Sin and Mental Ailments

Pastoral Psychiatry and Psychology for Healing Professionals, Pastors and Inquiring Christians

Paul Ungar

• Publisher: Elm Hill
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781400327287
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Asesoramiento religioso

In Romans 7: 15, St. Paul expressed frustration with something all of us can relate to, saying, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." Despite our best efforts to live our lives as we ought to, we repeatedly fall into the trap of "not understanding what we do, " and constantly perpetrating the same missteps we have previously vowed never to take again. What is the reason of our deeply ingrained fallibility? Christians do what they hate either because they consciously, deliberately and sinfully transgress Jesus' commands, or because they are experiencing unintended and often unconscious symptoms of mental ailments. The interconnectedness of sinful and psychologically disordered behaviors is undeniable. Malignant selfishness, which we recognize as sin, is often linked to narcissistic character features. Repeated belligerent acting out may be rooted in a paranoid mindset. Emotional cruelty may be not freely chosen but tied to antisocial personality traits; sinning against the sixth commandment can be driven by the illness of pedophilia. The reverse is also true: most mentally disordered behaviors involve some form of intentional and sinful violation of Jesus' command. Though the boundary between sin and sickness may appear fuzzy at times, a thorough understanding of their interplay is of utmost importance when faced with matters of freedom of choice, conscience, responsibility and, most of all, pastoral care.

This comprehensive handbook on pastoral care successfully integrates the biblical and medical/scientific perspectives on human anthropology, mental illness and sin. It expounds on the signs of all major mental ailments and provides recommendations for their pastoral and medical treatment. Problems from psychoses to mood disorders, suicide to sexual disturbances, anxiety to addictive behaviors, and ailments in between are explained. Readers will find new insights on the ways in which various personality disorders interfere with spiritual functioning. Developmental stages in life are also discussed, together with the spiritual challenges they pose, and the pastoral answers they call for. This work does not shy away from controversial topics, such as post-abortion syndrome, euthanasia, gender ideology, or the psychological aspects of atheism. Soundly faith-based, yet well-grounded in contemporary psychiatric knowledge, this handbook captures a lifetime of learning and healing by practicing psychologist who holds an MD, PhD, and a graduate theology degree. It is an indispensable practical reference for all pastoral workers.

PART ONE Revelation and Knowledge

Until 1633 Earth was perceived as the centre of the universe, symbolically demonstrating God’s providence for humans. Galileo’s discoveries destroyed this security and caused a shift in the collective thinking during the Enlightenment. Scientific astronomy and biblical theology came to be viewed as mutually exclusive. In the last two hundred years, a similar change has occurred in secular anthropology, the perception that humans are nothing more than highly evolved animals. But while astronomy has become generally synchronized with biblical teachings (since the discovery of the Big Bang), Christians, in their anthropological self-understanding, are still contested by other forms of knowledge that seemed to render faith-as-knowledge superfluous or absurd.¹ Consequently, there exists a communications gap between Christians and people like Tammy. For instance, nothing is more evident to believers than being created in God’s image, although nothing is less evident to atheists. Different ideas about what it means to be human can produce contrasting knowledge, feelings, information, language experiences, behaviors, and lifestyles even for people living in same time and culture. If atheists and believers inhabit such parallel worlds, then how can we help people like Tammy to appreciate being created in God’s image and likeness?

To paraphrase philosopher Wayne H. Dyer, if you change the way you look at humanity, then the humanity you look at changes. This section of the book will enable atheists to perceive humanity from a Christian perspective while helping Christians to better understand atheists. After contrasting both paradigms, the compendium will integrate relevant biblical-theological and empirical-scientific facts into a unified system.

CHAPTER ONE Synchronizing Biblical and Medical Anthropology

Psychologically, it is hard to believe one thing while scientifically believing or experiencing the contrary. So it is tough for Tammy and sceptics like her to appreciate the notion that they are living souls if their anthropological beliefs contradict biblical revelations. The first step in resolving such hardships is to clarify what is meant by synchronizing biblical and biological anthropology and then to discuss whether such integration is doable.

1.1 The Rationale of a Biblical-Medical Integration

While the Scriptures are static, “written in stone,” theology is dynamic and is integrated with the mental climate of its age. Such an integration process has occurred throughout the whole of church history. For example, it became obvious to Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries that the creeds of the early church could not be successfully formulated by discussing particular questions or defining answers to them in figurative and metaphorical biblical terminology. So, the church, during the first great ecumenical synods, supplemented Semitic biblical vernacular with painfully precise biblical-philosophical definitions in formulating Christological and Trinitarian definitions. This trend of supplementing biblical concepts with philosophical ideas culminated in Middle Age scholasticism. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), in his grandiose work Summa Theologiae², discussed in 3 parts, 38 tracts, 631 questions, 3016 articulations, and approximately 15,000 proofs the possibility of integrating Aristotle’s philosophical concepts with Christian theological concepts.

While in the past synchronization between theologians and devout philosophers occurred regularly, today we are required to go a step further than Aquinas. We need to find common ground, not only between theologians and God-friendly philosophers like Aristotle, but also between these and modern scientists who are often agnostic, religiously indifferent, or atheistic in their world views. Also, we Christians and, even more urgently, a skeptical world need a common denominator between empirically known and revealed truths.

My first encounter with a discrepancy between what I believed and what I could observe came when I was a medical resident. I saw how measurable biological functioning made the difference between life and death in my patients. A biblical, ineffable spirit seemed, in my naive medical exuberance, unnecessary for healing and sustaining life. Privately I trusted the Bible, but professionally I had to respect medical facts. I was therefore challenged by the feeling that two mutually exclusive concepts cannot be equally true.

I was not alone in my insecurity. All Christian students, residents, physicians, psychologists, nurses, and virtually all people of faith today have to choose between two paradigms: biblical or scientific, anthropological concepts. That choice is made difficult by the fact that both paradigms have unquestionable merit—one reflecting infallible biblical revelation, the other having been empirically proven. In such a situation, we must acknowledge both paradigms as valid. If it seems hard to integrate them, the problem is not with the concepts themselves but with our ability to synchronize them. We should adopt a paradigm in which religion and science have their appropriate roles and are not mutually exclusive of one another.

The rationale for such a synchronization has been best formulated by the theologian Rudolf Schnackenburg. Humans are, as he notes, “a new life-form in which existence in the world is united with holiness,” which “makes a radically new creation in which the two orders [natural and spiritual] become connected.”³ If humans are, as Schnackenburg states, “natural and spiritual” creatures, then an anthropological model is needed in which both aspects of humanity, the natural and the spiritual, have their place.

In this context, we will introduce the essentials of biblical anthropology and discuss the basic concepts of scientific anthropology.

1.2 A Summary of Biblical Anthropology

St. Paul summarizes his anthropology in 1 Thessalonians 5:23: “May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Throughout his epistles, the terms spirit, soul, and body are often synonymous, but in some passages, they are different entities. His purpose was not to define terms with scientific accuracy but to share the Good News. For this purpose, the apostle frequently used metaphors. Concepts such as soul and spirit lie on the edge of human understanding and are difficult to conceptualize in concrete terms.

For example, the spirit—God’s life-giving breath—is biblically depicted by a contemporary metaphor. In most oriental civilizations 3,000 years ago, breathing was viewed as an obvious sign of life. For Hebrews, receiving God’s breath (the spirit in English, ruah in Hebrew, pneume in Greek, and spiritus in Latin) symbolized receiving the mystery we call life. “The same Hebrew word designates the wind and the spirit,” and as the wind may be “barely sensible, and as such close to nonmaterial” or powerful and “nonresistible,”⁴ so is it also with God’s life-giving spirit. It is barely perceptible (as in Gen 2:7, 6:17, 7:15; Job 33:4) when God’s breath acts as the principle of life, and it is irresistible as Job 34:14–15 establishes: “If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humankind would perish together and man would return to dust.”⁵ In death, God takes his creative power back (Ps 104:29). Spirit is the principle of life and a sign of a basic existential relationship with God manifested by the phenomenon of living.

The word soul (nefesh in Hebrew, psyche in Greek, and animus in Latin) has even more diverse metaphorical meanings than spirit. It is described by attributes like throat (Isa 5:14; Hab. 2:5), neck (1 Sam 28:9; Ps 105:18), hunger (Deut. 12:20; 1 Sam 2:16), thirst (Prov 25:25), desires (Prov 23:2), justice (Isa 26:8– 9), evil (Prov 21:10), power (2 Sam 3:21), hate (Isa 1:14), grief (Jer. 13:17), joy (Ps 42:5), unhappiness (1 Sam 1:15), and seeking and yearning for God (Ps 42:1–2). These metaphors reflect the complexity and wholeness of the human person whose task is keeping God’s commands (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14).

The New Testament also describes the soul in metaphors. John 3:6 illustrates, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit,” and John 6:63 says, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.” Romans 8:16 reads, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children,” and 1 Corinthians 6:17 similarly says, “But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” Despite the fact that the terms spirit and soul are often used interchangeably, we realize that the soul receives “life” and “birth,” is “one” with the Lord, and “testifies” with God. Colloquially, soul is the principle agent of a responsible relationship with God. As such, the soul has one more important property.

Jesus, in Luke 23:43, promised the repentant sinner, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” He talks not about resurrection but about being with him immediately after death. Taking biblical revelations into account, on January 29, 1336, Pope Benedict XII proclaimed as an infallible dogma in his bull Benedictus Deus that the souls of exemplary Christians enjoy an eternal face-to-face relationship with God, beginning immediately after death (i.e., before Jesus’ Second Coming and before bodily resurrection happens). In this context, the soul, representing the whole person, is judged immediately after death and is able to receive the benefit of eternal glory with God immediately after death.⁶

The Catechism envisions happenings in and after death.

In death, the separation of the soul from the body occurs, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God in his almighty power will definitely grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ resurrection.⁷

Note that the biblical idea of the body (bassar in Hebrew, soma in Greek, and corpus in Latin) is not limited to the biological body. The biblical idea of the body is what enables humans to take their “appropriate place in the universe in the hierarchy of created things.”⁸ But there is also a resurrected body. What will this body be like?

The resurrection happens “at the last day”—that is, “at the end of the world” (John 6:39–40, 44, 54; 11: 24). “It is closely associated with Christ’s Parousia. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangels call, and with a sound of a trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”⁹ John Paul II explains (drawing from Luke 20:27–40) that resurre...