The Subconscious and Synchronicity

So how, then, does God deal with His own who are compromised in their ability to believe in that which comes from within because of mental science (Freud), and that which come from without because of physical science (Newton)? I’ve come to believe that He works through such like believers through Freud’s discovery - the subconscious mind, and the discovery of a disciple of Freud -C.G. Jung - synchronicity.

Believe it or not, there is Biblical warrant for the idea of a subconscious mind. I believe that some of what Freud and Jung wrote about is not only true, but also not very new. Any plain reading of scripture could have deduced some of the true things that Freud and Jung have said. (But note well that I am also very aware there are many more things Freud and Jung have said that are contrary to the scriptures.)

When Freud said there was a “subconscious mind,” he did not mean that human beings had two minds, one conscious and the other not. What he meant is that what we call our “mind” has a part that is directly accessible to us, the “conscious” part, and a part that is not directly accessible, and plays us all kinds of tricks on us, and which is below our conscious awareness.

So what saith scripture?


Jer 17:5-10
5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
(KJV)

Christ Himself makes a distinction between the heart, the mind, and the soul:

Matt 22:35-38
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
(KJV)

“Soul” has to do with the immaterial part of our consciousness - the “Chicagoland” part. “Mind” is the part of us that we think of as the “I-guy.” It is the more directly conscious and computational part of us that feels like it is making all the real decisions in our lives. “Heart,” however, has to do with the wild and woollier part of us that is not directly accessible to us, and which seems to deceive our minds from time to time. It is where feelings come from, because it is the deeper recess of our being.

Our Lord says that soul, mind, and heart find their unity in love for God. In the Hebrew scriptures, the word “heart” means that which we understand ourselves to be as opposed to how others perceive us to be. ( “He said in his heart ...”) That inner-ness has eternity in it ...

Eccl 3:11
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
(NIV)

... because it was meant to the dwelling place of the contemplative awareness of God by men.


With the fall of Man into alienation from God, the soul, the mind, and the heart split apart and became oppositional to each other. We are barely aware we have a non-material soul capable of being inhabited and operated by God’s Holy Spirit. We have a mind that tries to make sense of ourselves and our lives. And we have a heart “underneath” the mind that is the size of eternity and that seems to lead us into a multitude of sorrows because it is now rooted in the Adamic nature that is in opposition to God and is filled to the brim with what is not of God.

Matt 15:16-20
16 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?
17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
(KJV)

So when we come to Christ, He comes at our souls through our spirits by His Holy Spirit ...

1 Cor 2:9-12
9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

... and then the tablets of our hearts are written upon ...

2 Cor 3:3
3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
(KJV)

... and then our minds are brought into alignment with Christ’s mind.

1 Cor 2
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
(KJV)

But always remember that this is a work of growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not something we arrive at all at once. Or ever finished arriving at.