About 12 months ago a Dr John Stott sermon was posted on living as an integrated Christian in regard to our emotions. As an integrated Christian emotionally focused therapist, I was delighted hear his clear descriptions of Jesus as an emotional being, and his emphasis on the importance of emotions in spiritual experience, worship and preaching.

However I was disappointed with his outline of the relationship between the rational and emotional self, which seemed to suggest that we cannot trust our emotions since these are tainted by the Fall, but instead we must rely on the rational mind to control these depraved emotions. There seems to be an unspoken assumption in this argument that the mind has not been affected by the Fall and is fully regenerated.

Firstly, I would suggest that his argument ignores the reality of our whole selves being depraved and in sin. Augustine, writing on the Fallen Human Nature said "All good things..life, senses and mind, (human nature) has come from God. But the weakness which darkens and disables these good natural qualities come from..original sin,."

Writing later, Calvin, in his doctrine of total depravity, argues that humankind is depraved in every part of its being, thus supporting the view that both our mind and our emotions are depraved and need to be regenerated.

Secondly, Stott's comments ignore neuroscience research concerning the ways in which the rational and emotional parts of our brains cooperate to give the best decision making possibilities.

Neuroscientist Damasio researched people with brain injuries that had had one specific effect: to damage that part of the brain where emotions are generated. In all other respects they seemed normal - they just lost the ability to feel emotions. What he found was that their ability to make decisions was seriously impaired. They could logically describe what they should be doing, but in practice they found it very difficult to make decisions about where to live, what to eat, etc.

Zhong (2005) explored the relationship between rational and emotional foundations of ethical decision making, and contrary to the normal assumption that relying solely on rational processes results in the best ethical decisions, he argues that decision making based purely on rational processes, ignoring certain emotional messages, can actually license unethical behaviour. Green et al (2001) used magnetic resonance imaging to record the involvement of emotional areas in the brain in decision making involving moral decisions.

Hence in mutual cooperation, the emotional processing area of the brain (which quickly processes sensory information related to survival and attachment matters) informs, and can override, the cognitive processing area. Equally, the cognitive area has connections with, and modifies output from, the emotional area located in the mid brain.

As discussed above, research demonstrates that decision making functions best when both of these brain areas are involved, and that disruption in this process leads to disordered thinking, decision making and emotional expression.

Boivin (1991) writing on the Hebraic model of personhood supports this integrated approach, describing "the various dimensions of personhood as existing along a mutually interactive continuum to which the divinely inspired aspects of the human condition are directly apparent in the biopsychological aspects".

Additionally, as integrated Christians, we live with the indwelling Holy Spirit which convicts us of sin and guides us in all truth (John 16: 8 & 13). Hence, to avoid those excesses which John Stott warns of, we need to allow the integration of our rational and emotional selves under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the revealed word of God, rather than giving priority to the rational self which is also part of our fallen personhood.

Augustine, de natura et gratia iii, 3-iv, 4: in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 60, ed. C.F.Urba and J. Zycha (Vienna: Tempsky. 1913) quoted in McGrath, A.E. (2007) The Christian Theology Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.

Zhong C.B. (2005) The Ethical Dangers of Rational Decision Making Stanford Graduate School of Business Seminars: Stanford.