I derive satisfaction from figuring out how Christ’s Spirit can change and even transform human personalities. Some of my insight on this comes from listening to a Learning Company recorded lecture by Dr. Andrew Newberg. Then I read his book The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience. Better yet was when he teamed up with Mark Robert Waldman to write How God Changes your Brain.
What I will suggest is a possibility. It is one way to bring understanding to the mystery the Bible calls the Holy Spirit’s influence on the human spirit. I believe it, but I can’t prove it.
This topic can get very complicated very quickly. New insights to understanding religious beliefs and experiences came with the development of technologies that do brain scans. It became possible to identify which parts of the brain are associated with specific kinds of experiences, many of which have a religious connotation. Those parts of the brain have technical names like the occipital lobe, the frontal lobe. Many other subsections have been named and researched.
Suffice it to say here that experiences like awe before a Superior Being and love towards others have parts of the brain that light up on a brain scan. The other way around, those parts of the brain when stimulated with a probe produce religious-like feelings.
One response by neuroscientists is to say that God is all in your head and nothing more. But they start out with a personal conviction there is no God. I and other followers of Christ choose to believe the biblical God does exist. How else can this personal God interact with his people than through their brains? Our physical brains are the source of the mind and the soul that give our human life meaning.
Call to mind the Apostle Paul when he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” and boldly gave witness to Christ before the rulers and elders of the people (Acts 4: 8). His adrenal glands must have been pumping. Luke, the author of Acts, associated this boldness with a special measure of the infilling of the Spirit. How else could the Spirit influence Paul than through his brain and associated glands? The food administrators in Acts 7 were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. Where else could such wisdom come from other than activation of specific parts of their brains?
A popular insight from neuroscience in recent decades is that the prefrontal lobes of the brain are not fully developed until about the age of about 20. This part of the brain, just behind the forehead, is the seat of judgment. Teenagers don’t have the judgment skills of adults. Our son in his first year of driving at age 16 had three minor auto accidents. They were all judgment errors of distance, not recklessness. He has not had an accident since.
When the physical brain is fully developed in early adulthood, it still continues to sift and combine insights in new ways. Such learning is basic to the process of education through many levels of schooling and combinations of insight. Wisdom comes with age. Sometimes the Spirit can bring major life-changing insights.
What keeps church life exciting is watching personalities change. Not all do, but many.
The heritages of traditional mainline churches do not include an emphasis on progress in a person’s faith life. Mine emphasizes faithfulness. Important, certainly. But perhaps even more important, in today’s rapidly changing national culture, is for believers to appreciate the possibilities for progress in their faith as seen by the Spirit’s influence helping each believer to grow in what the Spirit produces: lives with greater peace, hope, and joy.
It can help you to think of the Spirit supernaturally activating those parts of your brain that bring feelings of those emotions Paul identifies as the fruit of the Spirit. Somehow the Holy Spirit influences the human spirit. You can trust that promise.
Do you believe the Spirit can activate those parts of the brain associated with the feelings described as the fruit of the Spirit? Is this welcome news to you?
Yes i believe that God the Spirit ca control any and every part of y body. He created it ! I am grateful that He does. Left to my ow devices… I would be in trouble. Thank you Father for your gift of life.
Hi, Marilyn. What the Spirit can do is to human minds miraculous. It is beyond our (or at least my) ability to understand.
Absolutely, David, that the Spirit can control and contribute to having one express the fruits of the Spirit. I wish this was common knowledge among all people. It is truly miraculous what the Spirit can do in our very being if we will just let go and be led. Thank you, David, for writing about such a meaningful and controversial “truth” regarding the power that is in the brain if “led”.
Thanks, Elaine. The leading happens best when biblical truth is shared with others. I learned that best when we were doing lay renewal in small groups.
Yes, I do believe the Spirit can activate those parts of my brain associated with the fruit of the Spirit. And honestly sometimes it’s welcome news; other times disheartening because I don’t feel that my life consistently reflects the fruit of the Spirit within me. (Romans 7)
Paul calls that being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Walking in step with the Spirit means leaving certain habits and behaviors behind they become less interesting. We grow into more of the fruit, as we drown out our old sinful nature behind and let our new nature daily come forth by the power of the Holy Spirit.
“The peace that passes all understanding”, or “far beyond what we can conceive or even imagine”, means that we certainly didn’t author it… Although we did perceive it.
A “grace gift” like all His other works of grace, both the “gifts and the fruits of the Spirit”.
You say well what I am trying to teach.
The Bible is crystal clear of the presence of the Holy Spirit and its critical role in transforming us into instruments of and for the Lord.
Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
2 Corinthians 4:4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Peter 1:21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Unfortunately society’s influence has led many astray and what they believe is not from the Holy Spirit at all, but of man.
When God’s true Spirit dwells within us every word of the Scriptures comes to life. One can feel the love of God coming to us as His word guides us down the path that brings us true purpose & fulfillment to our lives. To avoid Satan’s traps as God makes clear what the results of choosing such ways would be, both immediate and eternal.
Does your faith create within you a strong desire to actively serve the Lord and to attend an in-depth study of His word on a routine basis, so you are constantly growing in the knowledge of Him? If not are you truly being transformed by His Spirit? If we cannot give God a few hours of our week have we really become that new person in Christ?
I don’t think “shoulds” motivate much. It is the Spirit who changes motivations in a way we don’t understand. What we can do is put ourselves in the Spirit’s workshop–believers gathered around the Word and sharing its application in their lives.
Yes, I do. It has happened to me when I was having marital problems. I prayed continuously for some time. I asked God to help me to change my way of thinking and not be so quick to judge my husband and to try to understand his feelings and to change mine from being upset with him all the time. One day, I woke up and that feeling changed. I knew it was from God because just the day before my heart and mind hadn’t changed, but that morning was a whole different feeling and I thanked God. I trusted him to help me and he did. There are many other times as well. I believe the only way for this to work is to trust God to do the job he said he would. It didn’t happen overnight, but I was patient and waited for the holy spirit to work through me and it did.
God bless those moments when believers have an “Ah Ha” experiences like yours. Paul calls that having our minds transformed. That’s Spirit work.