It is good to know how persons think, the strengths and weaknesses they incorporate in the processes and uses of thinking. Of late I have been reading about thinking as it relates to experience. I am most interested in mystery – not the mystery thrillers that, I am told, make up much of print and broadcast programming, but the mystery that is often referred to in the Bible. Mystery is a major issue in Scripture – not a minor one. Read the work of persons like Cardinal Newman, an evangelical Anglican who turned to the Catholic Church; C. S. Lewis, a University Don who became firm and active in Christian apologetics at thirty years of age; Blaise Pascal, whose work paved the way for modern mathematical technology, whose diary became a treasured Christian apologetic; Augustine, a leading professor of rhetoric, who became the famed Christian saint/theologian, in the fifth century; even Einstein on mystery, the pivotal person in the development of the physics of the atom and cosmos; and, so the story plays out for others, ancient and modern. We even continue to study the thought production of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and their intellectual colleagues, who lived before the birth of Christ. Each of these seemed to have a personal road to thinking contexts. I am sometimes greatly impressed how personality sometimes determines logic. When we look into the pool of knowledge the first thing we see is a reflection of our personal image.
This variety creates paradox and contradiction in that we tend to feel that right thinking ought to provide one avenue for all. We wonder how so many persons of both varied and similar experience achieve purpose, within the parameters of thought, but vary, sometimes widely, in the conclusions of the thought process using the same evidence. Each of these genius thinkers desires to be right in his or her thinking. Part of the mystery is unraveled in the realization that thinking is not an element, but a compound. Cardinal Newman pressed this point. Even in thinking there is emotion, there is social context, there is purpose and consequence. Thinking does not follow in a straight line from A to Z.
No one can make sense of a thought process without presuppositions, which is a faith principle. One begins with a belief, and proceeds from there. If I believe in peace my thinking and arguments, my emotions and energies tend to follow a path that I believe leads to peace. This does not work for a person who believes that conflict is important to truth. If I believe that human drives are appropriate to society, I will follow a different pattern of thought (logical) than if I believe that human desires need control for the good of the order (logical). If I believe in God and his presence in human life, I will present a case (logical) that is comforting to me, but rejected by the person who can’t accept my presupposition, so works (logically) in another direction. Scripture calls me to begin with a belief that God exists. (Hebrews.11:6)
Jesus ministered in this pattern, and spoke to it. Let every person go in the direction that is determined in his or her own heart (the presupposition truth determined in the context of one’s life). It ought to be the person’s own, and not harmful to any other person. My course of thinking may be helpful to another, but only if the other person is persuaded through mental processes – not otherwise compelled. Since so much turns on that persuasion when one’s thinking clashes with another’s thinking, persons must become models of their thinking, must be consistent in their thinking, must show benefit in their thinking so to win some thinking conflicts. Christian thinking to accomplish full benefit must be humble so to know the barriers and mystery in any thinking, and prayerful to find the course of their thinking that gives their persuasion probative force. Truth is the goal, and truth may not be easy to come by. The individual’s own emotions are often the greatest barrier to getting through. The Christian needs to resort to prayer to become astute enough to think rightly in the presuppositions of God. My mind needs God. How does the mind work through to find God? If I understand Scripture and my own experience correctly the answer is: in a true belief in man’s limited mortality and depravity; in a mystery of the universe that rests in the person of God; in humility that yearns for truth for all that is or will be; in an objective search for God who aids in the process; and, in a belief that faith in Christ’s redemption means ongoing life. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020