"the heart of man" changes

[bricklayer]

Biblically, the "heart" refers to intellect-emotion-will. It is the "soul"; it's what makes one a person.

Western culture seems to me to romanticize "heart". We tend to equate the heart with the emotions, the brain with the intellect and the will with a mix. The bible does not and the biblical cultures did not have the same reference.

Man is a process. Our physical life is a material process. We are biological, intellectual, emotional and willful processes. We are a psychosomatic union of the material and immaterial.

A process is a prescribed sequence of changes.

I am in awe that the very heart of man is prescribed. That this is exactly the creation God chose to create, right down to our thoughts, feelings and wills excites me. It changes my heart.

 

[cXXo]

What are you saying?

 

[bricklayer]

What are you saying?

The heart of man is composed of intellectual, emotional and willful processes.
As a process, the heart of man is a prescribed sequence of thoughts, feelings and choices.

For some reason only God knows, I find God's sovereignty over the hearts of men much more impressive than His sovereignty over the balance of His creation. I suspect that reveals an anthropocentric prejudice on my part and I'm grateful to be dispossessed of it.

 

[cXXo]

That's good then... I guess.

What is this rambling about western culture differing from biblical culture? The only distinction you make is that western culture attributes intellect and will to the brain rather than the heart... Which is quite correct I'm afraid.

 

[bricklayer]

That's good then... I guess.

What is this rambling about western culture differing from biblical culture? The only distinction you make is that western culture attributes intellect and will to the brain rather than the heart... Which is quite correct I'm afraid.

Ah yes, you're showing your "westerness".

Biblically, the heart of man is not just emotional; it is also intellectual and willful.

Western culture tends to romanticize the heart of man; that is to say that, we tend to equate heart with emotion to the exclusion of intellect and will.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

So if man is a process, and this includes action, where does personal responsibility fir in?

 

[Paradoxum]

I don't understand what your trying to say.

Though we use the heart symbolically to mean emotion, love, etc, we also know that intelligence, emotion and will are all in the brain and that the heart is a muscle. Are trying to say the part of the mind that deals with emotion (the heart) is also intelligent and wilful? But if that is the case I see what that really means.

Also what has God's sovereignty got to do with it?

 

[cXXo]

The heart is an organ that pumps blood. It's associated with emotion because some of the most intense emotions are characterized by elevated heart rates. Primitive people, in their ignorance chose to consider this indication that emotion came from the heart. As people were largely illogical in biblical times, perhaps their intelligence and will were driven primarily by emotion.

 

[The Nihilist]

Yeah, I think we're actually talking about the brain here

 

[bricklayer]

So if man is a process, and this includes action, where does personal responsibility fir in?

The responsibility is with the actor not the author.
No one puts an author on trial for an act commited but her character.

This creation is the process, exactly the process, God chose to reveal His glory, the inviolate balance of His infinite perfections.

 

[bricklayer]

I don't understand what your trying to say.

Though we use the heart symbolically to mean emotion, love, etc, we also know that intelligence, emotion and will are all in the brain and that the heart is a muscle. Are trying to say the part of the mind that deals with emotion (the heart) is also intelligent and willful? But if that is the case I see what that really means.

Also what has God's sovereignty got to do with it?

Yes we do use the heart symbolically to refer to emotion,
yet we also know that the majority of the biological processes involved with thought, feeling and will are conducted in the brain.
However, there are aspects to thought, feeling and will that transcend the biological, even the material altogether.

There is nothing wrong with romanticizing the heart. It is even done in some biblical song and poetry. By and large however, biblically, the "heart of man" refers to the soul of man: intellect-emotion-will.

I am often conflicted. I may understand and even be enthusiastic, but I get lazy; my will fails me. I may understand and evan be willing, but I'm really just not feeling it. Sometimes, I'm willing and ready, but to be honest, I really don't understand. I get "swept up in it all".
Of each of the above, I can say that, "I wasn't in it with my whole heart".

To be honest, most of the time I settle for two out of three in the good.

 

[bricklayer]

The heart is an organ that pumps blood. It's associated with emotion because some of the most intense emotions are characterized by elevated heart rates. Primitive people, in their ignorance chose to consider this indication that emotion came from the heart. As people were largely illogical in biblical times, perhaps their intelligence and will were driven primarily by emotion.

... and none of it by chance.

I tend to agree with you about the dominance of emotion in the absense of a strong will and intellect.

 

[cXXo]

Does anything happen by chance? What makes you an authority on the workings of the universe? You have no more clue than the rest of us when it comes to what if anything is 'divine will'. How do you claim knowledge you don't have?

 

[bricklayer]

Does anything happen by chance? What makes you an authority on the workings of the universe? You have no more clue than the rest of us when it comes to what if anything is 'divine will'. How do you claim knowledge you don't have?

Intellectually, nothing is really ever proven to me; it's just that all the other ideas I've considered have been, to my satisfaction, des-proven. What remains is what I am left to believe.
Everyone is left to believe something; such is the nature is a contingent being.