Theologically emotional abuse and physical abuse share the common, deep seriousness of abusing a person made in God’s image. Can we (biblically) draw a distinct line between the inner and outer man? Do human beings relate to God one way spiritually speaking and another way physically? No. A moral distinction between physical abuse as “bad” and emotional abuse as “not as bad” does not hold water with our own Reformed anthropology of body and soul.

Theological Traditions

In a world where three or four-year-old cell phones are relegated to the dustbin, it’s easy to forget we stand in a long stream of inherited theological traditions. Some of these traditions are specific, such as how the church uses words like “Trinity” and “one God in three persons” to describe Yahweh. That language has guided the church for a long time, and it’s a good and useful thing. Other traditions, such as particular styles of musical worship, are more elastic.

As counselors, we never approach a given problem as a blank slate. Our own experiences and past case history influence interpretation. But we don’t come to our formulation of doctrine as a blank slate either. We’ve been persuaded by the way we were taught Scripture and how it was presented. This can be a good thing—it’s how the church maintains a constant, faithful witness to the gospel. And it can be a bad thing, as in the atrocities committed in the name of faulty, sometimes culturally rather than biblically formed theology.

Body and Soul, Reasoning and Willing

Let’s turn our discussion about theological traditions to the issue of emotional abuse. Ask yourself this question: “When I hear the term ‘emotional abuse,’ does it sound more serious, less serious, or equal in seriousness to physical abuse?” Unfortunately, we in the contemporary church—and in biblical counseling—have overwhelmingly answered this question as “less serious.” The purpose of this article is to ask the question, “Why?”

Body and Soul

Most Christians are familiar with the concept of the human person being comprised of body and soul. The Second Helvetic Confession, penned in the early 1560s, explains this doctrine well:

We also affirm that man consists of two different substances in one person: an immortal soul which, when separate from the body, neither sleeps nor dies, and a mortal body which will nevertheless be raised up from the dead at the last judgment, in order that then the whole man, either in life or in death, abide forever.[1]

Every person is made of two “substances.” Our body is a “thing” occupying time and space; likewise, our soul is a “thing” occupying time and space. Although we cannot see or touch a soul, it is as much a created entity as the marrow, blood, and organs that comprise a physical body. Both the body and soul are essential to who we are. In other words, body and soul are “us.”

The Soul Has Different Functions

In addition to the human composition of body and soul, theologians recognize the soul has different “powers,” “functions,” or “faculties.”

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