Minding Our Humanity

Mind: “the element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons” (Webster's Dictionary)

Marilynne Robinson's third chapter from Absence of Mind analyzes the thought of Sigmund

Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud: The Three Atheists of My Undergrad Years

Freud (1856-1939), who clearly positioned himself as a "scientist," analyzing the depths of humanity. The mind is central to Freud and to Robinson's book and naturally represents a topic of considerable interest in the dialogue of theology with science, particularly with neuroscience and cognitive science. Robinson takes on the topic primarily from the angle of philosophy and the history of ideas.

Here is a representative quotation from the chapter. 

"If there is one thing Freud asserts consistently, from which every theory proceeds and to which every conclusion returns, it is just this--that the mind is not to be trusted.” Marilynne Robinson

Robinson's point in Absence of Mind is that modern thinkers--through people like Freud in the past as well as Stephen Pinker and E. O. Wilson today--have led us to an absence of mind, which represents a serious reduction of what it means to be human. (In that previous sentence, I wrote that "modern thinkers" were critiquing our trust in human thought, which of course is oxymoronic and probably a striking example of "sawing off the branch you're sitting on.")

I think Robinson's right in many ways, and yet I have to add the theological categories of

doubt and sin. Put another way, is the mind a single entity? For example, we might say, “I’m of two minds on that issue.” And the Bible describes doubt, as in James 1: 8 as being “double-minded." Moreover, Paul in Romans 7 seems torn up by warring minds,

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." Romans 7:15, Paul

And yet, Jesus clearly believed that the mind is essential in responding to God,

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’" Matthew 22:37, Jesus

This indeed, is the "greatest commandment," which when added with love of our neighbor, summarizes God's will for us.

That leaves some questions to ponder because I think many Christians today don't trust the mind and consistently propose that we need to listen to our "hearts"--by which they mean emotions (which is not the biblical definition by any stretch) and thus reject the mind. Note above that Webster’s definition includes “feels, perceives, thinks, wills” and not simply “reasons.” 

Do you trust your mind? To what degree why or why not? Is your mind a gift from God? What gets in the way of a trustworthy mind? What makes it trustworthy or untrustworthy? 


P.S. If you're interested in viewing and/or hearing Robinson's fourth chapter, "Thinking Again," it was also the fourth of her 2009 Terry Lectures on Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy at Yale, which appears in her book with the title.