Digging Deeper: The Man in the Mirror
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16 (ESV)
Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:8
THE MAN IN THE MIRROR
As I walked past the mirror this morning, I stopped to look at myself.
“You are one handsome man,” I said out loud.
My wife laughed, crushing any confidence I previously had. I think it’s a guy thing to be overconfident in our looks.
But aside from aesthetic delusions, as you look into the mirror, there’s a thought experiment to consider. Think about the man or woman in the mirror you’re looking at. As I see my reflection, I’m now thinking about the man in the mirror. And I can think about the man thinking about the man in the mirror. In fact, I could keep going ad infinitum.
When you think of something, you’re thinking about something. The technical term is states of intentionality. Nothing else has this characteristic of aboutness other than our minds. In fact, our minds have all sorts of unique properties, such as free will, self-awareness, the ability to reason toward truth, and a sense of being the same you who was seven years old, even though not a single cell in your body from that year still exists.
From these phenomena, there are some philosophers who have concluded the same thing Christians have said for millennia: that the mind is distinct from the brain. What philosophers call the mind, theologians call the soul. And perhaps if the power shuts off to the brain, the soul continues to exist independently. Like a song that continues to be even if the record player stops.
If that is the case, then when your body is buried, something continues to exist beyond the funeral.
Which means the person in the mirror is more than the face looking back at you. The reflection will age. The body will weaken. One day, it will die. But the you who has been looking out through those eyes all these years may not die with it.
And if something survives the grave, the next question is what God intends to do with it.
Ask Yourself:
- What is it about you that has stayed the same since you were a child?
- When you think about you, do you think of your body, your mind, your soul—or something else?
Curt Bowen is a husband, father, and group leader who loves engaging in apologetics, theology, and good BBQ. A thrill-seeker at heart, he enjoys roller coasters and has an appreciation for snakes—just not the conversational type.