There’s no doubt about it. The human race is losing its ability to think clearly, Indeed, so severe is the loss of cognitive ability, as measured by IQ tests, that scientists are deeply concerned, some calling it “a deepening madness”.

According to scripture it’s one thing to get knowledge, quite another to have wisdom, and yet a third to get understanding. Judging by mankind’s state of thinking on 2026 we would seem to have collectively lost all three.

A recent article in the influential Financial Times said surveys showed a sharp fall in American cognitive skills, particularly among 18 to 22 year olds, a decline found also in all major western countries. “Have you noticed there are more strange and “absent” people on the streets these days? it asked.

In a desperate “race to the bottom” entertainment and the media, are competing in offering information so shallow it amounts to inanity, a word the dictionary defines as meaning “vacuity, emptiness, foolish and silly”. Just turn on the telly to see examples of such “senselessness” screened 24/7.

Scientists are troubled because far from seeing human thinking advance to greater heights as the theory of evolution falsely predicts, mankind is showing clear evidence of “losing its marbles”. Not only are the lessons of history ignored – they are largely unknown because modern generations don’t read about them - but also the ability to comprehend simple facts is diminishing.

My conclusion: Not only is our ability to think critically and creatively in sharp decline but our consciousness of who we are, where we are and why we’re here is also occluded. Thus, because our leaders know not truth; therefore they cannot perceive, still less decide, and so “kick the can down the road” on important economic and social issues.

And this has huge impact on Christian endeavour to win the lost to Christ. Often the gospel message is rejected by those preached to, not because they don’t want it, but they can’t hear or understand it because they cannot perceive it.

And it’s much the same with many church goers. They cannot receive the great message that God is acting in grace and grace alone in the present dispensation of grace, nor can they consciously accept the great good news that the Lord Himself will soon appear in glory to put right what is wrong with the earth and we who live in it (Titus 2:13, 2 Timothy 4:1).

Why not? Because many Christians think only with their natural mind, not the “mind of Christ”. Too often Paul’s teaching that we need to be “renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23) is set aside and put in the “too hard basket”

Fact is, true “understanding” is not just a “brain wave”; it’s a spiritual matter that derives from the heart. Thus you can have a brain like Einstein’s but still ponder evil in your heart, that is your mind, will and emotions. The Bible goes to the root cause of our dwindling ability to think clearly, naming it as the “vanity” that is the “emptiness” of our mind. Paul makes this clear in his address to Gentile believers:

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart (Ephesians 4:17-18).

The apostle goes on to say that in turn such “blindness” results in hardness of heart. Those in darkness are now “past feeling”, not caring either for God or their fellow human beings, thus explaining the crime, cruelty, murder and misery rampant in the earth today.

Worse still, those with blindness of heart and no feeling of compassion or what’s right “…have given themselves over to unto lasciviousness (think Geoffrey Epstein and Andrew), to work all uncleanness with greediness”.

So what’s the answer? For starters we could bring back the words wisdom, understanding and truth into schools where lack of them has seen the internet’s unintelligent inanities replaced reading of books, especially the Bible.

But my guess is we won’t. Not while our darkness and blindness of heart hold sway. Not until we learn to “learn Christ” (Ephesians 4:20) and be taught by Him. Only his light can penetrate the deepening blackness of our collective ignorance.

You see, preaching of the gospel of the grace of God is the means of cutting through the darkness of our mind to save us. It is the good news that through his grace (not our religious efforts) we who are brought to believe have been reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus. We have been chosen in Him, accepted by God in Him, redeemed and forgiven in Him, all according to the riches of his grace.

Most important of all, in so saving us God Himself has “...abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence” (Ephesians 1:8). That in itself will go a long way to change our thinking for the better. But there is yet more. In Ephesians 16-23 Paul gives thanks …

That God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe …

It is true, as Shakespeare said, that “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so”. It is also true that the root cause of the world’s troubles is “stinking thinking” that insists on leaving God out of every consideration.

But Proverbs 4:7 has the answer to that: “Get wisdom and with all thy getting get understanding”. The key to doing so is found in Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all thine hear; and lean not unto thy own understanding”.

John Dudley Aldworth

You’re welcome to contact me at the email address below.

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Website: https://www.dayofchristmnistries.com/rss/all.xml