Lately I’ve been dedicating a lot of my creative time to asking myself questions about metaphysical aspects of human existence. One of those questions is:
Why are we the way we are?
Why are some people introverted and others extroverted? Why are some more courageous or adventurous, while others seem more cautious? Why do we react so differently to similar circumstances?
For example, I was thinking about myself and my siblings, and how, even though we were raised together, in the same home, under the same value system, we are so different.
So, I started researching and reading about it.
Throughout history, humanity has attempted to understand the metaphysical aspects of human beings in many different ways.
We have used philosophy, religion, psychology, anthropology, and astrology to answer questions that science alone has not been able to fully answer—questions that cannot be answered solely by understanding human chemistry and biology.
Even authors like Lewis and Barnes acknowledge this limitation in their book A Fortunate Universe, in which they wrote the following about it:
“What makes a human? This question has occupied humans for millennia. While ‘what makes a human’ in terms of consciousness remains a bit of a mystery.”
We study the universe. We study matter down to infinitesimally small scales. We have even reached the point of creating computational models inspired by the human brain, capable of mimicking, to some extent, some of its most complex functions. Yet, we still do not fully understand some of the most fundamental aspects of our own nature.
It is not my intention to address the topic of consciousness in this essay. However, our inability to understand this fundamental aspect of ourselves leads me to believe that it should not surprise us that there are many other questions for which we also have no answers.
Questions like:
Why am I like this?
Why am I more or less creative? Why am I more or less emotional? Why am I organized or disorganized?, etc.
These are casual questions that many of us don’t have answers to. I myself am obsessive about order and introverted, and I’ve never even questioned why.
So today I will share what I have learned and what I believe about it, with the hope that God will help us to know ourselves better and Him as well in the process.
The other day, while listening to a podcast, one of the participants started asking everyone about their zodiac sign. Honestly, I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember and had never paid attention to conversations about that kind of thing until that day.
After listening to the podcast for a while and hearing what this girl was saying to the others when they answered her question, I started researching how astrology works. I wanted to understand how she was able to “determine” other people’s personality traits based solely on their zodiac sign and time of birth.
And I was impressed to realize that there are many people in the world willing to believe that the position of the planets at the time of their birth can determine traits of their personality, character, and temperament.
I suppose it has to do with the human need to find an explanation for everything. To understand who we are, why we are the way we are, and what our place is in the universe.
And this need is not new; it has simply evolved with us. In fact, in ancient times, various cultures also sought their own ways to answer these questions.
Hippocrates, a physician of ancient Greece in the 5th century BC, developed the theory of the four humors. In it, he proposed that the human body was composed of four basic substances (called “humors”) and that the balance or imbalance of these substances in the body influenced the behavior and personality of individuals.
This theory was later reinterpreted by a Roman physician named Galen, who, in the 2nd century AD, expanded upon it, asserting that imbalances in the quantities of the humors had a direct influence on how we think, feel, and act. In other words, the proportion of these substances in the body was the basis of a person’s temperament.
This led to the development, in the 20th century, of a modern psychological model based on scientific research by a psychologist named Hans Eysenck, influenced to some extent by these earlier theories. According to his theory, individuals differ in their traits due to genetic differences, although he did not rule out external influences.
However, concurrently with Eysenck’s research, a Christian pastor and writer named Tim LaHaye revisited the four temperaments (or humors) of Hippocrates’ ancient theory, but reinterpreted them from a Christian worldview. For LaHaye, these temperaments are not the result of substances in the body, but rather reflect God’s intentional design for each person.
My point is that, from ancient medicine to modern psychology, including philosophy, theology, and astrology, humankind has tried to find an answer to the same question. And while each of these perspectives has contributed something, none has truly provided us with an answer that satisfies us all.
Now, I ask myself:
Why are we so obsessed with finding those answers?
Because understanding what influences who we are would give us the feeling that we have control. That if we wanted, we could correct what we don’t like about ourselves and become the person we want to be.
But even if we could do that:
Is that what God wants?
I believe there’s a reason why some things we’ll never understand, much less change. Because God doesn’t want to change them. But He does want to redeem them.
Genesis 1:31 says:
“Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! …” (Genesis 1:31 NLT)
C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, defines evil as corrupted goodness. And that is exactly what happened to us.
“… God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path.” (Ecclesiastes 7:29 NLT)
Something I like about LaHaye’s theory is that it doesn’t present temperaments as a problem we need to solve, but rather as a divine design we should honor.
Because God does it, He honors his own design. God created us to be virtuous, in his own definition of virtue. We see this in the scriptures with the tribe of Levi.
In the book of Genesis, we are told that Levi, one of the 12 patriarchs of Israel, led his brothers in the massacre of all the people of the Canaanite city of Shechem, as revenge for the rape of his sister Dinah by one of them (Genesis 34). Because of this, when Jacob blesses each of his sons, these are the words he uses with Levi:
“Simeon and Levi are two of a kind; their weapons are instruments of violence. May I never join in their meetings; may I never be a party to their plans. For in their anger they murdered men, and they crippled oxen just for sport. A curse on their anger, for it is fierce; a curse on their wrath, for it is cruel. I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob; I will disperse them throughout Israel.” (Genesis 49:5-7 NLT)
At first glance, those words don’t seem like a blessing, nor does it even seem like Jacob was saying anything good about his son and his descendants, but let’s see what God saw.
The book of Exodus tells us that when Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the Law, the people made a golden calf to worship. When Moses came down from the mountain and saw this, the following happened:
“[Moses] So he stood at the entrance to the camp and shouted, ‘All of you who are on the Lord’s side, come here and join me.’ And all the Levites gathered around him. Moses told them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Each of you, take your swords and go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Kill everyone—even your brothers, friends, and neighbors.’” (Exodus 32:26-27 NLT)
What we see here is that God took something that seemed like a curse and restored it to a blessing. But He didn’t change it. The Bible goes on to say:
“The Levites obeyed Moses’ command, and about 3,000 people died that day. Then Moses told the Levites, ‘Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the Lord, for you obeyed him even though it meant killing your own sons and brothers. Today you have earned a blessing.’” (Exodus 32:28-29 NLT)
God took that same intensity, that same zeal, that same passion that Levi showed to defend his sister’s honor and redirected it, pointed it at himself, restored it to virtue, and chose the descendants of Levi to be the ones who dwelled where his presence was.
For centuries, humanity has tried to understand who we are. We believe that if we find the right answer, we can change and become who we want to be. But God’s Word teaches us that God isn’t waiting for us to become someone else. What He’s waiting for is for us to allow him to restore what He himself designed as virtue from the beginning.
Because the problem has never been the design; the problem is what sin has done to it.
The world pushes us to reinvent ourselves, to build a new version of ourselves, to leave behind everything that could be considered a weakness or a defect.
But God doesn’t need us to be someone else to glorify himself in our lives. He only needs us to allow him to redeem what has been distorted. Because when He restores what He created, He not only reveals who we truly are; He also reveals who He is.
If you enjoyed this reflection, you might also be interested in reading this one:
A simple God
If you take a moment to contemplate a tree, a landscape, animals, your own body, or the sky on a starry night, you might marvel at the enormous complexity and radical differences that exist among all of God’s creation.
If this Pensamiento resonated with you or blessed you in any way, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Also, if you’re going through something and need prayer, please feel free to send me a private message.
If anything you read blesses you, encourages you, or draws you closer to Jesus, then my work was worthwhile. But if you’d like to support me in continuing to write, you can buy me a coffee. Your help allows me to keep creating and sharing these reflections. God bless you!
References
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-behind-why-we-care-about-astrology-5217929
A Fortunate Universe by G.F. Lewis & L.A. Barnes (2016).
https://www.coalicionporelevangelio.org/articulo/que-es-la-conciencia-2/ [Spanish]
https://psicologiaymente.com/personalidad/teoria-cuatro-humores-hipocrates [Spanish]
https://psicologiaymente.com/personalidad/teoria-personalidad-eysenck-modelo-pen [Spanish]
This is amazing to read, it’s so true about distortion via the world but incredible how God redeems us and calls us back for His purpose.🙏🏻
“But God doesn’t need us to be someone else to glorify himself in our lives. He only needs us to allow him to redeem what has been distorted.” Wow. Thank you so much for sharing! I never realized that people’s interest in zodiac signs etc may be reflecting a desire to understand why we are the way we are. And your reference to the Levites in the Bible and how God still used them really change my perspective. An excellent read!