Mental Illness

Message / Question

Hello dr dave what is your view on mental illness in the church? Is it more common among Christians and is Christianity a mental illness as Dawkins would like us to think? I mean you'd think someone was bollocks if they thought rain drops communicate a message yet Christians believe God talks to them?? And isn't religious hallucinations a common issue?

Response

We live in a fallen world – i.e. a world that has been corrupted by the introduction of sin and death. Whether people are theists or atheists, they live in the same world and are subject to the same natural occurrences – sickness included. To say that Christians don’t get sick would demonstrable and absolute nonsense. Sickness can affect any individual and can come in the form of physical illness or mental illness. The brain is a physical organ just like the heart, the kidneys etc., so if someone suffers from a bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or chronic depression or ADHD, it is probable that they have a chemical imbalance in the brain. If someone suffers from diabetes, we don’t think it strange that they need to take medication to balance a chemical imbalance in the body that we call diabetes, or medication to control blood pressure, neither should we find it strange that some people need to take medication to compensate for a chemical imbalance in the brain. The reality is that most mental illnesses are physiological disorders that can, to some degree, be treated by medication. Of course, there are exceptions. Some mental illnesses (just like some other physical illnesses) simple don’t respond to treatment, but where treatment and medication is able to control the problem, we should never be judgmental of a person taking such medication.

Does God ever heal mental illnesses? Yes, of course He does, just as He heals some other forms of illness. One of the questions that I would like to ask when I get to heaven is why some people were healed of this or that, yet others with the same problem we not healed. I certainly have no real answer to that issue now, but in the mean time I will pray for the sick – whether their sickness affects their physical or mental health, and I will pray with faith that believes that God can heal them.

Do people with religious beliefs suffer more from mental illness than other people? The simple reality is that everyone has some form of religious belief system, whether that system is theistic or atheistic and to try to associate certain illnesses with one particular belief system simply doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Can mental illness have a spiritual cause? Yes, just as other physical diseases can have such a cause. When the paralytic was brought to Jesus, Jesus didn’t specifically command his legs to be strengthened, rather He declared that his sins were forgiven and that forgiveness brought healing, indicating the probability of a spiritual cause behind the man’s sickness. There were times when Jesus cast out demons from sick people and healing came, indicating that some sicknesses can have a demonic cause. E must be careful not to “diagnose” mental illness as having a spiritual cause and other illnesses having a more natural cause.

I believe that Christianity is accepted by faith but I also believe that it stand up to the test of reason. You said that “you'd think someone was bollocks if they thought rain drops communicate a message yet Christians believe God talks to them” and I agree with your statement. There is an enormous amount of evidence for intelligent design in nature, and design needs a designer. No one suggests that raindrops designed the universe, so it would be irrational to try to communicate with them and believe that they created the universe, but to believe that God is the designer and that we would want to (and do) communicate with Him is both rational and plausible.