Sin and Psyche.

http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=1447

Mental illness is increasing and, according to the World Health Organization, "will be the second biggest cause of death and disability by 2020."

"An estimated 20 percent of children have a mental illness that causes at least mild functional impairment, but only 5 percent receive any kind of mental health care (1,2,3). Antidepressant medications are among the psychotropic medications most commonly prescribed for children and adolescents, and their use is increasing dramatically (4). In 1993-1994, children below the age of 18 years were six times as likely as in 1985 to receive a prescription for an antidepressant; between 1990 and 1996, the total number of prescriptions of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for children and adolescents increased by 69 percent (5,6,7). Despite this dramatic increase in use, there is little understanding of what mental health conditions these agents are being used to treat. It is possible that their use is outpacing existing clinical evidence of their efficacy."

http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/53/11/1444

From the Christian perspective, mental illness is not caused by unresolved parent-issues or repressed desire, but by sin, and by suppressing the truth in unrighteousness:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them..."-Romans 1:18-19

"...you always resist the Holy Spirit."-Acts 7:51

"...and when He [The Holy Spirit] comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see Me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged."-John 16:8

"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.”-Jeremiah 2:13

“O LORD, the hope of Israel, All who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the LORD.”-Jeremiah 17:13

The reductionist approach to psychology, as the term implies, "reduces" one's illness to stemming from this or that source. A Freudian psychoanalyst will reduce it to sexual hangups or unresolved father-issues, an Adlerian'll reduce it to an inferiority complex, a behaviorist will reduce it to maladaptive habits, a cognitive psychologist will reduce it to intellectual distortions about the world, etc. It doesn't take a lotta philosophical gymnastics to consider that maybe mental illness can have a fundamentally theological origin. Even Carl Jung, a one-time colleague of Sigmund Freud, suggested that, rather than God being a projection of parental idealization, the reverse, on purely philosophcial grounds, could be true. Why couldn't idealization of parents be rooted in a Sensus Divinitatis, or indwelling sense of the divine, as theologian and Reformer John Calvin posited (and there are certainly passages that seem to read that way: Rom. 2:12-16)?

King David is notorious for his bouts of depression, and his notorious "frenemy" King Saul is also well-known for his mental instability. Both of their problems, Scripturally, are clearly related to sin.

"^B)">(B) Have mercy on me,^a]">[a] O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your^C)">(C) abundant mercy
^D)">(D) blot out my transgressions.
^2E)">(E) Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and^F)">(F) cleanse me from my sin!

^3G)">(G) For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
^4H)">(H) Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil^I)">(I) in your sight,
^J)">(J) so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
⁵Behold,^K)">(K) I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
⁶Behold, you delight in truth in^L)">(L) the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

⁷Purge me^M)">(M) with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
^N)">(N) wash me, and I shall be^O)">(O) whiter than snow.
⁸Let me hear joy and gladness;
^P)">(P) let the bones^Q)">(Q) that you have broken rejoice.
^9R)">(R) Hide your face from my sins,
and^S)">(S) blot out all my iniquities.
^10T)">(T) Create in me a^U)">(U) clean heart, O God,
and^V)">(V) renew a right^b]">[b] spirit within me.
^11W)">(W) Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not^X)">(X) your Holy Spirit from me.
¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will^Y)">(Y) return to you.
¹⁴Deliver me from^Z)">(Z) bloodguiltiness, O God,
O^AA)">(AA) God of my salvation,
and^AB)">(AB) my tongue will sing aloud of your^AC)">(AC) righteousness.
¹⁵O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
^16AD)">(AD) For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
¹⁷The sacrifices of God are^AE)">(AE) a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

^18AF)">(AF) Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
^AG)">(AG) build up the walls of Jerusalem;
¹⁹then will you delight in^AH)">(AH) right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and^AI)">(AI) whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar."-Psalm 51

This is probably the most famous of the Penitential Psalms. David confesses his sins and asks God to restore to him the joy of God's salvation - and we see this even more explicitly in another Penitential Psalm, Psalm 32:

^1A)">(A) Blessed is the one whose^B)">(B) transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
²Blessed is the man against whom the LORD^C)">(C) counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit^D)">(D) there is no deceit.

³For when I kept silent, my^E)">(E) bones wasted away
through my^F)">(F) groaning all day long.
⁴For day and night your^G)">(G) hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up^b]">[b] as by the heat of summer.
Selah

⁵I^H)">(H) acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, "I^I)">(I) will confess my transgressions to the LORD,"
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
Selah

⁶Therefore let everyone who is^J)">(J) godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you^K)">(K) may be found;
surely in the rush of^L)">(L) great waters,
they shall not reach him.
⁷You are a^M)">(M) hiding place for me;
you preserve me from^N)">(N) trouble;
you surround me with^O)">(O) shouts of deliverance.
Selah

⁸I will^P)">(P) instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will^Q)">(Q) counsel you with my eye upon you.
^9R)">(R) Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with^S)">(S) bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.

^10T)">(T) Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who^U)">(U) trusts in the LORD.
^11V)">(V) Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous,
and^W)">(W) shout for joy, all you^X)">(X) upright in heart!"-Psalm 32

A true Christian can tell you about a distinct and unmistakable melancholy that overcomes us when we sin - and the supremely light, airy, and indescribable joy that comes with successful walking with God. Sin, for both believers and unbelievers, causes an agonizing disconnect from God:

"Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear."-Isaiah 59:1-2

Not being disconnected from God causes immense joy:

"...God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."-Romans 5:5

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God..."-Romans 8:16

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace..."-Galatians 5:22

"...whoever drinks of the water that I will give him^L)">(L) will never be thirsty again.^b]">[b] The water that I will give him will become^M)">(M) in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."-John 4:14

"Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst"-John 6:35

From a Christian perspective, all this comes from man rebellion against God, which, in reality, is rebellion not only against God, but against his own nature. This rebellion has taken a peculiar form in our society. As Christopher Lasch writes in his famous The Culture of Narcissism:

“Plagued by anxiety, depression, vague discontents, a sense of inner emptiness, the “psychological man” of the twentieth century seeks neither individual self-aggrandizement nor spiritual transcendence but peace of mind, under conditions that increasingly militate against it. Therapists, not priests or popular preachers of self-help or models of success like the captains of industry, become his principal allies in the struggle for composure; he turns to them in the hope of achieving this modern equivalent of salvation, “mental health.” Therapy has established itself as the successor both to rugged individualism and to religion; but this does not mean that the “triumph of the therapeutic” has become a new religion in its own right. Therapy constitutes an antireligion, not always to be sure because it adheres to rational explanation or scientific methods of healing, as its practitioners would have us believe, but because modern society “has no future” and therefore gives no thought to anything beyond its immediate needs. Even when therapists speak of the need for “meaning” and “love,” they define love and meaning simply as the fulfillment of the patients' emotional requirements. It hardly occurs to them - nor is there any reason why it should, given the nature of the therapeutic enterprise - to encourage the subject to subordinate his needs and interests to those of others, to someone or some cause or tradition outside himself. “Love” as self-sacrifice or self-abasement, “meaning” as submission to a higher - loyalty - these sublimations strike the therapeutic sensibility as intolerably oppressive, offensive to common sense and injurious to personal health and well-being. To liberate humanity from such outmoded ideas of love and duty has become the mission of the post-Freudian therapies and particularly of their converts and popularizers, for whom mental health means the overthrow of inhibitions and the immediate gratification of every impulse.”- page 13

Man submits himself to nothing when he should be submitting himself to God. The sociologist Durkheim described the sort of postmodern condition we exist in now as "anomie," a kind of cultural anarchism he associated less with liberation and more with despair (which, as we see in Christopher Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism", is more or less on the mark). I find it somehow apropos that the Greek word used in the New Testament for lawlessness is "anomos", used in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 to describe the Antichrist - which Nietzsche, practically a patron saint of postmodern philosophy, described himself as.

“Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”-John 6:35

“I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.”-Ecclesiastes 2:1

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”-Matthew 11:28

"For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes."-Jeremiah 31:25

“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”-John 7:37

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.”-Isaiah 55:2

Christ's sacrifice on the cross liberates us from the misery of sin and puts us into direct connection with God. It allows us to "know" God. The word used in the Bible for "know" in the Bible, when used in relation to God, typically signifies an intimate relationship. But we can't have this relationship with God as long as we're in bondage to sin:

"You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong..."-Habakkuk 1:13

The moment we call on Jesus and truly Christ in His sacrifice as all-sufficient for payment of our sins, a real, metaphysical pathway is opened up to God. We are then in a position to "know" God:

"...if anyone loves God, He is known by God."-1 Corinthians 8:3

"But now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God..."-Galatians 4:9

"Those whom He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..."-Romans 8:29

"No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him"-1 John 3:6

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are made right with God the Father freely through His free gift - that free gift is Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Jesus lived a perfect life so that His sacrifice would be acceptable to God the Father. Nothing we can do can be acceptable to Him since we are already guilty of sin, and need an atonement to have that sin forgiven, thus opening up contact with Him once again. Christ lived a perfect sacrifice only to be punished as though a sinner so that sinners who actually deserve that punishment could have Christ's righteousness credited to them, provided He did this for them.

To Mr. Dawkins.

Dear Richard Dawkins,

I would like to to apologize for not knowing you sooner so that I could warn you in advance against publishing your anti-religion work. Not simply I myself am "religious", but because your arguments are worse than merely unconvincing - they're uninteresting and unoriginal. I am sorry that you dwell on the bottom rung of the anti-theistic militants like Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, whose arguments, while equally unconvincing, are at least more interesting.

Perhaps I could have prevented you from becoming the laughingstock of even many non- and anti-theistic thinkers who consider your (mis)understanding of basic theology comparable to that of a high schooler. If only we had been classmates, I could have rescued you from your Anglican upbringing and ushered you into a Presbyterian or Reformed Baptist Church! Ezekiel 3:18 certainly provides a sober warning as far as warning others goes:

""When I say to the wicked, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand."-Ezekiel 3:18

The reason I didn't was because of temporal and geographical inconvenience. Write something more interesting you miserable apostate!

Your friend,

Daniel

An example of the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til and Howard Clark.

The debate surrounding religious pluralism hinges largely on the relation of our capacity to know, to reality itself, that is, to what is known. Religious pluralists typically believe something to the effect that all religions are correct, that they’re all paths to the same god, or perhaps that none of them are correct, and we all have the right to believe whatever we want. I’m addressing, more specifically, the idea that no one of any religion can justifiably dispute the truth claim(s) of another religion – and more broadly, I plan on relating this debate to the nature of knowledge claims itself. My mode of argumentation throughout this post is not original, but draws on the “presuppositional” style of argumentation pioneered by philosophers/Christian apologists Cornelius Van Til and Howard Clark.

It’s often argued that since there are many religions, it doesn’t make sense to claim that one is correct to the exclusion of the others, as though appealing to the reality of diversity proves anything except that diversity exists. This is not to deny that social norms and linguistic conventions affect our perspectives on reality. I can’t imagine anyone denying that. But to then conclude from this fact that all realities are legitimate (or that none of them are legitimate) is such a bold jump that does not logically follow, that I think this mentality is based more on an agnostic view of reality which sees the truth as impossible to determine, and so we might as well just get along if we can’t know for sure, right? The appeal to diversity, and the apparent impossibility of knowing for sure who is correct (the former often being caused by the latter), both link up to create a philosophy where anything goes, as though it’s ethically wrong or fundamentally in bad taste to dispute the truth claims of one system of belief and/or to assert the exclusive truth of another. Ultimately, I agree that the the task of figuring out on what kind of knowledge claims are reliable is a difficult one, but a point needs to be made emphasizing the necessity and inevitability of assuming some kind of foundational presupposition when it comes to making knowledge claims.

One might reply to the pluralist that the presence of diversity in scientific theories by no means entails that all theories have equal standing to the truth (though postmodernists will often claim this). A popular counter-objection to this response is that knowledge of spiritual things is by a fundamentally different means of knowing, that is, by intuition, revelation, or faith, rather than through sense experience, induction, experimentation, etc, and as such, unverifiable, leaving us in a state of irremediable agnosticism in which we totally despair of the truth. As a Christian, I do accept this distinction between different ways of knowing:

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”-Hebrews 11:1

“…for we walk by faith, not by sight”-2 Corinthians 5:7

While I accept this distinction between different ways of knowing, I consider faith superior to reason and sense experience. Most people accept as self-evident that reason and science are fundamentally more reliable modes of knowing. I accept as self-evident that God’s revealed Word in the Bible is a fundamentally more reliable mode of knowing (and that, unless it precedes and conditions science and reason, the latter two are hopelessly corrupt and lead one into error when mobilized).

Ultimately, we all come to the table with our own assumptions about reality, and no ideology, worldview, religion, or philosophical system, is completely neutral, no matter how hard we try to make it neutral, or attempt to assume common ground with all parties in the debate. To say that scientific knowledge is reliable because it proceeds by way of the senses, induction, and experimentation, proceeds from the presupposition that these modes of knowing are more reliable than revelation, and that the autonomous human mind is a reliable means of acquiring knowledge without assistance from God or some means of divine revelation. I, as a Christian, also have my own presuppositions about the nature of reality, the nature of knowledge, and how the two are bound up with one another. Again, as a Christian, I accept as self-evident that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and the Bible claims for itself this authority.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”-Proverbs 3:5.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”-Psalm 111:10.

And the Bible is clear about the effects of sin on the intellect:

“For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…”-Romans 1:21-22

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”-Romans 3:10-11

¹⁸For the word of the cross is^(A) folly to^(B) those who are perishing, but to us^(C) who are being saved it is^(D) the power of God. ¹⁹For it is written,

^(E) "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

^20(F) Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?^(G) Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. ²²For^(H) Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³but we preach Christ^(I) crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ^(J) the power of God and^(K) the wisdom of God. ²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

“³And even^(A) if our gospel is veiled,^(B) it is veiled only to^(C) those who are perishing. ⁴In their case^(D) the god of this world^(E) has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing^(F) the light of^(G) the gospel of the glory of Christ,^(H) who is the image of God.”-2 Corinthians 4:3-4

So we see that depending on scientific knowledge and reason, on the one hand, has its own presuppositions about the nature of the knowing human subject (namely, that the autonomous human being is an entity who can reliably acquire undistorted knowledge about the world). This belief lies on an unproven assumption that is simply taken for granted. The Christian worldview holds to the assumptions that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, that faith in the God of the Bible is superior to reason and sense experience (and that the latter two are hopelessly corrupt and deceptive without being undergirded by the former).

While accepting on faith that the Bible is the Word of God because the Bible says the Word of God, is oftentimes dismissed as circular, I argue that simply accepting as self-evident that ANY ideology, or means of knowing, is, in a sense, circular, because it must accept as true something unproven, that is, by faith. To prove anything as true, we must assume the reliability of a certain methodology, presuppose the inspiration a certain religious text, etc., in order to mobilize it in defense of a belief, and we are left having to defend the means we used to defend the belief (For example, if I argue that sense experience is reliable, I have to resort to something else to prove that it’s reliable, perhaps its frequent success in predicting the behavior of the material world, and I would then have to prove by another means that what I used to prove the reliability of sense experience is itself reliable, and an infinite regress follows).

A brief comparison of Theravada Buddhism and Christianity will help illustrate the fundamentally antagonistic and mutually exclusive nature of claims about reality. I consider Buddhism an especially instructive example of this reality, because it tends to be viewed as relatively inclusivistic, when on closer inspection, both its explicit and implicit claims to inclusivism, are, in reality, pretty exclusivistic.

The Christian perspective rejects any kind of inclusivism, universalism or pluralism, but holds that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”-Acts 4:12. Buddhism holds that our “salvation” comes in the form of freeing ourselves from attachment to earthly desires and cravings, that any religion which adheres to the Four Seals of the Dharma qualify as Buddhist, and that salvation is basically the result of the completion of a reform program, by which the human is progressively perfected. Anyone who has ever studied Theravada Buddhism knows that it is a relatively unique religion, and that few religions satisfy its rather restrictive criteria for a religion which leads effectively to salvation.

The Buddha even ends up telling us that, though we ought to test for ourselves what we think works best, and agrees with our common sense, we eventually have to ultimately put our full faith and trust in the Buddha’s method of salvation. The Buddhist ends up saying something like, “you can be any religion you want, as long as it’s Buddhist.” I hope to make it clear that, for the Buddha to ask us to test a belief system with our common sense, is horribly problematic, especially in light of the Buddha’s very non-commonsensical denial of the existence of the self, of anything static or unchanging, and reincarnation (At least the Christian worldview admits that its beliefs are “foolishness” to those whom God has decided not to predestine to salvation (1 Cor. 1:18-25)).

Christianity rejects Buddhism as proceeding from a worldview which denies the existence of sin – sin being disobeying and rebelling against God, and that all sin against God incurs a legal debt which must be paid, which is only paid through Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God in the flesh, who bore God the Father’s wrath on the cross, thereby atoning for sins and placating the wrath of God toward those who believe. The Buddhist sees good deeds and tracing harmful habits to their origins as conducive to salvation, whereas the Christian denies that any “good” will suffice to placate God’s wrath, since God’s wrath is directed toward wrong committed against Him. For the Christian, the idea that we can save ourselves through reform or good deeds or psychological conditioning, would be comparable to Hitler living to stand trial and asking if he could wipe away his crimes through good deeds.

The Buddhist denies the existence of anything static or invariant, whereas the Christian sees God as static, invariant, eternal, personal, demanding obedience, and saving believers by grace (grace being God’s unmerited favor towards those who deserve His eternal wrath) through faith (faith being trust in God the Father, who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who is also God, to live a perfect life, thus making His sacrifice acceptable to God the Father, only so Christ could die on a cross, in order that sinners who actually deserve such punishment might have Christ’s perfect righteousness credited to them, provided they believe He did this for them).

The postmodernist also, who tries his best to be as inclusivistic as possible, ends up ruling out ANY belief which would claim for itself exclusive truth (and there are many). Such attempted exclusivism is pretty inclusivistic. Postmodernism is a difficult-to-define intellectual current associated with the idea that all truth is subjective (that is, that there is no truth), and that all truth claims are simply attempts of one locus of power to impose its beliefs on another, and that the sociocultural realm is nothing but this dynamic of competing power relations. I would agree with postmodernists that the competition for beliefs has a lot to do with one belief overpowering another, rather than disinterestedly presenting one truth claim against another, and that non-Christian belief systems are being marshaled not by someone disinterestedly presenting a belief system, but rather,

“…the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind…”-Ephesians 2:2-3.

And as for the Christian who presents the Gospel:

“…the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.”-1 Corinthians 4:20.

“”…I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”-Romans 1:16

It is indeed implied that belief is not a merely intellectual phenomenon, but rooted in both desire and power, which precede intellectual belief, and determine the contents of the intellect (it’s interesting to note that two of the most important postmodernist philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, considered desire and power, respectively, the most fundamental determinants of the emergence of phenomena).

From a Christian perspective, what we believe, and the paths we walk (which are inseparable), in the end, are inseparably related to, and even determined by, whether our desire is for sin, or for God, whether we have the power of God, or are under the power of the devil; and our intellectual beliefs, regardless of what they are, always rely on certain unquestioned assumptions about reality, which reveal our unquestioned intellectual sympathies (themselves revealing, undergirded by, what power we’re under, and what we desire). Both of these truths are perhaps summed up most concisely by Jesus Himself, who tells us that:

“Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.”-Matthew 12:30.