Those who lose control of their mental processes have our empathy. It is a terrible thing for the person involved, and also for those who care about that person. The reason we will discuss them here is that they are mostly soul dysfunctions, not brain problems. This chapter will cover some of the issues related to mental illness and associated maladies, and why they occur.
However, this chapter will only try to deal with what the Bible says about the subject, and will not attempt to cover the issues in any detail, which would require another book. Having said that, the books which have been written on the subject mainly approach the issues from the viewpoint of a dysfunctional brain, not as soul issues. That is a sad reality regarding the lack of useful information on this important subject, because most such issues occur in the soul.
A well-known Pastor from the 1800's, C.H. Spurgeon, said of this issue:
"The mind can descend far lower than the body, for in it there are bottomless pits. The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, but the soul can bleed in ten thousand ways, and die over and over again."
The soul can become distorted and think and believe things which do not align with reality, as noted in previous chapters. Our purpose here is to discuss such issues in view of what the Bible reveals about distortions of the human soul. We have mentioned that most of these mental distortions are soul issues, and since most psychologists and psychiatrists do not believe in a soul, their remedies can only treat a few related symptoms. While this may often be necessary and useful, it deals with shutting off the soul from the brain using chemical inhibitors. This is not a criticism of such drugs, but our study seeks to understand the root causes and issues rather than assume there is simply a chemical imbalance, which is usually incorrect. While there are exceptions, it is usually the soul which becomes distorted, not the chemicals in the brain. So it is the soul which leads to most mental maladies.
There are various forms of mental distortions, maladies, and illnesses which can cause the person to be unable to control their own thought processes. And that is the key, loss of control over the soul due to internal battles for control. These include but are not limited to schizophrenia, bipolar, paranoia, stress disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, dissociation from reality, distortions of thought, incorrect or inappropriate mental processes, projection of weaknesses to others, inability to concentrate or stay with a certain train of thought, emotional overtaking of the soul, highs and lows, inability to control outbursts of anger, anxiety, panics, phobias, addictions, self-destructive thoughts, hatred, fear, envy, dread, low self-esteem, emptiness, zero-state, criminal tendencies, lack of drive, low initiative, give-up-itis, destructive lusts, and so on. Some of these are present at a low level in most people, although generally occasional and controllable. When severe enough and continuous they can be called mental illness. Overall the various distortions cover a wide array of inability to control one's own thoughts within the soul. We will now cover this subject in greater detail, and later will discuss the solutions found in the Bible. And the Bible is the only source of true soul and spirit healing through rehabilitation of thought processes.
If mental distortions remain for long durations they can become set patterns. The soul seeks patterns of behavior, usually for repetitive actions and thinking processes to make life easier. This is a natural tendency in both the soul and brain. But these repetitive patterns can become distorted and unrealistic. They can turn into counter-productive thoughts and a mental Coriolis Effect as the soul spins out of control. Deep ruts of incorrect mental processes are created. At that point the person begins to lose control of the thoughts in the soul, and if it continues the soul will become uncontrollable in either specific areas or possibly in broad areas. Instead of internal control by the Heart, an outside force seems to have taken control of the soul. And to some degree, that is true. But what is it?
That outside force is actually an inside force which is attached to the soul, and is what we have discussed previously as the Sinful Nature. It was not given to us by God, but was acquired by the original sin in the Garden of Eden. Therefore the Sinful Nature is the legacy of that original sin by our ancestors, passed down to all of us. It is not simply a tempter to sin inside of us, but rather the primary distorter of the soul and the source of almost all mental distortions, maladies and illnesses, with some exceptions. Although some mental illnesses can be related to specific physical abnormalities and diseases, these make up only a small portion of the total. This is counter to psychology and psychiatry which seeks to resolve what they see as physical issues and chemical imbalances, since they do not generally believe there is a soul. Mental distortions appear to these practitioners to be brain misperceptions, misunderstandings, and misinformed choices, so psychiatry attempts to reason with the person and inform them of reality as they see it. But reasoning with a person controlled by the Emotion/Sinful Nature alliance to such an intense degree is attempting to reason with the unreasonable. The Mind may understand and even agree, but it is no longer primarily in charge of advising the Heart of the proper things to think and believe, or the proper actions to take. So even if the Mind becomes convinced, it will often be overruled. Instead, the Sinful Nature has taken control of the soul and is aligned with the non-thinking part of the soul, the Emotion, to drive a feeling-based approach to life rather than a thinking and believing approach. And God requires a thinking and believing approach to our spiritual life, not an emotional one. Even if the person is a believer, they may be unable to believe anything they once believed about God.
For instance, schizophrenia and bipolar are a result of an internal battle for control of the soul, on one side by the Heart supported by a rational Mind, and on the other side by the Emotion aligned with the Sinful Nature. The person can alternate between what they logically understand and what they feel. Reasoning with such a person can have a positive effect, but only until they allow the feeling side to take over again. During the early stages the Heart and Mind can maintain control for periods of time, but the Emotion/Sinful Nature alliance will battle to regain control. As this happens the person goes back and forth between a thinking approach to life and a feeling approach backed by the distorter of the soul. The feeling side has a strong arrogance factor due to the influences of the Sinful Nature, which is the source of this sin. If the cycle is not broken the person becomes more and more unstable and less able to control the Emotion/Sinful Nature alliance.
When the Sinful Nature and Emotion rule the soul, it will decline into a distorted state. The Emotion exerts it influences and pushes the Heart out of the way while the Sinful Nature engages in what it does best -- distortion and chaos, along with emotional swings. The by-product is arrogance in the soul, starting out slowly, but building over time. Since the Heart is meant to be the controller of the soul, and the Mind is designed to think logically, the overthrow of the Heart and Mind by the Emotion/Sinful Nature alliance short-circuits the rational thought processes which had existed, leaving the soul vulnerable to the non-rational, non-thinking Emotion/Sinful Nature usurpers. This is what creates a manic-depressive state, when the Emotion alternately controls the soul in a high state and then cannot maintain such control of the soul, resulting in a low state as the Emotion pulls back removing emotional involvement, while the Heart remains neutralized by the Sinful Nature. This alternating state between a soul controlled by Emotion, which is a non-logical component, and the Emotion losing control resulting in a vacuum while the Heart remains offline, creates a yo-yo effect in the soul. Panic attacks can occur in between during the vacuum periods since there is no one in charge of the soul, so it literally cannot think or emote. Even if the Heart can intermittently regain some level of control, such stabilization becomes harder to achieve and shorter in duration the longer this whip-saw process continues. Eventually the Heart becomes severely hardened with arrogance and can no longer escape the grips of the Sinful Nature, so the cycle gets deeper and deeper, and the options fewer and fewer. Thinking and believing rationally becomes more and more difficult.
Such distortion begins with mild unreality and soul absurdities, but in later stages becomes illogical chaos. The person may remain generally functional, or become mentally incapacitated, or something in between, but they are in a state of unreality to either a small or great extent. Therefore the answer to why people can think in such a distorted manner is that when the Emotion is aligned with the Sinful Nature, and these two have created a pattern of over-ruling the Mind and Heart, it eventually becomes a set pattern of arrogance which the person may be unable to break, even if they desire to do so. Thinking becomes distorted as the logical components of the soul are pushed aside in favor of an emotional approach to the outside world. At the same time the Sinful Nature exerts greater control over the soul, creating chaos and non-linear thought processes guided by arrogance, meaning the inability to think clearly. The Sinful Nature stages a coup against the Heart, becoming an evil dictator which rules as an illogical and arrogant tyrant, robbing the soul of any hope of peace or happiness.
Young people can get into this distorted soul cycle during their teen years, and it is important that it be stopped as soon as possible. This can be very difficult. Discipline early on can help to stop the cycle of arrogance by which the Sinful Nature gains control. It is not just rebellion against authority, rather it is rebellion against their own Heart, substituting emotional soul expression combined with arrogance in place of logical thinking. If it is not stopped at an early point, it will become much harder to do so later. The cycle can often require some sort of hard jolt from life to shake the person out of their state of arrogant unreality.
The revolt by the Emotion/Sinful Nature alliance in the soul leads to irrationality and causes other serious issues for the person, as the mental state will inevitably deteriorate over time. The resulting mental instability leads to locked-in arrogance which rejects many types of authority, and promotes other mental sins such as hatred, jealousy and envy which cause a severe narrowing of mental tolerance and a near total inability to accept any form of truth in the areas of Sinful Nature-Emotion dominance. When this truth denial becomes non-selective it turns into a neurosis or psychosis, but most people do not reach that level of generalized truth rejection. Some areas usually remain fact-based due to long held beliefs which cannot be ignored, and these can remain islands of rationality in a sea of irrationality. But even so, a mental tsunami from the Sinful Nature-Emotion alliance can wipe out even such islands of rationality, especially when mental sins are intense and all-consuming.
In a broad spectrum takeover of the soul by the Sinful Nature backed by the Emotion, the Sinful Nature causes patterns of mental sins to come to the forefront which combine into a group of sins to further blind the person to the truth. These mental sins can overwhelm the soul and cause a shutdown of the Heart, at least in certain areas of life. The person then lives on the lusts of the Sinful Nature. These lusts are not always the carnal type, but rather power, monetary, superiority, and many other lusts which become possible. Generally, the mixture of lusts and sins distort the world view. Smug arrogance of superiority based on Cosmic System self-centeredness and self-absorption are the means of self-esteem, which is a house of cards. Cosmic System devices such as self-delusion, self-absorption, transference, and denial reject the logical deliberations of the soul, and result in a soul which is out of control and unable to process information in a logical manner, except of course in narrow areas of mechanical skills and rote memory application to a job or hobby. The mental sin combo of arrogance, envy, jealousy, and hatred rejects truth and authority other than one's own. Such people live on lies as their basis for a world view, and truth is a casualty. Isaiah 59:4 says of them: "no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. 5 They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched."
A soul rift occurs when the person has slid so far down into reliance on the Sinful Nature that the soul cannot function normally. The soul rift consists of the Sinful Nature breaking the normal relationships of the Heart, Mind and Emotion. This relationship is a delicate dance whereby these three engage in a mutually beneficial interaction with the Heart in control, the Mind doing all the heavy lifting of thinking and figuring things out, and the Emotion just appreciating the whole process when things go well, or being disappointed when they do not go well. In this relationship the Emotion is the wild card, and can be a disrupter. When the Sinful Nature interferes in soul processes, it first attacks the Emotion by enticing it into an illicit soul relationship, resulting in an upset of the delicate balance in the soul by causing the Emotion to become unhappy with what is going on. The issues do not need to be rational or reasonable. The Emotion just does not like something, and it causes soul upset. The Emotion ceases to enjoy the subordinate role of appreciation of what the rest of the soul does. It starts to think "Hey, what am I -- a potted plant?" and at that point the Emotion, at the encouragement of the Sinful Nature, revolts against the authority of the Heart. The Heart fights back and exerts its authority, and there is discordance in the soul. The Emotion becomes unhappy and seeks gratification apart from the Heart. That gratification can take the form of self-righteousness or hedonism or anything in between, or maybe both at the same time. The "both at the same time" thing is one method where the soul can become confused and out of sync with reality. An alternate reality is then created. The Mind is confused by all of this illogic and seeks to perform some form of mental gymnastics whereby it can remain neutral. But in the end all three become engaged in a dysfunctional relationship. If this is not stopped, it is all downhill from there.
It is at this point where the person begins to lose touch with reality. The former interactions inside the soul become strained and discordant. A deep sense of unhappiness ensues. Further attempts to stop the unhappiness result only in greater unhappiness and use of more emotional stimulation. The soul becomes hopelessly confused and depressed. Eventually panic attacks occur as the soul cannot decide what or how to think at certain points. The soul becomes less and less able to make sense of the reality around it. Concentration becomes more difficult. The person feels a loss of control, but does not understand it. The inputs from the senses are seen as distractions from internal attempts to solve the problems of the dysfunctional relationships among the Heart, Mind, and Emotion. At the same time, the standards of the Conscience eventually erode. The soul descends into chaos as normal soul functions are degraded to a greater and greater extent. The soul sinks deeper and deeper into unhappiness and unreality, as the mental defense mechanisms fail. It is at this point that depression becomes the norm. The soul can no longer function "normally." Chaos in the soul continues the slide into oblivion. The best that can happen at this point is a lack of unhappiness, not happiness. But even that comes rarely.
Mental distortions, maladies, disruptions, contortions, or whatever they might be called run a continuum from mild to severe. For convenience we will generally just refer to them as mental distortions. On the mild side they disrupt us from thinking the way we want to think. Everyone has these issues to some degree, so this is not unusual. We want to trust God but we have doubts based on emotion. We want to think normally but compulsions come onto the scene and interfere. We want to believe the Bible but our minds can only think of things which appear to counter it. We can only see what is in the world, not what the Bible reveals. There is a war inside us over control of our thoughts. What is going on? Why can't we just think what we want to think, and believe what we want to believe? Why can't we simply decide to switch away from the Sinful Nature back to the Heart and Mind processes we formerly used and start thinking normally again? Of course, it does not work that way. Once the Sinful Nature has control it is difficult to wrestle that control away from it because everything is a swirl of confusing inputs and undigested outputs mixed with uncontrolled emotions, all of which interferes with re-starting normal thinking.
When the soul gets out of control as described above the result is chaos in the soul. That is soul damage. And the damage is real, because the soul is real. It is not just something which can be fixed by a quick reset. It requires effort and a right approach. Only information from the Bible can begin to repair the soul, if it can be accepted and internalized into the human spirit. Otherwise the mental drift will continue and will intensify. The Word of God is alive and powerful, and can eventually overcome the Sinful Nature distortions of the soul and break its influence. But it is hard, and takes time and persistence. That is what God requires of us, namely continuous positive decisions toward Him and His plan. Day by day. That is how the soul is rehabilitated. And if medication helps calm the soul to allow study of the Word, then that is a good and proper use for them. But the real solution is soul rehabilitation by getting the Heart and Mind back in control, putting the Emotion back into its rightful place, and suppression of the Sinful Nature.
So how do these mental distortions start? By now you know the answer, which is that the Sinful Nature is the culprit. But why does this Sinful Nature cause such mental distortions and inability to control one's own thoughts? For those answers we must dig even deeper.
We have seen how the primary target of the Sinful Nature is the Emotion, which is a non-thinking part of the soul. The Sinful Nature is an adversary to the Heart and Mind, constantly attempting to stage a coup against them. It seeks control, and is not satisfied to stay in the background simply tempting to sin. That is far too mundane a task, as far as it is concerned. It wants to rule, to be in charge, to command the soul. And this is where the true mischief lies, the desire of the Sinful Nature to usurp the Heart and Mind and take control of the soul.
Because the Heart of the soul is the decision maker, there is a lifelong battle in the soul of each person over which advisors will have more influence over the soul's Heart. On the one hand the "logical advisors" to the Heart, including the Mind, Conscience, Memory, and also for believers the human spirit, should be the best advisors on a regular basis. These logical advisors should be positioned to oppose the Sinful Nature, with its sinful tendencies and lust patterns, which is continually seeking to gain the upper hand as an illicit advisor to the Heart. But on the other hand, the soul's Emotion can take the side of the Sinful Nature and make bad decisions more difficult to avoid. The Emotion does not think, so it merely responds to either the Heart backed by the logical advisors, or else to the Sinful Nature. The Emotion was designed by God to respond to the Heart in alignment with the logical advisors of the soul. But a life of bad decisions will lead to the Emotion becoming allied with the Sinful Nature.
But the Sinful Nature does not have the ability nor inclination to properly rule the soul. It takes the Emotion hostage, a Stockholm Syndrome sets in, then they become allies. Like any dictator, the Sinful Nature simply wants power. It wants to rule and command others to obey. That is how it gets its jollies. But in its ineptness it fails miserably. Oddly it does not care, as long as it rules the soul, even if it harms its host, or destroys it. That is just how things go. As Milton suggested in his book "Paradise Lost" some would rather rule in Hell than be a servant in Heaven, although that itself is an absurdity. But the Sinful Nature does not care about absurdity. The Sinful Nature is a tyrant, a demagogue, a dictator, a ruthless taskmaster, and any other tyrannical word which can be mustered. Control is its goal. And it will stop at nothing to get it. A person may give in to it little by little. A minor sin here, and bigger ones there, some self-righteousness over here, drifting away from core beliefs related to God, and before long the Sinful Nature has some initial control. Not all that much at first, but it is very patient. Repeat the process and it gains more control, and more and more. And the Sinful Nature learns as it matures, picking up lust patterns and areas of weakness to certain sins, some more than others. If this process continues the Sinful Nature eventually controls the Emotion and can take charge of the soul, and the Heart no longer makes all the decisions, but rather the decisions become a matter of habit, of compulsion, and of necessity, as the Heart yields its authority to the Sinful Nature and becomes darkened. That is how the Sinful Nature gets control of the soul. "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like a thief, and scarcity like an armed man." (Proverbs 6:10-11)
If the Emotion becomes the nearly permanent ally of the Sinful Nature, and the two combine to overwhelm the Heart and essentially stage a coup, they disrupt and take over the thought processes. This is how the Emotion can create instability inside the soul when allied with the Sinful Nature, and if severe enough it can result in overall mental instability. Continuous sinning most often results when the logical advisors are ignored by the Heart in favor of the Sinful Nature which has gained the alliance of the Emotion. For believers the human spirit is shut off from influencing the Heart, while the Sinful Nature and Emotion run the soul. Once this occurs, the logical advisors can become corrupted over time as the Mind and Conscience take on distorted patterns and cease to be logical. In such a case the Emotion becomes what is referred to in the Bible as a "prostitute" of the soul, seeking the illegitimate company of the Sinful Nature rather than the legitimate company of the Heart. And since the Sinful Nature is the ally of Satan, the person becomes allied with Satan's Cosmic System, which is opposition to God. And that can be true for believers as well as unbelievers.
For many this soul corruption is revealed as rebellion against legitimate authority and general poor decisions, leading to an unstable life, which can be mild or severe. As it progresses it can result in wide mood swings, increased rebellion against all forms of authority, self-destructive tendencies, and other forms of disruptive and dysfunctional behavior. If left to continue there can be panic attacks as the person attempts to think but comes up empty, since the logical advisors of the soul are at times shut off, creating what the Bible calls a vacuum in the soul. (Ephesians 4:17) The person literally cannot think clearly since neither the Sinful Nature nor the Emotion are logical or rational, but are in control of the soul, while the logical advisors are shut off from influencing the Heart. Therefore the inputs which get through to the Heart are from the non-thinking sources, and the person's soul gets more and more out of control, and increasingly dysfunctional. Depression, neurosis, psychosis and any of the forms of mental instability and self-destructive behavior become possible at that point.
This explains why different people can have such divergent views on the same subject when presented with the same information. Some people look at life from the viewpoint of the soul under the control of the Heart accepting the advice of the logical advisors inside the soul and the human spirit for the believer, and other people look at life from the viewpoint of the Heart under the control of the Sinful Nature backed by Emotion which are out of control, relegating the logical advisors of the soul to a position of low regard. These two viewpoints are 180 degrees out of phase. In this latter state the Heart will essentially be bypassed by the combined Sinful Nature and Emotion, which end up doing the "pseudo thinking" for the person. But in reality it is not thought at all, but rather pure Cosmic System emotional expression from a soul which is out of control and under the near-total influence of the Sinful Nature. This is the meaning of "hardness of Heart" used many places in the Bible. "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts." (Ephesians 4:18)
For believers, when the Sinful Nature gets out of control to an excessive degree their human spirit is shut off and all types of sins can become possible. The unchecked Sinful Nature is the source of great evil in the world, including evil dictators who are used by Satan, and the ultimate expression of this will be the future Antichrist during the Tribulation. For unbelievers, when the Sinful Nature is allowed to control the soul to a near total degree it can open the unbeliever's soul to extreme soul distortions, and even demon possession, which although a rare condition it will certainly be true of the Antichrist. However, no believer can be demon possessed, only influenced by Satan's Cosmic System through the Sinful Nature. For a believer the Sinful Nature's influence can become very strong if allowed to gain maximum control in the life, and then the believer will live a life of mental distortion and sin. All of this is because the Sinful Nature is part of Satan's realm, since he was the original source of it. Romans 5:12 says "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned."
But we do not need to allow the Sinful Nature to gain control of our soul, and we also do not need the Sinful Nature to maintain control of our soul if it has already taken over. We will discuss solutions next. There is a knight in shining armor which can come to the rescue. And it has access to the keys which can unlock the armory containing a sharp sword and a large shield which can help defend against and even defeat the Sinful Nature. But the person involved must resolve to change from reliance on the Emotion/Sinful Nature to relying on spiritual solutions, and breaking that lock on the soul can be very difficult. However a solution is possible.