“The Heart” is the second major chapter of volume one of Inner Land, The Inner Life.
As its title suggests, this chapters focuses on the heart. In both ancient and modern thought, the heart is synonymous with a person’s inner vitality. Ovid writes, “For in these bodies of ours the heart [pectus] is of more value than the hand; all our real living is in that.”1 The body may waste away, but life remains in the heart. Conversely, the healthy body cannot go on if its heart decides otherwise (Arnold is referring to inner resolve rather than medical conditions).
Looking at the concept of the heart from another angle, Arnold draws on the image of Christopher Columbus at the edge of the Americas.2 The sun and clouds are the same ones he has always known. The shoreline is nothing spectacular. But “the great, wide mouth of a mighty river” is suggestive of “what riches must lie hidden in the interior behind the newly discovered coast” (36). Columbus now seeks the heart of the continent, and “the discoverers could not rest until the unfathomable wealth of the interior lay before their astonished eyes” (37). In the same way, the church represents the shores of the kingdom, and if we knew what lay at the heart of it, we would surely give our all to attain it.
Arnold also considers God’s heart. If we look only to the secular state that God has appointed to rule, “a power of bloodshed and diplomacy that is anchored in the right to property” (37), we will fail to see that God’s heart is one of love, not violence, and common life, not private property. Arnold follows this up with the interesting claim that “whoever keeps his or her back turned on the heart of God will be just as perplexed when confronted by the mystery of the human heart. For that is where the likeness of God shall be revealed” (48). While he does not explain the connection, his subsequent comments on the depth and hiddenness of the heart suggest an analogy with the mystery of God and recall theological reflection on the image of God throughout the centuries.3 Understanding ourselves can translate to understanding God, and vice versa.
Arnold goes on to examine the relationship between the human heart and outward behavior: “A pure, creative spirit expresses what is within very clearly and intelligibly by outward and visible signs” (38). But those who are untruthful or seek to conceal the state of their hearts for whatever reason will manipulate this outward expression of their inner life. Indeed, they may even find it difficult to be honest with God himself. More basically, though, our deeds ultimately reflect the condition of our hearts. Postwar nationalists and revolutionaries, for example, showed the true nature of their hearts through their hatred for others and the lies they spread about them. The actual state of our hearts, however much we try to hide it, will sooner or later manifest itself.
Before God, our outward behavior has little value if it does not reflect our inner commitments: “Only what we do for the Lord with all our heart has any value” (42). Such completeness of heart can even be discerned by other people, and this is likely to leave a strong impression. Arnold suggests that the first characteristic of the united heart is emotion. This kind of heart experiences “jubilant exultation or quiet happiness” and sets itself against hate and discontent (44). Second, the heart is “the seat of all deep thoughts” (44). Despite whatever other thoughts a heart may entertain, the united heart takes its counsel from God and receives clarity from his truth. Here, emotion is again important. The heart recognizes that particular knowledge which brings joy and leads to action. It understands that “all knowledge that is related only to the thinking brain is dead, including mere intellectual knowledge of biblical things” (46).
The third characteristic of the united heart is will, which holds together and integrates emotion and knowledge. The heart must not simply savor various feelings or admire great thoughts. It must energetically seek and cling to that which is good, acting in accordance with it. Anchored in right emotion and knowledge, the will becomes strong and seeks to unite itself with God. Otherwise, “we will swim with the stream and cease to have character” (48).
With this schema of the ordered heart, Arnold can reconsider outward behavior. True action, the action which God intends, is that which proceeds from the heart united in emotion, knowledge, and will. And greater still is action which results from the hearts of many, united with one another and bearing the fruit of community. Arnold proceeds to situate Jesus as the model for right action. His death on the cross is accomplished with perfect will and perfect love. This perfect will can be seen in his endurance of Gethsemane and his cry of godforsakenness, a will that allowed him to persevere and prevented his heart from being “broken by the anguish of his pain” (49). His perfect love is exhibited in his unity with God, both in his high-priestly prayer (John 17) and in entrusting his spirit to the Father. In perfect love, he also demonstrated his unity with humanity in “prayer for his enemies, concern for a criminal, tender care for his own,” and the promise of the Holy Spirit (49).
Unfortunately, such unity of heart is rarely to be seen in others besides Jesus. There are many striving hearts, but most depend on themselves rather than the Spirit. The only way out of this is for the heart to humbly recognize its own interests and shortcomings. Where the heart still falters, it is in denial of its position: “It tries passionately to cling to self-chosen, human ideals, meant to bolster its self-will and hostile self-assertion” (53). The heart may find temporary elevation through other means – Arnold again seems to be thinking of specific groups like nationalists and revolutionaries – but these will ultimately fail. God alone can heal the heart of its pride.
In particular, two opposite pitfalls tempt the heart: self-love and legalism. Arnold points to their alternative in “blessed community with the Divine Being” (56). Here, where true love rules, the heart sees the depressingly small and destructive nature of its self-love; it is also driven by warm desire for God and others, rather than a cold set of rules. Again, such love doesn’t originate with the heart itself but is only possible through renewal in the Holy Spirit. Arnold invites the reader to recall the early Christians and those in the Radical Reformation. By the grace the Holy Spirit gave them, they willingly followed Jesus to their deaths as martyrs.
This grace results in decisiveness, and in the unified heart that Arnold has been commending throughout this chapter: “We cannot serve two masters at once. We cannot pursue two ideals. … The kingdom of God, as the final kingdom, does not tolerate in any heart any other kingdom besides itself” (60). Rather, such a heart “devotes every area of its existence to his rulership and to the church. That includes professional and vocational activity with all the skills involved in it; it includes our worldly belongings and all our temporal possessions” (61). Only with this kind of wholeheartedness are we able to fully respond to the call God makes upon us.
Continue:
Introduction
1.1. The Inner Life
1.2. The Heart
1.3. Soul and Spirit
2.1. The Conscience and Its Witness
2.2. The Conscience and Its Restoration
3.1. The Experience of God
3.2. The Peace of God
4.1. Light and Fire
4.2. The Holy Spirit
5.1. The Living Word
1. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller, vol. 2 (Harvard University Press, 1958), 255 (bk. 13, l. 369). More recent English translations often have “mind,” “intelligence,” etc. for pectus, literally, “breast.”
2. I recognize the problematic nature of this image, which presents the viewpoint of the colonizer, given the extensive suffering of the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the hands of Columbus and subsequent colonizers. Rather than exclude it from this summary article, though, I have included it here so that readers can understand Arnold in his own context, with any biases he held, rather than read about a polished but non-existent person.
3. For example, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) found an analogy for the Trinity in the human mind, its love of itself, and its knowledge of itself. See Saint Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Stephen McKenna (Catholic University Press of America, 1970), book 9:5, p. 277–78.
