to the Holy Spirit.

It is the word for "flesh" in Galatians 5:13-18 that needs to be explained. In Koine Greek, the word for "body" is soma. This is not the word Paul uses in this passage. Hence, he is not making a dichotomy between "Spirit," or even "spirit," and matter. Frankly, this would've been inconceivable to him as well as those to whom he wrote. The word he uses for "flesh" is sarx.

In Paul's view, which was shaped as much by Greek philosophy as by Hebrew theology, the important distinction is between things that last and things that don't last, between what is real and what is transitory. He seeks to distinguish between the eternal and ephemeral. What is of the flesh is ephemeral- here today, gone tomorrow. What is of spirit, especially of the "Spirit," lasts forever.

Paul's anthropology, that is, his view of the human person, is ideally holistic, harmonious. As such, it isn't wholly unrelated to the body. Living according to the flesh, as Paul notes several verses on (see Galatians 5:19-21), means something like seeking to satisfy every urge and impulse. Let's face it, as Americans, we live in a pretty hedonistic milieu, a situation that tells us wanting something is what makes it good.

In Philippians, he writes about those who "conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ." Of them he says, "Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their 'shame.' Their minds are occupied with earthly things." (see Philippians 3:18-19). We've practically lost all sense of the necessity of acesis.

His exhortation to the Galatians in this passage is to eschew the ephemeral and seek the eternal. Eschewing the ephemeral and seeking the eternal is not only why Christ set us free, it is the essence of freedom!

From a Christian view, the essence of freedom is not freedom from. It is freedom for. In all circumstances, as Paul not only teaches in his writings but bears witness to in his life, you are free to follow the Spirit.

The fruits of the Spirit, which, he points out a few verses further on, are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). These are the ways that one fulfills the Law, which, as the apostle notes in verse 14 of the same chapter, "is fulfilled in one statement, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Galatians 5:14). What provocation!

Because living according to the Spirit is determined internally (and then lived outwardly) there is not nor can there ever be any law that constrains your freedom, especially the Spirit-empowered freedom you have from Christ. If you want to read about what this means "in-real-life," I urge you read Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan's book: Five Loaves and Two Fish: Meditations on the Eucharist.