Hi Wayne. Cool site. I’ll bookmark it and come back often.

Issue: suppose someone is engaged in a pattern of outwardly-sinful behavior like drug use, prostitution, abuse or is unable to “abide in righteousness” or exercise “faith in Him” because of past abuse, depression, trauma or mental problems. The brain that houses our soul can be damaged to the point that behavior is affected. Does God chalk these up as offenses or does he look past them at the root of the problem and extend grace in spite of those difficulties? This probably borders on universalism but it’s something that I’ve thought a lot about lately as I’ve learned a bit about brain chemistry and it’s effects on behavior.

Welcome, "Anonymous". And thanks for the compliment. If you're an RSS fan, click on "rss" in the menu at left to learn about keeping up to date.

First, consider that brain chemistry works both ways. Brain chemistry affects behavior, but behavior and even voluntary cognition both affect brain chemistry. Determining a root cause can be especially challenging, then, because of this "feedback loop".

As for abiding in and remaining faithful to our Lord, it all comes down to a mere choice. To a point, we all have the choice to follow Him or not. What follows this choice is a combination of the individual's effort and the Lord's effort through that individual. When the individual's effort is weak (e.g., under heavy drug influence, immersed in a bad lifestyle, etc.), the Lord's effort can be that much stronger ("in our weakness, He is strong"). We need only make the choice first, followed by whatever effort we can muster, and He will provide the rest. Good deal, eh?

Too often, either the choice simply isn't made, the sinner preferring "the devil he knows" to the God he doesn't, perhaps. Also, when the choice is made, it's too common that little to no effort is made, relative to what effort can be made. Without the effort, however little may be possible, it's "faith without works" or a "dead faith"--not a real faith after all but merely lip service. Again, there are often cases when the available effort to be made by the sinner is very little indeed. They may be at rock bottom. This is precisely when they must rely upon the Lord's strength--and He will provide it--and why so many conversions, so to speak, occur at that rock bottom. When much effort is possible, people too often make very little of it and simultaneously rely very little upon the Lord--this gets them into further trouble every time.

Of course, I believe universalism is heretical, so while there is plenty of grace, we still have free will to accept it or not. This is expressed rather tangibly, as James writes; I tend to describe it as the choice and then action. You could say that from our mortal perspective, grace is universally available but not universally accepted. (I'm avoiding the Divine perspective of "predestination" here.)

Insofar as the brain is not damaged beyond conscious awareness, for lack of a better term--specifically that which makes us distinct from lower life forms--we are responsible for our actions. However, the severely retarded or brain-damaged may escape such responsibility if they are beyond the physical ability to trust in the Maker or make a choice for or against Him. I would tend to consider these as innocent as a newborn, say. They are still sinful in that they inherit our fallen nature, so they must still trust in the Lord's grace for salvation, but it's quite possible this trust may impossible from a cognitive perspective. I think the Lord takes this into account.

I may be opening a can of worms here, but I believe our responsibility varies with our ability (Luke 12:48). If you are dropped onto a deserted island while a toddler, say, and you never have access to the Word, you can still learn much about the Maker's character, but all the details may elude you. You may not get the Trinity, the Lord's names (e.g., Yehovah, Yeshua, Ruach HaKodesh), the master plan for salvation, etc. However, all of nature cries out some basic truths: a benevolent Creator, a fallen world, man is essentially sinful, and so forth. On the flip side, those who know much must have a more discerning eye. You may know Jesus Christ as your personal savior, yet deny the Trinity, hold to some bogus belief in man's ability to attain godhood, propose alternate "gospels", and other such nonsense; in this case, you know enough to know you're rejecting the God of the Bible and accepting instead an "alternate" (false) worldview. Often this is demonstrated by a twisting of the Word, perverting it into a kind of justification for one's sins rather than seeing what it plainly says and being convicted by Him (leading to repentance and forgiveness).

I hope I addressed everything sufficiently. If not, or if I did indeed open a new can of worms, feel free to respond.

Again, welcome to TuscanyCircle!

I’ve been thinking about this for several months and you seem like a good sounding board for the topic…at the risk of reviving a dead thread:

Agreed there is a circular dependency between behavior and brain chemistry. For instance, I believe you can climb out of depression over time or make a decision to be less emotionally reactive and ask God for grace to help in that time of need and he’ll supply it.

Here’s my thought experiment from recent events. Take the daughter/mother in the recent story from Austria. 20 years locked in a basement bearing kids by her own father; may as well be an island like you mentioned. Does God fault her for not seeing him as a loving father, for being angry with or not trusting Him, or for not believing at all? If she takes her own life in desperation is she condemned to an eternal life apart from the goodness of God that she so badly needed during her hellish life?

Segue. That existence (you can’t call it a life) has hard-wired her brain in some awful ways. It’s also an extreme case. But dial down the horror of that story and you might have a sexually abusive parent. A notch further down; a physically abusive parent. Next verbal or emotional abuse, or abandonment or neglect or war, famine, etc. Each of these conditions the brain to adapt to the harsh circumstances in a certain way – usually by hardening the individual to relationships. I’m curious to know where on that scale God, who designed the brain and its adaptive capabilities, starts imposing responsibility with eternal consequences.

I can’t come up with chapter:verse for an answer and I don’t really expect one from you. I’m also not trying to bait you – there enough flaming going on out there, especially among Christians and I don’t want to add to it. Just throwing some stuff out there for consideration. I think the modern church’s ‘sinners prayer’ approach falls short in the face of Jesus’ compassion on the oppressed combined, ironically enough, with research in the area.

No problem "reviving" any thread!

Obviously, a girl so abused is not likely to see God as a father figure, and her father does indeed make a poor archetype for the Almighty. (I'm not yet familiar with this news story, so forgive any ignorance on my part.) I see two paths of righteousness here. First, were she exposed to the Word, she might latch onto the Biblical image of her heavenly Father as a ray of hope for eternal justice; in this case, she'd be able to see her earthly father as the sinner he is. Second and more likely, the concept of equating God to a father would be completely foreign to her. Except in the case of Jesus, our Lord is clearly not our literal father at all. This is a metaphor, a spiritual analogy, that helps us to understand the relationship He wants with us. I doubt she would understand this metaphor or even know about it, sans the Word. She may still have some rudimentary understanding of the Divine, and it's mostly likely to be based upon an intangible, intuitive sense of justice, right and wrong--the details of which are unimportant to one so ignorant. In other words, she may still see God as good, even if she were to hate that He allowed such evil to happen to her. I believe our inherent sense of outrage at injustice, our desire for eternal righteousness (i.e., that the good guy will eventually win, even if it's only in the afterlife), is implanted in us by our Maker as a part of being made in His image. These are clues to His nature, that He is good, that we are not, that He is our Savior--be it in the form of the Judge, the Rescuer, the ideal Father, or our only real help.

As for suicide, I think the answers are not cut and dry. I do not buy into the doctrinal idea that it is only our last act in this life that determines our righteousness or faithfulness. I lifelong thief or murderer may have a deathbed conversion and be saved, but I don't believe that a deathbed sin, so to speak, necessarily tears us away from our Savior. As you allude and we've discussed, our eternal responsibility is limited by what has been given to us. Given such a horror of a life and little to no opportunity to come to know the Lord, we could think of such as being more innocent than not (inherited Original Sin notwithstanding). She would still need the Lord, but her cognitive understanding of that need, of how He can save her, may be severely limited by her circumstances. Even the final act of suicide is not enough to rip her away from the Lord if she did indeed have even an infantile relationship with Him.

You speak of a continuum of hardship, in a manner of speaking. I would only remind you that we are more than merely the product of nature and nurture (genetics and environment). I believe we are products of four forces:

1. Nature, genetics.
2. Nurture, environment, circumstances.
3. Will, our choices (even if lacking sufficient human strength to act upon such choices).
4. The Holy Spirit.

Much of us is indeed determined by our genes, including much of our personality. Our circumstances, upbringing, and such also play a significant role in determining who we are or how our brains are wired. These two are not the whole sum of our makeup, though. We all make choices. Some have many opportunities to choose (well or badly), while others have few choices available to them. Nevertheless, we make choices by our own will. We can sometimes choose differently than nature or nurture would otherwise dictate. Each of these three forces is limited in its power or scope. No one of them is omnipresent in our lives or infinite in its reach. Finally, the Holy Spirit Himself moves in our lives, often overriding nature, nurture, or even will. He voluntarily limits Himself, though--like the other three forces are limited--else we would be mere automatons. Regardless, He is able and often willing to move us toward some action otherwise beyond the abilities of our nature, our nurture, or our will.

Understanding this, we may get an intuitive feel for where our responsibility comes into play, specifically how sin is defined. When our will, insofar as it's free to act independently, conflicts with the Lord's will, we sin. Our nature is partly sinful and partly righteous; we were made righteous, but we have inherited Original Sin. Likewise for nurture; the world was good, but sin polluted it. These three--nature, nurture, and will--all have capacity for working for good for working for evil. The fourth, though, is all good. The Holy Spirit can overcome the evil of our circumstances, the evil in our nature, and even our desire to sin, to influence us toward righteousness. (Ain't He awesome?!)

We are collectively responsible for our sinful nature because we share in the Fall (the first sin). An example might be how a sinful nation may be collectively judged and punished, even though some of the citizens are not personally responsible for the collective sins (rains on the just and unjust). We are also both collectively and individually responsible for circumstances; collectively largely because our fallen nature, really, and individually for our ethical culpability insofar as we may influence circumstances. We are assuredly individually responsible for our will, our choices. I'll qualify this again by limiting such responsibility by defining our free will as those choices that are indeed truly independent of nature and nurture. Not all choices are so free, although all of us have at least some measure of such free will. None of this quantifies our responsibility, but hopefully it qualifies it enough to at least recognize our own culpability. Judging the same in others, though, is 10% observation and 90% Divine discernment (for only the Lord truly knows our hearts), not something to be undertaken lightly and certainly never undertaken "objectively" or with blanket judgment.

As for chapter and verse, I can indeed quote two I believe are most applicable:

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

and

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

While universalism is clearly unbiblical (ref., ref.), we would nevertheless do well to heed the above Biblical advice, erring on the side of love, compassion, and mercy. As His ways are so much higher than ours, and as we cannot know another's heart (it's tough enough even knowing our own with any honesty!), it's better to allow the Lord room to grant His grace upon those such as you propose and for whom you obviously have a heart.

Praise be to God!