(Having reviewed materialistically focused contributors to the mental health crisis, we now go deeper for real root causes.)

              Ultimately all these factors depend on our spiritual view of reality and our response to it.  How we harness technology to improve life rather than be pushed along by it depends on our beliefs about ultimately reality having purposes to pursue outside ourselves.  How we choose what work to do, how much work is right, and how we go about work depends on our beliefs and values about what is true and important in life.  The choices we make regarding work-life balance, whether regarding what we balance against work or how we balance it, depend again on values and beliefs shaped by our view of reality.  The composition and function of our families will depend on our spiritual values and beliefs.  Even our participation in government and our response to it depends on our view of ultimate reality.  Holding a correct view of the spiritual truths of reality and applying them to our lives can extensively modify the impact of each of these contributors to mental health as well as any other factors that could be named. 

              Viewing the totality of life as comprised solely of the material which we see, taste, touch, smell, and hear but ignoring the unseen reality of the spiritual will only lead to problems.  Ignoring the reality of a Creator God who continues to reign over all things with expectations of our compliance with His natural order of the physical world as well as our obedience to His ethical commands will only result in problems such as we are experiencing or worse.  Up to this point, these physically focused views of the mental health crisis’ contributing factors ignored this spiritual reality, while their overwhelming portrayal of the problem was mounting a depressing picture.  Looking solely at the physical realities in the mental health crisis is like untangling the shoelaces by looking at only one shoelace and pretending the other knot does not exist.  They are left staring in disbelief at the fact that the knotted shoelaces are still a mess, maybe even worse than before they started.

              With this acknowledgement that the materialistic reality focused view falls woefully short, we could reflexively shift our attention to a spiritually simplistic view which still oversimplifies the crisis.  For example, we could jump to blaming various sins and that would still be inadequate though not technically wrong to include.  Sinful drives for pleasure, greed, lusts, gluttony and other sins do affect mental health.  We all know countless examples of how each of these sinful desires have destroyed the lives of someone around us.  As a society we also recognize the role of drug addiction in the present crisis of mental illness.  Each of these sins drive personal and societal forces and predictably lead to poor mental health as they were never meant to produce mental health, but to tempt us away from true health.  Simply trying to satisfy these tempting desires will not lead to mental health, but simply trying to avoid these sinful drives does not automatically guarantee mental health either.  Simplistically restraining sin through legislation or individual self-control only addresses the spiritual aspect of reality superficially.

              Another woefully short attempt to address the spiritual reality behind the mental health crisis can be found in a man-centered spirituality.  While going beyond physical responses, such a self-directed attempt still fails to address the totality of the spiritual need.  At times, these man-centered responses are promoted for individuals to use in overcoming their mental illness or to prevent it.  They come in various forms.  Meditation and mindfulness offer some superficial comfort for mentally hurting, but their mind over life challenges approach does not address the fullness of the spiritual realities and thus cannot heal at the deepest levels.  Self-help strategies are promoted to strengthen individuals who tend toward the “feeling powerless to change” attitude in order to teach them how to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  Psychological strategies employed by a multitude of practitioners of different types also attempt to equip individuals to overcome their mental illness by learning to think differently and thus feel differently.  Their mind over emotion approach can lessen the suffering at times but without approaching life in its wholeness including a correct view of spirituality, the balm of relief only goes so deep and lasts so long.  Each of these individual responses falls short in fully or truly preventing or treating all the nuances and depths of mental illness.

              This same mindset of attempting to solve mental illness through man-centered means and philosophies can also be worked out in larger more systemically applied approaches.  One particular approach to life, the revolutionary mindset, claims it is aiming at solving the wrongs of individual and societal life while actually creating more mental disease through its forced application.  The revolutionary mindset refers to the age-old and often repeated worldview that the currently shared system of society is the primary source of our problems.  This mindset claims that our primary focus should be to overturn and replace that presently overarching worldview with something different, something revolutionary rather than simply reforming the current. 

              The claims that our society has been driven primarily by systemic racism for a few centuries serves as a present-day poignant example.  Those who promote this philosophy appear to see such systemic racism at work not only in the whole timeline of history but in practically every contemporary aspect of life which goes against their beliefs and values.  This mindset can then go beyond the racism one might think of in regards to skin color or nationality and extend into endless polarizations of us versus them regarding various lifestyles.  This revolutionary mindset at work in the proponents of modern-day systemic racism only creates more dysfunction in not only the broader mundane functions of society but also in the foundations of society, particularly families and churches.  Individuals are taught that they are being abused by nebulous forces working through their own neighbors, their own family, their own churches, and more.  Distrust and distress create angst and emotional disruptions which press them into mental illness.  Each of these man centered attempts at spiritual share the common approach of looking to self or to others for resolution so that we do not have to look to God for solutions. 

              Instead of these man-centered approaches, we must look deeper if we are to find a more wholistic picture of the mental health crisis.  The reality comes into focus that we as individuals and collectively as a society are not only pursuing the wrong desires, but we don’t even know what good mental health should look like.  (While a Christian’s goal is not technically primarily mental wellness / well-being, for the general audience seeking answers for mental illness, we approach from this angle so that we show that mental wellness requires spiritual wellness at its deepest foundation.) With respect to mental health we are trying to avoid the problem of mental illness, but don’t really know what we should be aiming at.  It must be more than satisfying a physical desire, sinful or not, and more than avoiding some bad feeling.  It must encompass more than pursuing something that we simply like better than something else and more than just a vague sense of feeling “good”.  We must have a better picture of the mental health shoelaces as they should look so we can pursue that ideal.  Then we have a chance of untangling the knot since we have no chance to just “start over” with the mess we see now.  We have to start from a tangled knot and work our way back to better mental health individually and societally.  

              We must understand what true mental health should look like based on something beyond us as looking no deeper than our own likes and dislikes and our own feelings will not provide a picture of what it should be.  The superficial goals will only partially explain what is now existent.  Instead, we must admit that a standard beyond us and an intended design for mental wellness exists.  We need to understand that standard and that design from the revelation of God’s Word in the Bible since our human view and understanding is inadequate due to the sinful natures which we all possess.  No matter how many human ideas we combine, the contamination of sin will never allow us to accurately reason out right from wrong, good from bad, mental health from mental illness in its entirety.  Only by revelation from the One who created all things can we hope to best understand what we should pursue in mental health.    Only by first understanding what mental wellness should look like can we then pursue it correctly.  

              In the revelation of the Bible, we can begin understanding God’s design for mental health by looking at some of the words used to describe health.  These words and their context describe what we should pursue.  This can begin by seeing mental health as just one part of the Hebrew word, “shalom” or the Greek word, “eirene”.  Another blog series (LINK HERE) spends its entirety working through these words and others in regards to what true health looks like, but for now I focus on these two words in regards to mental health.  “Shalom” refers to a state of wholeness in regards to physical, spiritual, and relational well-being having been derived from the Hebrew, “shalom” meaning complete.  (paraphrased from Brown-Driver-Briggs dictionary) “Eirene” similarly conveys individual or collective tranquility, freedom from war, peace between individuals, and also to the state of man after salvation through Christ as he or she stands before God (Thayer’s).

              Prior to delving into these Biblical words for well-being, we must acknowledge the reality of our condition.  Such conformity to a revealed standard will sound daunting in terms of understanding it and in terms of living it.  The conformity required by God is perfection (Matthew 5:48: could also be translated as “mature” but with same connotation of becoming “mature” like God which is unattainable by our own efforts).  Our human limits in terms of knowing, reasoning, and doing rightly fall short in terms of natural abilities and also in terms of our sinful natures.  Only through the work of the Holy Spirit within us can we rightly understand general revelation or special revelation (1 Corinthians 2:6-16).  In order to know God and his design rightly, we must know God in terms of relationship such that His Spirit makes our understanding as clear as is humanly possible. 

               Once we know God in relationship, we can then press into understanding God’s intent for us.  Aiming at “shalom” or “eirene” means that we attempt to live in that wholeness which only God gives.  We live in that wholeness when we live according to His given design for our bodies, our relationships, and even our environment. We do this by living according to the spiritual ethics of our Creator revealed supernaturally and according to the physical laws of our Creator revealed in nature.  This design applies to our relationships with family, with church, and with community, as well as with the physical environment (dominion mandate of Genesis). 

              We see this goal of “shalom” in various verses of the Bible as the ideal goals for the state of our whole-being.  Numbers 6:24-26 serves as a beautiful example as it connects this “shalom” in verse 26 translated as “peace” to God’s blessing in verse 24.  In the three verses of 24 through 26, blessing is connected with God’s keeping, His face shining on them, His grace towards them, His countenance upon them, and finally with giving them “shalom”.  This state of blessing and “shalom” depends entirely on God’s disposition towards them and is the basis for the well-being of our lives.

              We see a similar proclamation in Psalm 29:11 where the Psalmist first petitions for strength for His people.  Then the Psalmist petitions for the blessings of peace.  Given the inspired nature of the Psalms and no nearby Scripture context to refute this petition’s appropriateness, we can assume that this prayer for peace was consistent with God’s will.  Again, peace is connected as a core part of God’s blessing. 

Bibliography:

Thayer’s Expanded Greek Definition, Electronic Database.  Biblesoft, Inc.  https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/greek/1515.html  Accessed 10/28/23

Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Unabridged, Electronic Database.  BibleSoft.com.  https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/hebrew/7965.html Accessed 10/28/23

(In the next installment, we will carry this concept of “shalom” into the New Testament with the Greek word “eirene”.)