(A theological reflection in 7 parts)
God and me: a like-minded pair?
Part 1: What does it mean to say that my mind is one with God?
A new thought occurs to me.
The essential thing for me about God is that he should be real; he should be there. What do I mean by that? What I want most of all is for God to be independent of me, different to me, not me. I have fought hard to maintain a reasonable belief that God is more than an aspect of my mind, that God is not simply a psychological condition, contained within me. I have also developed a strong defence of the value of God as “simply” a psychological condition, and I have also put forward some ideas that I think are very strong and valid that, in practice, it makes no difference whether God is “just” inside my head or whether he is also “out there”. However, I hope that he is other than me.
An important element for me is that I have claimed that I can tell the difference between me having an inner conversation with myself – mulling things over, as it were – and what is happening when I am having a conversation with God. Some of my recent thoughts make me a little less certain of this now, but I still veer towards there being a difference. My new thought impinges on this.
Is my mind my own?
We must say, “Well, of course it is!”. If there is one thing that is yours, it is your mind. However, I want to say, “Lord, I give you my mind”. What am I after here? I am conscious that I want to be fully united with God, “walking fully in his way”, and I am conscious that there is so much of my life that is unworthy of God. If we are to be truly at one with God, then this must fully embrace everything that is going on in our minds. Hence my desire to “give my mind to God”.
Yet my mind must be my own. ALL my thoughts take place in my mind – there is nowhere else for them to happen. There is nothing more central to me being me than possession of the mind that is mine. So, if God were to somehow “take over my mind” that would then be God living in me. This fits in with a long-standing desire for believers, that God might indeed “live in me and I in him”. But what does this mean within our minds themselves? If my mind was completely God’s, is it still my mind, and am I even still alive? The only solution, I think, would be to conclude that my mind has become the same as God’s mind.
Spiritual Devotion 