When Understanding of Principles Gets Hazy

Have you ever wondered, “What exactly is the difference between being carnal and being spiritual?” Are these just vague, ambiguous terms, or do they have an actual, literal Bible definition?

The Bible speaks of being spiritual and of being carnal, draws a dividing line between the two, and emphasizes the importance of walking in the spirit and not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and living carnally. This is a concept that comes up quite frequently in the Bible.

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16

…clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.
Romans 13:14

For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
Galatians 6:8

While this concept may at first seem abstract and nebulous, leading some to conclude that walking in the Spirit doesn’t involve an actual set of defined rules, and rather it involves getting convictions or communications from the Holy Spirit about right and wrong in the moment, rather than utilizing scripture to know the difference between right and wrong….the actions, attitudes, and decisions that constitute walking in the Spirit and it’s opposite, walking in the flesh, are actually not nebulous at all, and are clearly defined in the scriptures.

The Bible describes the moral law as spiritual, and then describes sin or lawbreaking (sin is synonymous with lawbreaking) as being carnal. Practicing anything against the law is what it means to be carnal. So for instance, lying as a regular practice, committing adultery or fornication, or letting yourself sexually fantasize without much of a filter, hatred, disrespect for parents or authority figures, self-worship rather than worshiping God – habitually participating in any thought or action that breaks one of the 10 commandments, is living carnally. Those who are converted and given a new nature that can keep God’s law and begin keeping it and walking in it are spiritual people; those who break the law are carnal. This is the dividing line between walking in the Spirit and living in the flesh.

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
Romans 7:14

Notice here in Romans how it says the law is spiritual. Of course it is! This really makes a great deal of sense. When someone has a spirit of reverence for God, thoughts of wanting to remove idols from their life and serve Him alone, and the actions of giving up idols and sinful practices to serve Him – that’s the law, and that law of love is written in their heart, actuating them to devotion and worship. Isn’t this what being spiritual is and looks like? There’s nothing more spiritual than that.

And being carnal is when instead of being actuated by God’s law you’re actuated by selfishness, and so you put yourself first or another idol, say you have a boyfriend you’re living with before marriage and you don’t want to break up with him or to stop sleeping with him. He’s become an idol, an object of worship, and selfish desires are within you and display themselves in your actions. This lawbreaking is what it means to be carnal.

The law of God operates by principles of equity, justice, goodness, and love. These are the principles behind each of the 10 precepts in the 10 commandments.

Galatians describes the state of the lost as being held in bondage to the principles of the world. Unfortunately some translations say we’re held in bondage to spiritual forces or elements of the world, but these words are very poor translations and are actually inaccurate, which is why the verse is very confusing and doesn’t make sense when these words are used.

I looked up the original Greek, and the word is ‘principles’ not spiritual forces, or elements. Principles makes so much sense!

So also, we when we were children, were held in bondage under the principles of the world.
Galatians 4:3 BLB

What this means is that those who are lost and not following Christ are in bondage to the principles of the world – the principles of selfishness that governs Satan’s kingdom and which are behind all lawbreaking.

It’s principles that divide a Christian from a worldling, that divide loyal angels from demons, and that make all the difference between good and evil.

Galatians 4:9 speaks of principles again, and says not to turn back to weak and worthless principles, that offer no happiness, purpose, hope, or strength to resist sin.

But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
Galatians 4:9

Galatians 4:8 explains that when slaves to worthless principles, we are following Satan and actually are slaves of actual demons, who are created beings and are by nature not gods, yet claim to be gods and demand worship from their slaves.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
Galatians 4:8

…the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.
1 Corinthians 10:20

Speaking of the devil, God tells us he thought of himself as god but he is a mere mortal and God will bring him down and destroy him.

“Son of man, tell the ruler of Tyre that this is what the Lord GOD says: Your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of gods in the heart of the sea.’ Yet you are a man and not a god, though you have regarded your heart as that of a god.

Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
Ezekiel 28:2, 9

So, the Bible is making the point to clearly explain that we’re both slaves to the same principles that govern Satan, and to demons themselves who control us. We are slaves both to ourselves, through our selfish character that can’t love and live in the freedom of God’s law, which is called the law of liberty…and we’re slaves of demons too who tempt us and control us.

Sometimes people emphasize the selfish desires in our own hearts, and forget there is a slave master and a prowling lion seeking whom he may devour among us. I’ve heard some people express the sentiment that Satan isn’t real; the figure of Satan was created as a way to personify the idea of selfishness and evil, the dark desires that we each battle. This is not true. Satan is very real and he is the slave master of everyone who doesn’t know Christ. He can tempt and control, and seeks to completely destroy each of us.

And also our own fallen nature and selfish desires are very real too, and these spring from within us. There’s temptation from without, and corruption from within. Some people are even possessed by literal demons also, and so they are literally filled with an evil spirit, a slave to an evil master, as well as a slave to their carnal desires and selfish character.

To be spiritual, to be walking in the Spirit, we must be living by the principles of heaven, through the power of Christ giving us a new heart and new desires that align with His law.

There are some people who try to obey God in checklist kind of way. They don’t seek to understand His law, they just want to perform the actions He deems correct, and avoid the ones He deems wrong and immoral.

There are some parents who raise their kids this way. They tell their kids when their kids ask why a certain rule is in place “Just do it because I said so.” And they teach their kids that respect and worship for God also involves blind obedience because He’s the One in authority, and that He wants this blind, immediate, mindless obedience.

While it is true that God sometimes asks us to do things we don’t understand, and that even with the things we do understand, we have a partial knowledge and only God can know everything about any particular subject and the rest of us have a finite, limited understanding, it’s not true that in most cases God doesn’t want us to understand the underlying principles and reasons why certain thoughts and actions are wrong and others are right.

Rather, the truth is that He wants all of His children to have a good understanding of right and wrong. AND His law cannot even be kept without a solid understanding of right and wrong. That’s right, it’s impossible to keep God’s law if one goes about it blindly. The act of blind obedience means one is not actuated by principles of love and goodness behind God’s law, and thus cannot be said to be obeying and keeping the law at all.

For one of the core principles behind what it means to do right and to be good, is that one understands goodness, and what it entails, and drawn out after God’s goodness, desire to mirror Him and be like Him in their day-to-day life.

Blind obedience without an understanding of how good God is, and how good and just and fair and right His law is, is not obedience at all.

The Bible puts it this way…”because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path. Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them.” Psalm 119:128-129

The psalmist here is saying that he sees the rightness and goodness of God’s precepts – His laws – and therefore he hates everything that goes against God’s ways. He sees how wonderful and true God’s laws are – and this is what causes him to want to obey them.

He doesn’t blindly believe without seeing the justice and goodness and rightness in them, and understanding their underlying principles.

Indeed it is not possible to obey God if one doesn’t understand the principles behind God’s law. This is why an animal cannot worship God or obey His law; animals lack the ability to understand righteous principles.

May the LORD give you discretion and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep the law of the LORD your God.
1 Chronicles 22:12

Notice how it says in this verse that understanding is needed in order to keep God’s law? This is central to what it means to walk in the Spirit and live a Christian life pleasing to God.

Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.
Psalm 119:34

In this verse the psalmist tells us understanding is needed to keep God’s law. Blind obedience isn’t law-keeping. One must delight in their inner man in the principles behind God’s commandments in order to be keeping it. And there’s delight, reverence, and love in the inner man when one blindly obeys without understanding.

The precepts of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart; the commandments of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
Psalm 19:8

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Psalm 51:6

But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.
Psalm 1:2

I delight in Your commandments because I love them.
Psalm 119:47

Indeed to be keeping God’s laws, we must love them, not merely outwardly endeavor to obey them in actions only.

Notice how the Bible connects God’s law with understanding, even telling us that God’s law is a teacher that makes God’s children wise and gives them great understanding. This is because these are the very principles of truth and goodness, the very foundation of all that is godly.

“a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.:
psalm 111:10

Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are always with me.
Psalm 119:98

Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the Lord understand all things.
Proverbs 28:5

Proverbs 9:10 tells us that a knowledge of the Holy One, is understanding. It’s the very definition of understanding, therefore if one truly knows God and the principles of love that actuate His character, they will have an intelligent knowledge and understanding of their faith. And if one does not have an intelligent understanding of their faith and of God’s law, then they do not know God.

Deuteronomy tells us what kind of impression Christians are to make on the world.

Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples, who will hear of all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”
Deuteronomy 4:6

The witness God is looking for – the only witness that is a true one – is if by keeping His laws we show ourselves to be a wise and understanding people. We show the world Christianity involves the true principles of love and truth and goodness – the ones the world is missing because it operates via selfish and wrong principles. And the only way we can do that is if we have an intelligent knowledge of God and His law, and follow Him with understanding.

Proverbs admonishes us to cry aloud for understanding, to implore God daily for understanding. To see it as more desirable than silver or gold. That’s how much understanding matters. Now if God inspired Solomon to declare understanding to be so important, would it make sense for God to then desire blind worship without understanding? It doesn’t!

Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
Proverbs 2:3-5

Jeremiah tells us not to glory in our wisdom or abilities as this is prideful and shuts out God, but…

“…let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.”
Jeremiah 9:24

The joy of the Christian is in understanding and knowing God and His character, the principles that actuate Him and that are found in His law. This is the greatest joy of the Christian.

Jesus through the Holy Spirit gives us understanding when we read and study the Word of God.

Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
Luke 24:45

We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
1 John 5:20

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Ephesians 1:18

Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.

2 Timothy 2:7

Now that we know principles are the dividing line between being spiritual and being carnal…let’s ask ourselves this important question: What happens when someone starts having trouble understanding principles, due to mental symptoms like depression which can affect cognition and distort the concepts of right and wrong in their minds?

Well, they start acting and living in a way that isn’t based on true principles.

If you see someone who lived a very Bible-based life based on principles, suddenly start acting very concrete in their thinking, with a reduced ability to live by principle, this often happens when mental illnesses are developing.

For instance, they may start doing things that look more like a checklist, and becoming hyper-focused on concrete measurements. They may become fixated on a certain weight their body needs to be and consider themselves a glutton if they go over that weight even by a few pounds, and be unable to understand that there are natural weight fluctuations that occur at different times in a day or a month, due to having less liquids in you after waking and then accumulating more liquids as you drink through the day and that this is perfectly normal and it doesn’t make you gluttonous.

They may become more rigid, and more focused on numbers or outward measurements or actions. You may hear them making statements like “God doesn’t ask to understand; He just wants us to obey”, and become frustrated with people who want to know the why behind the commands God has given, or who discuss subjects to understand them. To the person losing understanding of principles, obedience seems simple. It’s just knocking off the markers of a checklist, and they can’t understand why anyone would ask questions or seek clarity.

Because they are losing their ability to understand principles, and outward things are all they have now. They may forget that they ever used to operate via principles, or may think they know what a principle is, but when questioned be unable to define it accurately, saying things like “A right principle is when we do something God says to do” or “because God says to do it we obey.” This is a checklist without understanding, but they can’t see that that’s what they are depicting, and that they’ve lost the ability to understand what a principle is.

An example of this is someone with depression affecting their cognition may conclude they have sinned for doing something that is actually innocent, such as a friend of mine who thought she had sinned when she walked by unconverted people and she heard them cussing. This was their sin, not hers. But she couldn’t see the underlying principle of what makes someone guilty and what makes something a sin, which is that guilt can only be incurred by the one who sins. We can’t incur guilt from someone else’s sin. So her actions mirrored the faulty logic. She would repent to God for having heard the cussing.

I watched a church program and heard a speaker say that he used to wonder how it could be right on God’s part to allow Satan to have access to the snake at the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It didn’t seem fair to him for Satan to possess an innocent snake. As he was praying about it he felt like God gave him the answer. What was the answer? That the snake had given its consent, thus Satan wasn’t forcing the snake to become possessed; the snake had agreed to it. He couldn’t see the underlying principle that animals are not the same as people. People are moral beings who can enter into agreements. Animals are owned by people, incapable of higher thought.

The fundamental principles behind the nature of human beings and the rights that stem from that nature, and the nature of animals and the animal rights that stem from their nature, was lost to this person, and they blurred together. There is such a thing as animal rights and the Bible admonishes us to treat our animals fairly and with love. But animals do not have the same rights as people. For instance, it’s unloving not to be a master to your dog and house him and care for him. You have a duty to care for your animal in such a way. It’s gravely wrong to be the master of another person and house him and make all his medical decisions for him the way you would your dog. A person cannot own another; that’s slavery and that’s evil. Owning another human being violates that person’s rights. But it violates no rights of a dog.

Or let’s take an example common in people with anorexia. They often really believe that eating is sinful, or that eating more than the bare minimum needed to survive and not die is sinful. Not only are their emotions hi-jacked by their ill condition, so that they feel intense guilt when they eat, but they have cognitive distortions that can cause them to really believe they’ve sinned by eating a meal. Some can question this belief to probe it using logic to see if it’s correct, others may be so deep into the distorted thinking that they can’t even tell it might be incorrect.

Their actions change too because they eat as little as possible, and may repent to God for eating or eating what they think is too much, may exercise as a way not only to burn off the calories, but also to live a holy life. In their minds this is what sanctification looks like. For some reason with anorexia, the way the “wires” get crossed in the brain, and the new faulty neural connectivity created by the illness, it is common for there to be themes of sin and moral pollution associated with eating, not just a desire to lose weight or a fear of calories and food.

Through no fault of their own they may descend into a lifestyle that isn’t Christian and that is unhealthy, because they’ve lost their judgment and thus can’t steer their ship towards true North. They may suffer quite severely with false guilt thinking it’s real condemnation from God, and other intense emotions that seem to have deep meaning, but are really emotional dysregulation caused by the illness hijacking their emotions and running wild with them.

It’s important to be gentle with such people and also firm. Don’t get caught up in their faulty perceptions of right and wrong. Don’t give them weight or encourage them. Stand true to principle, and let the person see that you believe in a different set of scales, and this can often cause the person to question their own beliefs more, and get an external sense by the things you say and your way of behaving of what a balanced Christian life is meant to be like, that will have a balancing effect on them. Also be gentle by encouraging them not to beat themselves up over things that you don’t see biblical support for them being sins. Encourage them not to do unhealthy things like shut themselves in their room for days praying for forgiveness for eating, or something that’s not a sin. Challenge their logic and their interpretation of the scriptures in an edifying, constructive way, not accusatory, but encouraging. For instance, you can say something like “The Christian life is one of hope and joy. I see the Bible supporting this truth and I want that for you. Some of the things you’re doing really don’t seem to be conducive of hope and joy but seem to put a yoke on you that I don’t believe is healthy. I want more for you.” Or you could say “Life is more than eating and drinking, or obsessing about not eating and not drinking – it’s about serving God. There’s a higher purpose to life that God offers us and He wants us to get involved in active service and make that our focus, not food and drink – even if it’s focusing on avoiding food and drink. The Christian life is more than that. Food is a way to stay alive and fuel us so we can fulfill our higher purpose and it’s important in that context, but it’s not meant to be the focus of life.”

It isn’t just people who are experiencing cognitive distortions who can be off when it comes to a correct understanding of principles.

All false religions and false belief systems are actually founded on faulty principles. And we start off with faulty understanding until we learn Bible truth. The Holy Spirit gives to everyone a basic understanding of right and wrong, and a basic conscience – even those who do not have access to the Bible – but this basic understanding can be very primitive and limited without God’s Word, and it can be a lot different from the fuller knowledge we gain by Bible study, especially in regions of the world that are very steeped in error.

Here’s an example. In the Koran it says God asked Satan to worship Adam, and Satan refused. It calls that a sin. Satan was then punished for his refusal to worship Adam. The Muslim idea of what makes something a sin is not based on true principles of what makes something a sin.

Here’s Bible logic, which you will see adds up and is the true moral compass.

Only the One who created all other beings is the true God and is worthy of our worship. God cannot ask you to worship someone or something else that is not actually God. If God were to do that it would be Him promoting sin, and since God is sinless and perfect, He can’t tempt us to sin, encourage us to sin, or make sin legal in His universe. Being the Standard of goodness, He cannot go against His own perfect moral character. The Bible says God cannot lie or do anything else immoral.

But you can see how Allah arbitrarily asking Satan to worship Adam, isn’t in alignment with the principles behind the first and second commandments. It violates them. The second commandment declares that no one can represent God and stand in His stead to accept worship. No statue of God, no priest claiming to officiate in His place, no person made in His image. It’s all a sin to worship any of those things because those things aren’t God; they didn’t come first and bring everything else into being. They are themselves created things. They didn’t die for mankind; they don’t have the divine love of God. Thus they are not worthy of our worship or entitled to our worship.

Once again we see how principles of right are found in the 10 commandments. When you get love accurate and correct, you’re keeping the commandments. When you get love wrong, you’re breaking them. It’s not possible to give love and break the commandments, except in one case – in cases where the person doesn’t know the commandments and innocently breaks them with a good motive. But that’s the only exception.

Let’s look at a couple other examples of beliefs not based on true principles but based on these faulty principles of the world. Praying the rosary. Catholics believe that mindlessly repeating the rosary gets prayers answered and draws them closer to God. But the Bible tells us mindless worship lacks the ability to bring anyone close to God. Because it’s without understanding, and how does the Bible tell us to worship God? With understanding. This is how communion with God happens, through our mind, through contemplation of His goodness and His justice and His mercy, and praying to Him and talking with Him about these wonderful things about Himself and thanking Him for being this way, and asking Him to intervene in your life, forgive you of sins, and make you into that same image.

Also the rosary is said to Mary. This breaks the second commandment. She’s a person, unworthy of being prayed to. Only God should be prayed to because prayer isn’t just talking. Catholics will say praying to the saints is just talking with them. But what does the Bible say? When we pray we brought into conformity to God’s will, we are changed in heart and in spirit, to be actuated by the same principles that actuate Christ. This is a deep communion. Mary cannot give you a new heart; Mary doesn’t have divine creative power. Jesus will give you a new heart when you pray to Him and surrender your selfish desires at His feet. You will come forth from the prayer closet changed. Thus praying to Mary is wrong. Not only is she a person but she’s also dead. The Bible forbids contact with the dead, calling necromancy an abomination.

So you can see here how praying the rosary is based on faulty, worldly principles that the Bible says lack any power to restrain the sensual lusts. You can’t by praying the rosary become less proud and more loving. The rosary will not convict you to give up your idols. Rather it’s mindless worship of a false god, and will have a corrupting influence on those who knowingly engage in this practice.

Let’s look at Buddhism. in Buddhism the goal is to reach a state free from all desires, both good and bad. You are said to be truly free and to have reached true inner peace when such a state is reached. What does the Bible say? It says desire is inherent in love. A loving person is someone who deeply desires God’s Name to be exalted, and lives to glorify His Name. An unloving person is a person who disrespects God’s Name and who lives for self, putting their selfish desires before God. Thus, the Bible spells out that it’s impossible to be good if one does not have good desires. And it’s impossible to have peace if one isn’t made right by Christ and washed from their sins.

A person can have a lobotomy and lose all desire and drive. They can even lose their ability to understand right and wrong due to brain damage, and thus have no sinful desires. They may be innocent, and in an almost vegetative state, staring at the wall. Is this nirvana? No. Losing all desire is the opposite of happiness, because again, happiness can only be achieved by caring deeply about God’s honor and His work and actively engaging in it with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind.

What Buddhism does is it works a person into a calmer physiological state through years of meditation. We know from the Bible that meditating can cause a person to become demon-possessed, so the person may also be demon-possessed and the demons may want the person to appear calm and to appear to have peace and self-control, to make Buddhism appear to be appealing. But the person hasn’t experienced a heart change and a new nature. they’ve only subdued their outward expression of their sinful inner nature. People appear calm and at peace when they sleep too, but sleeping isn’t a way to part with pride, or lust, or selfishness. Your brain is just in an unconscious state so all those desires are quieted for the time being, but certainly not removed from the character.

Thus you can see Buddhism lacks any real divine power to change a heart.

The commandments are a bill of rights. They contain the inherent rights of God and man. To violate then is to deprive people or God of things that are inherently theirs by right, thus all selfishness is rooted in the breaking of the commandments, and all loving actions are rooted in the keeping of the commandments.

The Bible puts it this way: “Love does no harm to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Fulfilling the law is to love…is to harm not. Breaking the law is to be selfish and to harm.

Stealing for instance, does not fulfill the law but breaks it, takes from someone something that is theirs by right, and harms them in so doing.

Paying one’s employees their fare wage, does the opposite of that, fulfills the law, and gives them what it is their right to have, thus being a good boss and paying your employees fairly is to love them.

These are the true underlying principles that false religions and false belief systems are not founded on, including our own beliefs we have when we come into this world before learning about any religion.

Thus it’s common for a false religion to tell someone that something that isn’t actually a sin is sinful, and plague them with false guilt and manipulation over something innocent. The person doesn’t break free unless the Holy Spirit convicts them of how the principle isn’t right and doesn’t add up, either through a reading of the scriptures or through logic if the scriptures aren’t available to the person.

One common way that I’ve seen people stumble with false guilt is they have the belief that if they feel a certain way it must somehow be true, at least to some degree. Thus if they feel a sense of guilt, they conclude they must be guilty to some degree, but let’s say the action was innocent, well they have no way of rectifying something that is actually innocent and finding a relief from false guilt for that action, because there’s no actual stain to wash clean; they just think there is.

What they are usually looking for is for a prayer or something like prying the rosary to remove the feeling of guilt. If the feeling of guilt doesn’t go away they conclude they must still be guilty. If the feeling of guilt does go away they conclude they must have been forgiven.

Such people are tossed here and there by emotional dysregulation that is often a symptom of inflammation, eating too late at night, hormonal mood swings from menopause or puberty, stress from a death in the family, infections, and any number of different things. They are also easily manipulated by Satan to believe they are right with God if they feel a certain way, even if they’ve never actually left their life of sin behind and are still doing things like drinking alcohol, living for self and not concerned about God’s work, living with their boyfriend, etc.

The underlying problem is they are living by a philosophy based on faulty principles, the belief that if they feel a certain way emotions dictate reality rather than the Word of God dictates reality, especially spiritual realities. We know we are right with God when we’ve done the things the Word says to do, the logical things based on true principles like we’ve asked forgiveness of Christ who alone can cleanse from sin, and we’ve surrendered selfish desires and ambitions to Him, and we’ve aligned our choices and our lifestyle with the Word’s true depiction of a holy life. if we’ve done those things, and we still feel guilt, we can know the guilt isn’t truth; God’s Word is truth and the feeling of guilt must just be a feeling.

This particular false belief is one that I’ve seen drive and control people who are in their rights minds and aren’t in psychosis or anything like that. They also think things like if I feel feelings of love and attachment for someone I love them, rather than seeing love as treating someone fairly, respectfully, and unselfishly. It’s easy for Satan to make such people they are either evil because they don’t feel feelings of love for someone or that they are a saint because they feel all kinds of bonding and fond emptions for people.

Those not grounded in the true principles of the Word can be tossed hear and there, confused, and capsized and destroyed. It is not safe to make anything your anchor other than God’s truth found in His Word.

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”
Matthew 7:24-27

Jesus declares “Thy Word is truth.” John 17:17

Therefore we need to found our beliefs on the actual truth. Not on human ideas, not on faulty principles.

So while people without access to the Bible or who don’t spend much time in the Bible or choose to follow false religions can be steeped in error and following erroneous principles, convinced they are guilty for innocent things, or convinced truly dark and immoral things like praying to Mary are actually innocent and ok, people with mental symptoms can also stray from the truth, but they do so for an entirely different reason.

People with mental illness have trouble seeing what true principles are. Due to physical brain malfunction. This certainly presents a real challenge and it can be harder for them to arrive at truth. They may need to study longer, and really check their conclusions with others in their church, engage in intellectual theological discussions and be especially careful not to be proud and self-reliant, because pride and thinking you can’t err can be a fatal problem to have if you’re prone to cognitive distortions and need the help of your church family to help you see Bible truth correctly.

People with mental symptoms that make it hard to see the underlying principles behind the commandments, are not said to be living carnally if they err due to their brain malfunctioning. Living carnally can only happen when a person knows what is right, and chooses to believe and follow something immoral instead.

For instance, someone who knows Catholicism is not true, has seen the Bible verses that debunk its doctrines, and chooses to believe in it anyway. Such a person is said to be living carnally. But someone who has a bad case of depression affecting their logic and making it impossible for them to see that they are in error, is not living carnally.

A better way to put it is probably something like this…such a person is losing the ability to understand right principles. Rather than going against right principles, they are losing their capacity to understand them. Thus right is blurring into wrong, or the principles behind right and wrong are collapsing altogether until the person doesn’t even know that right and wrong are inherently that way, and thinks right things are a checklist and wrong things are another checklist and that’s really the only difference.

I’ve put together a short morality quiz. It’s important the person taking this quiz answers honestly. They need to make sure to not put the answer that they think people want them to check off, or expect them to check off, but the answer that they really believe is the right answer.

This quiz tests whether a person knows the difference between right and wrong, or whether they’ve lost the ability to tell what right and wrong are, and they’ve lost moral agency.

My Morality Quiz

Is stealing wrong?

a. Yes; it’s wrong because it denies people their right to own property and to reap the rewards of their labors.
b. No. It’s just socially and culturally unacceptable, but society is drawing an arbitrary distinction and it’s not actually inherently wrong.
c. There is no such thing as right and wrong; they are just made-up ideas.
d. Stealing is wrong because society and people in authority say it is, not due to the inherent nature of the act.

Lying is wrong because:

a. It’s only wrong if the lie leads to some great accident or injury that physically harms people, otherwise it’s not wrong. Small lies for instance aren’t wrong.
b. It’s wrong because it denies people their right to accurate information and breaks trust between people.
c. It’s not wrong, society just arbitrarily deems it unacceptable for cultural reasons and due to familiarity and tradition.
d. Right and wrong is just an arbitrary checklist that holds no meaning or weight.

God is to be worshiped because:

a. People in church authority tell us to worship Him
b. Because we see in nature and in the scriptures unmistakable evidence that He exists and that He is trustworthy, faithful, and morally flawless, so much so that He died in our place – the guiltless for the guilty – to redeem us. These are the reasons the scriptures give for why we should worship Him.
c. Because God says we should, and we don’t need to understand anything about Him beyond this in order to worship Him.

Goodness is:

a. Obeying a checklist of commands that involve our actions.
b. Doing right outward actions that align with God’s commandments, with benevolent inner motives.
c. Making sure our heart is in the right place, without regard for laws or commands; those aren’t what make actions benevolent; it’s about the spirit that moves us.

Murder is wrong because:
a. It inflicts pain on people and I don’t want to see anyone suffer.
b. It robs people of their inherent right to life. It’s also wrong to inflict pain on someone, but this is not the main reason murder is wrong or the greatest evil it does.

Have you had the following experience:
Actions and attitudes used to seem much more black and white to you, but now they seem predominantly, or entirely grey?
Yes
No