The Logic of the Body: Retrieving Theological Psychology

by Matthew A. LaPine

“Do not be anxious about anything.” When it comes to stress and worry, that's all we really need to say, right? Just repent of your anxiety, and everything will be fine.

But emotional life is more complex than this.

In The Logic of the Body, Matthew LaPine argues that Protestants must retrieve theological psychology in order to properly understand the emotional life of the human person. With classical and modern resources in tow, LaPine argues that one must not choose between viewing emotions exclusively as either cognitive and volitional on the one hand, or simply a feeling of bodily change on the other. The two “stories” can be reconciled through a robustly theological analysis.

In a culture filled with worry and anxiety, The Logic of the Body offers a fresh path within the Reformed tradition.

Genres: Theology, Psychology, Philosophy, Christianity, Christian, Nonfiction, Faith

416 pages, Paperback

Published November 4, 2020

Reviews

[Samuel G. Parkison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a surprising blessing to me. There are some books I read for research purposes, that either scratch or do not scratch a very specific itch. There are other books I read for personal edification, which I pick up specifically to feed my soul. And there are other books still that I read out of mere curiosity. But seldom does a book in this last category connect dots to the first two. In The Logic of the Body: Retrieving Theological Psychology, Matthew LaPine scratches an itch I did not know I had, and he edifies and feeds my soul where I did not know I was hungry.

This is a first-order transdisciplinary book—philosophical, theological, neuroscientific, psychological, historical, and biblical. LaPine retrieves a theological psychology from the past to bring it into conversation with neuroscientific, theological, and therapeutic conversations in the present. In doing this, he helped make sense of a tension I was feeling at a personal, subterranean level. On the one hand, I have found myself in deep sympathies with the Biblical Counseling (BC) movement and its criticism of secular psychology. I have listened to the talks, read the papers, had the conversations, and in my estimation, their critique of the DSM-5 is devastating. I agree with BC that this "bible of psychology" is a pseudo-scientific tome predicated on bad methodology geared to support a very specific ideology, whose philosophical presuppositions are incommensurate with Christianity. Of this much, I have been well-convinced. However, the Biblical Counseling movement’s alternative account for psychology has always struck me as far too reductionistic, and has lacked explanatory power for a lot of considerations. I have not been able to put my finger on where these shortcomings are exactly, but it has always struck me as coming short.

And in the mist of these two considerations (i.e., BC’s insightful criticism of secular psychology and its seeming reductionistic alternative), the tension has been made worse by the fact that I have found myself drawn more and more to trends in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This is not for convictional or theoretical reasons. In fact, when I hear proponents of CBT get into metaphysics and philosophy, all I do is disagree with them—they rely on a Darwinian, naturalistic metaphysic that I reject entirely, root and branch. Instead, my growing appreciation for CBT has been wholly, and uncomfortably, pragmatic—I go there not because its proponents tell the truth about the meaning of mankind, but because it works. So, the question at the bottom of this tension is this: is there a theological framework for psychology that allows me to reject so many of the axiomatic assumptions of the secular psychologists, but nevertheless make sense of the effectiveness of CBT?

LaPine’s answer to this question is something like, “Possibly. Not if you go back several hundred years of Church history. But perhaps if you go as far back as Aquinas.” LaPine retrieves a taxonomy of the soul—within the larger taxonomy of the human person—from Thomas Aquinas. He also situates the current conversational climate in its historical setting, tracing the conversation on theological psychology from Aquinas to Calvin, and from Calvin to us. In doing so, LaPine is able to account for two crucial components of psychology, which are all too often lacking in contemporary Reformed evangelical accounts: (1) a tiered psychology, where lower faculties and higher faculties of a person qualify one another, and (2) the concept of plasticity, which accounts for the help or hindrance of habit. According to Aquinas (and LaPine) the relationship between the higher faculties of the intellect and will and the lower faculties of the body and subconscious do not interact with one another in terms of a one-way street, with the higher ones calling all of the shots. Rather, they mutually qualify and impact one another. The higher faculties are still in charge, but their authority is not automatic or mechanistic (i.e., new heart, then new will, then new actions in a direct, conscious sequence), rather, their authority is political. We are stewards of our bodies and our lower faculties, and we can redirect them and re-educate them, indirectly and over time.

This does not happen in a volunteeristic way. Virtue is habitually formed via the body and mind’s plasticity. What LaPine means by “plasticity” is the ability of the body and mind to form habits that hold their shape. While our lower faculties may impact, inform, qualify our higher faculties, our higher faculties can nevertheless change our lower faculties such that they hold an eventual new form. Like melting plastic in one shape down and putting it a different mold, this is the possibility of gracious habitus (and it lends explanatory power to the effectiveness of CBT). The body qualifies agency. This is how it is possible for there to be conflict between higher and lower faculties. Imagine a Christian man addicted to pornography. Because of his plasticity, his body has been weaponized against him and his default mode in certain situations is to seek out the well-worn path of sinful indulgence. That is habituated vice, and it conflicts with the higher faculties of his regenerated will and intellect. This creates a situation wherein the believer is at war with himself. But the same plasticity that makes it possible to render his body his soul's enemy may be applied to help him as well. He can habituate virtue.

This Thomistic dualism, which distinguishes between the body and soul, is holistic in the best way. It does not force us between offering devastating critiques of secular psychologists—with their hostile metaphysical assumptions—and recognizing the valid effectiveness of CBT. The higher and lower faculties qualify one another. This is so not because we were evolved to be a certain way, as if the higher and lower faculties' communications are a result of blind mechanistic adaptation. Humans are more than matter in motion; CBT has stumbled into the way the world works. Granted, its account for why the world works the way it does--why human beings operate the way they do--is way off base. But our worldview and theological framework can fill that in and explain CBT's insights with more precision than CBT itself. Why would we not plunder the Egyptians? This is our Father's world, after all. We do not have to pretend like conflicts between the higher and lower faculties are purely moral, nor that they are purely medical. It is true that these conflicts are psychological, but they are psychological in the old sense of the word. They are soulish.

I highly recommend this book, and I believe it will be a nonnegotiable for the BC movement to reckon with. As it stands, it seems that while Reformed evangelical counselors today are well-situated in their basic theological commitments, their arsenal is about half the size that it could be if they were self-consciously working with what Aquinas gave (and subsequent generations of theologians lost). As an appreciative observer of the BC movement, I believe it finds itself at a crossroads. It has brought some much needed calibration to the unfortunate trend of the past couple hundred years, wherein pastors outsourced their soul-care work to "professionals" who work within a metaphysical paradigm that is hostile to the Christian faith. This effort to "make counseling pastoral again" is much welcomed. But I worry that having made the necessary criticisms of a metaphysically materialistic approach, the BC movement finds itself at a loss for a positive contribution. Its impulse to provide a distinctly Christian, theological account for the soul and its care is good and necessary. But what is the feeding ground of that kind of positive contribution? Does being distinctly Christian necessitate adopting a fundamentalist-like crude biblicism? Must it require a reinvention of the wheel with nothing but the biblical data? Or may we be distinctly Christian by retrieving from the entire great tradition, gleaning from generations of theological contemplation? I fear that often "being uniquely Christian" is often taken to mean "rejecting everything that lacks a proof text."

I do not mean to be harsh. After reading LaPine's historical work, it was hard to stay mad at Calvin or any other Reformed theologian who has been working with a stripped-down theology of the soul in relation to the body. While Calvin made some necessary and helpful correctives of Aquinas on the issue of the noetic effects of the fall, Aquinas's overall framework is much more sophisticated and well-suited for a mature theological psychology, but this is not all Calvin's fault. The conversation had radically shifted by the time he arrived, to say nothing of how dominant volunteerism has been for the Reformed world since then. But now we have no excuse. LaPine has given us an opportunity to reconsider. The BC movement could only benefit from a retrieval project like this, and the sooner it can detach itself from a crude Biblicism and grow up into a theologically mature and robust system—rooted strongly in the Great Christian tradition’s metaphysics and anthropology, and not just a tiny segment of it—the better.

**I received a copy of this book from Lexham Press, but was not asked to give a positive review

[Mitch Bedzyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this series by Lexham. Historical, systematic, biblical, and pastoral theology all employed by LaPine to develop a more holistic, balanced approach to our emotional life. We need more books like this, which seek to do away with unhelpful false dichotomies and "either/or" paradigms.

As someone not too familiar with philosophy, metaphysics, neuroscience, and modern psychology, this book was tough sledding at times. Yet, as a husband to a wife battling a disease which has caused her to suffer from anxiety, and a foster parent of kids with trauma, this topic resonated deeply with me. My only hope is that a more accessible and popularized version of this highly relevant and crucial topic will be made available for the average pastor and church member.

[Zach Hollifield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lapine has given a helpful corrective to the all too common counseling advice of “just think the right thoughts and your anxiety will go away” that arises out of a view of emotions as purely cognitive. He does so by presenting/retrieving a “tiered psychology.” What this does is show that much of our emotions arise from our subconscious levels and are therefore (initial) out of our control and regulating them is not an immediate action.

If it sounds complex it’s because it is somewhat because we as embodied souls are. And yet the main takeaway is that our pastoral counseling must take the body into account if it is to care for others holistically and be actually helpful.

Earlier this year I read *The Body Keeps the Score* and this book felt like a kind of Christian version of it. It is required reading for those doing any kind of pastoral care/counseling.

[Danny Daugherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really torn on this book. On the one hand, it was immensely helpful in providing more clarity on a theology of emotions, the relation of the body to the mind, the complexity of the ways the unconscious, subconscious, and conscious all relate together regarding emotion, and the benefit of retrieving a tiered psychology for the purpose of better pastoral care for those struggling with emotional unhealth.

On the other hand, I feel a bit frustrated that this is a deeply needed book that I won't be able to recommend to many people due to how academic it is. While I understand this book was largely written for academics, I still feel as though some of the content could have been trimmed and simplified, for the benefit of a wider audience- this was probably one of the most dense books I've read, right alongside the first volume of Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics. I'd love to see LaPine publish a more popular version of this book, so his expertise, research, and desire for a better theology of the body and emotions could be retrieved for a wider amount of people.

[Rainer Erani · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Logic of the Body was a challenging book for me to read. LaPine is brilliant and it was humbling, to say the least, trying to keep up with him. I think for the average reader, I'd recommend skipping the beginning and reading Chapters 8 & 9 as well as the Conclusion. They provide a good understanding of his research and the application of his findings. I've been hurt by bad theology of emotions and am confident I've hurt others with it as well. This book makes me hopeful that the Church is heading towards a better understanding of mental illness.

[Isaac Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was disheartened to confront how poor theology has hurt the Church through our history. Encouraged by the promise of a better way forward.

Dr. LaPine presented the active, typical Christian, "Emotional Volunteerism" approach and the secular, more passive take on mental health brilliantly. His proposed model offered a blend of the two in a way that excited me - I was left me feeling more prepared to encourage, support, and love my neighbors.

We live in the present but not yet. Jesus dying on the cross for our sin ushered in the eternal reign of God as our king, yet creation continues to groan until we are united with Christ, in our new glorified bodies.

We are not rescued from the world; we are rescued for it.

[Jeremy Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! The oft repeated refrain “Do not be anxious” can be employed in Christian circles (1) To minimize the fears, worries, and emotions of a suffering saint, (2) To assume that physical or emotional presentation of anxiety is necessarily due to unconfessed sin, and (3) To assume that by mere power of the will, an anxious person is able to rid themselves of anxiety. LaPine’s excursus in theological anthropology masterfully demonstrates that these assumptions are reductionistic at best, and unfaithful at worst. In writing on the body-soul relationship, he creates rich application for the life of the Christian. He writes, “On my model, mental illness is not strictly biological, nor is it strictly psychological. Mental illness is a vicious psycho-physio feedback loop producing distress…. This conception of mental illness collapses the disjunction between illness and wickedness, yielding a more complex picture of ourselves as both sinful and dysfunctional.” In a world marred by sin, it is possible for someone to present anxiety, for instance, from an unconscious will or from past trauma and yet not know how to change it. However, LaPine also clearly writes that each person bears responsibility to experience hope filled peace amidst suffering and “negative emotions” by setting their desires and joy on the final restoration they will experience with God in heaven (Rom. 8:23-25).

I think my favorite part of the book was LaPine’s final two chapters, in which he builds upon his historical theological survey and his exegetical work of Matthew 6 in order to argue for a theological psychology rooted in an eschatological hope that embraces the paradox of life in an already-but-not-yet kingdom. There are countless applications to be drawn from this book, and I am sure I will return to it in the future. Though there were occasions I felt lost in the technical jargon of LaPine’s brilliant scholarship and field of study, I think this book is a needed resource for all pastors that they might care for the suffering saints in their congregations. I praise God for works like these and I pray God graciously allows more pastors and theologians to produce (or retrieve) biblical works that enrich our ability to care for suffering people this side of glory.

[Mitchell Shadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forewarning: This book was DENSE, at least for me. Definitely a better read if you walk into it with at least some interest in psychology and philosophy of mind.

Now that that’s out of the way, I enjoyed this book so much! This book did an excellent job confronting the common psychological assumptions of those within reformed evangelical circles (as expected) AND the psychological assumptions held at a popular level (mental disorders are just hormonal imbalances, mental disorders stem exclusively from wrong beliefs etc). Through explorations of scripture, historical theological accounts, and contemporary neuroscience, Lapine helps us to understand emotions as conscious experiences qualified by a body still groaning from the presence of sin in waiting for full redemption. While we are responsible for our emotions, as we are responsible for our bodies, we change them not simply by changing our beliefs, but also by training our flesh through walking in the Spirit. A problem affecting our minds and bodies requires a cure that addresses both the body and the mind.

For me, the strength of the book was in the last couple of chapters. In Chapter 8, Joseph Ledoux’s model of emotion as not just a bodily response but also a conscious experience of this response is explored, and in Chapter 9, a reading of Matthew 6:25-34 is presented in which it is shown through Biblical-Theological context and the virtue-ethical context of the region and time of the sermon on the mount that the call “do not be anxious” was less of an immediate turnoff switch on anxiety and more-so an invitation to seek and participate in the kingdom, thereby cultivating the virtue in Christ that rids one of worldly anxiety.

This book challenged me A TON, but I’m super thankful for it. Whether you’re a pastor, a missionary, or simply someone who wants to be an effective member of the Church, this book will be useful to you.

[Kim Shay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most significant books I have read in recent year. LaPine's discussion about the need to retrieve a theology of psychology was fantastic. His focus is that establishing a tiered psychology whereby the lower functions work with the higher functions takes into consideration factors such as the unconscious and the reality of embodied emotions. In the book he goes into a lot of detail to establish a basic evaluation of basic human cognition, will, and agency. He looks at how the influence of Calvin shifted the medieval view of Aquinas, and then he demonstrates how the Thomistic view is helpful and works with with concepts such as plasticity.

I was particularly helped by his discussion of emotion being embodied. Too often, the views are polarized; emotions are either completely a cognitive matter or completely physiological matter. The truth is somewhere in between. I appreciated LaPine's comment on p. 348 "The causes of emotion are complex, difficult to identify, and only partly within our control." He further says with regard to changing our emotions: "But changing our emotions may be slow. We have responsibility, but total control over our bodies" (p. 352).

LaPine encourages pastors and theologians to learn a basic understanding of how emotions function physiologically rather than simply dismissing them as sinful. He provides a very good analysis of the injunctions "don't be anxious" in the Sermon on the Mount and in Philippians 4 to show the reality that we live in the "now and not yet," and its impact on emotions and suffering.

This is not an easy read. The issues are complex and require thought. But when we're talking about the difference between condemning someone for their mental health issues and being a help, I think it's necessary to make the effort.

[Matthew Loftus · Rating 5 out of 5]

LaPine takes on an ambitious project -- tracing the history of theological perspectives on psychology from Aquinas to the present day in the Reformed tradition, and then applying Aquinas' insights to modern neuroscience. Along the way, we learn how "emotional voluntarism" (the perspective that we ought to be able to control our emotions through specific activities) has infected modern Reformed thought and how that is unhelpful to those suffering from mental illness. By invoking Aquinas' "tiered psychology" and recognizing how our bodies always qualify our agency, we can see how our mind's control of our emotions is more like that of a gardener than a computer programmer. Now all it needs is someone to write a popular, easily accessible summary!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I admit it. I liked this book.

The basic thesis of this book is that for a long time, Protestant Christians--and moderns in general--often view the body and soul as roughly two distinct things, rather than as a unity. There is a distinction between them, but not separation, and what happens to the one happens to the other. Things that the soul does affect the body, and things that happen to the body affect the soul. LaPine argues that because of this close relationship, it is vital to recognize that the body brings "qualified agency" to the soul. It is "agency" because the soul can still make decisions, but "qualified" because the soul does not have absolute control over the body, particularly the emotions.

The key example would be Jesus in the Garden. Jesus was, in fact, terrified of going to the cross, but responded by controlling his emotions.

LaPine does a brilliant job of mapping out a history of anthropology that explains Aquinas, post-Aquinas medievals, Calvin, and modern Reformed. While fall narratives are fairly fallible, the one told by LaPine is fairly restrained, and indeed given that the thesis is so tied with such a volatile issue, the decorum and restrain with which he states his argument is admirable.

Thus, though I would value John Calvin's points about self-control in suffering, I recognize that LaPine may be right that Calvin is uncomfortable with strong emotion for some reason.

If you are looking for a concise summary of Aquinas's view of the soul and body, this was as good a summary as anything.

Aquinas sees the soul as performing four things: nourishment (shared with plants), sense perception, movement (both shared with animals), and understanding. Of these the understanding is least conjoined with the body.

Sense perception basically takes the bodily senses and creates a single perception. That sensible perception is stored by the imagination. Our estimative power evaluates the sense perception as pleasant or unpleasant and our memory stores these things. Because we share sense perception with animals, including estimative powers, animals can also recognize things as pleasant or unpleasant without being rational.

Sense appetite follows upon sense perception, and it basically consists of what we might call the emotions. The intellect rules them politically but not despotically (i.e. I can control my emotions, but I cannot make them whatever I want them to be).

The passive intellect receives the phantasms of the imagination and then the active intellect gives them intelligibility. The will follows the intellect's decision, and also shapes it.

For LaPine, this shares an overlap with modern neuroscience, which has moved somewhat away from Freud. There is an acknowledgment that the body evaluates things unconsciously--which has obvious parallels with Thomas's notions of the sensory perception and appetite. The implication is that the body can get "stuck" with unconcious appraisals that are malformed (i.e. due to a trauma, since my body has irrationally associated safe things with danger). This allows us to see why just "telling ourselves" that something is not dangerous may not make us feel it is okay.*

The other interesting thing is that LaPine says that the soul is shaped by language as well as the mind. Even though there have been experiments that have been performed showing people giving false accounts for why they did something, this "does not entail that our entire self-conscious mental life is confabulation, nor that language has no downward force." Confabulation just means fabrication or made-up explanation.

When I discussed this book with a friend, he made the point that one of the big disadvantages of the book is that there is not a lot of practical help on what to do with someone who is struggling with some sort of besetting physical condition. I think this is a strength and a weakness, because it allows you to kind of evaluate the argument of the book on it's own terms rather than getting distracted by some of the fights between, say, nouthetic counseling and Christian schools of psychology.

However, LaPine's arguments will definitely sit uncomfortably with some nouthetic types, because it does not say much ab0ut confession of sin and victimhood, but says a lot about how bodily weakness is often not the result of sin. Yes, that is a weakness, and if I were LaPine I would shut a few more doors than he does. But his theology is not a theology of victimhood. He affirms personal responsibility and calls Christians to continue to fight sin, which is often communicated through the flesh. Indeed, I think his theology of the flesh as physical passions is really something that makes sense of the text.

In conclusion, I think that LaPine has written a fairly airtight argument. But, I would say that it can be practically applied in all sorts of ways. For instance, I would argue that we need to be able to discuss in the public square how depression often is simply the result of ingratitude, and at the same time that we need to be personally cautious when interacting with individuals who may be dealing with conditions that are more complicated.

At any rate, this is not really a practical book, and I read it for fun because I like to nerd out. It probably won't change how I counsel, but it will change how I read some Scripture passages and maybe even how I experience the world. For that, I owe LaPine a debt of gratitude.

*I definitely get the truth that repeating truths to yourself does not always work. I have been in situations where just telling myself the truths of Scripture did less for me than a walk or physical activity. Then again, sometimes have a change of attitude has helped me out immensely. It all depends.

[Josh S]

Sanctification and growth is always mediated by the body since we are embodied beings. Physical systems don’t change instantaneously but have plasticity. This underscores the importance of tending to the body through, for example, the establishment of habits.

- This book got way better in the last 1/4. I did not enjoy or feel it was necessary to spend 250+ pages on Aquinas, Calvin, and a random assortment of other thinkers between them. I also thought it was not great to have this much on theologians’ opinions before getting to any real Biblical exegesis/data.
- The depth of scholarship across multiple fields—historical theology, Biblical scholarship, neuroscience— was pretty astounding.
- I appreciated and resonated with some of the “modern Reformed” thinkers in their caution about building speculative anthropological models that go beyond clear Scriptural statements.

As a foster parent who has had helped raise four infants, the following brought me to tears:
What is clear from this example is that the neglect of Leon at a prelinguistic time of his life had significant moral consequences for the rest of his life. My point is this: we tend to think that moral governance happens only through the explicit use of language. However, we need a theological anthropology that sees a mother rocking her baby as a deeply spiritual act that knits shalom into the brain and nervous system of the child.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents an argument for rediscovering a holistic reformed theological psychology based on a Thomistic tiered hylomorphism. He argues this in contrast to the often dualistic and reductionistic nouthetic approach found in Protestant evangelical traditions.

He emphasizes the importance of neuroplasticity in forming the person tracing back to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (“We become just by doing just acts”) vis-à-vis Thomas Aquinas’ concept of habitus. This idea was apparently lost in the Protestant Reformation with John Calvin as the primary representative.

The book itself is a slog being a polished doctoral dissertation prepared for publication. I had to read multiple chapters twice. It reminded me of reading Anthony Thiselton‘s New Horizons.

I was richly rewarded with the dense, yet enjoyable historical sections, tracing the concepts from Thomas Aquinas into the modern time. I also found the biblical theology chapter most edifying. My idea of body/soul change to a body/mind distinction. I did find the section on neuroscience to be thin and superficial. I also found the last few chapters on the application of his argument to be thin and somewhat vague. I suppose I was hoping for more case studies at the end.

In all, a richly rewarding read that I hope will inspire further research and writing especially in robustly engaging neuroscience and practically outworking the hylomorphic tiered psychology in reformed evangelical Protestantism pastorally.

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lapine’s main thesis was really helpful and illuminating. His model of how the body affects and qualifies emotions seemed to be roughly the same as that of Aquinas. Sometimes he seemed to rely on one source a little too heavily, and his tracing of the development of psychology in the Reformed tradition was peripheral to the constructive parts of the book. Nevertheless, I really appreciated a rigorous yet pastoral way of thinking about emotions - a topic that I’m not too familiar with.

[John Damon Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

LaPine does a good job emphasizing the holistic approach Christians ought to take to the complexities of mind body and soul and how they all interrelate. His emphasis on the fundamentally agrarian nature of man was completely delightful. However his style was not very easy to comprehend.

[Hunter Smithpeters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the most paradigm-shifting books I've read in a while. LaPine, seeing an underdevelopment in Reformed psychology, seeks to retrieve a "Thomistic-like" tiered psychology which can explain how the body "qualifies agency". Meaning, does the body give rise to agency and if so how? And if it does, how is it that our emotions can be morally culpable yet also not directly under our control. He does a DENSE in depth dive into Aquinas tiered psychology from the Summa and then shows how this psychology dropped out before Calvin, leading to an underdeveloped psych in modern Reformed Psych, which then gives rise to counseling paradigms like Biblical Counseling (sorry if you're into that) which can't account for how the body impacts our psychology and is too dualistic. He proposes something akin to JP Moreland's Thomistic-like psychology and how that can be easily mapped onto the current best views of cognitive emotional states which are bottom-up and top-down: the body creates the inputs which higher cognitive functions use to create the phenomenology of affective self-awareness, but how the higher cognitive faculties and politically govern (top-down) the lower faculties and create new neuroplasticity of the body and develop virtue.

All around incredible book, though extremely dense. It requires knowledge of Aristotelian metaphysics utilizes by Aquinas or you'll have a hard time understanding what he is saying. So, incredible book but would be crazy hard to read for most lay people. Luckily, he told me he is writing a popular level version.

[Troy Nevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is highly technical, so my rating may not be a great indicator. What I could understand, I appreciated. I had some disagreements with the things I understood. I trust overall that there was wisdom in psychological factors that I did not comprehend. I am not an expert on that though.

One of my issues was his lack of appreciation for passions and affections, more readily resorting to choosing emotions. I understand his argument for using emotions, but I think it would be a richer read by using them and distinguishing affections (our propensity to view things in the positive or negative) and passions (the specific response that come from our positive/negative behaviours) over emotions. I do not know where LaPine stands on impassability either.

His writing is not my favourite, but this is a technical book, and he writes technically, so I expected he was going to be exacting and difficult to read in many areas.

[Lauren Jones]

Interesting but didn’t finish

[Ryan Shelton]

My interview with Matt LaPine:
https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-logic...

Exceptionally good.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let it sit for a bit, but the best book I’ve read so far this year. Fascinating blend of theology, philosophy, and modern psychology with overarching aim of reforming counseling practice. Certain chapters are more accessible than others, especially towards the end of the book. Hoping for a more accessible version in future and other works building upon this. Also, footnotes kinda drove me crazy. Sometimes they were helpful, sometimes just made me lose focus on the text. Was a lot easier to track by ignoring them.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

LaPine retrieves the tiered psychology of Thomas Aquinas in order to bring to the fore the importance of the body and the unconscious in psychology. His main contention is that emotions are not reduced to the cognitive (right belief fixes bad emotions), what he calls emotional voluntarism, but that emotions are a complex phenomenon that are grounded in our bodies and informed by unconscious processes. His anthropology is holistic rather than dualistic, with the soul/spirit and body as different aspects of the whole person. This is in incredible book that is a must read for anyone that is interested in ministry or helping people and wish to do so from a nuanced theological and biblical perspective.

[Nate Claiborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

LaPine gives the average reader a shortcut through his work. By just reading chapters 1, 8, 9, and the conclusion, you get the main contours of his argument. If you’re a nerd, you can read the other chapters and get a history of theologians making sense of emotions and our responsibility to manage them well.

If you wanna know my other thoughts (including an interview I did with the author), you can do that @ nateclaiborne.substack.com

I should note Lexham Press sent me this book as a review copy.

[Tim Michiemo · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7 Stars

Matthew LaPine's "The Logic of the Body" is a work of theological retrieval that argues that emotions are neither volitional nor automatic but must be understood through a tiered model. LaPine mines arguments from philosophers and theologians like Aristotle, Aquinas, and Calvin to explain how Christians should think about emotions, the body, our fallen state, and our sanctification. Thus, this is a book focusing on theological anthropology with great implications for Christian counseling.

First, I would like to say that this book simply wasn't for me. It was highly academic and many of LaPine's arguments were drowned in scholarly jargon for me. There were simply too many new theological, psychological, and philosophical terms for me to follow LaPine's argument; many sections I simply skimmed/skipped through because they were incomprehensible to me. Now I'm not saying that LaPine's arguments are incomprehensible, but he simply relied on too many scholarly terms and arguments to make it accessible to laymen trying to understand Christian psychology and counseling.

Thus, I think this book is more of a doctoral thesis or scholarly paper than a lay-level book on Christian anthropology and psychology. Most pastors, students, and laymen will be simply lost in the jargon of this book (like me).

Yet I still think I got the gist of LaPine's argument, and I think it's very helpful (even though I wish he would have argued it in more understandable terms). LaPine proposes a model of emotions that recognizes that there are two levels. Emotions are part of the mind and can be controlled by thinking right and forming the right habits, but there is an aspect in which our emotions are subconscious and controlled by our body. Thus, when we are instructed to not be anxious, we must do our due diligence to set our minds on the kingdom of God, but at the same time recognize that in this life our bodies are still fallen and will still struggle with anxiety. There were aspects of anxiety that we will still experience in this life and should not lead Christians to think they are failing or disappointing God.

In short, I would say that most Christians should skip this book, unfortunately. It is simply too academic. But for Christian scholars in the high academic field, I think this is a book that has good arguments and great truths mined from the past!

[Jasmine Timm · Rating 5 out of 5]

As many of the endorsements for this book have mentioned, this is an important book for the church. Lapine has the unique ability to cut through both modern and historical philosophies, examining ideologies across disciplines and identifying what is true and helpful as well as what is confused and unnecessary. He offers a “tiered psychology” that is well-grounded in Scripture and carefully examines how modern Reformed theology has failed to develop a robust psychology to aid Christian sufferers. Ultimately, he addresses many pertinent issues facing the Western church in particular, namely how we can view the problem of anxiety and the widely held belief that emotions are purely moral and voluntary. What I appreciate most about Lapine’s project is his ability to provide nuance and clarification without discarding or discrediting important church tradition. This book could be viewed, in my opinion, as a clarifying work rather than a project that seeks to establish something new.

The biggest weakness of the book is its lack of readability in some sections. As someone who is not a theologian or pastor, I found some sections to be a bit cumbersome. If you have no background in either historical theology or modern neuroscience, my hunch is that this book may be a difficult read. As a counselor who was trained at a seminary, I struggled to comprehend portions of the book, but I do believe it is a difficult read worth pushing through. It is a harder read, but one that is worth it.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in providing a biblically sound yet compassionate approach to mental illness and human emotion. This is an important book for pastors, shepherds, counselors and anyone who provides soul care to Christians. I am eager to see how this book continues to serve the church and how it spurs more thoughtful care of Christian suffering.

[David Bruyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a demanding book, because of LaPine's careful and detailed scholarship. His central thesis is that much in evangelical theology does not properly consider the role of the body in shaping and affecting emotion and responsibility. It fails to view the body as providing habituation, plasticity, forms of perception that ultimately affect cognition and emotion.
LaPine calls on Aquinas as the best example of a 'tiered psychology'- one whose more baroque theological anthropology had plenty of nuance in terms of forms of upper and lower cognition, appetite and perception. Aquinas saw the body as playing a serious role in human perception, cognition and passion.
Much of the book I agreed with, parts were genuinely illuminating, and I fully agree that some biblical counselling is in desperate need of getting away from Newhart's "Stop it!" mode of treating people.
I disagreed with LaPine's wholesale rejection of the concept of affections, and his rather swift dismissal of the work of Thomas Dixon. I think he does this because he dislikes the harder disjunction between upper/lower, affections/passions, rational/irrational, that is found in Dixon and also in Edwards. Lapine wants more blended concepts, to account for the complexity of emotions. He also wishes to include concepts of the unconscious, or irrational, in the entire makeup of man.
I don't think one has to reject the concept of affections so as to properly include the body in one's theological anthropology. Some of LaPine's conclusions I can accept tentatively, some I'll have to suspend judgement on until a later time. However, I think he would do better to abandon the term 'emotions' altogether.

[Daniel Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was seeing this book promoted and endorsed everywhere, and it's on a vital topic that is getting more and more attention these days: The nature of emotion as it relates to physiology, cognition, and will on the one hand, and orthodox Christian theology on human nature, human responsibility, and sin on the other. As neuroscience has advanced, it has also raised questions about the brain/mind relationship and how this maps on (or perhaps can't map on) to the more traditional Christian idea of body/soul duality.

The Reformed tradition that LaPine comes from has worked with (he argues) an impoverished view of these things. LaPine's basic contention is that the older, medieval model of the human person, behavior, disposition, and mind/body relationship, as exemplified by figures like Thomas Aquinas (13th century) actually maps better on to modern scientific perspectives on all this—and in fact onto a proper understanding of the biblical idea of mind/flesh/spirit. Actually, a biblical picture of the human person, while not giving or intending to give a fully orbed scientific psychological account in any modern sense, does take into account the role of the body when it comes to human passions.

I thought the writing was not the clearest at times (and not just because of the dense nature of the subject), which made some of it a bit difficult to get through, but overall a worthwhile read on a very important topic.

[Glenn Crouch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a fascinating book that takes us on a journey - not only through Scripture - but back to Aquinas and his understanding of us, through to Calvin and then through a selection of Reformed thinkers - bringing us firmly into the 21st Century. I admit that I struggled a little with the first few chapters, but it was definitely worth my persistence - and when you get to the final 4 chapters, the earlier chapter make a lot more sense.

Whilst the author is approaching his topic from a Reformed view (and I would note that I am a Lutheran pastor), his critique of Calvin and other Reformed luminaries is very good - whilst remaining quite respectful. Similarly, with the author’s dealing with modern psychological approaches - he seems quite fair in his criticisms though remains respectful.

I especially applaud the author’s approach to anthropology - with us being “body and soul” - and that both according to Scripture and according to the book of nature, the two are not easy to separate. The author shows how this affects our approach to counselling, as well as how it affect our view of ourselves.

He also stretched my understanding in both psychology and philosophy - which I enjoyed.

I very much appreciated his Conclusion - as well as his thoughtful appendix on the Heart. Well referenced and superb Bibliography.

Well worth the read for any Christian Leader / Counsellor who doesn’t mind digging a bit deeper into what makes us who we are.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It may be that theologians have not recognized the extent to which lived experience is vital to our sanctification and the extent to which the church as a social body ministers health and holiness to its members."


"We need a theological anthropology that sees a mother rocking her baby as a deeply spiritual act that knits shalom into the brain and nervous system of the child."


In his foreword, Kevin Vanhoozer says this book is hard to categorize; it's also hard to review. It's a published dissertation, certainly not written for mere mortals like me, and yet I enjoyed sitting in on its grand tour of historical theology, philosophy, neuroscience, and biblical theology. Matt moves from one tower of thought to another, not developing his conclusions or implications very much (again, I'm assuming, due to the nature of doctoral dissertations), but then there are a few gems that illustrate just how meaningful and relevant his thesis is.

So I'm glad for the work done in this book, and I also really hope Matt continues to write on his subject in a more accessible genre. What does it mean for devotion, for discipleship, for life in the church and in the home?

[Steve Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Maybe closer to 3.5 ⭐️) Really loved this book, although the take-always are admittedly rather few/specific (though important!) with respect to the required degree/depth of engagement with Aquinas and Calvin.
I have some outstanding questions about LaPine’s near (?) equation of emotion/passions/affections, given the implications this may have for how we speak about God & affections (thought to be fair, this isn’t the focus of LaPine’s work). LaPine does ponder some avenues for exploring the usefulness of “affection” (p22 in assessing Dixon’s taxonomy, and p.209-210 in discussing Bavinck’s psychology). I reckon LaPine could helpfully explore these avenues further.
However, LaPine’s analysis of emotional voluntarist tendencies in much modern reformed (or broader evangelical?) thinking is insightful. I reckon these voluntarist tendencies really do impact our preaching, teaching, and pastoral work negatively. This kinda book is really helpful for avoiding either an exclusively cognitivest OR “therapeutic/felt needs/affirmation” approach to discipleship

[C.T. Eldridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the single most important book I’ve read for the sake of pastoral ministry. Pastors and counselors are in need of anthropology and psychology that takes into account the body’s affect on human agency. Too many pastors and theologians write about pastoral issues without any psychological sensitivity or awareness. And too many psychologists and therapists write about mental health without any theological fidelity. Lapine helps reconcile the two perspectives while strongly correcting both. Not an easy read, but it’s well worth the labor. It’s incredibly well researched.