X-ray Questions: Drawing Out the Whys and Wherefores of Human Behavior

From Gospel Translations

“Why did I do that?”

Why do you react that way? Use those words and that tone of voice? Think those things? Feel this way? Remember that particular facet of what happened? Make that choice in this situation? Anticipate those possible outcomes?

The question WHY? launches a thousand theories of human nature. Why do people do what they do? An “answer” to this question anchors each analysis of human personality, and every attempt to fix what ails the human race. Aview of motivation aligns and colors every detail of theory and practice. Did you become fixated somewhere on the hierarchy of need? Are you genetically hardwired towards aggression? Are raging hormones the culprit? Do your instinctual psychic impulses conflict with the dictates of society? Have your drives been reinforced by rewarding stimuli? Are you an Aries with Jupiter rising? Are you an Adult Child of unhappy and determinative traumatic experience? Are you compensating for perceived inferiorities, seeking to acquire better self-esteem? Did a demon named Addiction infiltrate a crevice in your personality? Did you have a failure of willpower? Are you ignorant of good doctrine? Are you temperamentally a melancholic or a sanguine, pessimist or optimist, introvert or extrovert? Are you immersed in the ideological false consciousness that characterizes your social class? Does your self-talk misrepresent the bases for identity and self-worth? “I did that, thought that, felt that because.…” What meets the eye has reasons.

Theories of what makes people tick incarnate into counseling models. Explanations are signposts to solutions: take medication, experience reparenting, cast out a demon, get your needs met, don’t make big decisions on bad star days, reprogram your inner monologue, explore your pain. Presumed reasons and appropriate responses are fiercely debated. In any university library, hundreds of yards of library shelves collect and collate the debates. The Lord God has a great deal to say on the issue, weighing in with His own point of view. He vigorously rebuts the contenders and counterfeits by demonstrating that human motivation has to do with Him. Counseling that aims to arise from Scripture must do justice to what God says about the whys and wherefores of the human heart. Scripture claims to search out the “thoughts and intentions of the heart” according to the specific criteria by which the Searcher of hearts evaluates what He sees in us (Heb 4:12f).

The following list of “X-ray questions” provides aid in discerning the patterns of a person’s motivation. The questions aim to help people identify and unveil the ungodly masters that occupy positions of authority in their hearts. These questions reveal “functional gods,” what or who actually controls particular actions, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, memories, and anticipations. Note well, “functional gods” in a particular situation often stand diametrically opposed to the “professed God.”

[Remainder of English text is only available by request, for the purpose of translating.]