What does “living according to the flesh” mean?

The phrase “living according to the flesh” instantly makes people think of sex:

Believer or not, I dare you to read these lines from Paul of Tarsus without picturing people getting busy, the boy’s “stamen” meeting the girl’s “pistil,” and assorted sexual acrobatics.

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1 • Flesh = sex?

Lots of people (many of them regular Sunday Massgoers) have this written in their heads in permanent ink:

• flesh = sex = impure = body = matter = bad
• spirit = immaterial = pure = good

Now then.

I know plenty of people would go to the mat to defend this “truth.”

And believe me, I really hate to disappoint you…

…but (Bible and Catechism of the Catholic Church in hand), you’ve got it completely wrong.

The reason so many people make these associations is a very old school of thought called dualism.

According to dualism, everything material (all of creation, nature, things, and therefore also the body, sex, reproduction, etc.) is bad, and everything spiritual (in the wrong sense of ethereal/incorporeal, not in the sense I tried to explain a few months ago) is good.

Many people believe that Christianity agrees with dualist philosophy.

Unfortunately, that’s partly because far too many priests, instead of going to seminary (where they could have learned what the Church teaches), were raised in a boarding school run by wicked, conniving nuns…

Throughout history, Christians have repeatedly come close to stumbling into dualism.

As early as the 2nd century, the heretical theologian Marcion of Sinope, who had embraced dualist ideas, forbade marriage and required strict sexual abstinence of the faithful (so much so that he baptized only virgins, widows, celibates, and married people who had separated; cf. TERTULLIAN, Against Marcion, I, 29, 1).

Marcion’s ideas were criticized by Justin Martyr (in his First Apology), Irenaeus of Lyons (in Against Heresies), Tertullian (in Against Marcion and many other writings), Epiphanius of Salamis (in the Panarion), Ephrem the Syrian (in many of his works, including the Hymns Against Heresies), and many other Church Fathers.

2 • What does the word “flesh” mean in Scripture?

Let me be as clear as possible:

1. the word “flesh” is not a synonym for “sex”;
2. the Church does not consider the body, matter, sexuality, the penis, or the vagina “dirty.”

So what does the word “flesh” mean in Scripture?

To answer, let’s look at a passage from the Letter to the Galatians (written by Paul between A.D. 54 and 57):

Now then.

I don’t know if you noticed, but Paul lists fifteen “works of the flesh“… and eleven of them have nothing to do with sex (if you didn’t notice, go back and reread the list!).

Living “according to the flesh” means living with your head down, curled in on yourself and your own weaknesses, looking for Life where it isn’t: whether in sex, relationships, the things you own, money, fame, social status, or how many followers you have on Instagram…

…in short: living “according to the flesh” means living by the logic of sin.

In other words, living by pushing God out of the way…

(For the content of this section, I paraphrased what Michelina Tenace, full professor of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, explained in a talk given at the 21st Provincial Chapter of the Society of St. Paul in Italy in 2020)

3 • “Carnal” and “spiritual” are two attitudes

In the book of the prophet Jeremiah (written around the 5th century B.C.), we find this verse:

What does it mean to be cursed for “making flesh” your strength?

To repeat what I said in the previous section, with a few examples: “trusting in the flesh” means believing that “I’ll be happy…“

• “…when I finish my exams“
• “…when I get that promotion“
• “…when I hit ten thousand followers on Instagram“
• “…when I’m rich/famous/powerful“
• “…when I find my soulmate“
• “…when I get married“

In other words, “living according to the flesh” means attaching your heart to someone or something and believing that’s where you’ll find Life.

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So you can see that “carnal” and “spiritual” are two attitudes that involve both body and soul:

• you can do volunteer work in a carnal way, snapping a thousand selfies at a refugee camp and posting them on Instagram to show everyone “what good people we are“;
• you can live the intimacy between husband and wife in a spiritual way, making love and strengthening your marriage, growing in affection, friendship, and mutual respect.

4 • Everything is meant for good — even the body!

Franco Nembrini (born in 1955), an Italian teacher, essayist, and educator, wrote:

At this point, someone might say:

Aaanyway.

Here’s what Irenaeus of Lyons (130–202), bishop and theologian, wrote eighteen-hundred-plus years ago:

Conclusion

One thing is still nagging at me.

I said that “living according to the flesh” doesn’t mean “something to do with sex,” but “living curled in on yourself.”

But we also need to be careful with the expression “living according to the spirit” (as I tried to explain a few months ago).

“Spiritual” doesn’t mean “abstract,” “metaphysical,” “transcendental,” or (worse yet) “intellectual” (that’s called “Gnosticism“).

salt

(Fall 2021)