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The following diagram would find little favour with a psychologist, and does not
pretend to be an accurate presentation of the human mind; but at the same time it may
enable the reader to appreciate the relationship that exists between things seen and
unseen; between the perceptions of sensation and the concepts of the mind.
---Illustration---
(BE-XXXIII.197).
The nous, or thinking part of man, is placed midway between the body, with its great
organ of "sensation", the brain, and the spirit of man that is in him, whereby man
"knows".
The relationship between the senses is implied in such a passage as Isa. 6: 9, 10.
"Hear ye indeed (i.e. with the outer ear), but understand not (i.e. with the inner man);
and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat . . . . . lest they
understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."
Here it is evident that, had the heart of the people been right, the outward hearing and
outward seeing would have led to inward understanding and inward perceiving.
If we could imagine such a horrible things as a man who could neither see, hear,
touch, taste nor smell, we can readily see that there would be no way of getting at his
inner consciousness; no way of communication; he would be idea-less and, to all
intents, dead. When however we become acquainted with the outer world through the
medium of our senses, we provide material out of which the mind arrives, by the
processes of intelligence and reason, at all the wonder of mental conception. Owing to
the fall of man, human reason is an unsafe guide, but the redeemed undergo a "renewing
of the spirit of that mind" and are enabled by the eye of faith to see things that are
invisible.
The reader will have no need to turn to the passage indicated for the spiritual
equivalents of sight, hearing, touch and taste: they come readily to mind, but an
equivalent to the sense of smell in the spiritual sphere may at first seem improbable.
The following passage in Isaiah however provides an instance:
"And He shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11: 3).
the margin drawing attention to the Hebrew, which reads "scent or smell". The figure
intended is that of an animal scenting the air, keen and apprehensive.
We remember however that this article is an exposition of II Tim. 2: and not a
treatise on the human mind, much as we should all profit by a study of the Scriptures
along that line.