The Christian Mind Conference
Sproul: Loving God must include the mind
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman, March 23, 2012
In the closing address of the recent Ligonier Conference on the Christian Mind, R.C. Sproul sang a few lines of an old song, “To know, know, know him, is to love, love, love him and I do.” In his talk, “Love the Lord your God with all of your mind,” the “Him” Sproul was referring to was obviously God.
“To know Him, is to love Him and we want to love God, but how can we love Him if we don’t know Him?,” Sproul asked. “Nothing can be in the heart that is not first in the mind.”
Sproul said that a Christian who wants to experience God cannot bypass the mind. By doing so, they may increase emotion or entertainment, but “a mindless Christianity is no Christianity at all.”
His message was based on Romans 1:19-25, 28, and he began by speaking of the process of getting the book Classical Apologetics published, approximately 30 years ago. After he submitted his last review of the galley proofs to the publisher, the publisher conducted a last minute “spell check” on the text.
“When the book appeared, to my absolute horror,” said Sproul, “we kept reading about references to the poetic effects of sin. … I guess they thought we were saying we can give neither rhyme or reason to man’s disobedience.”
Sproul said that apparently, the computer’s spell check did not recognize the theological term noetic.
“There’s a huge difference between the ‘poetic’ and ‘noetic,’” Sproul said, adding that with the term noetic, “We are speaking about the effect and the impact that sin in general – and original sin in particular – has upon the mind of fallen humanity.” In other words, how the fall affects the ability to think rightly.
“The faculty of thinking for which we reason has been seriously disturbed and corrupted by the fall,” Sproul said. “In our natural condition – in our unregenerate state – there is something seriously and dramatically wrong with our minds.”
Sproul said that “by nature we do everything we can to suppress any revelation God gives us,” and Romans 1 says that “what can be known about God is plain. … His invisible attributes have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. Here is the crux of the matter: Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking … they claimed to be wise but became fools.”
“God gave them up. What a horrible judgment. What a horrible thing, that God would give you up,” said Sproul. “He gives us up to a reprobate mind – to a mind in its fallen condition that does not have a scintilla of desire to love God with the mind. In other words in our natural fallen condition, there is nothing more repugnant to our minds than the love of God. So that when the great commandment sounds in our ears – that we are to love God with all of our minds – we have such an antipathy by nature, we choke at the very thought of it.”
“The damage that is done to the mind in our fallen condition, it does not mean that our ability to think has been annihilated,” he said. “You don’t have to be regenerated to get a Ph.D. in mathematics. The mind still has the ability to follow formal argumentation to a degree, but it ends when they discuss the character of God, because that is where the bias is severe and hostility so great that the most brilliant of men stumble before it.”
He asked, “If this is our natural condition, what is first of all the relationship between rationality – thinking – and faith?”
Sproul referred to Augustine, who said that faith without reason is not faith but credulity.
“Augustine says that there is a relationship between faith and reason and it’s no virtue to rejoice in an irrational faith … Faith though substance of things unseen is not a leap into the darkness. God doesn’t call people to leap into the darkness. The New Testament calls us to leap out of the darkness into the light. The faith that is revealed to us in scared Scripture is intelligible and reasonable,” Sproul said.
“I say all of this in trying to address the topic here about ‘Loving the Lord our God with all our minds,’” Sproul said. “In the first place, we can’t love the Lord our God with any of our minds when we are still in the unregenerate state.”
Sproul said that “by nature the mind does not love God at all and it will not love God at all unless or until God the Holy Spirit changes the disposition of our hearts which He does sovereignly by the Spirit’s work of regeneration by which we are born again. That regeneration is the necessary condition for loving God with our mind.”
“Get rid of the idea that unbelieving people are seekers of God,” he continued, “not only is it a mistake to think, but to use it to design worship is one of the most pernicious errors the church has fallen into. The Bible says that natural man does not seek after God, and we are to get the idea that all these unbelieving pagans are seeking God? They are seeking after the benefits that only God can give them, so we assume that therefore they are seeking after God. They want the benefits of God without Him.”
That antipathy toward God is not instantly cured the minute one is born again, Sproul said. The minute one is born again, for the first time they are disposed toward the things of God. “Now you want to have God in your thinking, but the residual effects and power of your fallen position comes with you when you are saved and is not eliminated entirely until you are glorified in heaven. That whole pilgrimage is a pilgrimage in which we are seeking to increase the love of God with our mind.”
Jonathan Edwards once said that seeking after God is not the business of the pagan, but, said Sproul, “It is the main business of the Christian.”
He then asked, “How do we seek after God? Why does Jesus Christ tell us that we are called to love God with all of our mind? Why did Paul say that the only way we can have this change is by having a new mind? You don’t get the love of God from a hip replacement or a knee replacement or even from a heart transplant. The only way you can be transformed is with a new mind and the only way you can have a new mind is to pursue with all of our power and diligence the knowledge of God.”
“If you despise doctrine or knowledge then it is an indication that you are still in that fallen position,” said Sproul.
“If I want to love God more, I have to know Him more deeply and the more I search the Scripture and the more I focus my mind’s attention on who God is and what He does,” he said, “the more my soul breaks out in flame; the greater ardor I have to honor Him … the more we love God with our minds, the more we will be driven to do that other thing that is alien to us in our fallen condition – worship Him.”
Sproul concluded by saying “To love God with our mind is to esteem Him and the more you know about Him, the more glorious He will appear to you; and the more glorious He appears to you, the more likely you are to praise Him, to honor Him and worship Him and in the final analysis to obey Him.”
The 2012 Ligonier Conference on The Christian Mind was held March 15-17 in Orlando, Fla. R.C. Sproul, founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, is known for helping Christians to understand what they believe, why they believe and how they can defend both. His teaching can be heard on the program” Renewing Your Mind,” which is available on hundreds of radio outlets in the United States and worldwide. Sproul serves as the chancellor of Ligonier Academy of Biblical and Theological Studies, and is the senior minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s in Sanford, Fla. His writing ministry includes nearly 70 books.