Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

091 How A Psychologist Came to Believe in Miracles…and More (Book Conversation)

• Season 6 • Episode 91

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Geoff and Cyd talk about the impact of reading Why I Believe: A Psychologist's Thoughts on Suffering, Miracles, Science, and Faith, by Dr. Henry Cloud, specifically...

  • the place of miracles and healing in mental health concerns, 
  • how encountering God often precedes evidence for God,
  • and, the power of open systems and God at work in the world. 


From the book's blurb:
"World-renowned psychologist and leadership expert Henry Cloud has impacted millions of lives through his groundbreaking books and through his work coaching leaders of the most influential organizations in the world. But few people know the details of his own story and how he became one of the most beloved and respected psychologists and faith influencers in America.
 
In this indelibly personal and vulnerable book, Dr. Cloud leads us through his early struggles with illness and depression and the miracles that healed him and led him to his calling as a healer of others. Through masterful storytelling combined with a deeply nuanced understanding of the human mind, Dr. Cloud invites readers to inhabit the spaces of suffering and elation that make us most human and to walk alongside of him as he ponders the great questions we are so often afraid to ask but which also give life meaning."

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Welcome back to the Attaching to God podcast, where we are integrating neuroscience, spirituality, and faith all together, hosted by Sid and Jeff Holtzclaw. And today we're talking, this is kind of like an interview slash reflection podcast, where we're not, Sid's kind of interviewing me, uh, on a book that I read this summer that I found very Impactful, I think is the right word.

Is that what I said about it when I kept talking to you about it? You've said a lot of words about this book. Okay. Well, what is the book? Yeah. Well, even before that, uh, I think it's kind of fun that you're being interviewed instead of being the one interviewing others once. Um, so the book is called why I believe, and it's by Dr. Henry cloud. And it really surprised me. Um, How sort of attached you were to this book for a season this summer where it was, it kind of went everywhere you went for a little while, and it's not the typical kind of book that you often read. It's an autobiography or like a memoir almost, which isn't something that you normally gravitate toward.

So I would really love to hear what drew you to picking up this book? Like what? What compelled you to get it? Well, uh, yes, uh, no, you can hold onto it. Uh, we're just in other parts of the same room here. Uh, so I, I don't know, like Amazon or somebody floated it through and I was looking kind of through it and I looked at the table of contents and it was super compelling to me because he has three parts, one, The first part is how I came to believe in God.

The second part is how I came to believe in miracles. And then the third part is how I came to believe through science. And I was really intrigued about how, you know, a world famous, uh, psychologist, uh, research psychologist and practicing therapist, uh, has kind of grappled through issues of faith, uh, And so, as someone who runs this podcast on faith and science, neuroscience and faith, uh, as we just launched a doctoral program in spiritual formation and relational neuroscience, I always want to hear how people are integrating these things.

Uh, so that's what drew me to it. So was it like an advertisement or a review or you don't even know? I don't know. It just somehow landed some of all those algorithms, right? That's right. Okay. So as you read it, um, I just, I mean, you talked about this book a lot this summer. Um, but what was it that really stood out to you or felt surprising about this book?

Well, he, uh, we were, I'm trying to get him on the podcast, but he's kind of a big deal. So I'm not sure that's going to happen anytime soon. So I will just kind of share what he shares and then why it felt important to me. But at the beginning he said why he wrote the book was, uh, kind of for the people who are surprised in his ordinary life, like his neighbors or his friends to find out that he's a Christian, but not one of those Christians.

He actually says that. Uh, and, uh, Dr. Dave Fitch and I, uh, we wrote a book called Prodigal Christianity. We have a whole chapter that's basically that same idea of like, Oh, are you one of those Christians? And so he's writing kind of a defensive of the faith for people who might not. Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean by one of those?

Yeah. One of those really dogmatic in your face about God or going to hell. or very political, uh, uh, like very kind of like excluding people, uh, or, or something like that. So the kind of Christians that make you feel like a project instead of a person. Yes. That'd be one way to put it. Uh, I think many people in this current cultural moment of 2024, it's like all those, Christian nationalists, scare quotes or, uh, fundamentalists or something like that.

Okay. All right. So you've talked about, so he says that he doesn't want to be, he's not one of those Christians. So what is he wanting to communicate to his friends and neighbors then about what kind of, well, just why he wants to believe. Well, why he does belief. Uh, so, uh, the thing that was most surprising about the book is just how much he talks about miracles.

Okay. What kind of miracles, all kinds of miracles. And it's, it's really fascinating. So he talks about how there was a certain kind of low point, uh, in his life. Uh, well, it's kind of a long extended story, uh, where he was grappling with mental health and depression. He wanted to become like a professional golfer and he had all these medical issues right when he went to college.

Uh, And so his dreams kind of spiraled or crashed down with chronic pain issues, but then also kind of the loss of his sense of identity and all these things. And so anyways, he, he had heard about, he'd gotten to like a revival meeting and heard about, or heard this pastor preaching and he was prompted by the spirit to like, Go talk to him again, but he didn't know where he lived.

He just knew he lived like on the North side of town. So he dropped, like jumped in his car and just drove and just kind of felt some sort of inner promptings of the spirit to turn left and right until he like ended up on the front door of this pastor's. Um, house, and then that led to a couple other events.

The same thing happened about 15, 20 years later when he was a practicing therapist. He got a call from a client that gave all the indications of like, goodbye, I'm going to kill myself right after I get off this phone. He had no idea where she was. She, he went to her house, a place of work. And then, and this is in Los Angeles.

He's telling the story. He's living in Los Angeles at the time and he starts driving around asking the spirit to like guide him to this client and he finds her like just turn by turn navigation. Uh, so that is, that's another one. He talks about miraculous provisions for a new hospitals. Uh, he got some likes.

Uh, prophetic words about speaking contracts. He was about to, or not speaking contracts, but book contracts. He was about to sign a book contract. And then some, someone out of the blue just like called him and gave him a word that like was basically don't sign this contract. God's doing something else.

And then the one that I found most interesting. So you and I are part of like the vineyard movement right now. We're actually, this is like pretty normal where you're like, you pray, you expect God to lead, you listen for words from God for guidance. Uh, and then this last one, he was not familiar to this.

He's not inside the Vineyard movement, although he was just at the national gathering, he said that, uh, he was at. A conference is speaking in front of 500 people. And that night before he got this urge, he wouldn't call it a word from God, right? Cause he's not in the charismatic, but he got this word, a single word kneecap that jumped in his brain and would not like leave his mind.

And he's giving his morning talk and all he, all he can do is not like, think about this word kneecap that just keeps going. Like coming to mind. And so he's just ignoring it. And then during his last talk, he kind of gives all the disclaimers, like I'm not that kind of Christian. You know, I'm not one of those crazy Christians, but, uh, I have this word.

And so if anybody is struggling with a kneecap, uh, I'm just going to give, like, I'm just going to pray for you. And then you can come and find me afterwards. And so in front of everybody, he offers a word of prayer of healing or comfort or something, uh, for somebody. And he had never done something like that before.

And then somebody comes and finds him and says, I, I think that word was for me. So he takes him to the back and he's like, okay, well, I guess I need to pray for you now for your healing. And the guy was like, no, you don't need to pray for me. When you prayed In front of everybody, I felt a zap of electricity in my knee and all the pain is now gone.

And it was a diagnosed like knee infection, kneecap, but he was in like tons of pain. And so I was just shocked that like these, that someone who is so. Uh, immersed in the science as well as the neuroscience and the psychology, um, is still like holding on to these stories of, of miracles and faith. And so that is really encouraged by faith a lot.

Yeah. Because I mean, as you and I know, like we were just having a conversation not too long ago about, um, Well, that's, I won't say specifically, but there's this conversation about like, have we reduced the soul and the spiritual life to things that can be found in the brain and in the body? And even kind of the question that people might ask themselves about, like, how do I know that this is God and not just my brain?

Right. That I don't, how do I know? Um, and so, um, I'm just curious, like, does he answer that question or does he address that at all? Or does it have anything to do with like that sort of like interaction of faith and science? Like, does he address that in any way? Well, so he talks about that, uh, in the last section of the, of the book where he kind of gives reasons for faith and.

Um, like science and faith and how they're not like against each other, reasons for believing in scripture. Uh, and then also kind of how psychology and faith kind of fit together. So he does kind of talk about that later, but, but, you know, he's really clear too, when he talks about, um, how he has had to counsel people out of, Um, like abusive spiritual situations and spiritual abuse and people who are really messed up by their church environments and kind of the online narrative that I see is that people often who work with those who've been spiritually abused are oftentimes kind of against the church and work them their way out of faith is kind of the story that I see for a lot of Counselors and psychologists.

And so is this really refreshing for someone who has worked for over 20 years with spiritual abuse to still have a very robust sense of faith, a robust sense of God being at work in their life, as well as the lives of others. And that God is actually still a healing agent, uh, in the midst of these things.

And so just, yeah, that's just. Was great to hear. Yeah. And as far as like, I think, um, you know, I don't know if you mentioned it to me exactly, but it was something about how, like, he kind of came to faith through science, but that was after, or like in reflection, he could look at, like, he'd actually encountered God before he believed.

Is that. Yes. Yes. So, so at the, at the hinge into the third part where it kind of gives evidence for how faith and science fit together, he kind of says, well, a lot of people go out and examine the evidence for whether, you know, Jesus is God or Christianity can believed, and then they're convinced. Uh, and then he apologizes.

Like, well, I kind of did the opposite. I just kind of threw myself into it. the life of God and kind of saw what happened and sorted it out as I went. And then I found the evidence for it later. And he was apologetic for that, but actually that I think is the faith journey of most people. That certainly is the faith journey of like the earliest Christians who just encountered some sort of miraculous, uh, healing, uh, from God or a word of God.

A lot of missionaries will still. speak that way, you know, that people are encountering Jesus. And then you kind of bring the scripture and evidence later. And so I actually think his route is more of the normal right. Right. Yeah. Well, especially when you come to, when it comes to other faiths, other religions, right?

Like I've read lots of stories about Muslims and Hindu people having an encounter with Jesus first, and then that drives them to look at. You know, the evidence for Jesus, even though they've probably spent most of their life saying Jesus is not the one true God. So, well, and I think it's probably why Dr.

Cloud's faith has been stable is because he did have these encounters with God that he couldn't just explain away, even though he learned more and more about the science. Whereas I think if we don't have that kind of more firm foundation of. Encountering God in some fashion then, um, you know, cause the evidence can always kind of be massaged either, either way for, or against God.

So as he was coming to faith and you know, his reliance and his understanding of psychology and of science, um, what connections did he make or how did that shore up that encounter with God that he had had, or how did it strengthen his faith, especially in relationship to God? like attachment science, because we talk about attachment.

This is the attaching to God podcast after all. So sure. Well, so he, um, He talks about how he sees psychology and faith or scripture actually working together, or the more he learned about scripture and dove into scripture, the more he just found these principles being reinforced that psychology was discovering later.

And that's where his book boundaries, which, you know, made him, you know, So famous, um, kind of came from was just finding in scripture, these principles for a healthy life, a robust life. Uh, so the one thing that I, that really stood out to me, uh, and the kind of the way he said it, um, was just really clarifying, I think with some of the ways.

That I've been thinking about things is, so he was talking about, um, like how scripture speaks primarily of like attach or not scripture, but like psychology and science, let's talk about like attachment and bonding and relationships and connections are the most important thing about humans. And that to disrupt those things is deadly to us, uh, that you can't survive without those things and how, you know, When he goes to scripture, he sees that same story, but then he was thinking about, um, open systems and closed systems.

He was thinking about and learning about like psychology and, uh, thermodynamics and physics, um, and how open systems grow and are alive and closed systems kind of die and, and shrivel up. And he was thinking about the therapeutic relationship about how, um, most of the success of therapy doesn't come from a particular modality of But it's really the therapeutic alliance and it's whether there is some sort of warmth and love, uh, which would he would call energy.

Uh, and then some sort of like education, psychodynamic, psychoeducation, as well as basically like truth being inserted into that, which was, information. So for physics, you know, the, the ad addition of energy and information is kind of what makes systems grow. And so he was thinking just about the therapeutic relationship.

And then he was also thinking about faith and he says, yes, like sin is, uh, a human self enclosed system, or it's a closed system. We've closed ourselves off from God and we're now in this dying, slowly dying and withering environment, individually and corporately. But that God, in a sense, is entering the system or opening it up again with love and truth through the incarnation and through the, um, giving of the Spirit through the Son and Spirit.

So God is bringing health and life and growth through this open system kind of thought. And that was really clarifying for some, for some of the ways that we've been thinking about like attachment and how you can have this kind of closed human system of broken and fractured attachments. Uh, we're all seeking to be deeply secured with God.

And yet, What if we change that kind of narrative says actually it's an open system where God is still actively Like bringing in conditions so that we can still become securely attached and it's God is adding energy and information To the system. So that way of framing. It was like super helpful.

 It's almost like you emerge from your early life with almost a closed system. Like all of the input has been put in, um, up to a certain age, your nervous system has been wired in a certain way.

And now you're sort of going about your daily life functioning out of this sort of closed system. But we've often talked about attachment in that your attachment strategies can be rewritten or change sort of like when I was talking about the fish tank water, right? Swimming around in your own filth versus having the water changed and given new fresh water.

So if that idea of like a new attachment input. Or encountering God can encountering God become a way of rewriting or adding new to that closed system of attachment that maybe you emerged from childhood with. And now God is rewriting attachment through a God encounter. Is that making any sense? What I'm asking?

Yeah. So this is exactly what. Yeah. I think we've been trying to think through so you could have it. So, you know, there's family systems theory, there's internal family systems, IFS. And so this is the idea that there is a, so I can have a system internal to myself, biological system, psychological system.

But then you also have a family system that you have internalized in some way. Then you have an actual family system. Then you have a church family, right? So the systems can kind of grow. And whenever you grow a system, then you're like, Oh, that's a new level. So it is open. Uh, but at some level you can't get outside of all the, all the human.

Beings that ever existed. It currently exists in their past histories, right? Life on this earth is a bit of a closed system. It is a closed system. Yeah, right So you can only get so big so then the big what if the theology and faith which I think we say yes to Is well, what if God is inputting into that theology?

system individually and corporately. Uh, just like, um, you know, Dr. Cloud was talking about these miracles. Um, what if God is inputting in the system in a certain way? And then how does that change how we think about these things? And then how does that change how we think about healing? So as an example, he gives us in the first part of the book, he talks about kind of this long story about, as I mentioned, he wanted to be a golf kind of star.

And then that, that Just crashed and burned and that's put him in a tailspin and he was struggling. He was hospitalized for, you know, deep depression and all while he's crying out to God to heal him of his depression. And then God doesn't, he's not just poof, you know, Like the chemical imbalance or just whatever's wrong with his life doesn't get immediately fixed.

He doesn't become a golf star again. He doesn't, you know, come out of it, but there's these other little miracles where God had sent someone to the hospital that he was in from his hometown, basically to come get him, um, and just say, Hey, this isn't working. Like we're going to go somewhere else, but he didn't go back to his hometown.

This friend, Reached out to his sister and brother in law who happened to be going to seminary. And, uh, he started living with them, but that's because she had had a prophetic dream about opening up their house to some random person, which who at that moment they didn't know. And so they were already prepared in advance to receive this stranger into their house.

And he started living with them. And basically as a college student, he was a college dropout at this point. And he was just kind of hanging out with seminary students going to their Bible studies. And, uh, And over the course of about two years, he finally woke up and was like, I'm not depressed anymore.

And it, in his mind, he basically was like, Oh God healed me not by taking me, uh, like zapping me to fix me, but he healed me. God healed, uh, me through, Incorporating me into the family of God, like I joined a new community that had new values and was living for a new purpose. And that's what long term healed him.

And so that would be a way of thinking like, well, God was inputting into the system in multiple different ways through the community, through the church, so that this one person could be healed in a long term kind of substantial kind of way. Yeah. And then in that way he formed a new, he found a new group of people that was available to him and he found a new sense of agency in a different community for a different purpose.

Right. Yeah. So how did reading all of his stories Um, shift or change any of the ways you've looked at your own story of faith and science. I don't know if it shifted or changed anything. What it did was kind of remind me of like just the things that have always kind of been there and even at the very end, like some of the more apologetics kind of things.

Um, kind of arguments for defense of faith and, uh, science and how it doesn't contradict. Like those weren't really new for me, but it just felt renewed in the sense of like, Oh, if you know, this other, you know, very famous person, uh, who knows this stuff even way more than I do, uh, isn't talking himself out of faith, but is relying on the same arguments that I've kind of known forever.

Like that was just really, um, just kind of life giving, uh, because, uh, you know, I'm a critical thinker. in the sense, you know, that I, I could talk myself out of faith. I, you know, I, I learned enough about, you know, certain things that it was like, well, you could always kind of read the evidence this way or that way.

But then to remember, it's like, Oh no, I've encountered God. I know people have encountered God in a really kind of meaningful way. You know, why, why do we talk ourselves out of faith, uh, because we've found science, why not allow faith to broaden the scope of what the science might be saying? So that's what I think was the important thing is just like, Oh yeah, we don't need to shrink faith to fit the science.

What if we allow the science to both expand our faith, but then also allow our faith to expand kind of the horizon. So this whole idea that you were talking about, like, is God like a open, Invading our closed systems with this. opportunity of new energy, new information, love and truth, which is what Christianity has always said.

Yeah. So did it happen to, do you feel like it gave you maybe more courage to speak more openly about the miracles or the encounters that you've had in your own life? Uh, I, I suppose I think when. It's inappropriate kind of, yeah, not in appropriate, but the in space appropriate, uh, kind of avenues when people are kind of curious and wondering, um, but yeah, I don't, I don't necessarily lead with kind of miracles because there's, because that goes back to those kinds of Christians, right?

There's the, those kinds of Christians that are trying to convince you of something or being very dogmatic and, um, Um, very much of like, I don't know, that's one direction, right? Another direction of those kinds of Christians might be the people that you feel like, I mean, we've probably all run across people that are like, God told me this and God did this in my life.

And everything comes back to. you know, God is making everything happen and I'm just sort of like doing whatever. Um, and so I just wonder how reading this book, maybe how does he sort of hold those two things in tension of neither straying all the way towards, um, I know it to be true. Therefore you have to know it to be true, but also not doing the, like my stories can't just be dismissed as like, you're one of those people that just.

You know, talks about, well, so in the last part, uh, and then we'll wrap it up and switch to, uh, our, our new segment, the baggage claim is in the last section, he talks about how, um, mature minds are growing into a mature faith is to be able to hold things in tension. And so I think this is one of the tensions is, is he kind of narrates all throughout, like, well, you know, he is open and believes and has experienced miracles, uh, in very concrete ways.

And he also understands that there's a slow, hard journey of healing from mental illness and mental difficulties. And that a community, um, is what is needed for that deep transformation and that there aren't really quick fixes. Right. And so he holds those two things in tension. So instead of taking the route of like, Oh, it's all just, you know, brain science and medicine or whatever, or it's all just miracles all the time.

And just like, God heal you. It's just like, well, you know, It's both. Right. You can hold both of these things in tension. So it's the tension between just ask God to heal it, ask for a miracle, and it'll be fine and just take all the medications and do the, you know, the psychological practice. But he's, there's a mystery of where those two things intersect.

Is that what I'm hearing you say? Yes. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. All right. Well, so it was a very good book. Yeah. What's the full title? Why I Believe by Dr. Henry Cloud, a psychologist's thoughts on suffering, miracles, science, and faith. Yeah. So check it out. So we're starting, uh, continuing, uh, our, our segment called baggage claim second or third, uh, baggage claim.

I'm going to let Sid lead this off, but I have, if you're watching here. On YouTube. I have quite a large, um, cardboard tube that was just like, like probably as long as my arm. It's like two feet long. Uh, it's quite big and it was just sitting on a counter and I, I pulled it up and I was like, what is this?

And then she just starts laughing. Uh, so tell us the story of this giant cardboard thing. Well. So what do you want to claim as your bag? Okay. So I want to claim as my baggage that I have a propensity to hang on to things that are pretty much worthless or others would deem worthless with the intention that someday.

It will be really useful or handy. And so I'll just tell you, I think it comes from a couple of different places. It comes from like being an elementary school teacher for a while when I had very low budget and didn't have money to spend on things. And I was trying to do a lot of science experiments.

And so like collecting things that we would use for science experiments that I didn't have to pay for, right. Which included sort of hanging on to styrofoam and things like that. Then I think it also got emphasized again in we've had low budgets. seasons. Um, not only when I lived by myself, but in our early years of marriage, where I would hang on to things and reuse them or like hang on to a piece of furniture that was a little bit broken, but not entirely broken.

And then eventually getting around to fixing it or whatever. There's also the environmental. Uh, bent in me that doesn't want to be wasteful, but wants to, you know, reduce, reuse, recycle. And then there's also the fun of being raising two little boys who would build things out of the recycling bin. So that's all of the, that's all the buildup, but what is, what's the reality here?

The reality is it probably has something more to do with some sort of scarcity mindset that like, well, I just meant the reality is we have a bunch of stuff that's around that someday we'll get used. It's not that bad. Yeah. It's all like fairly, I go through it every couple of years and I do pitch stuff, but it keeps getting confirmed stuff that I hung on to two, three years ago.

I do end up using again. You just said to me today, we have a bunch of canning stuff in the garage and I went, I've been looking for that. So see, it's like, yeah, I know it gets confirmed. All right. Well, I, I can claim something, uh, similar, but it does make me laugh because it is ridiculous because. Yeah, because we save things.

This tube, I couldn't even remember where it came from when you asked me what it was. And then when I took out the roll of parchment paper, I realized it was a brand new roll and that this was the old tube from the parchment paper. I will recycle this as soon as we get off this podcast. Yeah, we were hanging on to it just so that we would use, so the, those of you watching us.

But it is a very sturdy tube. Cardboard tube, which I'm sure you could do lots of wonderful things with. Probably. I'm sure we could. All right. Well, thank you for claiming that, uh, junk drawer. Baggage. Yeah. Uh, very useful things. So please, uh, if you haven't already liked and subscribed to this pod, well, I'll save it for next time.

And, um, please share this around. Uh, we would deeply appreciate you, um, partnering with us by subscribing, uh, to the podcast, uh, on our sub stack for 8 a month to help kind of pay for the overhead and just kind of, you know, we do this ad free. As a passion project. So please do that. There'll be info in the show notes.

Do you have any last thing to say or share? I don't think so. Okay. We have some interview podcasts that are coming up that I'll just be on without Sid, but we should be hopefully back to a regular weekly schedule for this podcast. Now that we're into the fall and our book manuscript is mostly all finished.

So we will see you next week. 

Thanks for watching!