In our study of Mark we are in Mark 6:52; where we see that the "disciples did not understand about the loaves but their hearts were hardened." The word translated "but" is the very strong Greek adversative conjunction "alla".
This means that even though the Doctrine was continuously demonstrated through the miracles right in front of them they still didn't get it because their hardness of heart caused them to be unable to recall doctrine resulting in persistent unbelief.
In other words they had spiritual amnesia that was caused by their hardness of heart that resulted in unbelief. This is why they demonstrated the excess of amazement at his miracle of walking on the water. Mark 6:51;
This brings us to the doctrine of hardness of heart but first we must understand the doctrine of the soul in order to understand how the heart functions.
The soul is what provides self-consciousness. Man is aware of his own existence and is able to relate to both animate and inanimate life on earth. It is not the body, it is the soul, with it's self-consciousness and decision making capacity that is how God made man in His image. Gen 1:26-27; Gen 2:7. God is spiritual not material. He does not have a body.
Self-consciousness is useless without mentality. This is the thinking part of man and is comprised of the mind from the Greek word "nous", the left lobe of the soul where knowledge is acquired.
And the heart translated from the Greek word "kardia", the right lobe of the soul that contains the frame of reference, memory center, vocabulary and categorical storage, norms and standards, and the launching pad for application of the knowledge that is understood and believed life. This is where all decisions are made.
Rom 1:20-22 and Prov 19:2 teach that all thought originates in these two lobes of the soul. The soul is therefore the source of all personal sin. It is where the battleground between the old sin nature and the Holy Spirit takes place, Matt 10:28; Eph 4:17-19;
This means that man has the ability to be negative or positive to anything in life. This freedom is the first law of Divine Establishment that is called volition. It is why God created humanity.
Mankind's volition becomes the source of his testimony regarding the fallen angel's allegation that God is unfair that is being adjudicated before the supreme court of heaven during the course of human history.
We see from this that hardness of heart is when the ability to recall and apply God's word under the system of faith rest in order to make good decisions from a position of strength is impaired or eliminated. This brings us to the doctrine of hardness of heart.
The hardness of the heart or kardia, the right lobe of the soul, is when human and satanic viewpoint has taken over and becomes the basis for thinking and decision-making.
This is because the soul is filled with human viewpoint that has its basis in the propaganda, lies and relative truth of demon doctrines rather than divine viewpoint that is based in the absolute truth from God's word.
When hardness of the heart occurs the valves of the right lobe shut down and stop so that God's word is no longer circulates in the stream of consciousness. Remember God's word is revealed in the categories of Divine Establishment, the Gospel and Bible Doctrine for the believer only.
This means that God's word in one of the categories is no longer circulating in the right lobe so it is therefore unavailable for recall and application to the life and circumstances.
The scar tissue that is accumulated with hardness of heart results in the creation of a vacuum from the Greek word "mataios" that sucks more human viewpoint, false doctrine and propaganda into the left lobe of the soul, that is called the nous or the mind.
This increases the pressure on the right lobe called the heart or kardia, causing it to stall or cavitate so that the various categories of God's word can no longer be circulated in the stream of consciousness.
When this occurs all of the valves freeze up so there is no longer any vocabulary functioning as a result, the doctrinal categories are not recalled. This results in a change in the norms and standards of the conscience because there is no longer any divine viewpoint in the launching pad and there is no way to recall God's word from the frame of reference.
No more truth is fed into the vocabulary or into the categorical storage resulting in a change in the norms and standards of the conscience. This means that there is no truth on the launching pad to be applied to circumstance and no more doctrine flows back and forth so all doctrinal function of the right lobe stops and the person is conducting their life according to the propaganda and lies of demon doctrines.
The pattern of negative volition and hardness of heart among unbelievers is found in Rom 1:18-32; This is why the norms and standards of what is "acceptable" in our country have changed so dramatically over the past generation.
Remember demon doctrines can be religious and moral as well as being areligious and amoral. Demon doctrines conform to both the strong and weak sides of the OSN.
Mark 6:52; describes this as the doctrinal tendency of the disciples who were religious and moral which is why they had difficulty exhibiting faith even though Jesus was constantly performing miracles right in front of them.
The disciples could perceive the miracles but because of the hardness of heart from religion they were unable to metabolize or apply the doctrine that Jesus was revealing to them empirically through the miracles and through His teaching.
The premier example of hardness of heart is the Pharaoh of Egypt that is an example of hardness of heart in an unbeliever. The pharaoh of the Exodus hardened his own heart by constant and continuous rejection of God's word.
He was constantly rejecting God's' Word because of his negative volition. Exod 7:22,23; Exod 8:15,32, Exod 9:34; He was constantly exposed to God's word from Aaron, and then from Moses. He saw the power of God's word through the plagues, he had a clear explanation of it, and he constantly said no. This caused his soul seize up from scar tissue.
Pharaoh had the same chance to be saved that Moses did. Rom 9:15; Rom 9:17; in addition God was not willing that Pharaoh should perish. 1Tim 2:1-4; 1John 2:2;
But Pharaoh, like the religious Jewish leadership of Jesus' day, kept on rejecting the gospel. Both the Pharaoh of the Exodus and the Jews of our Lord's time demonstrated their hardness of heart. John 12:40; Net note 84;
Today this same hardness of heart has enveloped the people and the leadership of our nation and is about to destroy it. At this point it seems that no one in the executive branch and only a few people in the legislative branch have a clue. The rest all have hardness of heart.
This does not leave us with much hope for the future of our country.
Because of his chronic hardness of heart God eventually removed all restraint from Pharaoh's negative volition by giving him opportunities to say no to God repeatedly in order to carry it further than anyone had ever done in his day Exodus 9:12,16; Exod 10:1-2; Exod 10:27;