The YMCA Way: Mind

When I was younger, I remember going to the YMCA in my home town and seeing their logo which read: "Spirit, Mind, Body."  During this brief series, I am going to look at these three different aspects of the human soul and how they relate to the Holy Trinity.  In essence, I am taking a look at how the Trinity plays into our conception of the Imago Dei, that is, the idea that we are made in the likeness (or the "image") of God.  The posts in this series are not necessarily Christian doctrine, but I do feel like they are helpful, both to Christians who are considering the implications of being children of God and to non-Christians who are wondering how the Trinity works and what it means to be "created in God's image."

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

We live in an age of intellectualism.  An immense amount of money is spent every year in people's pursuit of higher education, and we the most learned among us are generally considered to be the most respectable.  Nothing says more about a man than the number of letters following his name, and the success of our nations is commonly measured by standardized testing and scholastic performance.

While I do not think that our fascination with intellect is always a positive influence, it does prove that there is something worthwhile to a person's mind.  As I am discussing in this series, the human soul is comprised of three main parts: the body, the mind, and the heart, and each of the three is equally important to gaining a proper outlook on life and an appropriate image of one's fellow man.  Each of us must balance these three components with a certain amount of skill, nourishing each part while remembering not to neglect the others.

Personally, my mind tends to get most of my attention.  My friends know that I spend a substantial amount of my time reading, studying, and thinking, in the pursuit of a more robust mind.  In fact, it could be said that there have been seasons of my life where I have focused on developing my mind even to the point that it was detrimental to my body and my heart.  That being said, I have since learned to better balance these three parts of my soul, though I still tend to attend to my mind more heavily than the others.

Mind Your Terms

Before I delve too deeply into this topic, I would like to take a moment to clarify what exactly I mean by a person's "mind."  Last week, I discussed a person's heart, by which I meant the part of their soul which influences their decisions through mainly emotional means.  Emotion is a force which compels us to act even when faced with a lack of evidence.  It is a conviction which comes from deep within a person's heart, but not always for apparent reasons.  Despite being somewhat nebulous, a person's heart still holds quite a lot of influence over them, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.

The mind, on the other hand, is the component of a person's soul which compels him or her to act based on thinking that is more rational or logical.  I do not mean that the influences of the mind are always correct, but they are always based on what is understood to be factual in a given circumstance.  The mind looks for numbers and patterns, it craves order and hierarchy.  All of these terms have developed a positive connotation in recent years, though there is nothing inherently "good" about patterns and order.  This is mostly an artifact of the great importance which is placed upon the mind by modern culture.

Using the Right Tools

While the mind is a great thing, and it certainly helps in making decisions, to neglect the other parts of his soul can cause some serious problems for a given person.  My mind works great in many circumstances, but there are often many situations in life where the evidence is either missing or misleading.  In these cases, relying solely on my head can end in a poor decision or a failure to decide at all.  In both of these cases, it would be best to utilize one or more of the other tools at your disposal (heart, body, advice from others, etc.).

In the best possible case, all three components of your soul would be giving you the same advice, but since we exist as imperfect beings, they are often at odds with each other or are silent on a given issue.  When this is the case, it can be very difficult to make a decision.  But by comparing the options each part of your soul is suggesting and utilizing scripture and the wisdom of those around you, the correct action or answer will normally present itself.  Each part of your soul is compelled toward certain ends: your heart has desires, your body has appetites, and your mind has wants.  When all three of these are in agreement, decisions seem like the simplest thing in the world.  At other times however, we must use the tools available to us to determine the best possible solution.  Do not force your head to solve problems for which it is not equipped.  In doing so, many poor political and societal decision have been made over the past few decades.

The Father

With respect to the Holy Trinity, the revelation of God most consistent with the idea of the human mind is God the Father.  Certainly, describing the Father in terms of only the human mind limits Him somewhat (so this is not a perfect analogy), but it does seem that He possesses many of the qualities which I find consistent with the human mind.  First, the Father represents Wisdom.  God is seen as all-knowing and perfectly wise, and much time is spent to praising Him for these qualities.

"Who can fathom the mind of the Lord,
or instruct the Lord as his counselor?
Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,
and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
or showed him the path of understanding?" -Isaiah 40:13-14

Paul would later repeat some of this passage in the Doxology at the end of Romans 11.  What is clear is that God the Father is ultimately wise, and He is also capable of distributing wisdom.  Perhaps the most obvious example of this is King Solomon, who pleased God by asking for wisdom when he took Israel's throne at a very young age (I Kings 3:1-15).  One of the most common themes of the book of Proverbs, of which Solomon wrote a significant amount, is the wisdom that comes from the Father.  "For the Lord gives wisdom;/ from his mouth come knowledge and understanding." (Proverbs 2:6)

Another aspect of the Father which likens Him to the human mind is His Plan.  Planning is certainly an activity of the mind, and of the three parts of the Trinity, the Father seems to be the one most concerned with the specifics of His Plan for the world.  It even appears that there are some parts of the plan about which Jesus Himself is unaware, such as the timing of the end of the world (Matt. 24:36) and whether or not the cross was absolutely necessary (Matt. 26:39,42).  The Father is concerned with specifics, ensuring the ultimate outcome of His Plan.

Finally, God the Father loves to use logic.  Much of the book of Leviticus reads like a science lab manual, training the Israelites in scientific thinking and deductive reasoning.  The Father does not back away from the challenge laid forth by the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, showing them by His power that He is the true God.  "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." (1 Kings 18:21)  The Father even calls on those who worship Him to use their own logic.  "'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.'" (Malachi 3:10)

Balance

We are intellectual creatures.  We are constantly learning, whether through traditional means or simply by examining the world around us.  Behind all of this is the image of God which was imprinted on our souls at the beginning of humanity.  But just like the other constituents of humanity, our minds have been stained by the fall, an event prompted in part by confusion in the minds of Adam and Eve.  We also have minds that are sometimes befuddled by the empty promises of this world.  Thank God that there is always hope, for He is willing to give us the wisdom we need to combat this confusion if we would but ask (James 1:5).

We must be cautious not to allow our minds to dominate the other two components of our souls.  You are told to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30)  All of the components are important.  As twenty-first century Christians, we must ground our faith in God in a strong intellectual foundation.  But we must also remain cognizant of our hearts and bodies in the pursuit of becoming more like God.

I conclude this week with a passage from Paul, discussing the wisdom which comes from God through belief in Jesus Christ.

"The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.  The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, 'Who has known the mind of the Lord/ so as to instruct him?'  But we have the mind of Christ." -1 Corinthians 2:14-16