The Christian Institute has recently produced helpful and informative material about Critical Theory. Mindful of the enemy’s agenda to describe as oppressive the authority of Almighty God, however, the following article seeks to clarify commonly accepted points about science, experience and common sense.

Heart And Mind

During my years as a medical student, long ago, the only teacher I had whom I considered truly inspirational was a heart specialist. He would put his ancient, long stethoscope over someone’s heart, give us a detailed diagnosis, and speak warmly with measured wisdom to his patient. I wanted to follow him after qualifying. But I was disappointed when I applied for his junior house job because it went to one of the hospital’s best rugby players.

In the job they actually gave me, however, there was an intensive care unit. One day I found a man there in the most dreadful cardiac pain. He told me his story. Terrible, powerful emotions and thoughts tormenting his mind were very obviously contributing to his dire physical state. His desires and loves were most agonisingly divided.

I saw the course of that man’s life directed by motivations and thoughts that come from the heart and began to realise that the physical heart is concerned with relationships, warmed by respect and love, but made cold and hard by denial of feelings, by fight and flight, by unwillingness to forgive and by bitterness. I also realised that serious illness could result from unhealed emotional and mental stress.

I also realised that serious illness could result from unhealed emotional and mental stress.

Thinking like this, however, seemed to conflict with the scientific medicine and psychology I had been taught, which treats symptoms on the basis of physical ‘common sense’ causes – and which patch people up, and make them dependent on medical science, but fail to fully heal.

So, I studied psychiatry and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, searching for vicissitudes of the soul which might contribute to human disease and distress. Then one day, when that came to an end, I fell down on my knees, appealing to God in the name of Jesus, to whom I had given my life as a youth, to set me free with His truth. For Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

Shalom

By the grace of God, the Lord Jesus Christ was included in my experience. Otherwise, I would have conformed with those who only trust common-sense science, technology and the power of purely human resources. But by loving God, loving our neighbours as ourselves and acting on Jesus’ teaching, Holy Spirit can bring order out of chaos, deliverance and healing. His peace, which passes understanding, proves to be substantial. Jesus is indeed the way, the truth and the life. If pride in our own ideas does not get in the way, His Spirit will guide us. But it can cause trouble, as it did with Jesus - as you can see if you read the rest of John Chapter 8 about Jesus being challenged by the Pharisees.

Logic and knowledge

It is easy to be confused by information overload these days. You can investigate your symptoms on the internet and find the scientific diagnosis and treatment. But do we not yearn for someone we can really trust who cares and loves us and whose truth we can believe in? Such a person, like Jesus, might be a necessary ingredient for healing.

But do we not yearn for someone we can really trust who cares and loves us and whose truth we can believe in? Such a person, like Jesus, might be a necessary ingredient for healing.

Never having ever really known such a person, many people become nihilistic and cynical. They dumb down their awareness and just concentrate on what feels good. And when peace and truth are never found it becomes tempting to keep busy with interesting feelings, games and suppositions, which can lead to all sorts of dysphoria. Some intellectuals, like Descartes, go even further by attempting to deny their feelings to gain a false sanity through reason, following allegedly pure logical thoughts that come to mind.

When individual facts add up to what seems to make sense, we commonly believe they must be true. Secular mental mechanisms that seem to be rational not only produce brilliant mathematicians and philosophers (and critical theory) but also occasionally beget serious mental illness.¹

Making sense of experience

I remember a man who obsessively insisted that there was a microphone in the corner of his room enabling me to read his thoughts. Since there was, in fact, no physical microphone, it is fair to say he was deluded. But I had to accept that he could find no other logical explanation for the fact that I could discern some of his thoughts and feelings. In practice it proves best not to argue with such beliefs, because they are so strongly held. Usually, it proves pointless to try to uncover the intolerable thoughts, feelings and emotions which always lie hidden behind such craziness, until another spiritual reality is taken to heart. That man believed firmly in his human reason, and he was therefore a worshipper of the prince of this world. While neighbourly love and compassion can bring some comfort and understanding to the heart, neither reason nor therapy can guarantee actual healing.

While neighbourly love and compassion can bring some comfort and understanding to the heart, neither reason nor therapy can guarantee actual healing.

How we make sense of our experience depends upon whom we worship. Diverse gods give diverse spiritual guidance. But true peace and sanity come from Almighty God, Creator of the universe, whom we discover by coming to His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and letting Him into our hearts. He reveals that He paid the price on the cross and shed His blood to save us from our fallen human nature, and rose from the dead, and loves us. All our past behaviour, and all our feelings and thoughts, no matter how bad, must be given to God in repentance. Then He sends Holy Spirit and we must wait with God for His leading.

Places where Christendom has been dominant for centuries are ill-prepared, nevertheless, for the gross assault upon hearts and minds now taking place through academia, media and politics, undermining old ways of thinking. Unless there is widespread repentance and a turning back to Christ, we must expect overwhelming burdens on health services.

Is logic contradicted by the illogical?

These days there seems to be a surfeit of people acquainted with many facts, yet without true knowledge or vital wisdom. Yet in the English language there are two ways to speak about truths we presume to know. There is logical science, through which facts are determined through observation, categorisation, experiment and reason to establish what we know. And there is knowledge which may seem illogical, gleaned from experience of living relationships, which yields spiritual, heart-felt knowing that can be either ultimately creative or ultimately destructive.

And there is knowledge which may seem illogical, gleaned from experience of living relationships, which yields spiritual, heart-felt knowing that can be either ultimately creative or ultimately destructive.

Individual facts are integers, complete in themselves. When facts are integrated, however, their significance depends upon whom we believe.

The secular scientific world has become dominant because it is useful. But science, although useful, will never ultimately save us. Generally, it takes no notice of God and insists upon ‘progress’ using technologies developed by human reason with flashes of inspiration from any available sources.

Jesus saves

Scientific facts alone do not enable us to know the person of Jesus, who saves with authority those who come to Him. When His Spirit is living among us there is personal healing and deliverance from our demons. Peace and security for mind and soul are established among us. The only begotten Son of God was sent to redeem people, that they might join with Him as He returns to Zion, and to reign with Him with power and truth in His kingdom on earth, which is coming soon.

Endnote
1 This is demonstrated in detail in my book Healing Madness published in 2019 by Philadelphia Books and available on Amazon.

John Gordon was formerly a GP, a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst. He is now a licensed minister in The Order of Jacob’s Well.