One of the things we need to recognize is that the brain, the human brain, does change. The Bible and not the scientific research makes it very clear that our brains, our intelligence, our thinking, all of this actually does progress through stages.
The Apostle Paul said when he was a child, he thought as a child, but now he’s a man. We’re even told that Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. So one of the aspects of the humility of Christ taking on human form and being born as a baby is that he also experienced these developmental stages. Jesus was not an adult in a manger. He was a baby. That points to the infinite love that brought Jesus Christ not only to the cross, but also to the manger itself.
ocial rewards are as old as human society, which is to say it goes back to Adam and Eve, but in particular it goes back to Adam and Eve and all of those who have followed them after the fall. We are social creatures. God made us that way.
Now, other animals are social. You might think about this for just a moment. As you look at other animals, you often see very social behavior. As you look at a lioness with her cubs, as you look at birds in a flock, as you look at ants in an anthill, you’re looking at social behavior, but you’re not looking at self-conscious social behavior. There aren’t any lion sociologists. So far as we know, there aren’t any ant psychiatrists. Not to say they might not need one.
But we, as conscious beings made in God’s image, a part of being made in God’s image means that we not only think, but we think about thinking. We’re not only social, but we can think about being social. We can think about the rewards of social behavior. We can think about the penalties and the downsides of being social creatures. Social rewards as a category, by the way, means that as social creatures, we are pretty sensitive to what others think of us and to the rewards that are offered us. Sometimes, well, just a like on social media, and we can become very dependent upon that, and the Christian worldview should warn us against that kind of dependency.
The Christian worldview would warn us against anti-social behavior. We’re made to God’s glory to be social. But we also have to understand that in a fallen world, our society is often going to offer rewards that are not on the basis of what should be rewarded.
Erick Chepkwony, TH.D 