Reconciling the Physical with the Spiritual
If something “spiritual” can be explained by science, is God actually at work? If addiction rewires my brain, is my acting out a biological or a spiritual problem?
In Spring of 2012, I was nearly done with my junior year at Biola University where I studied Psychology and Biblical Studies.
I approached my theology professor and voiced a growing concern…
“In my psych classes, we’re leaning about oxytocin and other chemicals our brain releases and the way they impact how we feel. We even discussed what the brain does while worshipping that yields the feeling of intimate connection with God. How can this be? I’ve always thought the intimate connection I felt with God during worship and the prompting to raise my hands and close my eyes was a result of the Holy Spirit?”
My confusion and concern boiled down to this - if our spiritual experiences can be explained via the physical world, is God still active/engaged in the world?
And an even deeper concern I had was, if God is not as actively engaged in the physical world as I previously thought He was, could that be why He isn’t answering my prayers for deliverance from sexual addiction?
A few days later I stumbled upon a Youtube video of concert goers raising their hands emphatically, closing their eyes, and belting with all their might, “I’m on a highway to hell…”
This messed me up.
“How is my heartfelt worship and the feelings that accompany it any different from what these people experience singing about hedonism and destruction?” I thought.
Truthfully, this led to a faith crisis, which led to a very dry and difficult season.
Have you wrestled with something similar?
Let’s start with a few things we know from Scripture:
God created everything - Genesis 1:1, John 1:1
God causes things to work according to His will (Genesis 17, Isaiah 53, Jeremiah 29, Romans 8)
When we tie these truths together, we realize that God is capable of using the physical world to accomplish His spiritual purposes. In fact, He does this all the time! A few examples include:
Sex between a man and a woman creating a new soul
The act of confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord leading to eternal life
Physical death leading to new life in our heavenly home
Perhaps, if anything, we are too prone to explain away the spiritual with the physical. At the end of the day, though, whether God heals cancer in an inexplicable fashion or by chemo doesn’t really matter. It was God’s will to heal, and even if He used physical, scientific means of accomplishing His purposes, He still willed it and accomplished it.
You may have met men who have a story of their addiction ending with a miraculous, break-through moment for them. They had an encounter with God and never went back. Praise God for this!
But you will also meet plenty of men (like myself) who have a story of healing from addiction that looks like putting in the hard work of therapy and unpacking childhood traumas, setting boundaries and establishing accountability with other men, perhaps even taking antidepressants, exercising more, eating better, etc. God is equally at work in both examples, and we cannot discredit his miraculous power at work through the scientific and physical tools of healing he has given us.
So whether we look at the chemicals our brain releases leading to worship or our brain’s addictive bent making it harder to break free… God is always at work to accomplish His spiritual purposes, often using the physical world He created.
Understanding that God uses the physical to accomplish His spiritual purposes can lead us deeper into awe of His power and majesty.
There is truly no one like our God; full of grace and abounding in steadfast love.
