With All Your Mind . . .

MAKING NONSENSE OUT OF LOGIC

They made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened. --- Ro. 1:21 (Jerusalem)

The world has always been dominated by ideas more than by the force of arms. Whether for good or ill opinions prove to be stronger than armies. Karl Marx, who never fired a shot, has influenced more lives, albeit not always for good, than all the military power of Napoleon and Caesar combined. Communistic ideology now holds sway over half the world, and it has not depended as much upon the sword as upon ideas. The influence of a godly Mother, whose life is dedicated to moral and spiritual values, is often greater than all the external pressures that are brought to bear upon her children.

“Ideas control the world,” insisted President Garfield, and he might have added that this is why the world has such a hard time of it, for ideas are often the creation of corrupt minds and are promoted for evil purposes. Victor Hugo was right in saying that “No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come,” but that unfortunately applies to evil ideas as well as good ones. Satan seems to know when to move in and make havoc of a nation or an individual by darkening their empty minds and making nonsense of their logic. The main thing that went wrong in Nazi Germany was the thinking (or the lack of it) of the people. Many a man’s life has been ruined by the invasion of a false ideology, such as the notion that society owes him something or that the government is obligated to take care of him. We are inclined to buy the old myth that we do not have to reap what we sow.

Paul’s concern in Romans 1 is with corrupt ideas festering in degenerate minds. “The more they called themselves philosophers,” he said, “the more stupid they became” (verse 22), which shows it was a crisis in thinking. He says they made nonsense of their logic and their empty minds were darkened. “They gave up divine truth for a lie and have worshiped and served creatures instead of the creator,” he adds, and then says that God abandoned them to “degrading passions,” which includes menfolk giving up natural intercourse with women “to be consumed with passion for each other,” and women doing unnatural things with each other.

The apostle says that all this is a matter of rational man becoming irrational: “Since they refused to see it was rational to acknowledge God, God has left them to their own irrational ideas and to their monstrous behavior.” (verse 28) Paul finds man without excuse, for “they knew God and yet refused to honor him as God or to thank him.” (verse 21) Man knows logically that there is a God to whom he is to give account: “What can be known about God is perfectly plain to them since God himself has made it plain.” (verse 19) But he will not acknowledge what he knows to be true, opting for “filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies.” (verse 24)

The mind can thus be poisoned by one’s carnal nature. In that same Rom. 1 Paul lists those sins that destroy responsible thought, such as greed, malice, envy, arrogance, spite. These can be thought of as moral fallacies in that they destroy man’s natural capacity to seek after God. Ecc. 7:29 argues the point that “God made man upright, but he has sought out many inventions.” This does not mean that we are naturally good, but that God created us with the mental capacity to seek after him and find him (Acts 17:27). This we will do if we do not yield to sin and allow pride and arrogance to corrupt our thinking.

The mind can be dulled (2 Cor. 3:14) and become vain (Eph. 4:17) and corrupt (2 Tim. 3:8) and defiled (Tit. 1:15) and poisoned (Acts 14:2). Eph. 4:22 shows that this mental corruption comes through “following illusory desires,” or by the wrong kind of thinking about life, deceitful lusts as the KJV puts it. And so the apostle goes on to call for renewal of mind: “Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.” This revolution of the mind can be realized only in the Christ: “Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings” (Rom. 13:14).

Most religions of the world realize that it is the mind that must be controlled, even when they do not look to Jesus as the power for renewing the mind. Human suffering is caused by unbridled desires, Buddha taught, whose very name means “the Enlightened One,” which suggests that he had found the answer to human woes. The desires of the mind, which are only compounded by possessions, must be overcome. Happiness comes through not craving. Buddhism thus teaches “the Noble Eightfold Path” for the control of desires: right thinking, right desires, right speech, right conduct, right vocation, right mindfulness, right concentration.

Buddhism, like all forms of humanism, may be right in identifying the problem, but it has no way of providing the resources for the renewal it seeks. Rules for overcoming the lusts of the mind are not enough, for “the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). If God does not give man a Helper, he is in deep trouble.

Jesus presents an important view of human nature in his parable of the prodigal son, which would better be called the parable of the loving father or even “the gospel within the gospel,” for it is full of good news. We may conclude that it is natural for the prodigal to behave the way he did. We all sin by going astray in one way or another, caused by our pride and arrogance. Self is enthroned in our hearts and minds. The parable makes all this clear, for the wayward boy knew he was doing wrong, wasting his substance through riotous living. His mind mattered, and his mind had gone wrong. The Lord pays human nature a compliment in all this drama. In the pig pen where the wayward lad was inclined to stuff himself with the pods that the swine ate, he came to himself.

Even when our minds are corrupted and defiled by sinful pride, we can turn to something fine and noble within us, as if God placed something of himself deep within our makeup. We may become corrupt, but we can still come to ourselves, our real selves, and resolve to arise and go to our Father, not with any demands but to sue for his mercy. Here is the emptiness of Buddhism and all philosophies that presume that man’s extremity is his own opportunity, that he can save himself by getting his thinking straight. We must have a Helper, one who is able to lift us above the swine. I will arise and go to my father! That is the only resolution of the mind that redeems and renews the mind.

Descartes, whose principles for the direction of the mind we referred to in our last, held that men are equally endowed with good sense, by which he meant the ability to distinguish between good and evil. Some are more efficient in their thinking, he granted, and some are more vigorous in solving problems, but this is because they apply their minds better and not because they are endowed with more reason. We are all equally capable of reasoning, he insisted, and we improve our reasoning ability by using right methods of thinking. If a person appears superior in reasoning, it is not, according to Descartes, that he is more endowed by nature than others, but that he has learned better how to apply his mind. When Newton’s students asked the master scientist how he knew so much, he replied “By applying my mind to it.” This is what Descartes is saying. The difference between the Newtons and the rest of us is that they learned how to think and how to avoid common fallacies, and they worked at it harder than most of us are willing to work. It is told on Edison, who made poor marks in school before he learned how to work mentally, that he accounted for his successes on the basis of 10% inspiration and 90 % perspiration.

True, some may be slower than others, but they are still equal in being able to distinguish between right and wrong, and such ones often surpass the quick-minded in discernment because they have learned to avoid those irrational habits that destroy sound reasoning. Prejudice, for instance, fouls up one’s thinking, and the prejudiced person will find himself excelled by one who has overcome that form of irrationality. Because of sectarian pride some people have already decided what they are going to believe, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Such ones are wayward and irrational, like the prodigal son, and they too need to “come to themselves” and think as God has created them to think, apart from bias and pride.

Descartes’ thesis that people are generally equal in their ability to reason is encouraging to us “average” folk, and it appears to be the implication of scripture. The Bible is a book that expects to be understood, for the most part at least. “When you read you may understand” (Eph. 3:4) is the assumption of scripture, as is “He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches” (Rev. 2:7). The injunction “Take heed therefore how you hear” (Lk. 8:18) implies that we can all hear well enough, if we really want to hear. We are to take heed, not because we may be poor reasoners, but to make sure our hearts are right and that we really want to know. The parable reveals that there are different kinds of hearers, not because of unequal capacity to grasp ideas, but because some allow Satan to influence them, some yield to sin, some are enamored with “the riches and pleasures of this life.”

Those who had “honest and good heart” --- not brighter minds --- are the ones who bore fruit with patience. The difference between people, therefore, is not their ability to reason or to hear, but in whether they allow themselves to be encumbered with myths, errors, fallacies, biases, tyrannies, superstitions, and all the rest.

There is in the April issue of Reader’s Digest the moving story of Huber Matos, the man who defied Castro, which you should by all means read. A revolutionary alongside Castro, he understood that the revolution would give Cuba back to the people, including free elections and a government of their own choosing. He did not realize that Castro was a Communist. Matos reminded Castro of his promises and urged his friend to fulfill them, which caused the dictator to turn on him, falsely accusing him. Matos spent 20 years in the brutal prisons of Castro’s Cuba, refusing all overtures to gain freedom through a compromise of convictions, even when he was tortured.

The difference between the two men is clear. Castro’s mind is dulled and blinded by a political ideology, one that he can protect only by oppressive tactics. His mind is made up, and he will destroy anyone, including bosom friends, that gets in his way. Huber was motivated by truth and freedom, and by the promises he had made. He was not for sale, not at any price. Even though his body was wracked by pain and deprivation through decades, his mind remained clear. He refused to yield to all of Castro’s fallacies and intimidations, a good example of what it means to have an honest and good heart.

This points to what this series is getting at. We can allow the evil influences about us to make nonsense out of the logical mind that God has given us, or we can “keep our heart with all diligence” and not allow our minds to fall prey to fallacies and irrationality. --- the Editor