Table of Contents
WARNING: This is merely a “test model” or perhaps better understood as a “theoretical model”. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to fit all the pieces together into a form that matches the way Scripture describes human behavior. Likewise, I’ve worked hard testing to insure this model matches reality to the point where satisfying predictions can be made. What I am describing here is a work in progress– I hope it also helps you because it has already started helping me and others.
Granted, the image is a bit out of focus and the lines of distinction between various components seem to display a bit of overlap. Where does the mind stop and the spirit begin? Where does the body stop and the soul begin? How much of the mind is used by the spirit and how much of the mind is used by the soul? Clearly not all the body is soul, but observation and evidence indicates the soul is the primary manager of the body.
Here is a theoretical diagram of a human, broken into the Biblical components. Keep reading and I’ll try to explain where this comes from.
For the sake of a consistent terminology, I’m going to consider the “Heart” and “Spirit” to be one in the same (review Component Soup for a list of components found in Scripture). I hope the term “Body” doesn’t need further definition. The “Soul” however is going to take a lot of work to give this term some meaning.
There are several interface components to add to this diagram, but where do they fit?
The Mind
Where does the mind fit into this picture?
Here’s my take– We think and reason in our minds. When I deeply contemplate or meditate on issues in my heart or spirit, that understanding seems to take place in a form of raw meaning. When I believe that God has been speaking with me, the communication I receive from God seems like it is injected straight into my heart in the form of a raw meaning. I know what God said to me, but it needs to be translated into language in order to process it in my mind and communicate it to others. Thinking in my mind is done in a language, but what matters is the meaning. We command our bodies to act and speak using language. So without being totally clear about this, I believe the mind fits into the Test Model as an interface between the spirit and the soul. The spirit can influence the mind with raw meaning and the soul can influence the mind with raw feeling.
One of the verses in Scripture that seems to support this architecture is from 1 Corinthians chapter 2:
For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians 2:11
This passage points to a intimate relationship between the spirit of a man and the thoughts of a man’s mind.
Other passages from the Bible indicate that if we were to give the mind a leaning or preference, it would land closer to the side of the heart.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2
Romans 12:2 indicates that part of the process of growing spiritually once a person is redeemed is a transforming or renewing of the mind. There is also the implied understanding that without the renewing of God’s Word by His Spirit, the mind is wrecked– a mess of broken skills and abilities that aren’t useful until the mind is “renewed”.
18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you with speculation about what he has seen. Such a man is puffed up without basis by his unspiritual mind, 19 and he loses connection to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God causes it to grow.
Colossians 2:18-19
Colossians 2:18 teaches that it is possible to let an unspiritual mind lead us into a disastrous situation where we can become disconnected.
5 Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.
Romans 8:5-7
Romans chapter 8 verses 5 through 8 have a lot to say about the state of our beings when our mind’s focus is either on the flesh (the soul’s corrupted desires) or the Spirit (God’s Spirit giving life to us through our reborn spirit).
The mind appears to the battle ground where influences and motivations vie for control. Apparently once the mind is under control, then the body will “live” according to that control.
Eventually we’re going to have to bring the heart’s thoughts of the mind (spiritual) into the brain (physical), but I have no clue how that is done. Feelings that arise from the body and soul reach the brain and are interfaced to the mind and heart somehow, but I don’t know how.
The Brain
Speaking of the brain, I don’t have an all-powerful, wiz-bang theory for this discussion, but it has been my experience that brain-damage isn’t necessarily the same as mind-damage or spirit-damage. I once knew a wonderful man who medically was going down-hill. As his condition worsened, he suffered a stroke during a surgery that caused him to lose his ability to communicate using speech.
I was with this man several times after his stroke and indeed, every time he attempted to form a sentence, what came out of his mouth was a jumble of unrecognizable gibberish. But this lost ability didn’t affect his character, his demeanor, his patience, his love or joy. He was still the person in his heart that he had grown to become after many years of a satisfying life.
In addition, I was surprised many times when we “spoke” that after a string of nonsense had left his lips and we were locked in eye contact, I honestly believe from some other avenue of raw meaning, I was able to understand him. It was the craziest experience and it made no sense to me, but I ran with it and trusted that teeny, silent sense of meaning and responded to him out of that mystery dialog. The outward expression on my friend’s face confirmed that he knew that I had understood what he had said and was just as surprised as I was.
All this to point out that who we are is not physically bound to our body through our brains. Think about when you forget some detail, lost in your memory. Losing that memory didn’t change who you are. You had already processed that experience, used the event to formulate a lesson of wisdom and understanding, causing who you are in your spirit to grow and mature. Once the building up of your spirit was complete, the original memory wasn’t important any more.
I’m totally lost to explain this one, but there appears to be a spiritual “cloud” where pertinent, personal data about who we are and what we have become rests in persistent (eternal?) storage. This is just a WOW for me…
I’ve often wondered what part of the body would have to be transplanted to move a person from one body to another. We now know medically that a person can have just about every organ of the body transplanted and the person receiving the transplant remains the person they were before the transplant. In light of this it is nearly universally recognized that the head, or more specifically some part of the brain, contains some feature that allows a person’s spirit to possess a body.
Mind in The Test Model
Where does the mind belong in this diagram… I’m going to place it as an interface component between the soul, spirit and brain (part of the body).
Look at the current state of the world. The forces and powers, both earthly and spiritual are in a battle for the mind. Once a mind is bent either toward the corrupt soul or the eternal spirit, that bent seems to be very difficult to unbend. This matter is so important that the soldiers in the battle are willing to use physical force and blatant lies to achieve control of the mind. This battle is just part of the long war Satan wages against God. Minds he controls become soldiers in this futile fight.
Read about “What Went Wrong?” for a deeper discussion of this matter– made unimaginably worse because our minds are now naturally bent towards our corrupt soul.
Each of these primary components, the spirit, the soul, the body and the mind have articles in the appendix which talk about each in greater depth.
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