The Spirituality of the Rational Mind and the Spirituality of Logic

To continue from where we left off in Part I: Considering what the word “spiritual” meant in the early Church, the mind was without reservation incorporated into the concept and practice of spirituality because the mind is the bearer of the Image of God.

Since this is the case, we need to have an understanding of what the human mind is.  This can best be done by comparing us to animals.  Animals can move, and they can feel, but while this so, they do not appear to reflect on things whether that be on the world as a whole, or on their communities, or about themselves.  They live to survive, not to reflect.  This is why many animals migrate throughout the year, and even though we do not quite understand all the mechanisms involved, we see (by our ability to reflect) that there is a reason behind their migrations.  But there is no internal struggle to not migrate; no one member argues with the community about remaining when the time has come for migration.  Neither does a splinter group arise formed by those who don’t agree.  Rather, the entire herd migrates, and the one who does not migrate ends up dead due to environmental conditions that occur during the change of the seasons, and if that member does not die, then at least it is significantly weakened.  The actions of animals are reactions to environmental stimuli, but their behaviors are on a totally different level than all other systems.  They can be conditioned.

But when we come to humans, we are like the animals because we can move and we can feel like they do, yet there is something altogether different between us and all other beings.  We can reflect on everything: objects as parts and systems as wholes, individuals as parts and communities as wholes, the entire universe as a whole.  We can reflect on our actions versus our thoughts, the actions of others, consequences that arise out of actions, and ourselves and what we feel and why.  Further, this ability to reflect leads to understanding.  We are not only animals, but we are in addition something else.  We have a mind; we have rationality.  As mentioned in Part I, the early Church defined the human being as “a rational animal.”

These abilities to reflect and to understand occur nowhere else other than in human beings.  To make this clear, let me define what is meant by reflection and understanding.

Understanding can be defined as “perceiving the meaning, significance, explanation, or cause of (something).”

Some wonder and think that animals have all these capabilities, but with a little consideration of the nature of humans compared with animals we find that this is not the case.

For example, meaning often expresses itself in language and symbols.  Symbols are things that carry a meaning other than what they are.  For example, the head is the topmost part of our body that contains our brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.  But we use the word head to refer to our ability to think and understand such as in the phrases, “Use your head!”  Yet, we are not literally using our heads, but only our minds.  This is a symbolic usage of the word “head.”  Further, language is also purely symbolic because the sounds produced refer to things other than the sounds.  No other creature has the ability to be symbolic.  If they did, it would have been observed.  Every single animal observed has never produced symbols.  Symbols are a result of reflection, understanding, and application of that understanding.  This is all done within a matrix of communication with an other.  If there is no other, then there is no foundation for symbols.  We can do just fine with instincts; certainly all species except for humans have only relied on instincts, and look at how long animals have lived on the planet.

Next, significance as different from meaning expresses itself in looking into the future (even a very far off future) and imagining what that future will be like (such as an ideal) and adjusting our plans and behavior to make real that ideal imagined future.  For example, if we want to be large and bulky, then we will adjust how we eat, what we eat, how often we eat, how often we go to the gym, what type of exercises to do, and what period of time we need to do it (e.g. 6 months, 1 year).  Other than building nests for laying eggs and raising their young (which is a very short look into the future), no animal exhibits such foresight.  Further, their foresight does not come as a result of reflection because it is repeated regularly regardless of where the animal is located.  It appears to be something built into them, something instinctual.

Significance, on the other hand, is characterized by variation.  We see no such variation in the animal kingdom in terms of planning for the future.  It is all the same.  The same nests are observed among all birds of the same species.  There is no development or change in quality and structure over the generations.  Reflection leads to change in quality and structure over even a very short time, if not in anything else, at least in appearance and decoration.

To understand more about the ability of perceiving significance, I highly recommend the book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Dr. Jordan Peterson.

But most important of all, the human mind is able to take all these things and to produce explanations for them.  Explanation of anything can only be done by the use of logic.  Logic is founded on three Laws:

1. The Law of Identity (which is the ability to distinguish, define, and characterize something and all things identical to it). This is the beginning of all knowledge.

2. The Law of Non-Contradiction (the ability to understand that something [let’s call it A] cannot be non-A in the same time, same way, and same place). This is the beginning of navigation through the world using knowledge.

3. The Law of the Excluded Middle (which is the ability to determine that if a proposition and its negation are stated, then ONLY one of them is true because there is no possibility of there being a third option [no middle road]). Or put another way, a proposition must be either true or false, there is no middle ground. With this, we can determine truth.

But these Laws alone are not enough, after them there must be the ability to reason your way into a conclusion.  There are two ways of reasoning logically, and those ways are:

1. Deduction
2. Induction

Deduction is the process of reasoning beginning with general observations or principles about reality and then concluding a specific conclusion.  This type of reasoning often takes the form of a chain of if…then statements that lead to specific conclusions.  It provides great clarity into things.

Induction, on the other hand, is the process of reasoning beginning with specific observations and then concluding a general conclusion.

Since the rational mind is the grasper of logic, and since these rational realities are spiritual, then there necessarily is a spirituality of logic.  It is this ability to reason that is the Image of God in us, and if we ignore this capacity in us, then we ignore the nature with which God created us.

The Spirituality of Logic in the Old Testament

Going to the Scriptures, we find that God has always engaged the mind.  While this is true in the majority of the Bible, let us take an instructive look at the Prophets.  The Prophets are nothing short of a dialogue of reasoning between God and us.  God reveals Himself to us, and then explains the logical consequences of such revelations in order for us to understand Him in whatever limited way we can.  We also reason with Him.

Let’s look at a few illustrative examples.

Isaiah the Prophet

In Isaiah 1:16-20, God tells Isaiah to proclaim to His people:

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;

Seek justice,
Rebuke the oppressor;
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.

“‘Come now, and let us reason together,’
Says the Lord,

‘Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.

If you are willing and obedient,
You shall eat the good of the land;

But if you refuse and rebel,
You shall be devoured by the sword’;

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 1:16-20).

We see here God first commanding us what to do without any explanation, as if we were children.  Then we see Him calling us to reason with Him, as if we are adults.  Then He reveals to us that if we do the works he has mentioned, then blessings will come.  If we do not, then it will not end well for us.  As you remember from above, this is an example of deductive reasoning.  While it may not be readily apparent how this is an explanation of a revelation, it is revealed with more consideration.  If everyone seeks his own, and does not seek justice for all, then in the end the entire land will suffer because we exist in a relationship with others around us whether we are aware of it or not.  Justice has more than just an emotional element; it is the foundation that holds us all together.  Sin leads to the destruction of that foundation, but when we look out for others, that is to love our neighbors, then we “cover a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

Jonah

The whole of Jonah 4 is a dialogue of reasoning between God and Jonah.  Jonah is upset because He knows God to be merciful; he knows!  Yet this does not move Jonah to have compassion on the Ninevites.  After attempting to escape from God, Jonah preaches the message of repentance to the Ninevites to which they respond positively, and then he goes and sits opposite the city to see what will happen, hoping for destruction.  It gets really hot.  But God in His mercy and love raises a plant to shade Jonah.  Then it says Jonah “rejoiced with great joy” (Jonah 4:6 as it reads in the original Hebrew).  But the next day, God causes a worm to damage the plant and it withers, and then God brings an east wind to beat on Jonah causing him suffering.

Jonah responds, “‘It is better for me to die than to live.’

Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”

But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.  And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?” (Jonah 4:8-11).

What may not be evident here is that God is using inductive reasoning with Jonah.  He is using an analogical argument (which is a type of inductive argument) by using the specific example of the plant and Jonah’s rejoicing over it and his sorrow over its destruction to move Jonah to understand God’s intention for saving the city. Unlike Jonah, God has labored; He has created the people of Nineveh, they bear His Image, and they are unable to know what is good and evil, right and wrong, so He is coming to save them.  While the book ends without Jonah’s reply, we are brought into the dialogue of reasoning, and we are moved by this example to have compassion for those God has created, and we know that His love extends to all.

The Spirituality of Logic in the New Testament

The Gospels

In the Gospels, our Lord is described as explaining the application of the Scriptures to the Jews and the Disciples.  He did so in Parables which often times took the form of analogical argument, an inductive argument like that seen in Jonah above.  Not all the Parables are examples of arguments; some are only for description.  But certainly those like the Good Samaritan, the Wheat and the Tares, and the Talents are because they are moving people to take a certain course of action.

The Book of Acts

In the Book of Acts, logical reasoning is portrayed and modeled full blast.  The Apostle Paul is described as “reasoning” with the Jews and Greeks that he evangelized multiple times.  He used both deductive and inductive reasoning from the Scriptures.  He also reasoned from nature.

Some examples include:

Jerusalem (Acts 9:29) – with the Hellenists

Thessalonica (Acts 17:2) – from the Scriptures (in which his reasoning is described as customary for him)

Athens (Acts 17:17) – from Nature

Corinth (Acts 18:4) – in the Synagogue

Ephesus (Acts 19:8) – in the Synagogue – for three months (described as persuasively)

Ephesus (Acts 19:9) – in the School of Tyrannus with the Gentiles – for two years

Caesarea (Acts 24:25) – in front of Felix the governor – righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come.

The Epistles

In the Epistles we also see logic used extensively to make clear to us the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ and our proper way of life in light of that.

For example, the Epistle to the Romans is a long argument about justice and the righteousness of God from nature, from our consciences, and from the Scriptures and the role of our Lord Jesus Christ in that grand scheme of things.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is a long argument from the Scriptures on how our Lord Jesus Christ is the mediator of the better covenant.

The Spirituality of Logic in the Church Fathers

This active usage of reasoning did not stop with the New Testament.  Some of the most important writings of the early Church Fathers are long arguments.  This is true both of apologetic and doctrinal works.  As examples, the writings of St. Justin Martyr, all of which are apologetic, build arguments on strong premises to make the case for the Christian faith and its understanding of reality.

Also, the dogmatic writings defending the divinity of the Holy Spirit in the mid-4^th century such as those of St. Athanasius, St. Didymus the Blind, St. Basil the Great, and St. Gregory the Theologian are strong deductive arguments.  Had these great saints not done so, then we would not have solidly received the dogma that the Holy Spirit is God.  This doctrine was received in the Church from the beginning, but when it was attacked, it required an extended explanation.  The result was a very powerful defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit.  If you would like to see this for yourself, I would recommend getting the volume Works on the Spirit from St. Vladimir’s seminary press which includes the writings of St. Athanasius and St. Didymus the Blind and On the Holy Spirit by St. Basil, and On God and Christ by St. Gregory the Theologian which includes an oration on the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

With that said, no one who is intellectually honest can make the claim in the face of such evidence as that provided here that we Christians do not use reason in our faith.  These critics confuse reason with materialistic empiricism, which is observation limited to using only the five senses.  This is the starting point of modern atheists.  It precludes revelation simply because it is revelation.  But this starting point is not logical; it is actually a logical fallacy called “Begging the Question.”  It is simply a prejudiced principle that rules out things that are not regular, physical occurrences in life.  Well, no wonder they don’t accept Christianity; it is because they have already ruled it out due to their own principle.  The response to this type of thinking is apologetics, which is also another practice of the spirituality of the mind.  But an exploration of apologetics, especially that practiced in the early Church, is to be saved for another time.

The practice of using logic also leads to the virtuous life and one that is much stronger than one that exists without logical thinking.  This includes both reflection and prayer that leads to right living, and also with respect on how to carry out discussions and debates with others.  All this will be explored in Part III, which is the final part of this three part exploration on the Spirituality of the Mind.

This is Part II of a three part exploration of the Spirituality of the Mind. Next week, Part III will be published which will look directly at the role of Logic as it is leads to virtuous living and with respect on how to carry discussions and debates with others. To get Part III click here to like my Facebook page here OR sign up to my email list to receive my latest blog entries every week in your inbox.