Tackling depression is a daunting task. It is essential to remember that although we would like a convenient, manageable, simple, uniform definition and treatment, depression is a complex, pluriform, and multivalent phenomenon that is quite elusive to nail down. Currently, there is no one ultimate identifiable cause or treatment of depression is nor is there one unified theory that encompasses and connects all of the various explanations, from evolutionary to genetic to neurochemical to cognitive behavioral to psychosocial and so on. bChristian theology has been known to attribute depression causally to God, the devil, the fall, an imperfect world, individual sin, or to psychological origins. It is too easy simply to dismiss any or all of these or to accept blindly any or all of these explanations.
What is depression? Is it a chemical imbalance? Is it the qualia of despondency emerging from the empirical ego? Or perhaps it is a semiotic construction culturally experienced? Depending on one’s frame of reference, depression has been said to be biochemical, psychological, socio-cultural, or all of the above. One main conclusion I reached is that theories of depression often reflect one’s philosophical anthropology. A biological view of humanity generates biological theories (neural correlates). From cultural views of anthropology emerge cultural theories of depression and so on. How one defines the human person is telling as to how one defines mental disorder and depression. So how do we define the human person? The hard and soft sciences and philosophy debate the case. However, these competing strategies tend to be reductive and can lack explanatory power, since each field only speaks its own language. Philosophical anthropology and ontologies of depression rarely consider that we may be immaterial or spiritual beings and entertain a theological approach.
My approach is unapologetically theological, reimagining the human person in light of the image of God in Christ, the divine enfleshed in human weakness. Christ as the true image of God in Christ assumes our humanity and takes our depravity and depression onto himself that we may be healed. What has not been believed has not been healed. Identifying with our suffering and disorder, he invites us further to become like him and be restored in holiness and wholeness. God became man so that we may become God. Christ is God’s way for us to become like him, culminating with the cross. The cross amplifies for us where Christ identifies and assumes our brokenness and transfigures our disfigurement. .
Here I lean heavily on the therapy of theology. The missions of the Son and the Spirit are God’s response not only to our depravity but also our depression. Christ and the Spirit minister to our melancholia through their mediatorial roles of advocacy, healing, and friendship, which I develop at length in the last chapter. Experiencing the journey of salvation is a holistic transformation in the image of God that carries an eschatological tension of “healed, being healing, and will be healed.” This promise is extended to persons with depression .
Realistically, even with steadfast faith, major (clinical) depression can be an all-consuming experience. It can inundate every aspect of one’s life and manifest physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, as well as in other ways. The result is often a sense of multidimensional loss (disconnection with self, others, the world, and God) that can paralyze one’s sense of agency. The will appears deactivated. Persons with depression can feel like their sense of self and their kworld are disintegrating. Nothing holds together. Life loses meaning, purpose, and direction. Additionally, one feels powerless to change one’s predicament. The circumstances are compounded. One becomes depressed about being depressed. The depressive condition feels like a deadly poison that voraciously eats away at every vestige of order, function, ability, connection, and faith that one possesses. Spiraling despair drives one to doubt self, one’s faculties, reality, and even God. Remarkably though, God sees us even when we cannot see God. And God holds us and our world up when we cannot hold anything together.
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Psalm 143:7-8
2 Corinthians 13:14
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
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