Mental Illness: The Necessity for Faith and Authority

by Daniel R. Berger II

If the symptoms fully qualify an individual to have a mental illness yet the patient is diagnosed as having a phenocopy or symptoms that simply “mimic an alleged illness,” how does one know objectively what is wrong with the patient? What if all human disorder has explainable causes apart from the psychiatric system?

For the believer, faith in the sufficiency of God and his Word to meet our needs of life and godliness must come before any science that those who reject God might present as fact. While we certainly should never reject valid truth or ignore alleged discoveries, we must above all choose to either establish the Creator, not the creation, as the highest authority. If alleged science precedes our faith, then we not only reject God and His Word as our supreme authority, but we also invite the deceptive and destructive philosophies and traditions of human wisdom and forego biblical discernment.

But God’s Word has already explained that which cannot be seen or understood through the scientific process concerning the mind, emotions, desires, and behaviors. When it comes to the soul or mind, people do not need to look beyond what God has revealed in His

Word to understand true human nature. Instead, our responsibility is simply to trust God and His wisdom on issues which He has clearly explained and which have never been disproved. The only reason people attempt to explain a person’s unobservable nature differently than God does is that they have rejected God’s Word as their ultimate authority.

True scientists do not dogmatically claim an unproven theory as true. They establish a theory based on faith

and attempt to prove it as true or recognize the theory as false. When their theories are proved wrong, however, they admit discovered errors in their theories, and thus they dismiss such theories as invalid.[317]

Faith is the prerequisite for understanding the physical world, but science is not essential for faith; in other words, though science (what is observable, repeatable, and measureable) can be beneficial to our faith, it is not necessary for faith. This truth in Hebrews allows us to understand why secular authorities on most mental disorders deny faith in God as Creator and instead believe in the so-called science of evolution.[319] The reality is that man’s presuppositional faith determines his definition of and approaches to science.

Understanding the spiritual nature of our minds as created by God helps us better understand ourselves and better connect to God in whose image we are created. Failing to see and accept the dual nature of man as Scripture sets forth creates worse individual and social problems that then must also be remedied.

Despite mainstream thought about mental illness, Christians must grasp the fact that their faith in God as Savior and Creator of their souls and bodies does not end when it comes to understanding and approaching the mind. This reality makes right theology and an intimate relationship with God essential to mental health. Likewise, such an understanding reveals and establishes what normal truly looks like, what causes mental, emotional, and behavioral struggles and what truly remedies our common mental disorder. Unlike the secular construct, however, the Bible clearly defines normalcy and answers all surrounding questions regarding issues of life and godliness.