Soul Care Framework

The concentric circles of the Soul Care Framework were first conceived by Dallas Willard in his excellent book, “Renovation of the Heart.” The Soul Care Framework is a useful tool for explaining the multiple aspects of human personhood wrapped together within the living soul.

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The parts of our personhood include the WILL/HEART/SPIRIT which, in many ways, are hard to separate. We then have the MIND, the EMOTIONS, the BODY, our social CONTEXT and, holding it all together, the SOUL.

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As Tim Mackie states in his BibleProject teaching on the soul, we do not have a soul, we are a soul. The Hebrew and Greek words for 'soul' mean “living being.” The soul refers to a being which God has breathed life into. We are all living souls made up of multiple components.

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When a person is regenerated (or “born again,” as we say), God renews us at the deepest place (the WILL/HEART/SPIRIT) which changes, renews, reframes and reorders our thoughts (the MIND) which, in turn, impacts our EMOTIONS. This affects the actions of our BODY and then how we interact with our social CONTEXT.

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It is worth mentioning that much of the impact of our social context has already done its work as this refers to both current and past contexts. Our ‘family of origin’ is our social context, as is the national and ethnic contexts in which we live.

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Now, importantly, the self's order of executive function is flipped through sin. In a flipped order, life is driven by our social CONTEXT. We do whatever our BODY desires as we are driven by unregulated EMOTIONS. Lagging behind is our MIND, and finally our WILL/HEART/SPIRIT.

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The Soul Care Framework is enormously helpful in understanding the way we experience transformation in the way of the Master. If you read Colossians 3:1-15, you can see how Paul outlines almost exactly the concentric circles as he describes the work of the Spirit in our lives by grace.

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More on the WILL: From a little baby, we learn about the power of the will. The will of a human being can be called the “executive centre of the self,” and it's actually quite complex, as there are different types of wills.

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THE IMPULSIVE WILL

There is what might be called the “impulsive will”. This is a ‘willing’ that is outwardly directed and moved by and toward things which are simply attractive. You see this in babies. A little baby begins to be attracted to things very quickly, to reach for them, to move in relationship to them. To a baby, that’s all there really is to the will. “I want,” and “it pleases me” are ways to drive this will, but it’s pretty clear that the impulsive will is not the most sensible way to express your autonomy and agency as a mature human being.

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THE REFLECTIVE WILL

There also exists what is called the “reflective will.” The reflective will is oriented toward what is good for the person as a whole, not merely what is desired. The reflective will takes (as the name suggests) time to reflect and to appraise.

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The reflective will engages in a conflict which we all know too well between the good and the bad, the good and the not-so-good, and the good and the better. This reflective angst goes on constantly in our lives and it trips people up at all stages of life.

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But when you bring the reflective will to life in Christ and add the instruction of the Bible and the person of Christ through his Spirit, along with the fellowship of his Body (the Church), you have the capacity to live in such a way that God is glorified in everything you do. This is anticipated in amazing passages like Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” When the will is trained to be in sync with Christ, Colossians 3 becomes a real possibility.

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So there are two ideas at the core of spiritual formation: the impulsive will, where you simply choose what you desire; and the reflective will, where, instead of just doing what you want, you choose what is good and, especially as Christians, what is good under God, in the kingdom of God.

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The tricky thing about the will is that one of these wills tends to get embodied in a person to the place of automation.

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THE EMBODIED WILL

The embodied will is where either the impulsive will or the reflective will has sunk down into your body to such an extent that you automatically do what it dictates. This is the standard situation for most human beings on earth. Their body is running their life from choices that have formed their will and become embodied.

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As we join others in the seven-mile journey of discipleship and mentoring, much of what we are doing is helping them discover what automated habits have been embodied in their lives over a lifetime of formation. The Gospel makes change possible, transformation into nothing less than the likeness of Christ himself.

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