Pietism in the Chinese church – anthropology and revelation
Chinese Pietism is perhaps most embodied in the teaching of Watchman Nee (1903-1972). And most crucial for Nee’s theology was his understanding of the human being – particularly his tripartite (‘threefold’) anthropology.
Watchman Nee believed that 1 Thess 5:22-23 outlined for us three separate parts of the human being: the spirit, the soul and the body. And understanding how Nee thought these three parts related to one another is crucial in getting a handle on Chinese Pietism…
Watchman Nee’s tripartite anthroplology
According to Watchman Nee, the body is that part of us that interacts with the world and has bodily desires. The spirit is that part which contains the intuition, the conscience and is capable of communion with God. And the soul is the self-conscious part of ourselves, formed by the meeting of spirit and body. It is the soul that contains the intellect, will and emotions.
The unregenerate man is under control of their ‘self’ in the form of their own soul. This ‘self’ is governed by the passions of the body, and is dead to the spirit.
However Nee believed that the spiritual man allows their regenerated spirit to govern their soul, which then governs the body. In his book The Spiritual Man, Nee writes that,
At regeneration man receives God’s own life into his spirit and is born of God. As a consequence, the Holy Spirit now rules man’s spirit which in turn is equipped to regain control over the soul and, through the soul, to govern his body. Because the Holy Spirit becomes the life of man’s spirit, the latter becomes the life of man’s whole being. The spirit, soul and body are restored to God’s original intention in every born-again person.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:63.
But there is more. Watchman Nee also believed that since God is spirit, he must communicate to spirit. And through our regenerated spirits, God now relates to us directly. Nee writes of the spiritual person that,
it is his spirit that relates itself to God. God is Spirit; all who worship Him, therefore, must worship in spirit. It alone can commune with God. Only spirit can worship spirit.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:62.
Stephen Johnson highlights the functions of the spirit in Nee’s thought:
The spirit is seen as the place where God works in regenerate man. The spirit contains intuition (the sense organ which receives revelation from God). It also embraces communion, which is the activity of receiving the revelation through one’s intuition. Communion is seen as the activity of knowing the mind of God. Lastly, there is conscience. Though it is operataive in both believers and unbelievers, the work of the conscience in a believer brings the possibility of true communion with God.
Stephen Johnson, “The Spirituality of Watchman Nee”, 8.
Notice that it is through these three higher faculties of the spirit that God relates to us - intuition, communion and conscience - and not through the lesser, ‘soulish’ faculty of the intellect.
In the next post we will look at the implications of this for what the spiritual Christian life looks like, but for the moment we will look at what this means for how a Christian perceives the will of God.
The place of exegesis in understanding God’s will
Since God only communicates with spirit, Watchman Nee’s anthropology means that the ‘soulish’ intellect is incapable of accessing God’s will. Nee writes that,
When one tries to increase his knowledge by doing mental gymnastics over books without waiting upon God and looking to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, his soul is plainly in full swing. This will deplete his spiritual life.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:47.
And that is because spiritual things can only discerned by the faculties of the spirit (such as intuition) – and not by the faculties of the soul (such as intellect). Johnson writes that,
A natural man cannot understand the Bible until his spirit is enlivened. Man does not primarily understand with his mind in the area of spiritual pursuits but with the spirit. The soulish area of the mind is only secondary.
Stephen Johnson, “The Spirituality of Watchman Nee”, 10-11.
That may sound good, but in practice, this means that the normal tools of exegeis that we learn at KYLC/NextGen are not spiritual, but worldly. The skills of looking out for the situational, literary and theological context, of paying attention to the meaning of words, of the structure of sentences and paragraphs, is an inferior, ‘soulish’ occupation that must be rejected. In her book Understanding Watchman Nee, Dana Roberts writes that,
Nee is admirable and insightful in understanding the illuminating work of divine revelation in comprehending the spiritual reality of the Bible. But he also seems un-appreciative of the Bible as God’s interpretation of real events, language, culture, and people in his covenant history. In Nee’s discussion of Bible study methods, comparing and compiling texts are his keys to understanding, never the historical circumstances of the passages. Like many writers who rely entirely on the devotional hermeneutic, he never subjects the biblical text to some discerning questions: Why does the author say this? How does it fit into the context of the whole book? Does the historical background of the passage relate to the circumstances of my own life or the life of my church?”
Dana Roberts, Understanding Watchman Nee, 146.
It’s important to note that Nee is not alone in this rejection of the intellect. Other early Chinese church leaders also showed this tendency. John Sung reacted against his liberal education from Union Theological Seminary, and in a well known incident on the voyage back to China threw overboard his diplomas and medals. John Sung once said that “one has knowledge, then he can not have love.” Like Nee, Sung also believed that the intellect did not play an important role in understanding the Bible, but instead emphasised the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Continuing revelation through the spirit
But there is more than that… Not only does Chinese Pietism downplay the intellect, it also opens the door to continuing revelation through the spirit, by our intuition. Nee writes that,
Spiritual life is maintained simply by heeding the direction of the spirit’s intuition. If a believer walks according to God’s Spirit he will not originate or regulate anything; he will instead wait quietly for the voice of the Holy Spirit to be heard in his spirit intuitively and assume for himself the position of a subordinate. Upon hearing the inner voice he rises up to work, obeying the direction of intuition. By so walking the believer remains a steadfast follower. The Holy Spirit alone is the Originator.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 1:149-50.
That is, the spiritual Christian looks for God’s supernatural leading into his will by being sensitive to his intuition. In all this, Nee does have a role for the mind – but it’s only to understand that will – not to test or question the intuition.
We consistently ought refuse to allow the mind to serve as the prime element for receiving God’s will, yet we must not inhibit it from serving as the secondary apparatus for understanding that will. A carnal Christian mistakes the thought of the head to be the criterion for his conduct because he has not yet learned how to walk after the spirit.
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man, 3:65-6.
Stephen Johnson highlights the danger of this:
It might be said that the biggest danger in Nee’s spiritual assessments is the threat of incipient gnosticism. Nee’s conclusion of the subjective nature of what a ‘spiritual man’ is, gives rise to a form of the pneumakti or enlightened ones of the second century.
Stephen Johnson, “The Spirituality of Watchman Nee“, 23.
From what we have seen so far of Watchman Nee’s anthropology, we can already see that it leads to a very different kind of Christianity… and huge issues are actually at stake.
How does God reveal his will to us? Is it revealed in the Bible, accessed using the normal tools of exegesis? Or does God now reveal his will for us directly to our spirits, through our intuition?
And what level of authority do we ascribe to such intuition? Is God whispering directly to me today, calling me to do certain things (such as full time ministry)? would I be presumptuous to subject these feelings under the ‘soulish’ intellect? Or are we to exercise wisdom informed by our understanding of the Bible?
[ PS: how have you seen this showing itself in the things that Chinese Christians say or do? ]
