Follow Your Heart (But Not in the Way That You Think)
What if ignoring the heart to follow only intellect and blindly our hearts halts virtue and wisdom? What if we’re supposed to follow our hearts—but not in the way that the world understands it?
One of the most well-known pieces of advice of our time is “Follow your heart.” It’s the message of books, movies, and TV shows. It’s the answer teachers and counselors tell their students when their students aren’t sure what they want to do with their lives. When we’re confused, uncertain, the answer always comes down to, “Just follow your heart.”
As believers, many of us aren’t fond of this saying. We know the Bible says that the heart is wicked above all and can’t be trusted. The fall in Genesis tells us that putting faith in ourselves and our own reason can cause tremendous repercussions for more than just us. In light of this, we side-eye anyone who declares, “Simply follow your heart!” and roll our eyes at any t-shirt branded with those words.
Instead, we turn to our intellect. We don’t want to be wrongly swayed by our emotions, so we shut off as much contact as possible with our hearts. As C. S. Lewis wrote, “They see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda … and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify [their] minds… against emotion.”
Yet what if both approaches lead to halting virtue and lack of wisdom? What if we’re supposed to follow our hearts—but not in the way that the world understands it?
In The Abolition of Man, Lewis drew on the teaching of Plato about the tripartite soul. Plato taught that the soul is composed of three parts: The rational (the head), the spirited (the chest), and the appetites (the belly). The rational is where we collect ideas, reason, and connect thoughts. The appetites are our passions, desires, and emotions. The spirited is what Lewis refers to as our chest, the portion of our soul that draws these two extremes together, the “indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man.”1 Lewis further described, “It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.”
What the world refers to as “following their hearts” I believe Lewis and Plato would have defined as following their bellies or appetites. The “follow your heart” mantra encourages us to pursue what we are passionate about and what we feel is right (not necessarily know is right). The guidance counselor telling a student who is anxious about the future replies, “follow your heart,” encouraging them to do what they want to do—not to use wisdom and knowledge to determine the best path forward, but to simply pursue what they desire. The girl in the movie who can’t decide if she should remain with her husband or run off with the ex-lover who returned to town is told to “follow her heart” when choosing (rather than considering what is right and good).
Those who follow their hearts are truly following their stomachs without allowing their chests to connect them to their minds. This was the downfall of Eve: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:6). The final piece that convinced Eve to eat the fruit was following her appetites: sight, delight, and desire.
But we can’t forget what led Eve to this point—the serpent began by addressing her intellect. He reasoned with her that she would be like God, and that God had withheld something good from her. Those of us who strive to ignore the hunger pangs of our appetites and only look to our intellects are at the same risks. We’re the men without chests that Lewis described, and while we shouldn’t be led by our appetites, our appetites should work together with our minds.
The trouble with only following our minds is that we can reason our way not just to virtue but also to vice and sin. As Charlotte Mason wrote in A Philosophy of Education, “For ourselves and our children it is enough to know that reason will put a good face on any matter we propose; and, that we can prove ourselves to be in the right is no justification for there is absolutely no theory we may receive, no action we may contemplate, which our reason will not affirm.”2
This is why we need the chest—not just any chest, but a chest informed by truth, beauty, and goodness.
Charlotte Mason believed that within the chest, a person is guided by the will, the conscience, and the life of God. The will is not a moral agent; we can’t rely on our will all on its own to direct us towards right living. Charlotte Mason believed that a good education didn’t just give us knowledge or put us in tune with our emotions, but build up one’s will and conscience to lead to godly character. “Great intellectual powers by no means imply a controlling will”3 and neither will appetites running amuck.
The conscience, though given to us by God, likewise can’t always be trusted. We know from Scripture that our consciences can be ignored for so long that they stop calling out to us. “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:21 ESV). We see the same happen to the religious leaders as they continue to suppress the truth about Jesus and plow forward with their own desires (Mark 7:1–15). Mason told parents that the conscience is not an infallible guide; she said it’s “an undeveloped capability rather than a supreme authority.”4 Like the will, the conscience must be tended to and raised to love what is right and good and hate what is evil and vile.
Both Mason and Lewis knew that the only infallible, trustworthy teacher and guide to inform our chests is God. Lewis referred to this as the Tao to show that the laws concerning virtue and righteousness, and vice and sin, have always been seen as universal truths, no matter what culture or religion you hold to. This is the law of God imprinted on the heart of every person (Rom. 1:18–20; 2:12–16).
Mason likewise declared the necessity of not just general revelation, but also God’s special revelation (Scripture) to instruct the soul. She believed that when we neglect to teach our children the necessities of the faith, we send them off with a dormant soul.5 She emphasized that knowledge alone wasn’t good enough, not even theology; children (and adults too) need to rely first on their Saviour to change their hearts so that they can obey his law. To train a child in obedience without the knowledge of God is futile.6
Again, we see this in Scripture with the religious leaders of Jesus’ time—they knew the law cover-to-cover yet had darkened and hardened hearts that didn’t believe in their Saviour and didn’t obey the two greatest commandments: To love God above all and your neighbour as yourself (Mark 7:1–15). The disciples would have hardened hearts too if it wasn’t for the work of the Spirit opening their eyes and kindling their faith; it was only by Jesus opening their eyes on the Amas Road (Luke 24:13–35) and the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus’ identity to Peter (Matt. 16:13–17).
Instructing parents, Mason wrote, “Here is a thought to be brought tenderly before the child in the moments of misery that follow wrong-doing. ‘My poor little boy, you have been very naughty today! Could you not help it?’ ‘No, mother,’ with sobs. ‘No, I suppose not; but there is a way of help.’ And then the mother tells her child how the Lord Jesus is our Saviour; because he saves us from our sins.”7 We need wills and consciences first led and changed by God, then our chests are equipped to collect information from our minds and listen to the emotions from our bellies to discern the right way forward.
Should we follow our hearts? If you mean appetites, no. Appetites on their own are fickle and don’t necessarily want what’s good. But that doesn’t mean we should follow only our minds either. Every believer, whether young or old, needs to be led by chests that are informed by Scripture and changed by the Holy Spirit. Our chests are the commanding, discerning link between our stomachs and our minds—as long as our conscience and will are rightly informed by God’s Word.
Clive Staples Lewis, The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2017), 704.
Charlotte M. Mason, A Philosophy of Education, vol. 6 (Living Books Press, 2017), 143.
Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 5th ed., vol. 1 (Living Book Press, 2017), 318.
Mason, Home Education, 333.
Mason, Home Education, 347.
Mason, Home Education, 347.
Mason, Home Education, 351.