(In 7 parts)

Living a deeper life

Part 1: What do I really want to do with my life?

It is well-said that life is something that happens when you’re too busy to notice. Therefore, those glorious moments of “recollection of our senses”, when we become acutely aware of our state of life, are both exceptionally precious, and they strike us with great force, as we suddenly realise where we have got to in our lives. Therefore, it is not a criticism to say that I now want to live a deeper life. It could even be an illusion that I have not been living the deepest life of which I am capable already. Nevertheless, with my recent retirement, the greater depth of awareness that I feel, now that I have more time and repose, and the much reduced sense of busyness and distraction, mean that I feel able to commit to a deeper way of life. Of course, I would have to find this way of life – to discover what it is – in order to live it, and such a thing might not exist, but I suspect that it probably does. I do also, of course, need to lament and repent that I have not been living a deeper life all these past years. If such a life does exist, then it would have been perfectly possible to find it in the midst of my busyness, so I am in no way suggesting that such a life can only be found in the freedom and peace that retirement brings from the burden of work. It would have been much better if I had been living thus all along, but there is no point in worrying about that now; I must direct myself to the future and see what I can discover. What is it that I sense might now be possible?

There is no need (well, not nearly so much) to be distracted. I have enormously more free time than I used to have. There is no-one in authority over me at work telling me that I have to do this, that or the other. There is no framework of activity dictating what I must do in any sort of daily or weekly rhythm. I might, in other words, say: “I am free”. So, the big question is: “What do I want to do?”. If there is (almost) nothing that I have to do, then what do I want to do? And if I shake off old habits of thought, rather than simply acting in reaction to what I had to do – and so, for example, in contrast to my usual busyness, having no higher goal than reading my book, I can ask the existential question: “How do I want to spend today?” And, freed from the demands of earning a living, there is no societal or organisational role that I need to conform to. This really is a radical freedom. I don’t need to adopt the default model for retirement – that I am having a nice long holiday at the end of my life; I can do something entirely different if I wish. But what is that? I perceive the call “to be strange” both as a critique to the failures of society and to express something inherent in my character, but what is the life-enhancing way to do this?

True freedom

Part 7: I can never have it, yet I have it, until I have it

There are, no doubt, other elements to incorporate with the three-fold awareness.

No-one is born with this awareness; no-one comes to this awareness without having first, to some degree, going astray from the way they now come to consider to be the way of fullness of life. So, we become aware that we are where we are; we are not complete, or free, and certainly not perfect. We are damaged and hurt, and we have inflicted the same on others. Yet, we don’t have to wait until we get to the destination we desire before we can at last say, “Now I am free!”. We can be free as we understand the point we have reached, and though we are far from home, we are complete in our acceptance of the truth of our situation and in our desire to reach the destination we now see is right. We are not fully free because of the powerful forces in society which shape our lives and limit our actions, but we are free in the inner harmony we can find, and work towards, between our desires, actions and conscience. So, our true freedom is not spoiled by our past failures, the impositions of society around us, or our distance from our final destination which is full attainment of our goal.

It is now, perhaps, that we see most strongly the contrast between the freedom the believer knows and that known by the atheist – even if the atheist’s freedom only existed in theory rather than practice. For we have become aware of the gap between the all-fulfilling vision that the believer has in God and their failure to live up to it, while also clarifying just what the life of faith is: to work towards the goal that has caught your heart and won you to faith.

Yet the person without God, no matter how inspiring their atheistic vision, is always falling short of it. In our human weakness, in practice, we will console ourselves by aiming lower, accepting the compromises of life, and settling for less. Yet the believer, receiving God’s gifts of grace, by which he treats us as righteous, even though we are not, enjoys the complete liberation of receiving the fullness of God’s love. So, the ultimate – true – freedom that the believer enjoys, as well as the entirely human harmony of desires, actions and conscience, is the freedom to dwell in the presence of God. There is such disharmony between the ways of humanity and the ways of God, that there could never be freedom from tension and loss and failure. So, in the same way we recognised that true freedom does not exist if there is disharmony between the elements of desires, actions and conscience, so we see that – when it is all up to us – there will never be true freedom because there will always be disharmony between us and God. However, when God, in his grace, grants us the gift of admission to his presence – a presence we do not deserve – then we attain true freedom, not only in relation to ourselves, but also in relation to God. True freedom exists when we have achieved harmony between our desires, actions and conscience, and when we have allied our conscience to the will of God, and when we dwell in his presence.

It would be lovely to end there, but I cannot, and so I depend on paradox and on grace. I will probably never attain complete harmony between my desires, actions and conscience, but God will take the giving of my heart to this goal as token, and treat me as though I have. I will probably never manage to fully love what God loves, but he knows that I love him, and he has said that this is enough. I treat God as someone to visit rather than to dwell with, but he is always open to me; he calls me, and I am always free to come to him. I know what to do – work for that three-fold harmony, and in that effort, and in his grace, I have true freedom.

True freedom

Part 6: Three-fold harmony

What might this freedom entail?

I think the essence of it is finding harmony between desires, actions and conscience.

If I have desires to do actions but I don’t do them, I have tension and unfulfillment, and so am not free. This is so on both the negative and positive. Perhaps I have a desire to do something that is wrong, but manage to overcome this temptation. I have done the right thing, but am not truly free because I won’t allow myself to do something that I would like to do. If I give in to the temptation, I have now done what I want to do, but at the same time I didn’t want to do it because I disapprove of that action, and so I am not free because I was not able to live up to the values I believe in. Similarly, if there is some good thing I would like to do, but don’t do, because I am afraid or lazy, then I have failed to find true freedom. If I could find complete correlation between my desires and my actions, then I would be truly free – provided, of course, that both desires and actions are in harmony with my conscience. For one (false but tempting) solution to the human dilemma of temptation – and which I suggested is one which atheist society can easily fall into – is to “solve” the tension between desires and actions by making compromises and giving yourself permission to do things even though you feel they are not really right. However, if you could eliminate the tension between desires and actions by only ever doing what you truly desire to do – and IF you could match those to what your conscience tells you is good and right and proper to do, then you would have true freedom, because you would always be doing what you want to do, and what you want to do would always be what you approve of. We must truly desire the good, and act accordingly.

Now, we should note, that the atheist could do this too. If the atheist could attain harmony between all three elements, and IF their conscience could be completely attuned to what is completely good, then they would also have true freedom. And they would have simply demonstrated that they don’t need God, and it is fully possible for humanity to attain perfect goodness by themselves. All I would say, is that we have noted the difficulties in this that arise through human frailty and corruption. And, even if it was possible for humanity to achieve perfect goodness independently of God, the atheist is still missing out on the relationship with God that the believer discovers as a reality. I think that – theoretically – it must be possible for humanity to know – and perhaps do – the perfect good without God, but in practice this is not going to happen. Of course, believers do not attain to perfect goodness either, but they, at least, acknowledge their failure and constantly aspire to follow God’s way, whereas the atheist was desiring complete freedom from God precisely in order to do what they want rather than what God wants, and to do so while still claiming a clear conscience, or by ignoring their conscience – which implies a difference between God’s moral code and humanity’s moral code – in which case, experience suggests to me that we should go with God.

On reflection, it seems an impossibly simple solution to suggest that true freedom lies in the harmony between desires, actions and conscience. Yet we instantly recognise that this is the agenda for an entire spiritual life, to continually work and battle and strive to tune your own will to God’s will, to direct your actions always in tune with love and justice, to train your mind and heart to desire what is good and pure and lovely. And more than simply train your mind, but to grow and develop your heart and mind and body until you dwell gently and peacefully in the love, truth and grace of God. So, the whole life of faith for the individual, and the mission of the society of God’s people, is all encompassed within this three-fold harmony of desires, actions and conscience.

True freedom

Part 5: If you love someone, pleasing them is not surrendering your freedom but fulfilling it

So far, we have considered the atheistic appeal of freedom from God, and some answers that a believer would give. However, it is still necessary for the believer to go further and outline what true freedom might be – a freedom that is understood as a freedom that is enjoyed within their relationship with God. Two key questions present themselves:-

• Is it possible to have true freedom if you are taking account of God?
• What might this freedom entail?

The first question is relatively easy (!) to answer – at least in principle. If the believer agrees completely with God, then doing exactly what God wants will be doing the same as doing exactly what you want. There is no sense of God imposing a moral code that you’d rather avoid – if only you were free, or of submitting unwillingly, or of accepting some sort of deal: “I’d rather do x, y, and z, but if I do I will lose things that are even more precious, so I guess I’ll have to “suffer” now in order to get what I want”. Instead, the believer is completely won over by the vision of life that God offers them, and gives themselves body, mind and soul to these values. They love what God loves and want nothing other than this. All this, the believer will see very clearly, and if there are elements that they don’t understand, they will have such complete trust in God that they will gladly “go along” with what God is saying, and hope to understand one day. This is pretty straightforward. Of course, there are the huge issues to do with human temptation and weakness, such that the believer finds it extremely difficult, and often impossible, to do the things that they genuinely believe in. This is certainly a very big issue indeed, and is addressed elsewhere, but for now, I believe we have successfully answered the first question. The atheist wanted freedom from God because they felt a difference between what they wanted and what God wanted, and they didn’t want to give way to God. However, for the believer – as they grow in spiritual maturity – there is no difference and so doing what God wants is perfect freedom because it is also what they want. Given what we’ve said about human frailty, the believer enjoys a dynamic, vibrant freedom, because “obeying what God wants” is a fast-track way to achieving a fully moral and satisfying life, quicker than waiting until you see for yourself that this is the ideal way of life.

True freedom

Part 4: We have paid a high price: we wanted joyful liberation and created a horrible mess

The second freedom the atheist valued was to choose their own moral code. In response, the first thing I note is that claiming the freedom to choose your own moral code very easily becomes a slippery slope to immorality. This is just to do with human nature. We are so adept at justifying our own behaviour, so clever at manipulating the facts to suit us, so quick to see faults in others but slow to spot them in ourselves, so very easily biased, that it is extremely likely that relying entirely on our own judgement will become a mealy-mouthed self-justification for harmful behaviour. In this respect, I become sceptical of the atheist claim that ditching God was a genuine principled action to achieve higher values than a supposed restrictive and oppressive God was allowing, and it was, instead, an attempt to ditch the voice of conscience holding us to high standards. The believer will, of course, say that the atheist has got an inadequate picture of God, so the God they are rejecting is, in fact, a false caricature of God, which the believer themselves rejects. Atheists have, in effect, set up God as an Aunt Sally to make it easy to knock down. It is true, of course, that there can be very principled grounds for atheism, and also that believers have often distorted their own picture of God in ways that can have very negative effects. For now, I simply note the psychological motivation for the atheist to ditch God in order to do things that they would not be able to do if they still felt that God was there and that such a God disapproved of their actions. It is certainly a complex task to review the multiple effects, positive and negative, of atheist society’s decision to reject God. For now, I simply challenge the atheist assumption that rejecting a value system based on belief in God in order to attain the complete freedom to make up your own moral standards actually produces a positive effect overall.

The third freedom was to value sexual freedom above all others. This is the price we pay: in order to gain greater sexual freedom we have to abandon moral values that would prevent us from getting what we want. Again, I must resist the traditional religious negativity to sexuality; perhaps sexual freedom is a good thing – at least to some degree, and humanity has been longing for generations to have more sexual freedom. However, especially given what we’ve mentioned above about our ability to fool ourselves in moral matters, and our understanding of how corruption has a creeping destructive effect, we should be fully alert to the possibility that our desire for freedom will lead us astray. Within our current focus here of paying a high price, it is clear that we have had to abandon many moral values to do with modesty, decency, privacy, intimacy, as well as our commitment to faithfulness in relationships. We have commercialised sex and treated the body as a commodity – and clearly this applies overwhelmingly to women. The pornographisation of society has distorted relationships between men and women, with women under huge pressure to play out the fantasies of their partners. The breakdown of marriage and the unhappiness from multiple failed relationships is a severe burden to individuals and fractures society. The “safety-net” industry of abortion has become a necessary corollary to cope with the “mistakes” that our human use of sexual freedom causes. We have paid a high price for it.

True freedom

Part 3: For the believer, it is crazy to ever desire freedom from God

Let’s see what the believer’s response is to these three elements of freedom that the atheist desires.

The first freedom from God’s scrutiny and judgement assumes a negative view of God, who makes you feel bad. Ditching such a God does make you feel better. (We must be aware of the possibility that, even if God was a miserable, restrictive sort of person, if his judgements were just, then ditching him may be making you feel better, but only by giving up on justice.) Nevertheless, the atheist has a picture in their mind of a negative God, and so ditching him is for them a good thing. However, believers have a positive view of God, who makes them feel good. For them, ditching God is a disaster that impoverishes their lives. The price for losing any sense of scrutiny, guilt and shame is to lose the sense of being loved, guarded and guided. For the believer, these positive feelings overwhelm the negative. And, in fact, the “negative” feelings are not negative in the sense of someone unjustly harming you, for the believer accepts- gladly accepts – that feelings of guilt are justified. It is a good thing because it accurately reflects the person’s reaction against their own action, and keeps them anchored to a moral judgement that is very sound, very principled, very inspiring. The only way to lose that guilt would be to give up on the high values that they love. Even more important, the “negative” feelings are not just dumped on the believer by a vindictive God to punish them, the feelings are themselves readily ditched through the loving forgiveness offered by God. So, there is a positive solution readily to hand, and one that cements a supremely positive relationship.

It is true that the believer is dependent on another to make them feel good again, as they receive God’s forgiveness, but this is not experienced as submitting to a domineering master, but as being embraced by a loving parent. A relationship which was supremely precious to the believer has been damaged by their failure to live up to God’s standards, but now all sorrow, guilt and shame is washed away in the reconciling and forgiving love offered by God, and everything is alright once again – including the erasure of guilt. When we considered the atheist, we recognised that they may have no power to make recompense and, ultimately, just had to resort to forgiving themselves – as it were, writing off the loss and harm because nothing can be done about it. Yet, for the believer, God does have power to put things right. Now, we do notice that a key image for believers is of the parent embracing a child, and the atheist loved the sense of independence of not relying on anyone. I think this is simply where there are different foundational values, and we have traced back the atheist and theist value systems to one of their core values in each case. All I will say is that, for the believer, the relationship with God is simply a reality in their experience; they are not shying away from standing on their own two feet. In practice, the sense of being held in the strength and love of God empowers believers to do far more in their endeavours to change the world than they would ever have dared to do if they had thought they were on their own. Moreover, it does not seem wrong to believers to own the superior worth of a person such as God. They are not submitting to an alien or oppressive power; they are not refusing to make their own decisions: they have simply discovered a power and wisdom greater than their own, which it is their delight to turn to for guidance.

True freedom

Part 2: There’s a lot more freedom the atheist wants – but is it really all about sex?

Then – and in tune with the first point –there is the freedom to make your own moral code. As an atheist, you reject the very concept of having to submit to a moral code – even a divine one – that has been imposed on you, and you have to follow it. Instead, using that integrity and awareness we mentioned earlier, you will decide for yourself what you regard as good and evil, acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. This desire to decide for yourself is, again, commendable, and surely preferable to blind or even fearful following of what those in authority say. Of course, part of the atheist outlook must be to take account of human frailty. With your mature, self-aware integrity, you will realise that human beings make mistakes. These have to be recognised, atoned for if you can by saying sorry to those you have wronged and recompensing them for what harm you have caused them, to the best of your ability. Sometimes none of this will be possible, and so all you can do is to – with honesty and integrity – come to terms with your mistake, accept it, try to learn from it and to forgive yourself – and, in most cases, you can give complete forgiveness provided you have a deep sense of the tragedy of life, and you are doing your best to be on the side of goodness truth and justice.

I think that the third element of freedom in the modern age that is so highly sought after is sexual freedom. Not many people desire the freedom to murder others or even to steal their property. People who are aspiring to be good – and the only valid defence of atheism is that you are using it as a way to be good – don’t even want the freedom to be mean, cruel, dominating or dismissive of others. It is sexual freedom that is desired, and this is probably the driving factor behind many changes in modern society. Now we must consider that this will have both good and bad elements, and must not automatically use the traditional religious negative view of sex as something that must be strongly curtailed. Nevertheless, in the assessment of changes to morality in society and the way that drives society in certain directions, then we should acknowledge that a large part of the change in morality is due to the desired changes in sexual freedom. We will need to consider how high a price has been paid, and what has been gained – and lost.

(An analysis comparing the atheist’s freedom and the believer’s freedom, in 7 parts)

True freedom

Part 1: The atheist wants to be free of God

I understand some of the appeal of atheism. There is the invigorating sense of being a truly free, independent agent. You are standing on your own two feet; you have achieved full adult independence from any sort of childlike dependence. You are your own boss, completely free to chart whatever course through life you choose – subject, of course, to external constraints and your inner capabilities. But that is all part of the adventure. With full self-awareness, you assess your situation, declare your independence and set out to do whatever it is you want to do.

There is much that is highly commendable in this, that is part of achieving maturity. However, the particular aspect of atheistic maturity is to declare complete independence from God – and there is no greater expression of this than a flat denial that he exists. You are not torn between the benefits of faith and the benefits of the atheistic way, because for you, the theistic way is simply false – there is nothing to be gained by searching for God or paying attention to what those deluded into faith say. Thank goodness you are free of all that!

If we examine this point of view more closely, I think that we will find at least 3 elements to the freedom from God that atheists are asserting.

There is the freedom from the religious sense of being under scrutiny, involving criticism, judgement, guilt and shame. In religious terms, the only way to be free of inner feelings of guilt and shame is to ask for forgiveness, but this clearly entails a submission to another – in this case, God. So, the freedom that an atheist desires is the freedom of not having to submit your actions to the judgement of anyone but yourself. This can be good, healthy, positive. If we have very strong principles, a very sound sense of judgement, and excellent maturity and integrity, it could work: I don’t have to submit to anyone else’s opinion because my own opinion is as good as you can get. And you would have to add the character strengths of excellent self-awareness, honesty, with the integrity not to dissimulate on your own behalf when you know that really you are in the wrong. So, this is a tall order, but not (theoretically?) impossible. And if it is possible then it all feeds into the exhilarating sense of being your own person, answerable to no-one.

Addressing the issue of self-hatred in Christianity

Part 3: God’s love always offers us more

Now, I believe, we find the basis for those words that might be taken as signs of self-hatred, but which are, in fact, the opposite – and, in fact, a sign of the believer being taken beyond themselves in love for God and love for others.

So, in relation to my humanistic assessment of people in general, and of myself in particular, I am able to maintain a healthy appreciation that – despite many failures of which I am acutely aware – that “I’m doing OK; I am a good person”. Yet when I turn my attention to God, I perceive such perfect goodness, truth and love that I shudder in horror at myself. Note that my feeble human appreciation of God’s perfection is not the fullness of his perfection, but only that tiny part of which my mind is capable of holding. My horror at myself is enhanced precisely because I am aware of the goodness of God, and very aware that his gracious gifts to me can (and sometimes do) enable a life transformed by God’s love. I know that all the fullness of the life of God is open to me, and even though I regularly enjoy this blessing, yet in my weakness I “cannot be bothered” to make more progress in the way of life that God has opened up to me. It is the sheer banality of that impulse – that I cannot be bothered – that is the root of my ideas of “detesting my failures”. I am not even being overcome by the mighty battle between good and evil (usually); I simply can’t rouse myself to action to make greater progress on the path of peace and joy that I do truly love.

So, any negative thoughts about myself in my devotions are primarily prompted by my reacquaintance with the wonder of who God is. As I refocus on him, the transforming freedom and energy to live a new and better life brings into sharp contrast my failure to honour him as I could – and I truly could. But my awareness of failure and weakness is made possible as I leave them behind, as God lifts me up – whereas, before the liberation of prayer I was not nearly so aware of my failures and weakness because I was held within them.

Therefore, in my devotions, apparent signs of condemning myself are truly signs of redeeming grace lifting me out of an inadequate life in which I would continue to dwell if it was not for the encounter with the God of love in my devotions. As God lifts me up, I can see more clearly the things that hold me down when I live “by myself” rather than “with God”. Any negative assessment of myself is simply expressing a positive assessment of God – both for who he is, and for his love shown to me. As I shed (for a time) the restraining failures of humanity, I embrace the liberating possibilities of humanity animated by the love of God. And perhaps the ultimate sign of this is that, held within the love of God, the transformation is more than even the change from awareness of weakness and failure to awareness of joyful fulfilment; the transformation is from someone endlessly concerned with himself (and his self-interests) to someone able to make a little space to forget his personal journey – even the journey of transformation – in order to care for others. This is still a challenge for I – in my terrible weakness – am still inclined to think of God as the one who saves me, in his great love for me, when the true transformation is for me to join in the love of God who loves us all and seeks to bring all of us to wholeness of life.

Addressing the issue of self-hatred in Christianity

Part 2: Turning to God always produces goodness

I do not deny for a moment that this completely positive message can be distorted, either by official bodies in the Church or through the personal woundedness of individuals who twist the doctrines about sin into a form of self-harm. However, this in itself is simply a reminder of our need to be saved by God, for anything, no matter how intrinsically good in itself, can be corrupted into something evil. But, likewise, anything, no matter how corrupted can be redeemed through the love of God.

So, this is a sound general theological defence of why Christianity needs to delve into the dark depths of the human heart in order to lift up the soul into the light of God’s healing grace. But why the particular devotional language that I use?

Firstly, I am never conscious while I’m writing of negative thoughts; my focus is always on the transformation from sorrow to joy, or helplessness to hope. It is only that I’m writing more and reflecting on it that I notice words like “all that I detest about myself”. In relation to the world in general, I think I’m a rather nice person and do not suffer from low self-esteem. However, a sharp analysis would ask, “Why do you feel the need to move from sorrow and helplessness?”. Surely, “a rather nice person” should not be feeling these things, and so we accuse you of having been dragged down by your faith. However, when making prayers like this, I am always conscious of being lifted up by my faith. It is the transforming joy and hope that I’m celebrating. And, moreover, this transformation is all the more liberating and wonderful because of my consciousness of being lifted high from such a low position. This does leave open a psychological critique that it is the purpose of religion to bring people down in order for them to feel that they require the liberation that the religion offers. However, I refer back to the general theological foundation for Christianity, that it is simply realistic to take on board the reality of evil and suffering in the world, and it’s supremely hopeful to believe that it’s possible to take this on and do something positive through the belief in turning the world into the kingdom of God. It is down-playing or ignoring the reality of such suffering that is negative and cruel. It is the faithful community which attempts to contemplate the horror of a loving God who fully comprehends our suffering.