Addressing the issue of self-hatred in Christianity. Part 3

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

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.

Addressing the issue of self-hatred in Christianity. Part 1

(In 3 parts)

Addressing the issue of self-hatred in Christianity

Part 1: A firm foundation

I notice in my devotional language that I use words that suggest a degree of self-hatred: eg “I detest my failures and am not worthy to even look at you”. Yet my self-understanding is that I go through life with robust good humour and an almost unfailing positive outlook on life (apart from those occasional low moments that everyone has). What is going on here? In particular, I would like to defend Christian faith against charges of being negative, and I certainly wouldn’t want anyone reading my prayers to take on board negative outlooks on life or on themselves. What can I discover?

The central foundation of Christianity is the greatest good news that anyone could take to heart: that God loves each one of us with an unconditional, never failing, perfect love. As John put it in his gospel, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life”. This is an ever-green foundation for new hope and new life. Of course, we have now introduced the idea of human failure, and Christianity gets enormous criticism from some quarters for being intensely negative and pessimistic by endlessly harping on about sin. Yet, Christians do not see this as pessimistic but supremely realistic. It is the modern tendency to try and side-step the reality of human moral failure that is false and destructive. Christians are facing up to the reality of life and doing something supremely positive about it. In essence, the work of Jesus and the gospel of the Church is a rescue mission to save us. Given that we are in a mess and have a continual tendency to make more messes of life, we need to be rescued from it and so this emphasis in Christianity is completely positive and the ultimate sign of God’s love for us, in that he did not leave us wallowing around helplessly, both suffering ourselves and harming others. So, in this respect, it is the modern secular desire to reject the notion of sin, and that human beings could be transformed for the better, that is so dreary and destructive. In comparison, Christianity proclaims a joyful freedom to live in union with the God of love.

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment. Part 4

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment

Part 4: Life may cut us to the quick, but in God we find healing and wholeness

Does this help in any way? Perhaps not in the first vice-like grip of loss, but, I repeat, apart from the comfort of God, there is no other comfort and we are simply left with the pain of loss. However, God becomes the “place” in which all that we have loved and lost is kept safe. Again, this might seem offensive, for manifestly, if you have lost a loved one whom you hoped would not die, then they are not safe in the way that we desire. But desiring something is not enough to have it. Having lost the one whom we love, God can still act as the accumulated reservoir of all human goodness and love. In my mourning of the one I love, and in the community’s sharing in that mourning, both the reverence we feel for the person and our sense of loss have been incorporated into the faithful community’s appreciation of the wholeness of God. In this appreciation, nothing that we hold dear is ever lost. Even when I die, along with everyone else who once mourned the one I love, so that even though there is no longer any direct memory of the person who was lost, nevertheless, that person is still held within the mind and heart of God, because God “became bigger” because of the love and loss that we poured out in our mourning.

Now, yes, I agree that this is all very philosophical. How can it be any counter to the raw grief, anger and hatred generated by loss – especially where there is injustice involved? Well, the grief and all the rest are generated by life whether we like it or not; we only have our philosophy of life to help us through it. I am simply arguing that faith in God is the best – and, in fact, the only complete – way to do it. Of course, if God is a real personal agent outside of ourselves – as I hope and believe him to be – then all the hope of traditional faith is open to us. If God can live a spiritual life not limited in any way by the material universe – yet still be able to interact with it – then this God of perfect love and goodness will most certainly impart to us, whom he loves, all the recompense of perfect, eternal life in heaven. How could a God of love do otherwise? My purpose is to put forward ideas for those who find it too difficult to believe in such a God. The ideas are in the manner of a safety-net or backstop: even if God is “only” an idea created by us humans, then – as the greatest human creation ever – the concept of God is still fully efficacious in achieving the recompense for us that he achieves as an independent personal agent.

So, my intent is to promote the life of faith in God. He is the way to bring perfect fulfilment into our lives. If we are fortunate in life, even though we will inevitably still experience enormous heartache, we may be lucky enough to get through – to age 63 or longer! – and be able to simply rejoice in all the goodness, truth and love that we have experienced. However, if we suffer greatly, the thought of God incorporating into himself all our grief and loss, and holding in his heart all the preciousness that we feel in relation to what we have lost, is a way of allowing us to accept that nothing good is ever lost, because all that is good is contained in God, who is perfect goodness.

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment. Part 3

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment

Part 3: But life is not perfect. How do we – and our God – cope with evil and suffering?

But what about the child who dies in infancy, or those whose life is one of unremitting poverty, or their life’s pleasures are snatched away from them by unjust oppressors and abusers. It is going to sound far too cerebral to counter this degree of anguish with our thoughts about God’s perfection, but I think, once the wave of sorrow and loss has been encountered, that it is valid to do this – and, in fact, there is either this compensation or there is nothing but the loss.

So, our concept of God is of the perfect being. This includes ideas of his terrible anguish in the face of suffering, of his yearning for wholeness, of his sorrow for loss. What else could a perfect God do but grieve for those who suffer? In this respect, our sorrow, pain and loss are included in the list of “good things” because they are the right, appropriate response. Of course, the loss itself is a terrible thing, and every possible attempt must be made to reduce and mitigate the effects of suffering. However, in our understanding of the world – one in which we are thinking about God as a conception within the human mind, rather than as a personal agent – let alone an omnipotent agent with the ability to intervene in the material universe – then suffering is unavoidable. However, we can use our understanding of God to incorporate all our anguish and loss – which are right and good responses – into that understanding. Therefore, in just the same way that God acts as a mirror and generator to reflect back to us and enhance all the goodness of our love in times of well-being, so God does the same with respect to all the good that is contained within our experiences of loss and sorrow. God is still acting as the receptacle for all that is good and true and lovely. My sense of loss becomes a precious reality within our shared understanding of the fullness of God’s goodness, who shares the loss and treasures the loss.

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment. Part 2

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment

Part 2: God shares our moments of perfection

Now if God is contained entirely within the realm of human ideas, then clearly this is not going to happen, and so we need to consider how God can still be the guarantor of human fulfilment.

Firstly, I must confess that this is much easier for me to consider than it is for many, because my life has already been so fulfilling. So, if I am knocked down by the proverbial bus tomorrow, I will be dead peeved (actually, I will just be dead) because, if I had avoided the bus, I might have had another 20 years of marvellous experiences. Nevertheless, at the age of 63, my life is already full of marvellous experiences, and I am able to be philosophical about it ending. God is not simply the measuring stick of my life – if that was all he did, he would just serve to expose how inadequate my life and my qualities have been. Instead, God becomes the expression of ultimate fulfilment of life, into which I have plugged my own life through my commitment of faith. Through God’s gracious holding of my failures and weaknesses, I am able to appreciate the goodness and achievements of my life as held within God’s perfect goodness and achievements. And when I do experience the goodness of life, I do discover that it has an absolute quality. It is not relative or partial or incomplete or not perfectly fulfilled. The good moments of my life have a quality of perfect fulfilment. In those moments, I want for nothing more, for I am already completely filled. When I die (if God is just an idea) all that I have experienced is lost and my consciousness is ended. Yet, even if God does not bestow on me a new life in heaven, I am able to face that loss with equanimity because my life, with its experiences has been “taken up” and incorporated into the concept of God. That understanding of perfect goodness, truth, love, and all the rest, has fed into my own life, and I have reflected it back into the community’s understanding of God as perfect fulfilment – that is, to whatever degree my life has encompassed goodness has become part of the whole, part of humanity’s appreciation of what perfect goodness is – and all held within our conception of God. Our understanding of God’s perfection is extrapolated out of our experience of our own perfection, and so our shared community concept of God is built out of my experience – along with everyone else’s experience of goodness, truth and love. Therefore, in my experience of God, while I am living, I experience absolute, perfect fulfilment, through my relationship with God, and when I am dead, all that is good about my life lives on through the faithful community’s understanding of the character and life of God – to which I have contributed.

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment. Part 1

(In 4 parts)

God is the guarantor of human fulfilment

Part 1: Sharing in the perfection of God

God is the appreciation of the absolute ultimate. Human beings have managed to develop the concept of the supreme being. This may well be because the supreme being exists and has communicated his presence to us, and through our experience of relationship with him, God has revealed himself to us. If God does not exist as a being independent from us, then God is the concept of God, rather than a person. Though in many ways this would be considerably less to us, counter-intuitively, God as “merely” a concept still retains much of the traditional content of God as a person. He is still certainly worthy of holding the position that God has traditionally held for believers as the absolute ultimate in all good qualities, to be worshiped, loved and served with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.

The particular focus for our thinking today is the way God becomes the guarantor of human fulfilment.

Traditionally, God achieves this in two ways. Firstly, through imparting a quality of life now which gives us the sense that we are experiencing the pinnacle of what life has to offer, and even though we see clearly that these peak moments are transitory, nevertheless, we feel content that we have experienced the very best that life has to offer. The other way is through God’s ability to impart eternal life. Even if we die far too soon, after far too miserable a life, or through the injustice of others, God “recompenses” us through his ability to give us a new life in heaven, where everything good is redeemed from loss, and everything unaccomplished is fulfilled. Today, we will focus on the second way of experiencing perfect fulfilment.

40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake. Part 4

40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake

Part 4: God can be understood as the embodiment of profound principles, but, somehow, if we try to extract the principles from the person, they crumble into dust

Hence my bold and aggravating assertion that 40% of the population have made a mistake. Once we clarify what we mean by God and what the cognitive process we are attempting to achieve are, then it becomes a commonplace to say, “Believing in God is the right thing to do”. It is the way to understand reality correctly. And if we want to live well, the important thing is to understand reality correctly.

I should return to the objection that secular-minded people can revere all these wonderful principles that I have – in their terms, wrongly – attributed to God. Some might like what I’m saying, but simply despair that I insist on bringing God into the equation. I can make a practical objection that in practice a secular mindset may well shut off the possibility of the immensely positive experience that I describe as an encounter with God, and which they may wish to portray as a principled commitment by a human person to profoundly good principles – shut off because they have shut down the attitude of faith. However, perhaps the possibility of this positive experience is still open to secular-minded people in practice? Possibly. They would have to say so. However, I doubt that they can precisely because the life-enhancing effect of believing in God is only activated in the “God-faith” circle. Certainly, a person can be inspired by these wonderful principles, but they only “come alive” in the context of a relationship of faith in God, where an appreciation of the person of God inspires a faith response in an ever-deepening life-giving encounter. The human person is elevated beyond measure by the experience of God, which is the same as the experience of believing that you are encountering God. If on a point of principle you have excluded the possibility that this can happen because you have made an active commitment to atheism and a secular world-view then I think it extremely unlikely that you are open to the possibility of faith – and now you are dependent on God surprising you – and even God can find this difficult if he is trying to surprise you against your will.

40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake. Part 3

40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake

Part 3: God is not a figure created by faith, but having faith is a vital ingredient of discovering God – it is the classic “chicken and egg” situation

I think the conclusion of this bit of intense reasoning is that when believers say that they encounter God as a real person, there are no grounds for dismissing this as not significant. Rather, for faithful people it is the key truth of their lives. And it really is not sufficient for people without faith to concede that, “That’s all very well for you; I’m very happy for you that you’ve had such an uplifting experience, but I haven’t, so I am free to ignore the significance of what you’re saying”. This way of thinking is still stuck in the mind frame of considering that faith in God is like trying to believe in someone you know is not there. Within the understanding of God that I am promoting, God is definitely there because God and faith are not separate things, and so God is available for everyone to experience. Traditionally, God is the personal agent and human beings put their faith in him. In this statement, both “God” and “faith” are nouns. However, I think that a better understanding is to understand “faith” as a verb. Faith is a way of looking, acting and being. God and faith are in a mutually reinforcing, reflecting back relationship. God is a person potentially existing for the person. The person then “puts their faith” in God (note the active verb at work here). So, the wonder of our understanding of the person of God (goodness, truth, love etc as considered earlier) prompts – or creates – a response of faith in the person of the believer. This faith then “brings alive” the person of God in a deepening relationship.

This process happens! It is not a hit and miss affair, a matter of luck, or personality; it is not the case that some people have the ability to experience God and some do not. The “God-faith” inter-relationship works. It cannot not work if the person is willing to believe. Notice that faith is now a matter of the will, not a mysterious knack that some have and some don’t. This is also a nice parallel with the Christian emphasis on agape, which is love given by the will, not according to some attraction or affection. Again, apologies to those who have genuinely tried for faith and it’s just not happened for them. My first bit of guidance would be to ask if you have failed to find faith in the “God as a thingy thing” that we mentioned at the start. I don’t think you will ever “force yourself” to find that sort of faith – no matter how much of your will you exert. It’s also the case that doubt is the great enemy of faith. If you find it difficult to let go of doubts, then faith will be extremely difficult. Some faithful people do not help by talking about the “certainty” of their faith and that they “know” that God exists. Strictly speaking, no-one knows that God exists, because knowledge of what exists in the world is only obtained through verification, so even the most devout believer only “believes” that God exists. So, if you have tried to believe, but only consider that you have faith if you can be certain that you have faith, then you are asking the impossible of yourself. Faith is always faith. This takes us back to our beginning and the difficulty that 40% of the population have in believing in God. They are sensible people and they understand that it is simply not possible to be certain that God exists. For them, this is a fatal stumbling block that entitles them to dismiss God and the life of faith, but they have simply misunderstood what a life of faith in God entails. The “secret” in terms of understanding what we are trying to do is not to try and have faith in God, but to have faith in having faith. As I asserted, rather boldly and aggravatingly above, having faith definitely works.

40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake. Part 2

40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake

Part 2: Look deeper, and you will find a God worth believing in

For me, God is the awareness of the depth and wonder of life, the over-flowing joy in living. He is the call to righteousness, to live according to goodness, truth and love. He is the astonishing ability to judge creatively, cutting through shallow, superficial judgements, and even through profound but limited sound justice, to create astounding life-giving possibilities. He is mercy and forgiveness, all undeserved but given freely and unreservedly, even at great cost to himself. He is compassionate. And before him we fall silent in awe. He is complete, pure simplicity. He is holiness and the call to holiness – that otherness that simultaneously shames and elevates us to a deeper, higher, ultimate and exultant existence – life in all its fullness.

And if you say, “Ah, so what you really mean is that you believe in goodness, truth and love, in deep, creative judgements, in mercy and forgiveness and compassion. Why on earth have you brought God into it to obscure these wonderful principles and entangle them in a fantasy person?”, then I say, “I understand what you mean. But somehow these qualities do not “come at me” as abstract principles; I encounter them as personal, as a person. And if you say, “But there is no person there”, then I agree; I perceive no person to be present in the way that I perceive whether or not a person is present in all other cases”. Yet my experience of these qualities is as though there is a person present who is imparting these qualities to me, and I am not able to say what is the difference between experiencing “as though there is a person present” and experiencing “a person”. In the case of human persons, if I mistakenly imagine that someone is present when really there is no-one, I can answer this question because the presence of a human person is something that I can verify, but I cannot verify if God is present or not. If you want to say that a person is only present when it is verifiable, then we have to agree that God is not present. However, for me, that is what makes God: God – precisely the fact that he is the unique person in the category: “unverifiable persons”.

I am not simply inspired by profound principles. I’m afraid that in my terrible weakness, that is not sufficient. Instead, I meet someone, and I am inspired by that relationship. I am not foolish, and I’m very self-aware, so I fully appreciate how ridiculous this sounds; I understand that according to our understanding of the universe, it sounds impossible. Yet this is how the experience comes to me, and this is what I mean by “God”; this is who I call God; this is who God is – to me. Notice how I continually take something that could be understood as emanating from me, and instead I assert that it is something that comes to me. This could be one of those strange things that the human mind does – reversing the truth so that we are able to “put something out there” so we can see it better as a mirror image reflected back at us. If this is the case, then we are simply incapable of knowing if it is so or not, for if all our normal understanding of reality tells us that we are encountering something outside of ourselves, when really we are encountering something inside ourselves, that we are presenting to ourselves, then we simply cannot tell the difference between the two. And, in fact, even if this experience of God is a self-creation of the human mind, then there is, in practice, no difference between that and the experience of a God who was truly “out there” separate to ourselves.