What an enormous resource God has given His creatures with the brain. As it relates, To thinking. We're not just empty minds. We don't live merely as thinkers, but we do play football, we play the piano, we play golf, we walk across the street, we ride bicycles. We are engaged in physical activity all the time because not only do we have a mind, but we also have a body.
Our Savior Jesus Christ once famously said to his disciple Peter, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. In that moment, our Lord spoke something that philosophers would not articulate for many centuries to come. that our physical actions are the result of our thoughts and of our character. Hello and welcome back to Renewing Your Mind. I'm glad you've joined us.
Yesterday, we began a brief study of Dr. Sproll's series, Think Like a Christian. And today we continue with a message titled, Mind and Body. Scripture makes it clear that our physical actions are the fruits of our thoughts.
So that's why it's vitally important for Christians to consider the importance of thought. and for our minds to be renewed. Stay tuned until the end of today's episode to find out how you can receive a digital download of this entire series. along with a special edition Renewing Your Mind notebook. But right now, here's Dr.
Sproll. We're always interested. in frontier exploration.
Some of the most thrilling adventure stories of the past. As to do with those people who risked life and limbs. To explore new worlds, new areas of this planet, and all of the adventure of people like Magellan and Vosco da Gama and others.
Well nowadays they talk in different terms about The New Frontier.
Some think of outer space as being the dominant frontier of our day. Others are saying that there's a portion of this world That is a brand new frontier, namely, The depths of the oceans, because we're now just beginning to have the technology to explore that area of this world that heretofore, in many ways, has not been. Explored. But other scientists argue know that the real, greatest and most significant frontier of our day. Is Studies of the human brain.
We're told that we never use more than 4 or 5% of the capacity of our brains. And when we think of the manifold ways in which the brain records every word that we hear, every sight that we view, every experience that we have. And all of the beta. That is stored up in the brain. I read an article not too long ago where the author was writing about some of this contemporary research into the brain.
And he said, in light of the amazing microtechnology of the current day, of the storage capacity of these tiny computer chips now that are used to store megabytes of data. This particular scientist said that the mind is like a computer in some ways, but to build a computer with today's technology that could function with the storage capacity of the human brain would require a computer the size of the Empire State Building.
Now, I don't know whether that was an accurate analogy or not, but the impact was clear. In terms of generating an awesome response of that delicate mechanism. that we call the brain. Another book that I read recently on neurological research. involves some studies of the relationship between physical actions.
and the functioning of the brain. studies were made of professional athletes. And of world-class concert pianists. And what these studies indicated For example, they did some kind of a study on Joe Montana, the former quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers. And they talked about all of the decisions that had to be made.
From the time the quarterback received the snap from center, dropped back. to pass, read the defense. saw his receivers Raised his arm, took his arm back, brought it forward, and released the ball. All of the things that are transpiring in that split couple of seconds. of action.
What is it that made Joe Montana so superior in his ability to react to blitzes and complex defense structures and all of that and to make these crucial decisions and actions in such a short period of time.
Well The same question was studied with respect to world-class piano players who. seem to have flying fingers. where they can play these difficult passages of music with astonishing speed. and accuracy. And what they discovered in this brain research is that there are actual physiological changes that take place.
In the brain, in the synapses, in the connecting tissues, of the brain that occur from kinds of repetition. Athletes speak about muscle memory.
Well, there's no memory in the muscles. The memory's in the brain. And I'm interested in golf, and I hear these great golfers talk about when they ask them, well, how did you hit that magnificent shot? And he said, Well, my pre-shot routine is that I look at the flag on the green. I block out all the obstacles from my thinking: the sand traps, the water hazards, and all of those things.
And then, before I hit the shot, I visualize the kind of shot. that I want to hit to the green. And then I just hit it. And they'll talk about being in the zone, how all of a sudden the green looks huge and the pin looks a mile high and the cup five feet wide, and they have this visualization that sounds like some kind of Eastern mysticism, some Zen Buddhist approach to play and go. With this visualization.
And so they tell you all that. And get the negative thoughts out of your mind, they tell you. The power of positive thinking.
Well, how many times if you're an amateur golfer have you stood over your ball and you looked at the grain and there was a lake between your ball and the grain. And the last thing that you thought before you took the club back was what. Don't Hit it in the water.
So, what happened? Then you proceeded to hit it in the water. Why? Because. The shot that you hit into the water is a shot that you know how to make.
Your brain has. Connective tissue on how to hit that shot. And you just called upon that with your thinking. It's negative visualization.
So I mean is this some kind of mysticism? No. Their understanding that there is this physiological dimension. That relates to physical activity, connecting between the brain. and bodily Reactions again.
They did a study. of people who were not professional piano players. And they did a triple study. They took three groups of people who did not know how to play the piano. And they gave them A run to play, and they had six weeks to learn how to play this run up the keyboard.
And the first group were shown what notes were in the run. and they were told to practise it so much time every day, an hour or two hours a day for six weeks, as fast as they possibly could. And the second group We're told to practice this passage very slowly and methodically. for two hours a day for six weeks. Going up the scale boom boom boom boom With the exact fingering very slowly and not doing anything to increase the speed of the fingers, hitting the keys.
Until One was able to do it at a certain speed 20 times in a row without a mistake. Then you could increase the tempo a little bit. And so there was this methodical process of practicing. The third group Had the most boring task of all. They were told to sit at the piano bench for two hours a day for six weeks.
And just look from note to note, note to note in the process without ever touching the keyboard, just looking at it. And then after six weeks, they compared the results. Those that had practised this particular passage as fast as they could. Every day from the beginning. We're no more proficient.
After six weeks, than they were at the beginning, they made the same number of mistakes and boo-boos. as they were flying up and down the keyboard, hitting the wrong notes. The group that did it in the methodical, precise, slow, gradual method. After six weeks, We're flying up the keyboard virtually with the same speed as a professional musician. And the amazing thing was that the third group who didn't touch the keyboard at all.
We're able to play the passage with almost the same proficiency. as the second group.
Now what they decided from this study. was that the careful Repetition. of the same activity or thought Over and over and over again. actually changed the physiology of the brain. I've told young guys that are planning to go on the professional golf tour.
So if you want to take advantage of this. which you should do every day for one hour. is putt. from two feet. and no more than two feet.
And do that every day for an hour. Until you actually change. The physiology of your brain, and then the rest of your life, every putt is a two-foot putt. If you can start every putt straight for the first two feet, you're going to be the best putter in the world. But very few, if any of them, will ever go through that monotonous routine.
They'd rather practice a putt from eight feet and then from 10 feet and then from 12 feet. And in doing that, they never develop this memory bank that the mind is capable of doing.
Now, these things have nothing particularly to do with what we're calling the Christian mind, only for us to step back for a minute as Christians. and look in astonishment of how fearfully and wonderfully we are made. And what an enormous resource God has given his creatures with the brain. As it relates. to thinking.
And I'll be talking more about the discipline of thinking.
Now we've so far just looked at the physical relationships, because we're not just empty minds. We don't live merely as thinkers. But we do play football, we play the piano, we play golf, we walk across the street, we ride bicycles, we are engaged in physical activity all the time because not only do we have a mind, but we also have a body.
Now somebody asked me earlier Can a feeling Create a thought. Or does the thought Create. The feeling. And my basic answer to that question is. It can go both ways.
And we don't have to be neurological researchers to understand that. We experience that all the time. Think about it. You have a physical sensation in your stomach that you call a hunger pain. And as a result of that feeling, what happens?
What thought goes through your mind? Hm I'd like to have some lunch now.
So that now you're thinking. has been a response to your physical feeling. On the other hand, if you're sitting there thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, and you think about all the things that can go wrong. Before you know it, As you're thinking of these things, you start feeling butterflies in your stomach or a pain in your head as your body is responding physically to your thinking. This is what we call psychosomatic interaction.
Where there is an interaction between the mind and the body.
Now, as I've said earlier, there are those who want to understand the mind as if it were totally disconnected from the body. And others who want to explain thinking and the mind as if it were nothing more than a physical response. And I said Christianity rejects both of those options. But in that rejection, we don't therefore come to the conclusion that there's no interplay between mind and body. There is a powerful interplay that we know that exists between thought and action.
between site. And feeling. And again, it raises one of the oldest and most difficult Philosophical posers. I remember in the seventeenth century, the advent and birth of the age of rationalism, the French mathematician Rene Descartes. was absorbed with this question.
It was a question of causality. He was saying how are thought An action Connected. or related. Why is it? that Joe Montana can have a thought about a wide receiver going down the sidelines and then immediately respond with a physical action whereby he throws the ball in the precise direction of that wide receiver.
How can I think about doing something? thinking about picking up the chair in front of me and then proceed to pick it up. Or, conversely, how do you physical actions produce or stimulate Thinking. And the reason why this is not a simple matter. is because we think of The physical or What we call the material It's being made up of quantitative things.
And remember, I've mentioned the theologian who was asked, What is the mind? And he said, No matter. And what is matter? he said, never mind. He was trying to say that there is a fundamental distinction Between the physical and the mental.
They may be connected. They may be related. But they are not the same thing. that a thought Cannot be weighed. It takes up no space, cannot be measured.
It is non-physical. And so we make this distinction between. matter and thought, even though we understand But they can be related to each other. And a thought can produce a material response, and the material response can produce a thought.
Well, this is what they cart. was wrestling with as a philosopher mathematician. And he developed a theory that was simply called interactionism. Interactionism. which sometimes if you put a label on something We think we've explained it.
All he's saying at this point is that there's some kind of interaction between thought and and matter between mind and body. But in trying to answer the question, How? Does a thought translate into an action.
Now, if I can just get a tiny bit technical for a second. In working this through, Descartes made a distinction between what he called extension And non-extension. He made the distinction to indicate the difference between. matter and mind. that which is physical always has some degree of extension.
Takes up space and has weight, it's extended. That which is mental. Has no weight. No size. It's non-extension.
So, how can you get from one realm to the other realm? That's one of the greatest mysteries there is about human life.
Some of you perhaps have never even thought about it. But without thinking about it. You're engaged in this process. every moment of your life.
Sometimes that's what philosophers do to upset the apple cart. They begin asking questions about stuff that we just do and we don't think about at all.
Well, the interesting theory that Descartes came up with was that the point of transition between thought and action. is in the pineal gland at the base of the brain. And it could have been anywhere in the brain. His argument was based on mathematics, and he said. There has to be a point.
of transition. Between extension. and non-extension. and he liked the word point. Because a point How many points can you have in a line mathematically?
Theoretically, an infinite number. Because a point Takes up space, but has no dimensions. It's neither fish nor fowl. It's neither pure extension or pure non-extension. And so he was looking for some complicated category that he could say there is this place where the transition takes place.
As I said, you don't read that in textbooks of neurology today. There it's a mathematical point. Because, tell you the truth, we still don't know. How? this interaction.
takes place. And it's because we don't know how it takes place. that some would try to deny That it takes place. But there's nothing about which you are more certain. Then that there is a difference.
Between your body and your mind. and that you are responsible. for your thinking. and that your actions are intimately related. to your thinking.
It didn't take Descartes or modern neurological research to understand that the ancient. Wisdom literature made the Declaration as a man Thinks In his heart.
So is he. And what the scripture is saying at that point is. that we Live out. In our physical lives. The deepest thoughts of our own minds.
That's why we need. transformed minds. that have transformed lives. My wife told me yesterday that she was listening to Dr. Lara on the radio.
And she was all excited because she told me that this woman called in. and said that she was dating some fella And I don't know whether they were engaged or not, but they were committed to each other. And she said, and the woman said to Doctor Laura, and I did something completely out of character. Doctor Laura said, What was that? She said, I went out on a date with one of my old boyfriends.
And Dr. Laura said, Well, what do you mean you did something out of character? She says, I never do anything like that. That's just not typical or characteristic of my personality. It was an out-of-character type of activity.
Dr. Laura said, Wait a minute. Were you the one who did this? Yes. Then it's part of your character.
This is because your character is based upon what you do.
Well, it may be that you don't do this regularly and very often. but you can't dismiss it as being uncharacteristic. And my wife said, she said, I wanted to cheer out loud. Because what she was saying to this woman is You are responsible. For what you do.
And the mind is now playing tricks on you to try to rationalize. Your behavior at this point saying I didn't really do it. Or if I did it, it wasn't really me. It wasn't part of my character. No, everything you do...
and everything you think. is what makes up your character. That's an important reminder. Everything we think makes up our character, and our actions are not only the result of our thoughts. But they are also a reflection of our character.
That's why it's so important that we renew our minds, that we might live transformed lives. If these messages have sparked your curiosity about this subject, call us with a gift at 800-435-4343. or give a donation at renewingyourmind.org to receive lifetime digital access to Dr. Sproll's entire 12-part series, along with a Renewing Your Mind notebook for note-taking. Your support helps us to reach more people with the truth of God's Word.
Tomorrow we'll continue deeper into the world of the mind, as doctor Sproll explores one of the deepest philosophical questions of all time. How do I know? Here's a preview. We've been told from ancient times that the unexamined life is not worth living. And I agree with that.
And yet, I must find myself in a small minority because I find it difficult. to find many people Who put their own philosophies and their religious convictions. under a microscope and ask themselves, why do I believe what I believe? Do I believe it simply because it's been passed on to me by my parents or the subcultural community? That I've been in.
Am I a Republican just simply because I live in the midst of Republicans, or have I really thought through the issues that divide people on political theory? Why do you believe what you believe? Because what you believe determines how you live. And so it's a very important question to ask yourself, particularly as a Christian. because there is a real sense in which we are called upon to justify Our belief systems.
Not just to our neighbor. but to ourselves. Because we are called to be mature in our faith. Paul tells us to be babes in evil, but in our understanding. to be adults, which means We have to use the minds that God has given us.
To see. the basis for our truth. This should not threaten us, it should encourage us. as the more carefully I believe we examine The data of Scripture. the more amazed we will be.
the internal harmony and profundity. of it. Join us here on Renewing Your Mind.
