The “inner man” – Fundamental Concept of Pauline Anthropology?

Abstract

The reader of the Pauline Epistles encounters the metaphor of the “inner man” for the first time in 2 Cor 4:16. Inconspicuous at first glance, this metaphor reveals not only a wide reception history within Christian thought and tradition but also a conceptual depth which brings us close to the origins of our thought on human personality and subjectivity. In this article, I want thus to elaborate on the concept of the “inner man” in Paul. Tracing its origins in Plato, I want to show how this metaphor must be understood on a conceptual level using metaphors as archaeological tools that help to discover concepts that might get lost when only interpreted as linguistic ornaments. Claiming that Plato explicitly expresses the human »self« as a continuous agent in front of changing phenomena of the human soul with his concept of the “inner man,” I will then turn to Paul. Even though it is impossible to trace the exact origins of this metaphor in the writings of the Apostle, it is my thesis that it can be found in 2 Cor 4:16 in substance. Paul thus uses the metaphor of the “inner man” to express the newly redeemed and yet justified Christian »self« that is confronted with opposition and contradiction that waste away the outer man. The exact Greek wording of this metaphor allows to identify the pictorial level of this metaphor in Paul with the temple in Jerusalem. As I will show, Paul thus integrates two anthropological lines that he derives from the creational accounts in the “inner man,” showing interesting parallels to Philo of Alexandria. With the metaphor of the “inner man,” the reader of 2 Cor 4:16 therefore encounters a or even the fundamental concept of Pauline Anthropology.