What is the Difference Between Nature and Character and Why Does This Distinction Matter in Understanding Mental Conditions?

I can’t tell you how frequently it happens that I come in contact with Christians who conclude they’ve lost their relationship with God because they feel angry or jealous or depressed much or all of the time, or because they can’t feel His Presence or His peace. They may find it difficult to focus long enough to study their Bible, and may experience very low levels of motivation to engage in the spiritual activities they once loved.

Their conclusion is often that they really don’t love God after all, or that He has left them.

And the opposite is also true. If they go through a period of time where they feel great joy and peace, and a feeling they determine to be the Presence of God when they are worshipping in church, they conclude God is with them, and that they have a good heart with right desires put there by God. Why did they jump from feeling a sense of holiness to the conclusion that their heart is in the right place?

Are feelings of holiness actual holiness?

Do feelings indicate our spiritual state? Similarly atheists and unbelievers will often conclude the same. When a woman has a baby, and feels no emotions of bonding and love for that baby, and instead she feels complete emotional numbness and zero feelings of attachment, it’s common that women in such a condition conclude they are a monster, and make a character judgment about themselves. Regardless of her religious beliefs or lack of them.

But, are feelings or the lack of them character?

As Christians we really do have answers to these important and pertinent questions in God’s Word! Answers that are satisfying and give real clarity. We don’t need to be living as the atheist or humanist lives, and coming to their same conclusions. But unfortunately one of the biggest temptations people face and one of our strongest fallen desires, is to live for feelings, and to place an inordinate focus on emotions. These things have crept into Christian churches – not just the world – and gained traction in a big way, and exerting an influence to embrace false doctrine and to measure our Christian experience by our feelings. The difference is that secular hedonists look to things like promiscuity and alcohol or drugs to feel good, and Christians often look to deeply spiritual feelings and experiences to feel happy, and as the indicators of our spiritual state. We may discard and stay away from feelings that we would consider to be more superficial and rudimentary, but we’re still measuring our spiritual state by feelings, and we’re still centering our faith around feelings.

Can someone be a hedonist if they pursue feelings of holiness?

I believe so. What many do not know is that hedonism simply means that feelings become the focus of your life. The idol of your life. Any kind of feelings or emotions, if they are the focus and aim of one’s life, makes someone a hedonist. It’s not wrong to feel good feelings or emotions. It is wrong to make those feelings an end in and of themselves. And this is what hedonism is.

Hedonism is basically synonymous by living without principle. If a person doesn’t value principles or make them their aim, they end up living an unprincipled life, and all that’s left is feelings and inclinations and passions and desires. What Paul describes in the Bible as being dead even while being alive.”

But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.
1 Timothy 5:6

It is exactly this state, that Christ desires to free people of. Such a person is devoid of meaning, living nihilistically.

While it may feel wonderful to have feelings of strong holiness and love for God and others while worshipping at church, there is no actual relationship with God unless one is living by principle.

And really this is what separates Christianity from false religions. Christianity is the true religion, because it’s the one built around true principles of love, goodness, justice, mercy. The others are founded on false principles of selfishness, inclination, passion, possessing no real truth and no real virtue.

And the whole point to what our lives in this world are for, is for us to learn how to have a faith and walk with God that is based on principle. Because in heaven, while we will see our Father face-to-face, we will be living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, in a state of perfect faith, obedience, and trust in God. Yes even with powerful holy emotions and feelings, we won’t be living by those feelings. We will have formed a relationship built on the principles and truths found in God’s Word.

Only such a relationship is a true relationship with God.

We ended the last chapter discussing the Fall of man, and how it was the fall that brought mental dysfunction into the world, illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.

Now let’s pick back up and look at the role of Christ in our redemption, and how the roles of the two Adams show us the difference between nature and character.

It’s interesting and important to understand, that there are distinct differences between Adam’s role and Jesus’ role. Adam is referred to in the scriptures as the first Adam, and Jesus is called the Second Adam. The first Adam and Second Adam share some similarities, but they are also diametrically different in major ways that are core to Jesus’ identity and role as divine Savior of the world.

Let’s read Romans 5:12…

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned
Romans 5:12

Notice how sin entered the world through Adam, but it wasn’t Adam’s sin that condemned each of us to the eternal death sentence. It was our own sin! The Bible is careful here to make the distinction that sin is not something someone can do to you. Just as Satan cannot force us to sin, he can only heavily tempt us, so even Adam could not directly force us to sin. Because we all sinned, we all individually came under the death penalty of the law. This happened when we committed our first sin.

Here we see what Adam’s sin did to mankind. What Adam did to us wasn’t direct; it was indirect. Adam did not enter into our minds and take hold of our agency and our will and force us to sin. Just as Adam’s sin changed the nature of the whole world so that disease and dysfunction and death were now a part of life in this world, just as Adam’s sin changed the nature of the animals so they fought with one another and ate one another, rather than existing peacefully together as they had done before the Fall, so Adam’s sin changed the nature of human beings.

Adam could not actually affect our character – no one has the power to do that – but he did change our nature. Since the seed of all mankind existed in Adam, when Adam sinned and his nature changed, the nature of his seed changed as well.

We read in chapter 1 that everything about us is physical and man does not possess an immaterial spirit. When Adam’s physicality changed in nature, his physical sperm and Eve’s physical eggs also changed in nature, and since people do not possess immaterial spirits and are 100% physical, this caused our nature to change along with Adam’s. Adam could only pass down a fallen nature now, not an unfallen one.

But nature is not exactly the same thing as character. Animals, like us, have a nature, but they do not form characters. Only human beings form characters.

Another way of saying this is that all of God’s creation is under natural law, such as the laws of physics, but only mankind is under moral law – right and wrong. The stars do not have agency and are inanimate. It is God who guides them on their courses. Animals have consciousness and personality, and a sort of agency, but they do not understand right and wrong. Everyone intuitively knows this. We don’t send a dog to court and prison if he bites someone. But we do hold people accountable for their actions.

Only man in all of God’s creation understands right and wrong and can choose through Christ living in the heart to do the right, and reject the wrong, and glorify God in so doing.

And only man can become a monster. But what makes someone a monster? Is it their nature, or is it their character?

Well let’s think about this. A dog which has a nature, cannot ever become a monster. No matter how angry or dysregulated a dog gets – no matter how violent – the dog will either be rehabilitated or in extreme situations the dog will be put down to protect people. But the dog will never get sent to prison with a life sentence, even if it were to kill someone.

So it doesn’t appear to be nature that makes someone a monster.

It has to be character doesn’t it?

If having a fallen nature were synonymous with sinning, then Christ would be a sinner for having Mary’s genetic material and possessing a fallen nature in His humanity. And we know that is not true.

The beauty of Christ is that He was a man just like us with a fallen body, and yet because He was divine He had not sinned and fallen under the power of death, and thus He could resist sin and be victorious so that He could transfer His perfect life to our account and serve as the unblemished sacrifice on the cross.

“For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
Hebrews 2:17-18

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”
Hebrews 4:15

When we inherited a fallen nature, it meant that all people would inevitably sin. But nature is still not the same thing as sin. While nature can cause us to sin, sin is always active.

The Bible defines sin as the active transgression of His moral law, either through omission or commission. Omission is when we know the good and right things that we ought to do – our inherent responsibilities to God and our fellow man – and we actively choose to neglect them. Commission is when we know the wrong things we ought not to think or to do, and we actively do them anyway.

“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.”
1 John 3:4 NIV

“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”
1 John 3:4 KJV

Notice the language here: “breaks”, “commits”, “transgresses”. These are all active verbs, showing agency.

Sin always happens with a moral agent conscious and present, and carrying out the sin either in thought, word, or deed. Sin is always active. You aren’t sinning simply by sitting there. Sin is not the same thing as your fallen state. People in comas who lack full consciousness aren’t sinning by merely existing. Sin is not synonymous with being a fallen person in a fallen world. Sin is when you’re sitting there, and you see a girl who has prettier hair than yours, and you start thinking jealous thoughts, covetous thoughts about wanting what she has. Or you know you should thank your mom for buying something for you at the store that you really needed, but you choose to harbor an attitude of indifference to her rather than love, because you’re busy engaged in activities you enjoy and your focus is on yourself, and you let these little acts of appreciation go undone.

Sin is always active.

At this point you might be asking, “But even if I’m just sitting there, aren’t I a sinful person, even without actions? It can’t only be when I’m actively sinning that I’m sinful.” Yes, and what you’re referring to here is character. Character is the state of your heart. Our characters before conversion are sinful – an adjective. Character is a state of being. It’s the moral value of your heart. A character can be very sinful, as we all are before repentance, or if can be a lot less sinful, with a lot of good in it, as we are after conversion and walking with God through the sanctification process over time.

Sin itself is an evil act, or thought, a transgression, something we commit and do.

But, It’s So Unfair What Adam Did!
This may seem unfair that Adam could bring about a condition of things where we would all inevitably sin. But it makes sense if you ask the question “What are people? What is a person?” The answer is a person is a physical being that has a mind that can understand morality and spirituality and make a choice of loyalty or disloyalty to God.

We are physical beings made in the image of God.

Put another way, we are physical beings who can choose to be children of God, or monsters.

Thus in man there is always a purely physical element, that can experience natural dysfunction, and corruption just as the world and the animals do, and there’s always the element of moral agency, through which a person makes the decision to form a holy character through Christ, or to form an unholy one and follow down the devil’s path.

Unlike animals, due to our moral agency, people are both physical and moral beings. All people are both physical and moral. Animals are only physical, and not in any way moral.

Every man, always has this choice. Thus you can see that being 100% physical and existing in Adam, the very nature of being human is what makes it possible for us to inherit a fallen nature.

God couldn’t make people who weren’t physical and thus weren’t under natural law…people who couldn’t have fallen natures as a result of sin.

When the rest of the natural law, including the laws of physics were changed and warped by sin, it wasn’t possible that man as a physical race, wouldn’t be physically changed the same way the rest of the world was.

Such an idea is an impossibility.

The truth is that what it means to be a human being is that we are under both natural and moral law.

So this is a deeper truth than it first appears on the surface. We’re talking about the very nature of what makes us human, and how due to the inherent properties of that nature, a fallen nature is inherent with how sin affects us.

In the Bible, this deep eternal truth about how people are first physical beings, and then only after they have lived for some time and made a choice to follow Christ are they spiritual, is central to Christ’s mission and in showing the difference between the two Adams. The unconverted person who uses their moral agency to reject Christ is referred to as being carnal. The carnal person is not filled by the Holy Spirit and is either an empty vessel, or if this person yields more and more to Satan they can even become possessed and filled with demons. Such a person uses their moral agency to grieve the Spirit and be controlled by the carnal nature and the temptations of demons. The Bible tells us a carnal person cannot even understand God’s Word and the deep spiritual subjects in it, for “spiritual things are spiritually discerned.”

The first Adam provided the genetic material for our bodies. He is our ancestor and the father of all humanity.

But he did not provide for us a record or a character. We each form our own character and it is formed when we make choices, and we each have our own record in heaven of wrongs done and right things done like when we respond to God’s Holy Spirit.

We did not inherit Adam’s record, nor his character. We inherited only his fallen nature.

“So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.”

The last Adam – Christ – became a life-giving spirit.

The first Adam was himself bound by and under natural law. The last Adam was divine., the author of natural law and in His divinity not bound by it in the slightest. Fully God, He took on human nature and flesh in order to free us from sin and the devil.

Speaking of our bodies Paul says:

“it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.”

He then goes on to say:

“The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.”

“The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.”

Adam was quite literally made of dust. Jesus as God is not a created being and is omnipresent, outside of space and time, and not composed of any created material.

The two Adams are not to same. One was able to bring sin into this world only. And once he brought int into our world he could do nothing to save or help us after we each sinned. Adam had zero power to help us with our sin problem. He couldn’t forgive us of sin or live a life of obedience in our stead. Only Someone who was God, the Law-Giver could die in our stead and free us from the penalty of the law. The “Second Adam” lived a perfect life in our stead, and died as our Substitute. He possesses the divine authority to forgive sins and give us daily victory over temptation. The Second Adam holds power to affect our character, not just our nature (the first Adam effects our nature only and not character). This Second Adam is more than human. Rather than depending on someone for life – as Adam did – He is the Source of all life, a life-giving spirit through being both Creator and Savior.

Here in these verses we see an eternal principle at work in the universe when it comes to beings with moral understanding. For all of us, the natural comes first. We are born, and then we must be born again in order to be spiritual.

We even see this play out with the angels in heaven. They were created physical beings with moral understanding. And then they had to choose whether they would worship God eternally or side with Satan.

You might be asking “How do you know angels are moral beings?” Well the Bible actually tells us directly that Satan and his evil angel followers sinned. It doesn’t leave this fact ambiguous or hazy.

“The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.”
1 John 3:8

While created perfect and without sin, they hadn’t yet formed characters. They had to decide whether to form holy and loving characters or unholy evil ones.

And here we see how Lucifer, a holy and good angel, became the monster Satan and the devil. He chose to sin in an unrepentant way. He grieved God’s Spirit away with his sin, until all that’s awaiting him now is judgment (Jude 1:6).

And this is also how people become monsters.

The Pharisees in Jesus’ day had become monsters. They were planning the murder of Christ, that is how evil they had become. Jesus told them the truth in an endeavor to cut through Satan’s lies and reach their hearts.

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
John 8:44

Unlike us, the angels have already fully formed their characters either for good or evil. The loyal angels will live forever and have been given immortality by God, and the evil angels have committed the unpardonable sin and are reserved for punishment and death.

But human beings have not committed the unpardonable sin (except for people who have already died in a state of rejecting God), and we can choose to be saved and recreated in heart.

So this is an eternal truth that beings with moral agency are first physical and then must decide what kind of character they will form.

It’s not possible for God to create a being with moral agency that is both physical and spiritual at its creation. What I mean by this is it’s not possible for God to create a being with moral agency and not give it choice. Giving it moral agency means giving it choice.

Everyone who is on God’s side is there due to their choice. God can’t create someone to be on His side from birth.

Through the cross, God won all hearts of every moral agent in the universe to His side. Other than the devil and his angels, and wicked men who reject God, every other being will choose Him, and any newly created beings will side with God, due to the love displayed on Calvary which revealed God to be perfect love and perfect holiness.

In this way, maintaining the free will of moral beings, God wins the universe to His side and ensures sin will never occur again after this war is over.

It is in this way that Christ destroyed he who has the power of death, the devil, and brought life and immortality to light, defeating death itself.

“This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
2 Timothy 1:9-10

After Adam’s sin the law was weakened by the flesh. The law was still holy and good, but people possessing fallen natures would now all inevitably sin, and so in the flesh we were too weak to keep that perfect and holy law.

But Jesus fixed the gulf that existed between God and man and between this problem of the natural and the spiritual, where beings who were natural and were physical were choosing not to become spiritual and instead were choosing to sin and become carnal (as seen first in heaven with Lucifer, and then on earth with Adam).

Jesus bridged this gap between the natural and the spiritual, by Himself becoming a man – a physical created moral being – and living a perfect life which He could then transfer to our account, and give us a nature that through Him could choose to live in obedience. As well as paying our death penalty so He could forgive us, He also creates His own righteous character in us as we are daily sanctified and renewed in holiness. He had to live that perfect life and form that perfect character in order to be able to do that.

And this is why He is called the Second Adam, because like Adam Christ had to form a character, yes He had to in His humanity form a character of love and obedience to His Father. So He did what Adam should have done and gave the obedience Adam should have given, which would have resulted in Adam’s case in Adam fathering children with unfallen natures. But in Christ’s case He didn’t only affect the nature, He affected the character, redeeming people, revealing the love of God, and solving this whole problem of nature and character for all moral beings for all time.

This is the power of Christ and this is the way in which He is nothing like the first Adam.

“For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh,”

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Romans 8:3-4

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—”
Hebrews 2:14

He will swallow up death forever.
Isaiah 25:8

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
1 Corinthians 15:21-22

The cross refuted Satan’s false charges about God’s character and revealed Him to be absolute perfect love and goodness.

Thus intelligent beings the universe over were won to God’s side and a rebellion will never rise up again. Since no sin will ever occur again, the penalty for sin – death – will never happen again. It will be defeated for ever.

Since there has always been two elements – the natural and the moral – with moral beings made in God’s image, Jesus defeated death and ensured all natural beings would now all become spiritual beings.

Jesus bridged the gap that was made when Satan brought sin into the universe, and ensured that every natural being would become a spiritual being.

Every natural, created being, would choose Him and be loyal to Him, and not sin and fall under the penalty of the law, which is death.

What a phenomenal thing Christ did! What amazing power and love!

But Aren’t Nature and Character the Same Thing?

Before I confuse someone I want to clarify something. I know I probably have some readers who are thinking “But the Bible speaks of being given a new nature at conversion, so aren’t nature and character the same thing?”

Actually to be honest, the Bible rarely mentions nature. Speaking of the conversion experience, the Bible mentions the heart, not the nature. ‘Heart’ is referring to the character.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26

Notice that ‘nature’ is not mentioned here. There are two things that are mentioned, being given a new heart or character, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

David during his repentance for the sin of adultery and murder asks for these same two things:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10

Jeremiah uses similar language, and adds another important element.

“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people
Jeremiah 31:33

In Jeremiah God speaks of the importance of having God’s law stored in our minds through the reading of the Word, and how it’s through the Word that the Spirit works to change our hearts/character.

Jesus described His Word as spirit and life, because the Holy Spirit works through the Word to bring a change to our character and give us holy desires and motives that align with God’s law of love.

Paul speaks of us being a new creation at conversion.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!”
2 Corinthians 5:19

But clearly we don’t have brand new natures at conversion. If that were true we’d be given new bodies that did not age, new brains that worked perfectly and without error, and that doesn’t happen until we are given our glorified bodies at the resurrection.

Jesus explains that being born again means being born of the spirit. Meaning your nature – your body and brain – are still the same fallen nature. You are born of the Spirit when the Spirit comes and lives inside your body and gives you a new heart.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.
John 3:5-6

A beautiful and powerful verse in 2 Peter – one that is very essential to the faith of the Christian – is the only one I can think of that actually uses the word ‘nature’ to describe a person’s conversion and sanctification.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
2 Peter 1:4

Notice here that ‘nature’ must mean character. There are many aspects of God’s divine nature which we do not participate in. We don’t become omnipotent at conversion. We don’t become all-knowing or omnipresent at conversion.

No, it’s clear that we don’t partake in God’s full nature, only His character at conversion/sanctification. We become like Him in heart.

It’s the heart that changes at conversion and through sanctification, not all aspects of our nature.

So while it’s not incorrect to say we are given a new nature at conversion, I think it’s more accurate to say we are given a new heart at conversion.

You’ll see in a minute why I’m drawing this important distinction. This Bible doctrine has many practical implications with mental illnesses and conditions when it comes to things like determining whether we are sinning by feeling jealous, angry, or depressed.

Character a Part of Nature, but Not the Whole Part
A new heart is not synonymous with a new nature, because nature is our whole body and brain, and our heart is only our character.

That is the difference, and that is also why some people get the two confused. Because our character is a part of one nature, but it’s only one component of our nature, and there are other components. So our character is one piece of our nature, but not the whole thing.

And it’s our character specifically that God recreates at conversion; He does not recreate any other part of our nature.

What this means is that at conversion we are given a new heart, but this new heart is in a fallen body. Paul puts it this way:

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
2 Corinthians 4:7

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16 NLT

The word here translated “dying” is “decaying” in the Greek. Paul is saying here that while our physical bodies are decaying and aging, our character is being renewed and sanctified day-by-day.

Our nature is not changed at conversion. We still have decaying mortal bodies, but our character is changed at conversion and we become a “new man” in Christ, filled with His Spirit.

So this specific part of our nature is changed.

Character and Its Relationship to Sin

As mentioned earlier, a person is not sinning by simply sitting there, or existing. But are they sinful? If they are old enough to have sinned their first sin, then yes they are sinful. And if they sit there long enough they will eventually start thinking some sinful thoughts and they will be actively sinning. We all sin many times every single day.

While Adam did not come into our brain and force us to sin, our fallen nature meant we would all inevitably sin.

So as soon as our brain is developed enough to understand right and wrong, to be tempted by our fallen nature and its inclinations, and to sin, and we commit our first sin, it’s at that point that we become slaves of Satan, and fall under the penalty of the law, condemned to die. It’s also at that point that we then have a sinful character. Sin is now in us – we are sinful – and we are not just inclined to sin because of our fallen inclinations.

From then on we have not just a fallen nature but also a sinful character. We’ve become evil. And only Jesus’ blood can forgive us of our violation of His perfect law and give us a new character of love.

So our fallen nature means we will sin, then once we sin we now have a sinful character. We are now sinful as a person, when before we were just oriented towards sin.

The Bible is very clear that desire is not sin.

“Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
James 1:14-15

Notice when the sin occurs. Not at desire.

Desire can come from either the fallen nature, or a sinful character. I’m not exactly sure at what point a person’s brain is developed enough to think its first sinful thought, but John the Baptist rejoiced in the womb at 6 months old. If he could rejoice and delight in being in the presence of Christ and was cognizant at that age to respond to the Holy Spirit, it seems reasonable to think that a 6 month old in the womb would also be cognizant enough to commit their first sin.

After we sin our first sin we now have a corrupted character, not just fallen inclinations. This corrupted character has desires that are sinful. But even though this fallen character has sinful desires, one has not sinned simply by having sinful desires.

Neither has a person sinned if Satan outwardly tempts them with something their sinful character desires.

It is only when desire has conceived that sin has occurred. The Bible is using the metaphor of pregnancy here. The sperm and the egg must meet for a conception to take place. The sperm alone doesn’t result in a pregnancy. An egg alone doesn’t cause a pregnancy. But when the two meet a pregnancy has occurred. You’ve probably heard the expression “I’m pregnant with an idea.” It’s the same concept here. That of something taking root in the heart of the person. The person agrees with and lets in this idea or this cherished thought of doubt or hate or selfishness. They let it take root in their heart. Instead of just having a desire for something, or an inclination towards something they actively lust after it and pine after it, allow their thoughts to dwell on it, let their minds become “pregnant” with it, and cherish an unholy attitude of rebellion or doubt against God or another person.

Desire gives birth to sin. This means that if you have a sinful character that character will inevitably cause you to keep sinning, because it has sinful desires, and it will act on those sinful desires because it is itself sinful and corrupt. The only way to stop sinning is to be converted and have your heart renewed and sanctified each and everyday. The selfish character must be changed or you will keep sinning.

But desire itself is not sin. This is the relationship between character and sin.

So as we are sanctified each day, by surrendering selfish desires and not letting them take root, not allowing yourself to become pregnant with them and entertain them, our character is changed. And we sin less and less because our character is becoming more and more holy.

So character is behind the whole thing.

The book of James has some powerful key scriptures that illustrate this truth.

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?

You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
James 4:1-3

Once again, it’s the desires of the sinful character that produce active sins.

Jesus gives several key statements that really make this truth plain.

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.

Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers.

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
Luke 6:43-45

“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable.

And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,

since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.”

Mark 7:15-23

Notice how Jesus specifies where “within” is. “Within” is the heart or character of the person. The immoral desires of the character produce active sins.

The character is formed when we, knowing right from wrong, use our will to choose to do right. To surrender immoral attitudes to Him rather than cherish them. To give them up.

If we do choose to cherish jealous or evil attitudes in our heart, that choice grieves God’s Spirit and hardens our hearts, making our characters more selfish and evil.

There are a lot of things that are not the ‘heart.’ If you sick with a strep infection that goes to your brain, and this causes you to have strong emotions of anger and rage, this is not your heart.

If you’re bitten by a tick and develop Lyme disease and it tanks your mood and you become severely depressed, this depression is not your heart.

If you have sexual urges that are biologically based this doesn’t make you a fornicator for having a sexual body. This also is not the heart.

There are many different feelings and experiences that are not the heart or the character.

The character is not the involuntary processes and unconscious processes of our brain and body. If your leg involuntarily twitches that wasn’t a conscious jerk you chose with your will.

If you have the urgency to go to the bathroom, this wasn’t a conscious choice of your will.

If you feel very angry all of a sudden from histamine dumping in your brain, this also wasn’t an act of the will.

If you feel depressed because you have histamine toxicity and it’s chronic, your will and character also aren’t involved in that.

Notice that it is only the desires of the heart that can corrupt a person, not the feelings of the person or their emotions.

And even desires are not sin unless the person “conceives” them, choosing to actively fantasize about immoral things, or to do behaviors that are immoral.

What Implications Do These Important Concepts Have With Mental Conditions?

What implications does this have with mental conditions? Well, it means we can have mental symptoms, mental malfunction and dysfunction, even while having new characters in Christ.

Mental symptoms can affect cognition as in the case of psychosis, where the person loses the ability to think logically and believes nonsensical things.

And they can affect emotions, as is seen in the case of emotional dysregulation which is often a very core component of mental illness.

A person can experience a symptom called anhedonia where they lose all feelings of love and attachment, all positive feelings and also all negative feelings and they are in a state of total numbness. I had this symptom and when my dad passed away I didn’t even cry. I had severe anhedonia.

Going back to the example in the beginning of this chapter about the woman who did not feel any love or attachment to her newborn baby. This can happen with post-partum depression. It’s also a common symptom of post-partum psychosis. It’s also a common symptom of trauma.

As explained earlier people are physical beings and can have malfunction the same way the animals do, and we are also moral beings. Dysregulated or absent emotions can occur purely as a result of physical problems, and altered physical biochemistry and can have nothing to do with character.

You’re probably asking at this point “But don’t character and emotions share a relationship?” For instance, it’s very common for someone who doesn’t want to repent to have lack of emotions towards God, or even hostile emotions towards him. The atheist may delight in sinful things like self-worship and mocking God, and aren’t emotions involved when we delight in something?

The answer I believe is that yes in a healthy brain emotions flow from and mirror chosen attitudes and the character of the person.

Let’s first look at how feelings and emotions work in a healthy body, according to the Bible, and then we will explore how they can become dysregulated as happens in mental illnesses and conditions.

How Our Emotions Were Created to Work

You will see many texts in the scriptures that say to worship God because He is good, because of his benevolent acts in history culminating on the cross. (1 Chronicles 16:34, Psalm 117:1-2). First the mind grasps the significance and love of the cross, then the emotions well up within the person, and then they give shouts of praise. This is the order God created our mind to work in. He didn’t create us to feel appreciation without understanding and blindly offer praise and then only later intellectually grasp the significance of God’s love. This would be out of order.

You will see this order in Jesus Himself and how His emotions work.

“Then God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”

Genesis 6:5-6

Notice how God grasps logically what is happening and then His emotions respond to the tragic truth He is seeing before Him. His emotions respond to truths and reality in the world around Him. His emotions are not something He seeks to stir up apart from the external world and the truth about the situations He is seeing there. He doesn’t lead with emotion and work Himself up into an emotional state, with logic and truth following second.

Responding to the rebellion of His people, and knowing if they do not repent that they will be lost forever, God responds with emotional language in the following verse. You can hear the pathos in the words.

“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!”
Deuteronomy 32:29

In a similar verse addressing a similar situation God cries these words:

“How can I give thee up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboam (people groups God had to destroy due to their wickedness)? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.”
Hosea 11:8

Jesus is an emotional God, but not in a way that is arbitrary and disconnected from truth and reality. Indeed emotions get their value from truth. There is no value in feeling joy if no significant thing has occurred, but if say a friend of yours has accepted Christ as their Savior and turned from a life of sin the joy is significant and has meaning because of the event and truth that caused the joy.

Jesus tells us there is joy and rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repents. (Luke 15:7, Luke 15:10)

Emotions do not have value apart from truth and the world around us. They weren’t created to be disconnected things that we work up in order to get an emotional high. In fact it’s Satan who stirs up emotions devoid of reason and works our emotions according to ungodly and evil principles.

“They are the kind who worm their way into households and captivate vulnerable women who are weighed down with sins and lead astray by various passions”

2 Timothy 3:6

We are not to live for emotional pleasure (or any other kind of pleasure), or use emotions against their correct design.

“She who lives for pleasure is dead even while she is still alive.”
1 Timothy 5:6

There are many passages in the scriptures about pleasure being used for pleasure’s sake rather than being attached to truth that is meaningful and used in its proper sphere and its intended purpose

“For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, mislead, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.”

Titus 3:3.

You will notice in the scriptures that God describes sinful attitudes as having emotions connected with them.

This aligns with the way attitudes and emotions work according to the verses we read above. We first grasp what’s happening outwardly with the logical part of our mind, and then our emotions respond to that reality and we experience feelings that go with that knowledge.

If we choose to harbor attitudes of jealousy, hatred, and anger, there are emptions that go with those attitudes.

If we choose to harbor attitudes of profound appreciation and gratefulness to God for the gift of His Son and His daily companionship and love, there will be holy emotions that follow those right attitudes.

This is how something like “fits of rage” can be described as one of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:20.

It’s not the emotion of rage that is the sin. It’s the chosen attitude of unforgiveness, jealousy, or hatred, which results in the fit of rage.

I repeat, it is not the emotion that is the sin, but the chosen attitude.

So if one feels a holy emotion, does this mean the person is holy?

No. Emotions cannot be used to gauge the state of one’s heart. That is not their purpose. While in a healthy person feelings of holiness will often accompany holy choices and actions, it’s those choices and actions that make you holy, not the feelings.

If you’re worshipping in church and all of a sudden emotions of love for others sweep over you, this is not indication you have actually become more loving.

What is it that makes a person more loving? It’s when we surrender jealousy and selfish ambition to God. It’s when we stop fighting His conviction to put others above ourselves and agree to live for them. Such a surrender will not just manifest as a feeling in church. It will manifest in the life of the person. You will see the person join a Christian ministry and give of their time, energy, and resources to others. You will see them abandon selfish projects and dreams to spread the gospel instead.

There will be a complete change in the life from a heart that is truly surrendered to Christ. There will not be just feelings of holiness and only tiny changes or no changes in the life; there will be a transformation and a daily process of sanctification.

The longer you know the person, the more like Jesus they will be. Or if this person is you, the longer you walk with God the more like Him you will be and there will be obvious, measurable growth from year to year.

If you are having feelings of holiness but no actual change in heart and in life, then you aren’t holy no matter how holy you feel while worshipping.

Facial Expressions
What about our facial reactions, our expressions? Don’t these reveal the chosen attitude of the heart? If someone laughs when they hear someone they know has died, doesn’t this indicate they are harboring hatred in their heart?

The Bible does say the expressions of the face can reflect the character and the chosen attitudes. The Bible tells us the wicked have proud looks on their faces.

“The look on their faces testifies against them;
they parade their sin like Sodom;
they do not hide it.
Woe to them!
They have brought disaster upon themselves.”
Isaiah 3:9

The Bible also tells us the righteous have holy looks of confidence and faith in God on their faces, knowing they are forgiven of their sins. The fact their shame and guilt has been washed away is reflected in their faces.

“Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.”
Psalm 34:5

The Bible speaks of haughty looks in those who are proud.

‘You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.”
Psalm 18:27

Indeed the Bible even says God hates haughty, proud eyes, grouping this expression of the face in with sinful things like a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood.

“There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”
Proverbs 6:16-19

But while the face does to an extent reflect the character and responds to the evil in the heart, the Bible is also clear that outward expressions are not a way to gauge character. Only God who reads the heart can distinguish truly proud eyes, from someone who may appear proud due to say high dopamine in the brain or some other condition or situation, but not have pride in the heart. So while our character does influence our facial expression, it does so imperfectly and there are many other things that influence our expression also. Someone can’t look at you and know your character – the face is not a measuring tool of the soul.

Also, it’s not righteous judgment to judge someone as proud who is psychotic and doesn’t understand the difference between pride and humility. Pride is a choice to harbor an attitude of self-righteousness and violence against God or others. It’s not pride if it’s not chosen. A facial expression that comes over someone due to dopamine surging too high in their brain – even if it looks exactly like a proud sneer – is not actually a proud sneer unless they know the difference between pride and humility and make the conscious choice to be proud. It’s not sin for them unless they can tell the difference, and it’s wrong to charge a psychotic person with the sin of pride when they are out of their mind. Perhaps if you know them better and have evaluated them, or they have had a thorough evaluation with a psychiatrist, one could narrow down whether that individual is capable of understanding the difference between pride and humility, and that if it’s determined they are, then a sneer is likely to be chosen pride in their case. But it’s wrong to jump to that conclusion with a psychotic person, based on outward facial expressions and demeanor alone.

In court rooms it is unfortunately all too common for the jury to give the guilty sentence to people based on superficial things like the way the person acted in the court room, whether they showed the appropriate facial expressions, etc. Jesus says to judge with righteous judgment. While the Bible is clear that our feelings and our facial expressions do reflect the state of our heart to an extent, it also tells us these things are not fool-proof and they are incomplete. The Bible is clear that the thoughts of the heart don’t show up perfectly on the expression and that only God can know the thoughts of the heart. God did create our expression and our demeanor and mannerisms to convey the Godly love that exists in our heart, but He made sure that they do this incompletely and imperfectly, so that the thoughts of the mind cannot be fully discerned on the face. This is an issue of individuality and privacy. Only God is allowed to know the inner thoughts and read them with perfect accuracy.

And the Bible says fruit is the way we are to measure and judge others, but that even this is imperfect so we shouldn’t claim to know the heart. When it comes to measuring and judging ourselves, once again facial expression and reactions, do respond to character but not in a perfect way and thus we can’t use them to fully know our heart.

But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
1 Samuel 16:7

Only God can see what’s in our hearts. To claim that we can gauge what is in someone’s heart by looking at them, or even speaking with them, is to commit 2 big sins:

1. It means we’re giving ourselves divine traits. We think we have perfect judgment like God does. We aren’t leaving room for God to be the Judge of the heart, acknowledging even with our best judgment we will miss things that only God knows and sees. We’re usurping His position.

“I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
Jeremiah 17:10

When it comes to evaluating others, if we think we can know the state of their heart by looking at their face or reactions, 2. t means we don’t respect or believe in right to personal privacy. We are actually charging God with being a God who doesn’t give people personal privacy in their thoughts and airs out all their inner thoughts via their face. This would be a horrible dystopia if it were true. Privacy is a fundamental right. The privacy of our own thoughts is the most important privacy of all. The reason we can’t see inside someone’s mind or judge their thoughts and character with perfect accuracy is because everyone has a right to privacy in God’s government. They have a right to answer to God alone for their secret thoughts and secret sins, and if they are thinking good things and holding good desires, it is God in the secret part of their mind that inspires them and communes with them. No other person can be involved in this communion. Just God and the individual.

How does the Bible say to gauge whether a person is a believer and walking with Christ?
“Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Matthew 7:16

“Even a young man is known by his actions–whether his conduct is pure and upright.”
Proverbs 20:11

Only God can see into the heart. The rest of us can see only your actions. Actions aren’t a perfect gauge of character, but they are the best we have access to, until the judgment when all the secret things of the heart will be revealed. The things only God knows will be revealed on that day and this is why we are to judge nothing before the time, until those things are revealed.

“Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.”

1 Corinthians 4:5

It is possible for someone to seem to have fruit, to seem to be walking with God, and to be harboring a spirit of rejecting Him in their heart, a spirit of doubt and accusation against God. So even actions aren’t a perfect way to gauge character or the status of whether someone is walking with God or rejecting Him.

There is no way for a person to know for sure who is walking with God and who isn’t. Only God knows with absolute certainty. At the same time, we can know in a general sense how to live a Christian life and be right with God. We know what kinds of fruit (actions) come from being a converted believer.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
1 John 3:7-8

But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
Galatians 5:19-21

But in a brain hijacked by inflammation and suffering from illness, the natural emotions that follow a person’s delight or attitude, do not always exist. The person can be flat. Or they can have completely opposite emotions or feelings from their chosen attitude. For instance, you may really think it’s a tragedy that a friend passed away, and understand their value to you and to God, and yet find yourself smiling or laughing because you have a psychotic disorder and your brain gets flooded with dopamine when you’re under high levels of stress. A lot of emotions being dysregulated happens from involuntary protective measures and responses the body puts you into when it’s been under very high levels of stress for a very long time.

These protective measures actually protect your cells. It’s doing things at a cellular level that brace them against cell death, which can result from infections and stressors, and cell death is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to your body. You can handle some cells dying, but too many dying and you will break down and become severely disabled. For instance, late stage dementia involves lots of neuronal cell death, and people completely lose mental capacity and physical capacity also and have to have help even to do basic things like go to the bathroom. Thus your body must guard against cell death at all costs. Your body is trying to keep you alive at the cellular level; it’s not focused on whether you’re acting in socially appropriate ways. Involuntary processes and mechanisms don’t have that kind of intelligence.

This makes the human brain a wonder in the universe. It is a physical organ, capable of processing and understanding grand moral truths like the character of God, mercy, justice, freedom, truth.

I’m not even sure how it is possible for a physical organ – for a physical being – to understand abstract, eternal moral truths. How do you make a physical brain that can comprehend moral realities? What would be required in the functioning of the brain, and the different parts and how they work together, to be able to make such perception and understanding possible?

In asking these questions we are lead to understand what the brain is, and what it was created for, and to understand its function and design.

Amazingly, we can with our own brain, study our brain. Man is truly a wonder of creation.

When I first stepped foot in a medical library I was overwhelmed with the wealth of information, and very grateful to God. I was disappointed though to learn that there are many treatments for conditions – some of them very well-documented – that are just never used by mainstream medical doctors. Such as antihistamines for depression, or IVIG and peptides for depression, which none of my mainstream doctors had ever even mentioned. They only ever recommended SSRIs and those were completely ineffective for me, an experience that is not uncommon.

Unfortunately, while the information is there in droves, the way medicine is actually practiced is in a cookie-cutter kind of way, rather than utilizing the wealth of health information that exists in the medical literature.

I highly recommend everyone spend some time in a medial library, so you can get an accurate idea of what treatments really are available, and then bring the research to your mainstream or Functional medicine doctor.

Mainstream doctors are much more likely to be willing to give a treatment a try if they can see that it’s shown to be effective in the medical literature, and functional medicine doctors will usually be grateful for the information and willing to work with you on trying it. They already think in an out-of-the-box way that is different from mainstream medicine.

The other thing I found upsetting is that in all the medical literature the brain is described either as an animal brain, no different from a more highly-evolved ape, or a processing machine no different from a supercomputer.

A supercomputer or an animal brain do not accurately convey what the human brain is, and so the way in which the data in the literature is expressed and referenced, paints a distorted picture of what human beings are.

It leaves out the most central and most important function of our brain and aspect of our humanity – our moral judgment and perception.

Reading the medical literature, and all the amazing findings, that should have glorified the Creator, and brought me into a fuller knowledge of Him and the human beings He created and giinstead ade e feel sik to y stoah

This moral perception is often referred to as cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone’s shoes and understand what they are going through, and to identify with their struggle and hopefully choose to treat them with love and dignity.

Cognitive empathy is actually a part of our moral judgment and perception.

Affective empathy is defined in the medical literature as a feeling of empathy. This is categorized and defined in a way that isn’t truthful, and goes against what a human being is and what empathy is according to the Bible.

According to the Bible empathy and love are not feelings. They are principles, and a person can be actuated by these right principles if they have Christ living within, and they choose to surrender selfish attitudes to Him. So love and empathy are chosen attitudes. Thus calling a feeling ’empathy’ is not truthful.

What is truthful is to say empathy is the cognitive ability to put yourself in someone’s situation and understand what they may be going through, and this is often accompanied by feelings. Just as when we perceive and take in any painful, or difficult, or emotionally-stirring experience and we have accompanying feelings that react to what we’re seeing.

Those who are lacking feelings of empathy still have the ability to choose to give empathy and love to someone if they have the cognitive ability to put themselves in another’s shoes.

Due to the fall animals are in their nature inclined to attack one another. The same is true of people. In our nature we’re inclined to be aggressive, depressed, angry, sad, hurt, and all the negative emotions that did not exist before the Fall.

Not everything we feel and do that is negative is a sin. There is what could be called an animal part of us; the involuntary parts of our body and brain, things like the involuntary urge to go to the bathroom, or the involuntary experience of anger if we are exposed to a pathogen in the environment that causes histamine, a neurotransmitter in our brain to dump large amounts of histamine all at once.

Depression, anger, anxiety – all these can be purely biological and not involve sin and the character.

However, doubt, and hate are always sins. These things are not merely biochemical feelings. They are chosen attitudes.

Thus the difference between a feeling and an attitude needs to be understood, in order to determine if your anger is actually hate, or it’s just a feeling of anger caused by faulty biochemistry.