what a person or thing is by birth or natural growth: one's native descent or inborn condition
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In its most common New Testament use, this word points to what a person or thing is simply by birth or by the way it naturally grows. Paul can call fellow Jews "Jews by birth," describe the physically uncircumcised as uncircumcised "by birth," and picture Israel as the "natural branches" of an olive tree that belong to it by ordinary growth.
The same idea sits behind one of the hardest lines in the letters: "we were by nature children of wrath." Readers have long asked whether that phrase teaches a sinful condition inherited from birth or simply describes the state people are in apart from Christ. The word itself does not settle the question; it only says the condition is native rather than something picked up later.
Nuances
1awhat a person is by birth: native descent or inborn condition, as opposed to something acquired later
Rom 2:14*Rom 2:27Gal 2:15Eph 2:3*
Rom 2:14
Whether the adverb "by nature" attaches to the Gentiles' not having the law (a matter of ethnic birth) or to their doing what the law requires (an innate moral capacity), which decides whether Paul is mounting a natural-law argument.
contestedIt qualifies their doing the law: Gentiles by nature do what the law requires, a form of natural-law reasoning mediated through Hellenistic Judaism.; Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1996), 149-153; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans (AB 33; Doubleday, 1993), 309-311; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (WBC 38A; Word, 1988), 96-102
contestedIt qualifies their not having the law: Gentiles who by ethnic birth lack the law, understood as Gentile Christians whose renewed hearts fulfill it.; C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC; T&T Clark, 1975), 1:155-163; N. T. Wright, The Letter to the Romans (New Interpreter's Bible 10; Abingdon, 2002); Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (BECNT; Baker, 1998), 121-128
Eph 2:3
Whether the phrase "children of wrath by nature" asserts an inherited, inborn sinful condition (a proof text for original sin) or only describes the pre-Christian condition of humanity apart from Christ without a claim of inherited guilt.
contestedAn inborn, inherited condition: the natural state of fallen humanity in Adam, a scriptural anchor for original sin.; Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Baker Academic, 2002), 322-326; Frank Thielman, Ephesians (BECNT; Baker Academic, 2010), 127; Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians (ZECNT; Zondervan, 2010), 134
contestedA description of the fallen condition of humanity apart from Christ, presupposing but not itself teaching inherited guilt.; Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC 42; Word, 1990), 98-99; Lynn H. Cohick, The Letter to the Ephesians (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2020), 148; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Epistle to the Ephesians (T&T Clark, 1991), 93
1bbelonging by natural growth: the native branches or stock of a plant, as opposed to what is grafted in
Rom 11:21Rom 11:24 (3×)
2
the regular, established order of things: the way the world, or a society, is ordinarily arranged
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested
Here the word names the ordinary, settled way things are, the order a reader is expected to recognize. When Paul says something is "contrary to nature," or asks whether "nature itself" teaches that long hair dishonors a man, he is appealing to that shared sense of how things are normally arranged.
What exactly grounds that order is where scholars divide. In some places it reads as the order built into creation; in others it reads closer to accepted social custom, an appeal more at home among Greek and Roman moralists than in Paul. The English word "nature" blurs the two, and modern readers easily hear later ideas of natural law or biology that a first-century writer would not have meant.
Rom 1:26*1Co 11:14*
Rom 1:26
What "nature" denotes in the phrase "contrary to nature" (para physin), and therefore what Paul condemns.
majorityThe order established by the Creator, so that the act inverts the male-and-female pairing of creation echoed from Genesis 1:27.; Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1996), 113-115; Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (BECNT; Baker, 1998), ad loc.; Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001), 254-303; Richard B. Hays, "Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to John Boswell's Exegesis of Romans 1," Journal of Religious Ethics 14 (1986): 184-215
minorityThe condemnation is real but rests on ancient assumptions of gender hierarchy rather than a timeless created order.; Bernadette J. Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (University of Chicago Press, 1996), 215-302; William Loader, The New Testament on Sexuality (Eerdmans, 2012)
minorityThe words voice a view Paul is setting up to trap in Romans 2:1, part of a rhetorical speech-in-character rather than a plain natural-order claim.; Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans (Yale University Press, 1994); Diana M. Swancutt, "Sexy Stoics and the Rereading of Romans 1:18-2:16," in A Feminist Companion to Paul, ed. Amy-Jill Levine (T&T Clark, 2004)
1Co 11:14
Whether "nature itself" in the argument about hair means Greco-Roman social and cultural convention or ancient physiology.
majorityGreco-Roman social and cultural convention about what is fitting, not a metaphysical or creation-order claim.; Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT, rev. ed.; Eerdmans, 2014), 576; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 2000), 844; David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT; Baker, 2003), 519-521
minorityAncient physiology: hair was thought to function in reproduction, so the argument rests on Greco-Roman medical assumptions.; Troy W. Martin, "Paul's Argument from Nature for the Veil in 1 Corinthians 11:13-15," Journal of Biblical Literature 123 (2004): 75-84
3
the essential being of someone or something: what it truly and intrinsically is
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
A third use names the essential being of something, what it truly and intrinsically is. When Paul says the pagan gods are "by nature" not gods at all, he means they are not really gods in their own being. When 2 Peter promises that believers will "share the divine nature," the word again points to God's own essential being.
This is the most philosophically loaded corner of the word's range, and the phrase in 2 Peter has been read in strikingly different ways. Across those readings, interpreters agree that sharing the divine nature does not erase the difference between the Creator and his creatures.
Gal 4:82Pe 1:4*
2Pe 1:4
What sharing "the divine nature" (theias physeos) means, given the phrase's dense Hellenistic religious vocabulary.
majorityA moral and eschatological participation: believers come to share God's moral excellence now and his incorruptible immortality at Christ's return, not an ontological fusion.; Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC 50; Word, 1983), 180-182; James M. Starr, Sharers in Divine Nature: 2 Peter 1:4 in Its Hellenistic Context (Coniectanea Biblica NT 33; Almqvist & Wiksell, 2000); Gene L. Green, Jude and 2 Peter (BECNT; Baker, 2008), 183-191
contestedThe scriptural basis for deification (theosis), always by grace and preserving the Creator-creature distinction.; Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford, 2004); Daniel A. Keating, Deification and Grace (Sapientia, 2007)
minorityA covenant partnership: reading the noun as "partners" rather than "sharers," so the sense is "partners of the Deity," not participation in God's being.; Al Wolters, "'Partners of the Deity': A Covenantal Reading of 2 Peter 1:4," Calvin Theological Journal 25 (1990): 28-44
4
a kind or species: a class of living creatures
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
The narrowest use is simply classifying: a "kind" or "species." In James, every "kind" of animal can be tamed by humankind, and the word carries no deeper weight than naming a class of living things. It sits close to the ordinary idea of a species and overlaps γένος, the word for a kind or race.
The Greek word can point to descent by birth, a use where English "nature" would not normally be used at all.Gal 2:15
It can name a living kind or species, a classifying use that English "nature" does not cover.Jas 3:7
Both
Both can name the settled way things ordinarily are.Rom 1:26
Both can name what something essentially and intrinsically is.2Pe 1:4
Only nature
English "nature" pulls toward the physical world, the wilderness, or the environment, meanings the Greek word does not carry.
It also suggests Enlightenment-era "natural law," a framework later than the New Testament.
“by nature”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“natural”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“kind”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“species”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How phusis differs from similar Greek words
γένοςA kind, race, or family line, a group defined by shared descent or class, close to the "kind or species" use of nature but focused on lineage and grouping.
names the inborn make-up or constitution of a being: what something is in itself, apart from any group it descends from2Pe 1:4Eph 2:3Gal 4:8
names the natural order, the way things are meant to work, so that acting "against nature" is acting against that built-in designRom 1:26Rom 11:241Co 11:14
means "by birth" in the sense of an inborn status or endowment one simply has, not membership in a lineageGal 2:15Rom 2:14Rom 2:27
Both
both can sort things into kinds or classes, labeling the type of thing something is1Co 12:10Mat 13:47Jas 3:7
Names the inherent kind or make-up of a thing, what a creature is by its very constitution, extending to animals and beasts.Jas 3:7
Expresses what belongs to someone by birth or origin, the state one holds "by nature" rather than by choice.Gal 2:15Rom 2:14
Reaches to the essential character of a being, including the divine essence God shares and the emptiness of the so-called gods.2Pe 1:4Gal 4:8
Points to the established natural order, what is fitting or customary within creation as it was made.Rom 1:261Co 11:14
Both
Both can describe the innate, unredeemed human condition apart from grace: in one breath Paul names the cravings that once drove that life and the standing under wrath that was inherited with it.Eph 2:3
Names the physical body itself, the soft material substance of a living creature that can be touched and seen.Luk 24:391Co 15:39
Stands for human descent and kinship, one's own blood relatives and physical lineage.Rom 1:3Rom 9:3
Sweeps up all humanity as weak and mortal, every living person under death.Mat 24:221Pe 1:24
Carries the moral sense of the sinful human impulse set against the Spirit, the inner drive toward rebellion.Rom 8:7Gal 5:17
phusis in the other biblical languages
מִיןHebrew“kind”The Hebrew word for "kind," the "after its kind" category of Genesis 1, which matches only the "kind or species" sense; the word as a whole has no single Hebrew equivalent.
φύσις names an inborn nature or natural constitution: what a person or people are by birth, taken as a moral or physical given. It describes Gentiles who "by nature" do what the law requires, people who are "by nature" children under wrath, and those who are Jews "by nature" rather than by choice.Rom 2:14Eph 2:3Gal 2:15
φύσις can mean the established natural order or normal course of things, so that a departure from it is "contrary to nature." Paul speaks of desire that goes against nature, of branches grafted in against their nature, and of what nature itself teaches.Rom 1:26Rom 11:241Co 11:14
Both
Both words can group living creatures into kinds or species. מין sorts the animals coming to the ark and the beasts of the earth into their kinds, and φύσις in one place means exactly this, "every kind" of beast and bird that humans have tamed.Gen 6:20Jas 3:7
מין is a classifying label that sorts created life into fixed categories, repeated as "after its kind" through the creation account to mark plants, birds, and animals as reproducing within set types.Gen 1:11Gen 1:21Gen 1:24
מין organizes the dietary laws, where clean and unclean creatures are itemized "by their kind" so that whole groups of birds and swarming things can be named at once.Lev 11:14Lev 11:22Deu 14:13
What scholars say about phusis
The standard lexica converge on a fourfold range for physis: (1) condition determined by birth (Gal 2:15;Rom 2:27; 11:21, 24; Eph 2:3); (2) natural character or intrinsic being (Gal 4:8;2 Pet 1:4); (3) the regular or established order of things (Rom 1:26;1 Cor 11:14); and (4) an entity as a product of nature, a creature or kind (Jas 3:7). Helmut Koster's TDNT article traces the term from phyo ("to grow") through its sixth- and fifth-century BC role as the title of Ionian works peri physeos, the Sophistic antithesis of physis and nomos, and its Stoic elevation to the goal of living "in agreement with nature." Koster argues, influentially if now partly disputed, that the technical concept of natural law was achieved not by the Stoics but in Hellenistic Judaism, above all in Philo's identification of the Mosaic Torah with the law of nature. The Septuagint offers little help, since physis translates no Hebrew term and surfaces only in Hellenistic-Jewish deuterocanonical texts such as Wisdom of Solomon and 4 Maccabees. EDNT and NIDNTTE stress that Paul, unlike Philo, never coins the phrase nomos tes physeos and borrows the vocabulary opportunistically rather than systematizing it. The exegetically weighty debates cluster at Rom 1:26 (created order, gender hierarchy, or rhetorical trap), Rom 2:14 (natural-law argument or ethnic birth), Eph 2:3 (inherited original sin or the pre-Christian condition), and 2 Pet 1:4 (moral-eschatological participation, covenantal partnership, or theosis).
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), s.v. physislexicon
Helmut Koster, "physis, physikos, physikos," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 9 (Eerdmans, 1974), 251-277theological-dictionary
Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (Balz-Schneider), vol. 3 (Eerdmans, 1993), 439-440, s.v. physistheological-dictionary
Moises Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Zondervan, 2014), s.v. physisdictionary
Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with Supplement, s.v. physislexicon
Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC 50; Word, 1983), 180-182commentary
James M. Starr, Sharers in Divine Nature: 2 Peter 1:4 in Its Hellenistic Context (Coniectanea Biblica NT 33; Almqvist & Wiksell, 2000)monograph
Bernadette J. Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (University of Chicago Press, 1996)monograph
Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001)monograph