The Heart

I was recently advised by a friend that "Ah, but sometimes the heart is the only wise voice we have."

This is my response:
The heart has its place to speak indeed, but as an adviser speaks to his executive- having no authority beyond his opinion and tasked to command others with a message not his own. Lewis states the need to tame the heart this way: "Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite sceptical about ethics, but bred to believe that 'a gentleman does not cheat', than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers." I agree entirely. We are angry with restriction of 'personal rights', discrimination, genocide, even while we teach our students that morality is personal. We either completely destroy or over empower the function of the heart and then wonder where the gentlemen have gone. "We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

The wisest Man to ever live once begged, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me," His heart urged against His purpose, set against Him to upset His will and yet He continues, "nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." What a hopeless world it should be if the heart had won that round against the mind.

And twice at least Peter let his heart take hold of him: first, in his anger at Jesus' prediction of His death, blaspheming against Jesus' purpose; and then again, this time his heart taken by fear, Peter overthrew his mind, denying Jesus three times to the woman.

Our hearts have the capacity for ambivalence but are in complete obedience to our minds. If we do not fix our intellects upon a constant, eternal, unchanging standard of Reason we shall have no end to hearts that are not only desperately wicked, but are without a master. Hitler was just a man whose mind was determined that atheism was true, and thus left without morality his heart was free to wander to where it would. Unless we ourselves set our minds upon Divine Truth we shall have no base from which to denounce men whose hearts tell them that blacks are slaves, Muslims are dangerous and that Jews are inferior. Feelings are extremely personal but they conform or fail to conform to a meta-personal Reality that demands certain responses. Therefore the products of the heart are not a subject beyond reproof in their individuality but are rather a derivative of the mind and thus open to criticism.

When we accept that Truth is absolute and that it is our duty to adhere to it, we will be able to stand firm in approving or disapproving our sentiments, and in finally correcting our sentiments we will at last gain control over our appetites. Yet were the will of all humanity put to this single task it would be too little an effort. Only by the Grace of God may any have wisdom or knowledge. Alone our hearts will remain as wicked and empty, and our minds will find no true beacon to guide them. Jesus came to demonstrate by His life that He is the Way of the heart, the Truth of the mind and the Life of the stomach, and none of us shall reach the Father but through Him.

Jason