Ep 5: You’re Only Human (And Why We’re Confused About It)

What are we?  What does it mean to be “human?” When we talk about discipleship, or spiritual formation, what do we mean by “spirit” and how is it formed? We have a body, a mind, a soul, a spirit, a heart – how do these all fit together? We dig in to explore what it means to be a human being, and we introduce a new category of idea: Ideas of Anthropology. Check out the “On Being Human” picture on the Resources tab at www.soilandroots.org while you listen.

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 5: Christian Anthropology Explained

Welcome to the Soil and Roots podcast: uncovering the hidden ideas that form us, the church, and the culture. I’m Brian Fisher.

This is Episode 5: You’re Only Human

We’re taking this journey together into what we call “deep discipleship.”  A disciple is an apprentice of Jesus, someone whose life is centered around becoming more like Him.  A disciple desires to do the things Jesus did, to give like He gives, to love as He loves, in the context of His Kingdom.

This “deep discipleship” involves exploring some things we don’t usually talk about– these unconscious, powerful assumptions and principles that sit on the bedrock of our hearts called ideas. 

“Ideas” take a while to embrace.  At first, they seem a little odd. But once we get used to them, we find them everywhere:  in culture, in our communities, in our families, and in ourselves. 

In Episode 1, we introduced the concept of discipleship as the progressive formation of ideas.  We practiced mining for just one idea in Episodes 2 and 3, an idea of the Gospel.  Last episode, we explored another idea, an idea of expectation.

We’re just getting our feet wet with ideas in Season 1, so we’re going to explore another one today – an idea of anthropology, or what it means to be human.

Examples of Ideas

Before we jump into anthropology, here are a few other simple examples of ideas.

We’re all born into cultures with various assumptions, various ideas, about life expectancy. In the West, we’re born into the idea that most humans will live somewhere between 70 and 90 years. It’s an Idea in the Air.  It’s a common assumption in all seven mountains of culture. It’s an assumption that quickly takes root in our hearts at a young age.

It’s an idea that impacts how we operate in the world.  From a financial standpoint, it affects our concept of retirement and how we save for it, how we spend money now versus how much we save, and our dreams about what life after a career might look like.

But if we were born in a different time or place, this idea would be very different.  If we didn’t expect to live past 40, the concept of retirement wouldn’t even exist. 

If you live in the West, when someone dies at 45, we might say, “Their life was cut short.”  But in other times and cultures, we would say, “She lived a good long life.”

We don’t normally think about our assumptions about life expectancy, but they govern and power how we operate in the world.

Here’s another quick example of an idea.  God placed us in four relationships: with Him, with others, with ourselves, and with creation.  What is our assumption about our role and relationship to creation? Related to the earth? 

If you’ve ever read the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, you’ll remember that the four English children who end up living in Narnia become kings and queens.  They are human rulers in their fantasy world.

Where did Lewis get that idea?  Probably from Genesis 1.  The first thing God shares with us is our purpose: we’re to fill the earth, rule it, and subdue it.  We’re made to be kings and queens of the earth, serving the King of the Cosmos.

But if you asked most people on the street or in church today what their idea is about their role related to creation, my guess is not many of them see themselves as rulers or stewards of their corner of the world on behalf of their Creator.

In fact, given what we explored last episode, many people’s idea of their role related to creation is to escape it, not to reform and restore it for the good of mankind and the glory of the Creator. 

An idea of escape versus an idea of restoration has an enormous impact on how we operate in the world. 

If our idea is that the world is something to be escaped, we’ll probably focus on evangelism, missionary work, and relief efforts. Those are all great things.

If our idea is based on our role as kings and queens, stewarding the earth on behalf of its Creator, we’ll operate under a more comprehensive set of assumptions. Evil is something to be confronted and conquered, injustice is to be overcome, and the seven mountains are areas to be influenced for the good of mankind, even when it requires suffering and hardship.  Creation itself should be managed for beauty, mankind’s flourishing, and sustainability.

That one idea impacts everything from our church activities to how we manage our money to how we present the Gospel to how we engage with every area of culture.

Multi-dimensional

Let’s talk about our humanity. 

If you have a moment, head over to the Resources tab at www.soilandroots.org  and check out the next visual aid.  It’s the one called “On Being Human.” 

If we’re following Jesus, we exist in two kingdoms at once. Each kingdom has its own set of ideas, and our hearts (our roots) are planted in soil, the ideas that form us. And our soils consist of ideas from both kingdoms. 

The ideas of the Kingdom of Light bring life, beauty, flourishing, and goodness. The ideas from the kingdom of darkness bring distortion, harm, and spiritual and physical death. 

As we take this journey of spiritual formation and dig around our hearts to see what’s going on, it’s important for us to understand what we are.  What does it mean to be human?  How are we wired?  When we say, “spiritual formation,” what do we mean by “spirit,” and how exactly is it formed?

Let’s think about some of the terms we use every day to describe the dimensions of being human: mind, body, soul, spirit, essence, heart, will. 

We talk about our thoughts, yet we speak from the heart.  We talk about “spirit” like it means ghost, but we also talk about “spirit” as in spiritual, or deep, or below the surface.  The word “soul” can mean a great style of music, the invisible aspects of being human, or the entire human being, as in the number of souls lost after a tragic plane crash or boat accident.  

At times, the Bible uses some of these terms interchangeably.  Different words have different intonations and meanings in different contexts. Defining what it means to be human is no easy task, and we shouldn’t expect to resolve it today. Philosophers and theologians have been debating anthropology for centuries.

But let’s take a shot at establishing a basic framework we can work with.   

Higher Education and the Book of Love

You may have heard of a singer, songwriter, and poet named Rich Mullins.  Years ago, he wrote a song called “Higher Education and the Book of Love”, and this is the spoken introduction to his song:

“What does it mean to be human?

I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual and that we could make choices and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals… like maybe loyalty or maybe faith… or maybe even love.

But now we are told by people who think they know, that we vary from amoeba only in the complexity of our makeup and not in what we essentially are. They would have us think as Dysart said that we are forever bound up in certain genetic reigns – that we are merely products

of the way things are and not free – not free to be the people who make them that way.

They would have us see ourselves as products so that we could believe that we were something to be made – something to be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars – used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way.

Well, who are they? They are the few who sit at the top of the heap – dung heap though it is – and who say it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven. Well, I do not know that we can have a Heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a Hell either. What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but believe that it means we are spiritual – that we are responsible and that we are free – that we are responsible to be free.”[1]

Is Rich Mullins right?  Does being human mean that we are primarily spiritual?  That our core, our essence, our center, our guts, is our spirit? And if he is right, is this the Idea of Anthropology in the culture and the modern church?

Does Western Christianity operate from an understanding that human beings are primarily spiritual or of the heart?  Do we operate from that idea?

Theologian James K.A. Smith wrote a book called Desiring the Kingdom, and he raises an important question.

Are human beings primarily thinkers, believers, or desirers? Smith’s concern is that modern Christianity, consciously or unconsciously, assumes that humans are primarily thinkers and that our formation is primarily accomplished through the intake of information. He doubts that’s the case.

He writes,

“If we consider these two very different understandings of education (the informative and the formative), and the different understandings of the human person that are at work behind them, I suggest that, over the past decades, institutions of Christian education have unwittingly absorbed the former and eschewed the latter.  Many Christian schools, colleges, and universities – particularly in the Protestant tradition – have taken on board a picture of the human person that owes more to modernity and the Enlightenment than it does to the holistic, biblical vision of the human person.”[2]

He’s not alone – several thinkers have voiced concerns that the modern church has assumed that Descartes was right when he said, “I think therefore I am.”  The concern is that the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason have worked their way into the fabric of modern Christianity, producing Christians who may be able to verbally express correct Christian positions or doctrines, but our hearts are not actually being formed into the likeness of Christ’s heart. 

Dallas Willard suggested that the words “heart”, “spirit,” and “will” are basically synonyms.[3]  The Bible generally uses the words “heart” and “spirit” to mean our deepest dimensions.  So, if you look at the picture on the website, you’ll see heart and spirit are synonyms and are at the center of our humanity.   

This isn’t to discount or minimize the mind and the body in any way, and we’ll talk about those down the road. But the idea of anthropology that our center is our heart, our spirit – and thus we’re primarily lovers, beings of desire – is really important for us to consider. It has huge implications for how we live. 

Rich Mullins may be right – to be human is to be spiritual.  We’re not products for others to exploit; we’re made in the Image of God. He is Spirit, and each of us is an embodied spirit.  God is love, and He has given us the capacity to love from our hearts – from our spirits.

This also suggests that James Smith is correct. We’re not primarily thinkers; we’re not even primarily believers. We are primarily desirers or lovers.  

So now the concept of spiritual formation (discipleship) takes on a different tone than what many of us are used to.  If human beings are primarily creatures of desire, then spiritual formation is the process by which our hearts are transformed into more and more likeness to the heart of Christ. It means we desire what He desires. 

And that transformation may not be just the intake of correct and factual information into our minds – it may be something else.   

This is why we want to be careful not to drift into thinking that exploring these hidden ideas is simply a mental exercise. Ideas aren’t so much intellectual conclusions as they are experienced realities. That means the hidden ideas in our soil are deeply connected to our desires. 

Deep Desires

So, what do we desire? Lots of things, but “Neuroscientist Curt Thompson is fond of saying that when each one of us comes into this world, we enter it looking for someone looking for us. Our deepest desire and highest hope is that there will be someone looking for us, and that this person will always be there for us and will pursue our hearts with a genuine desire to truly know us.

Our greatest need as human beings is to be known, and to know that the person who knows us will be there for us.”[4]

That sounds rather vulnerable, if not risky. How do we come to know someone like this?  It sounds a lot like falling in love, doesn’t it?

Do we come to love someone by just sharing information? Does my wife love me because I told her my name, weight, IQ, and place of birth?  Do we love our children because we know certain facts about them?

I think this is Smith’s point.  Modern Christianity often assumes that spiritual formation is primarily about receiving and accepting certain pieces of information.  But information isn’t the driver of falling in love with anyone – a relationship is. Experiencing someone is.  Spending time with someone is.

It isn’t just a fact.  It’s the intangible, deep-rooted, unspoken, emotional, entangling of ourselves with another person.  Spiritual formation is very much about “withness.”  It’s about being with someone, experiencing them, and sometimes that’s words and facts, but much of the time it is things far deeper. 

Divine Intimacy

Let’s look at one way Jesus forms our spirits. This may freak us out a bit, but let’s go back to our Creation Picture.  We are the tree in the middle of the picture, and the roots of our tree are our hearts, and we are grounded in ideas.  If you follow Jesus, what does it mean when the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit living in you?

Notice, He is called the Holy “Spirit”, so where is He likely to come to us?  Under the surface, in our heart, our roots.  It’s as if the very heart of God is entangled with our hearts. It’s as if His roots are intimately entangled with our roots.  If you question whether God loves you, may I suggest that no other entity in the history of the universe loves you as much as His heart is wrapped around your heart. He is Immanuel – God with us.  God in us.  God’s perfect, pure roots are lovingly entangled with our messed-up, dirty roots.

If the imagery makes us a bit uncomfortable because it is so raw, so intimate – it’s because God recklessly and unabashedly loves us and desires to be with us. He desires us to know Him because it is so good for us to know Him.

The Bible speaks to the heart or spirit as our core, that we are primarily beings of desire. Here are a few examples:

• “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” ^[5]
• “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.”^[6]
• “As in water face reflects face, So the heart of man reflects man.”^[7]
• Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”^[8]
• “…and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”^[9]
• “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”^[10]

So why is this so important? I think many of us would assume that our hearts are our centers; we see this reflected in Christian circles and conversations all over the place. 

Because there is a huge difference between mentally agreeing that we are primarily spiritual and courageously peering into our hearts to uncover our brokenness, our isolation, our anger, our rage, because of unmet, abandoned, or even abused desires. 

The woman, growing up in a home with an emotionally distant father, is now married to an emotionally distant husband.  Her desires to be known, to be accepted, to be heard, to be secure, are still there but buried under years of faking it – of “praising the Lord” and repeating the phrase “God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.” Because that’s what Christians are supposed to say.  Meanwhile, her heart grows cold, numb, and distant because it no longer believes she is worthy of being known.   

The all-too common man who has a great job, plays with his kids, volunteers at church, but finds himself addicted to whatever: maybe it’s work, church activities, porn, or other people’s approval. This father listens carefully to sermons about how important it is to obey and turn from sin, and he desperately wants to, but he can’t seem to master the addiction.  Instead, it seems to master him.  He quietly wonders if he will ever conquer it.  Some days, he wonders if he’s even saved.

For years, I was mystified that God calls David a “man after His own heart.” Sure, the first part of David’s life is inspiring.  In killing Goliath, David became the world’s most renowned underdog.  Even his years running from an increasingly insane King Saul were filled with adventure and intrigue.

And he had some wonderful moments after he took the throne, but let’s be honest.  David didn’t win any father or husband of the year awards, and there’s that matter of taking a census that didn’t end well.  And he arranged the death of a faithful man, because David slept with his wife and got her pregnant, and didn’t want to get caught. 

Man after God’s own heart?  What about Joseph?  We might conclude he was arrogant in his youth, but his faithfulness to God despite being sold by his brothers, being unjustly accused by his boss for doing the right thing, and being forgotten in jail is extraordinary.  How about Joshua?  He seemed to get it right most of the time.

Why is David the man who gets such an exalted title as a “man after God’s own heart?” It can’t be because he was more righteous than other major Bible figures, can it? David had spectacular moments of success, but it seems those were only matched by his spectacular failures. 

Then I started to read his Psalms. There is a tenderness to David, but there’s also a fierceness.  There is a loyalty to God that I can only hope to develop.  He has an incredible breadth and depth of emotion. 

I’ve heard dozens of sermons on Psalm 139 – it’s the one where David expresses the intimacy and wonder of God’s creative hand in forming each human being.  David tells us that God “knits us together.” What a beautiful, soft, maternal way to describe our conception. 

Yet I don’t recall hearing any sermons on verses 19-22, where David pleads with God to slay the wicked, and he proclaims his hatred for God’s enemies.  All of this emotion and passion in 24 verses!

It’s an appropriate word to describe David. Passionate.  Raw. Real. Fierce.  Loyal.  When David sinned, he sinned big, but his repentance was immediate, painfully honest, and unfiltered. 

Maybe that’s the word.  David was unfiltered.  He seemed to be unnaturally attuned to his own heart and perfectly willing and happy to share himself in all of his glory and in all of his depravity.  If nothing else, David was uncommonly authentic. He was gloriously real, even if that meant passionately expressing his desires when they were crushed, or when he was abandoned, or when he was unjustly accused, or when he harmed those around him. 

That’s the huge difference between our minds agreeing that we are creatures of desire and living vulnerably as creatures of desire.

The Heart of the Father

Here’s a question.  If someone were to ask us why we pray, what would we answer?

A theological answer may well be “Because God commands us to.”  I’ve heard academics answer it this way.  Is that true?  Yes, of course it’s true.  But does the answer capture your heart and speak to your desires?

The poet, the artist, the musician might respond to the same question as this:

Imagine the daily routine of a six-year-old boy coming home from school. He opens the door, and he sees his father sitting in his favorite chair. His father smiles gently, beckons his little boy over, picks him up, sits him in his lap, and asks, “How was your day?”

Most days, the little boy goes on about light-hearted things. His teacher said this or that, he played baseball on the playground, he likes math, and he really doesn’t like English at all. 

Some days when his father asks, “How was your day?,” he talks about his friends.  He has a best friend named Sam, and he and Sam both like pizza.  He has another friend -that’s Mackenzie – and she is very funny.  And sometimes the little boy tells his father about other children in his class that, quite frankly, he doesn’t like all that much. 

Sometimes the little boy asks his father questions.  “Why isn’t the sky green? Why is it blue?” “Why are there mosquitoes?  Do we really need mosquitoes?”  “Why do I have to learn English? It’s dumb.”

Sometimes the questions are more serious. “Sam is sick today.  Why do people get sick?”  “My teacher punished me for something I didn’t do.  That makes me angry. Is it okay to be angry?”

Sometimes the father answers the little boy’s questions. Sometimes he asks a question in return.  Other times, he just sits with his little boy, knowing his son will need to answer some of these questions in his own time. 

Once in a while, the little boy walks through the front door, hunched over, with his face bent towards the floor.  He walks over to his father, looks away, and says he said something mean to Mackenzie that hurt her feelings.  One time, he got so upset that he threw his toy on the floor and broke it. That made him cry – not because he was angry anymore but because he missed his toy. And each time his father listens, picks him up, puts him in his lap, and reassures him.  Sometimes they talk about how to make things right, and sometimes the father just lets his little boy sit and think.

And every so often, the little boy barely makes it through the front door.  He has been betrayed, or maybe he has lost someone dear to him.  Perhaps he has been abandoned or used.  He just collapses on the floor.

His father rushes over, sweeps him up, and carries him to his favorite chair.  He sits down and cradles his son in his lap.  When the Father asks his little boy, “How was your day?,” there is no answer.  The little boy has no words. He can’t even cry. 

And his father just holds him, quietly, gently, for what seems like days and days.  And slowly – ever so slowly – the little boy speaks a few words, and the tears begin to flow. And, over time – a long time, the little boy realizes it’s going to be okay. Not because it doesn’t hurt, or he doesn’t feel a terrible loss, but because his father is simply there.

Why do we pray? Do we pray because God commands us?  I suppose so.  But perhaps it’s more about the heart of our Father, who simply invites us to come home, sit in his presence, and tell Him about our day.

Thanks for listening!  If you’d like more information on Soil and Roots, check out the website at www.soilandroots.org.  Feel free to drop us an email at fish@soilandroots.org. We’ll see you next time.

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[1] https://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/rich_mullins/higher_education_and_the_book_of_love.html

[2]Smith, J.K.A. (2009). Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (p. 31). Baker Academic.

[3] Willard, D. (2012). Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (p. 30). NavPress.

[4] https://adamyoungcounseling.com/free-documents/ (document called Attachment)

^[5] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Ps 37:4). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

^[6] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Pr 4:23). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

^[7] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Pr 27:19). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

^[8] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Eze 36:26). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

^[9] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Ro 5:5). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

^[10] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (2 Co 1:21–22). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.