Balance of the Body and Soul: Conquering Emotional Wounds

Balance of the Body and Soul: Conquering Emotional Wounds

              Edwards (1703 – 1758) states that the soul is endued with two faculties. One faculty is referred to us the understanding. This faculty is where discernment, speculation and perception take place. The other faculty is not just involved with mere perception but also how it views the ideas held that is inclination or disinclination towards particular stances of understanding. The faculties are quite similar to the definitions of mind and heart respectively. The mind can perceive then arises different reactions of emotions, hence the heart, and then the body acts. This is a just a mere depiction of the picture Aristotle sought to paint of how human beings should behave. However, the most unreasonable of actings in the body are born from our hearts inclining to the irrational perceptions of our minds. For instance, when we are angry, our emotions of anger take over every aspect of our body before the mind examines the reality in accordance hence leading to the right actions. 

Therefore, angry men beat up their wives without discerning the reality of the situation in which the actions could be against the wife, the family and society. If the man would have thought otherwise he would probably have not beaten his wife by subduing his anger.  Lewis borrowing from Plato and Aristotle states that emotional responses should be and must be trained, that the heart should never take the place of the head but rather it should obey it. In a nutshell, the mind should examine the situation (to avoid irrationality) then the inclination will form within the heart bound by rationality consequently the most reasonable actings take place. These faculties have been created by God within a man. In Genesis 2:7, God creates the body in which he breathed into. When man became a living being all these faculties became alive. He could discern by the fact that he was able to name all animals according to its kind (2:20). He could form inclinations since when he saw the woman he felt happy (2:23) and the fact that he chose a woman over a wide range of animals shows that he chose rightly. No animal rationally was built for him hence his affections could not incline towards them therefore, he could not choose them. This kind of creation was what God called good (Genesis 1:31).

Emotional wounds can be defined as the pains of the past carried into the present and end up dictating the present and the future. This could range from sinful acts perpetrated in the past creating guilt and self-condemnation in the present and depression in the future to physical and sexual abuse by relatives that carry on to the present through despise of self and consequently low confidence of self. The emotional wounds could range from self-inflicted to society inflicted. Abuse of fathers on men normally translates to abuse of those around these men. To safeguard ourselves from such effects it would be prudent to follow the strategy laid down in the first paragraph; the mind, the heart then the body. These emotional wounds occur when our hearts incline to the wrong and irrational kind of information perceived by the mind. This leads the body to act according to the inclinations. As a Christian, the mind should be governed by realities stated by God of them. That if God said we are beautifully and wonderfully made no other opinion mattered. The heart should then be satisfied by such a fact then the body reacting by being confident in the God that created such a body. If it is sin in the past the mind should take in the fact that Christ died for all sins and the heart should consequently satisfy itself in that and finally the body act against self-condemnation and in praises to God. If it is physical abuse, the mind should absorb that everyone is responsible for their actions and that their actions were neither representations of me nor by me hence it should reflect towards others. The mind should realise that a man also has his path to take governed by his own choice and not by other, the heart satisfy itself in this then the body acting in accordance.  The success of this strategy lies greatly on feeding the mind with good information and consequently the part of our inclinations can be satisfactorily accomplished only by the Grace of God. Therefore also pray for divine help.