The Essencological View Of Mental Retardation.

There has been much incredible research on the topic of mental retardation as well as mental illness. I must compliment those researchers who have done fantastic work concerning the human mind and human behavior.Having been a pastor for 27 years and in ministry for over 30 years I have been presented with many cases of developmental handicaps and special needs in individuals. When I worked with the Severe Behaviors Handicap (SBH) in Columbus Public Schools (later changed to Severe Emotional Disturbance [SED] ) I was also doing my theological studies and pastoral counseling studies. I found that in many cases there was an obscurity of understanding as it related to mental illness. At that time there were two prevailing schools of thought as it pertained to mental illness:

1. Those who felt that mental illness was caused by physiological and somatic disorders of the brain.

These brain disorders could have been caused by disease, injury to the brain, hormonal and genetic factors that was the result of some dramatic phenomenon that effected the brain.

2. A combination of physiological/ psychological that could be due to physical or psychological problems.

This school of thought suggested that one could develop a disassociative mental state by trauma at early ages that were not resolved within the human psyche.

Of course in today's time modern science and the various research conducted by those who are in the mental health field have concluded that many problems can also arise with faulty thinking and a continued misappropriate thinking. In fact it has been suggested that the thinking process can also to a degree help shape the mind and the hemispheres of the brain.

I began doing research in both mental health and psychological studies as well as an academic analysis of the mind according to the scriptures. There was a verse in scripture that continued to bother me as I would read it over and over while preparing to teach or to preach. It began to dawn on me that perhaps we were not understanding the nature of mental illness from the physiological aspects.

"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to eery creature" Mark 16:15

The mandate to preach does not extend to animals or insects but refers to every creature (The created species called man). This scripture kept surfacing in my mind. Every man (anthropos) was the to be the target of the Gospel. If the Gospel was to be preached even to the mentally retarded then the mentally retarded had the capacity to understand.

I began to work out a thesis for somatic mental disorders. What I found was very exciting to me in that it made perfect sense to me. There is no soul that it retarded but rather mental retardation refers to some physiological disorder that impacts the brain. When this was considered I began to relate this phenomena to that of an individual driving a car that had a broken motor, and transmission. The individual within the car could be very competent and mental astute but if the mechanics of the car are defected there will be no motor skills operating correctly when the driver tries to drive. Is it possible that the souls of mankind are intact but because the physiological mechanisms that the soul is integrated within are faulty the mind is unable to operate the somatic systems of the body. It would be like trying to operate a damaged machine. Only when the machinery is operating correctly will the individual be capable of doing what is desired with the machine.

We are continuing to do research in this area and are working hard to understand the human mind and behavior using both science which is the perception of reality and the scriptures which manifests the design of reality. In using both there may be an outstanding discovery.

The End