One crucial key in the burden of the demise of sound thinking is realizing the world has a different mindset today from all previous centuries of thought. For nearly two thousand years, Western civilization has embraced linear logic and reason, advocating absolutes of thesis and antithesis and rejecting the blending together of opposites. The Greek metaphysical philosophers did much to establish this approach. This logic was built upon the premise of law, order, design, purpose, and beauty and the reality of right and wrong, truth and error, as well as both the distinction and the separation of such thesis and antithesis.

A Brief History of Logic

From Augustine to the Reformation, one of the assets that strengthened the continuation of reason as the form of logic was the promotion of biblical truth by theologians who dominated Western thought. This strength was the light of the revelation of the Scriptures given by God in the natural logic of reason. This logical approach was brought to a superiority of secularistic perspective during the Age of Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries), otherwise called the Age of Reason.

Between the fourteenth-century Renaissance and the seventeenth century, thinkers progressively elevated man himself to the center of reality. If present-day modernism were viewed through a family tree, the Renaissance would be modernism’s grandmother and the Enlightenment its mother. Renee Descartes’ declaration, “I think, therefore I am,” personified the beginning of this era. God was not the center of truth any longer—man was.

Contemporary thinkers of that time embraced this to such a point that they believed man could actually change or alter the way God had made the mind to think in its logical context. Rejecting a divine revelation, man’s independent thought was considered the truth.

In the 1700s, Georg Hegel toyed with the idea that there were various forms of logic. He presented the idea of dialecticism whereby a thesis and its antithesis were literally blended together in thought to form a new truth (or thesis). By this innovative form of logic, pure reason began to decay in society.

In the latter part of the 1700s and into the 1800s another form of logic came to the forefront called existentialism. This concept totally denied absolutes, even denouncing dialecticism’s blending of opposites. Existentialism discarded all previous forms of thinking. Now the individual was at liberty to create and think his own personal truths irrelevant of any other absolutes but himself. In this form of logic there are no universal principles; there are no universal absolutes. The desired existence for the individual is simply his own created concept of truth. In the previous centuries linear reasoning was based upon proof by principles and adherence to what was proved through logic. This process established universally held truths.

In contrast, existentialism rested upon no other principle than the individual himself; he determined what is true for himself without the need of proof. The individual only had to think it to be true, and it then became truth. This move in the history of logic finally became known as post-reason or postmodernism.

For nearly two thousand years linear-logic was accepted as the natural metaphysical concept of logic. This form of logic claimed there were universal and eternal truths and values founded upon absolutes and governing principles even beyond man. But just as (in 1983) the United States Supreme Court changed its presupposition from interpreting the U.S. Constitution to interpreting “public policy,” the philosophical and ideological world has changed its thinking from absolutes of reason to existentialism, now called postmodernism.

Postmodernism has now become the logic of nearly all world governments and human organizations. All concepts of ethics are now interpreted through this presupposition and worldview. We have now come to an hour that “sound thinking” has been so affected by the contemporary that the question needs to be asked, “How should we then live?”

God: The Author of Sound Thinking

As Bible Christians, we are adamantly opposed to the hypothesis of evolution. We believe God created the entire system of the human body. Therefore, we firmly believe that God not only created the brain and mind but also the actual concept of thought that man should use with his brain.

In the Greek New Testament language, we have several terms that carefully unfold the truth of how God designed the concept of the mind and thought. First, the term nous is translated mind. Nous is the faculty necessary for understanding what is true or real. Therefore, the faculty to think (nous) becomes the very substance of the ability to think.

Secondly, the term phroneo designates the content of the process of thought expressed, or the object of thought within the mind. A companion word is phronesis, which denotes prudent and wise understanding that leads to right action.

A third term noia refers to the perceptive mind. It references the object of nous thinking that comes to perception. Perceptive thinking then leads within the mind to a collection of thoughts that builds a logos in thinking. Logos is the essence of all that a person knows; it is his epistemology.

Because we are born into sin, the mind over the years grows older in sin. The mind can be taken over by lusts. The mind can be so saturated with the world’s thinking that the human heart fully collaborates with the world. Satan then adds his own powerfully blinding thoughts. Depravity, the world, and Satan all can contribute intensity of thoughts that control the mind, paralyzing its ability to think as God initially created it to think.

As the serpent changed Eve’s thinking about God and His creation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (and ultimately against the very Word of God), so the mind can leave its created purpose and enter another realm of thinking. Note Ephesians 4:17, 18:

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

We must understand that the world and the Devil have their strong influences upon the mind and its concept of thinking. Paul warned in Colossians 2:8 to “beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”

Man is now rising in the earth to destroy everything that God created, including the concept of right thinking. This is revealed in Romans 1:18, 19:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold [or willfully suppress] the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

When man in hatred goes so far in the rejecting of God, and when he does not like to retain God in his knowledge, “God will give him over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” Having first tested God, man then turns aside from Him. They did not desire to retain God in their knowledge (Gr., epignosis, their “full, experiential knowledge”). They having rejected God, God rejects their mental attitude, giving them over to a reprobate mind. God intentionally affects the very creature He created for sound (healthy) thinking. He gives that creature over to cloudy, irrational, and insane thinking. When this happens man literally loses his mind and the capability of sound thinking.

When enough people think irrationally the same way on earth, then they are viewed as the sane. Those who oppose them are considerd the insane of society. Only the God Who made the mind can maintain that mind in soundness of thought and thinking. When man leaves the consciousness of God and rejects Him, God affects the mind in its capability of sound and sensible thinking. He truly gives man over to a reprobate mind.

In the End Time (according to the pattern of Genesis 6 of the last days), the wickedness of man will be great in the earth. We are told that “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Evil thinking, wicked thinking, destructive thinking, terrorist thinking, all become the rising thinking of the End Time.

Additionally, the reprobate mind becomes the instigator and collaborator of the reprobate heart. Oh, dear reader, this is where we are on the planet Earth today. Not only are the thoughts of man’s heart collectively evil, but also his mind is reprobate in its ability to think. Mankind collectively and globally has now entered its rejection of God. We have come to a “social mind,” a “social will,” and a “social thinking” against the very laws that God created for the mind in its ability to think. Thus, the individual mind becomes the product of the nous and the noia of the world, taking on a worldview thought life.

Because of sin and the mind of an age thinking for society, man can become irrevocably damaged in his ability to think. Therefore, even through natural theology, man in such a state will never come to God; he will never come to true, sound thinking. Everything about God to the reprobate mind is foolishness: the Gospel, the cross, the concept of depravity. The natural man will never discern the things of God; they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them.

The Demise of Sound Thinking

Considering this demise of sound thinking, we must remember the term demise. Demise is a death of something that results in the transfer of the estate to another. Once sound thinking is dead (in an individual, a nation, or the world), the concept of thinking is transferred to another. This is where global society has come. Our society is so irrational that right has become wrong, truth has become error, God has become the Devil, morality has become immoral. Likewise, evil has become good in every field of human epistemology. This irrationality pervades Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, Constitutionalists, Abolitionists, Socialists, Communists, Democrats, Republicans, the Tea Party, etc. Although these all have thoughts about God, Christ, Christianity, the purpose of Christianity, what a Christian is, none of their thinking in these sacred precincts is correct. How can those who claim to be so conservative in politics become so liberal in their views of God and Christianity? From the beggar and his homelessness, to the billionaire with his wealth, they all have their mind, their thoughts, their thinking, their logos, and their presupposition of thought. This world is now saturated through the overwhelming powers of modern media and education helping the world to come to a one-mind-worldview of everything.

In days of the demise of sound thinking, it is important to ask, “How shall we then live?” How can we live for God in such a world as this? The first thing that must happen for an individual to even come to God is that his mind must be changed. The only way for this to happen is that God Himself must grant repentance (Gr., metanoia), meaning the very perception of his mind must change. The Holy Spirit must bring godly sorrow to the sinner’s mind for everything he has thought and done. It is from that godly sorrow that the Spirit must work this mind-changing repentance.

Man must have a change of mind before he can have a change of heart. His whole irrational perspective of life must change; he must come to himself as the prodigal son (Luke 15). Grace must teach his heart to fear, for the fear of the Lord will be the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. Grace will bring his mind to what God intended for him to think. Only the Bible can provide the preconditions for the intelligibility of man’s experience and reasoning. It provides the laws of logic. It alone provides the uniformity of nature. It provides absolute morality.

God’s thinking is presented in the laws of logic. He is omnipresent and unchangeable; in Him there can be no contradictions because God cannot change; God is universal in His thinking. All logic is in God, and He cannot deny Himself. The Bible brings us an absolute morality that goes back to Creation. God made the laws; if man does not take this position, then he will do what he wants to do and change the rules as he goes along. Universally, man cannot live that way, for if he does he will destroy himself, which is what is happening today. The evolutionist may say, “I don’t believe in God and I can think logically; I don’t believe in the biblical worldview and I can use logic.” It would be like saying, “I don’t need air to breathe, I don’t believe in air, and I can breathe just fine.” This is not a rational response. Evolutionists, atheists, agnostics, and secularists have no foundation for their worldviews; their views are based on self-concepts of thought. If the Bible is the highest authority, then it must be the standard for everything in our life, including our living.

Conclusion

The mind is the door between the world and the heart; therefore, we must live with a constant vigil concerning our mind and thinking. Note 1 Peter 1:13:

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Paul declares in Romans 12:2,

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

We must remember as Christians that conformity to the world begins in the mind, in our thinking. First Peter 4:1 tells us,

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.

The Apostle reveals needed truth in Philippians 2:5:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

This term mind in the original Greek is designating the “process of thinking.” Hebrews 12:3 calls us to

. . . consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

We must also take heed to the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3–6:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

And yet, there is also the warning of Romans 8:5, 6:

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Yes, we must always be on guard; for the flesh is ever drawing our thinking back to our former thought life.

May God ever anoint us with His Spirit for right thinking. But may we also ever “stir up the gift of God. . . . For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:6, 7).

In these days of the demise of sound thinking, “How should we then live?” The answer: By giving ourselves over to the One Who made the mind, the thought concept, and letting His Word become the precondition for all our intelligibility.