Thinking God's Thoughts After Him

Merry, Epistemologically Self-Conscious Warriors

When someone becomes a Christian there is a sense in which everything has changed.  But there is also a sense in which nothing has changed.

The first statement will be familiar to most Christians.  The Scriptures declare that, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away.  Behold all things have become new.  (II Corinthians 5: 17)  But the second statement is not so familiar.  When someone emigrates to a new country and becomes a citizen they, overnight, become endowed with rights, privileges and obligations.  From the moment when citizenship is granted they will be accorded the privileges and responsibilities of a citizen.  But the habitual cultural patterns of a former life will take far longer to change and mould.  It is similar when someone becomes a citizen of the Kingdom of God.

The process of becoming a more faithful and consistent citizen of the heavenly kingdom is often slow and painful.  In particular, changing the way one thinks, the thought patterns that once unconsciously dominated, is often the most painful of all.  Theologians speak of Christians becoming epistemologically self-conscious.  It is not an easy task (unless one is born into a Christian home and has been trained from infancy in such things) but it is one of the most important battles we must fight.


Vern Poythress explains what is involved:

Today Christian people are talking about developing a Christian "worldview".  They want to grow in appreciating a distinctive Christian view of the world, and in using that worldview in approaching modern issues.  The terminology concerning a Christian worldview may be fairly recent, but in essence the idea is not.  Being a disciple of Christ involves following him in every area of life, including intellectual areas.  We strive to "take every thought captive to obey Christ" (II Corinthians 10:5)

The intellectual change does not happen without intellectual pain, without a figurative kind of death and resurrection in the intellectual realm.  The Christian life of submission to Christ, including intellectual submission to his word in Scripture, is fundamentally at odds with the former life, where each person tried to use his mind in an independent way and judged God rather than being judged by him.  A person becoming a Christian may then have an intellectual dimension to the crisis that he experiences in going from one allegiance to another.  [Vern Poythress,  In the Beginning Was the Word (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2009), p. 121.]

Learning to think God's thoughts after Him, rather than demanding that God conform to our way of looking at things, can be deeply painful and humbling.  Sadly, some Christians never make much progress in this duty at all.  It is all too painful.  Or the bastions of pride remain too strong.  But one thing that helps shake Christians loose from the bondage of their intellectual past  is the burgeoning "madness" of the Gentiles.  When Unbelief advocates courses of action and principles which are manifestly evil, Christians see the horrible sinfulness of an autonomous mind more clearly.  They come to acknowledge that Unbelief is merely being principled and consistent to itself when it advocates abortion or euthanasia or punishing Christians for "hate speech",  for example.  But that realisation drives Christians to separate from Unbelieving patterns of thought and motivates them to think God's thoughts after Him.

One of the greater intellectual challenges is simply to have humility.  Pride, pride in itself, including pride in intellectual ability, is among the root sins that infest us most deeply.  In fact, we can say that Adam's fall was a matter of pride, in thinking that he could manage a course independent of God.  Intellectual pride is only one form, but it is perhaps the common failing of intellectuals.  [Ibid.]

The more Unbelief becomes consistent to itself, the more Christians are driven to experience the death and resurrection of their minds and ways of thinking.  As the arm of Unbelief grows longer and stronger, the purification of the Church increases.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, s though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.  If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.  (I Peter 4: 12-14)