Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

discipleship

What is Love?

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Edward Feser wrote an excellent article about what love is. In it he quoted Thomas Aquinas:

As the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 4), “to love is to wish good to someone.”  Hence the movement of love has a twofold tendency: towards the good which a man wishes to someone (to himself or to another) and towards that to which he wishes some good.  Accordingly, man has love of concupiscence towards the good that he wishes to another, and love of friendship towards him to whom he wishes good.

Love, in the sense which Christian doctrine typically means, is exactly what Aquinas quoted from Aristotle, “to wish good to someone.” For Aquinas and Aristotle, “wish” is better understood as “intend.” Love is a movement of the will, not a passion nor a feeling. In the case of loving other people as a Christian this makes sense. To love your neighbor is to intend to give him the goods he needs to flourish (to have success and happiness now and in eternity): companionship, knowledge, assistance, mercy, protection, prayer, etc.

But what does it mean to love God in this sense? Some people, like John Piper, would say that to love God means to have certain feelings about God. But on the analogy of love for human beings, we can love our enemies even if our feelings toward them are quite hateful. Acts of love would be much harder, as positive emotions are a great aid to positive action, but they would nevertheless be possible. And the Bible has several psalms, clearly written as actions of love toward God, but which express intensely negative emotions toward God.

So how do we “wish good to someone” with regard to God? Here is my most basic answer: to love God is to act to further God’s purposes in creation. While God is goodness itself and therefore cannot increase/decrease in goodness, God’s purposes in creation are meant to have progressive fulfillment. For instance, God commanded humanity to tend the garden. God made the garden, but there was further work to be done.

There is Biblical evidence in favor of what I’ve inferred from Aristotle’s definition of love: Jesus said, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.(Joh 14:21)” For Jesus the categories of “those who love me” and “those who have and keep my commandments” are convertable. And elsewhere in John’s gospel Jesus says that he glorified God by doing the deeds he was sent to do (17:4) and that he sends his disciples as the Father sent him (20:21). So, to love God is to act in line with his purposes or to obey his commands. This, of course, will include positive feelings. A significant consideration is this: Is it superior to obey a command of Jesus in the face of severe temptation and emotional resistance or in a state of deep and motivating affection for Jesus?*

Here is where things become interesting. Can our love for God be unrequited? We all know that our love for other people can. But in the case of God, the answer is no. Why? Because Jesus tells his disciples that “You are my friends if you do what I tell you. (John 15:14)” While our love for peers, children, parents, enemies, and so-on can be unrequited. There is no such thing as unrequited love for friends, for if the love is unreturned there is no friendship. In our relationship with God, our acts to further his purposes, include simultaneous action by the Holy Spirit on our behalf.

Finally, it is important to note that for the Christian, God’s purposes are primarily contained in the teaching of Jesus. To love God is to put the teachings of Jesus, rightly understood, into practice.

A corollary is that one might say that the highest form of self-love is to obey Jesus, as this would obtain the highest benefit for ourselfs if the gospel message is true.

To simplify the explanation above:

  1. To love is to wish to benefit another.
  2. To benefit God is to wish to further his purposes.
  3. To further God’s purposes is to obey Jesus’ teachings.
  4. To obey Jesus’ teachings is to live in friendship with God.

A final thought

I think that correctly understanding love as a matter of the will can help people who struggle with depression to realize that they do, in fact, love God. Also, as Feser mentions in his post, “…if love is thought to be essentially about having certain pleasant feelings, then the quest for love naturally comes to be understood as essentially a matter of finding someone who will generate in oneself pleasant feelings of the sort in question, and showing love to others comes to be understood as essentially a matter of generating in them pleasant feelings of the sort in question. [author’s italics]” Thus, in the case of loving God two errors can occur: to love God is to give myself good feelings about God or upon realizing how impossible this is to do consistently, to give up on the idea of positive emotions in relation to doing God’s will. Also, understanding love as intending the good of others assumes that there is such a thing a objective good that reliably benefits other people. The modern obsession with feelings (which are obviously good, important, and natural) leads of a sort of nihilism with regard to love. If it’s always loving to generate positive feelings in ourselves and in others, then because our quite plastic grey matter can learn to find positive emotions from all sorts of disordered events, can lead us to consider the most dastardly things loving.

*I think that it’s a trick question. If one has love as a virtue (good habit), then it will ‘come easy’ but individual deeds do not lose their value for being done in a state of temptation, depression, melancholy, or even momentary resentment.

Being happy about good work and good works.

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In Christian circles we can often come across as weird because we obsess over questions that make little to no sense to outsiders.

Here’s one: “Is it okay to be happy about accomplishments?”

To the average non-Christian the answer is: “Duh, of course it is.”

But for Christians the answer can get super complicated in a hurry.

But let Paul’s words uncomplicate it:

Gal 6:3-4 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. (4) But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.

Don’t admire your greatness with reference to comparison. Admire it with reference to yourself.

But here’s the thing. Many Christians might feel/think that having a sense of joy from personal accomplishment is a form of arrogance or pride or sign of too little admiration of God. But, the same Paul who said what is above said this a few short sentences later:

Gal 6:14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

A lot can be said about what 6:14 means (it has to do with how Paul takes pride/joy in the Christians in Galatia…whether in their acceptance of the Jewish law or their acceptance of the way of Christ…read 6:12-15 to see this), but on the surface it is plain to see that there is no contradiction between finding joy in God and what God does/has done and finding joy in what you do/have done.

So, be happy about what good you’ve done. And be happier that God has done something that goes beyond even your best deeds and does away with those you’ve done that are evil.

Roles of Imagery in Our Worldview

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Lately, I’ve been thinking about how rhetoric, advertising, and imagery in general can influence our view of the world.

This got me to thinking about the nature of suggestibility and achievement as well as the relationship of false expectations to achievement.

The research on these subjects is pretty vast, so you’ll just have to look it up (I’ll probably post a bibliography in the bottom).

Anyway, suggestibility is the state of being primed to accept an idea without argument or coercion.

In one study, easily suggestible students were told that a cognitive game with no known effects on IQ would increase their intelligence and it did. Teachers typically want students be convinced of inferences through argument but of their abilities through suggestion (arguing a person in a state of self-doubt into a state of confidence is difficult). “Won’t you be able to do this if you try it?” “Imagine yourself as the kind of person who regularly does her homework. Do you like that version of yourself? Try doing your homework.”

In Christianity we are primed to resist temptation based on the believe that our personal history was interrupted, not just in at our conversion or baptism, but miraculously through the life of Jesus Christ. While there are certainly spiritual realities behind all of this, the simple idea of “considering oneself dead to sin” really does help one to resist it on the human level. Research shows time and again that consdering oneself up to a task predicts one’s ability to achieve said task.

On the other hand, having false expectations can be very unhelpful.

For instance, I think that movie montages, commercials, and the concept of diet pills have convinced people (without argument or coercion) that their weightloss and exercise problems can be solved easily and quickly.

But, as every Rocky fan learns, doing 400 pushups after watching Rocky II won’t get you in shape unless you watch the movie every day.

 

Here’s a problem in evangelical culture, then. The idea of a giant, “Aha!” moment conversion in which one instantly stops sinning, has deep knowledge of God, complete wisdom, and insight into evangelical taboos is a common enough notion. It’s not evident in the way that people treat new Christians usually (although, I ‘ve seen it happen and it isn’t pretty). But it is evident in the way many Christians feel inadequate, not simply because they fall short of God’s glory, but because they look at Paul or Peter’s example in Acts and think their faith must be too small or some such thing, when in fact they are in a process.

So in one case, having the image in mind of being dead to sin can make one less susceptible to temptation. But on the other, expecting the Christian life to identical to that of Jesus or Paul by instant transformation is an expectation that does not match reality.

I think that conversion probably needs to be spoken of in images more akin to what the Christian life actually is:

  1. The beginning of a life long journey (an exodus?)
  2. The starting point for the process of naturalization into a new kingdom
  3. Adoption into a family with little to no knowledge of family customs
  4. Enrollment in school (discipleship)

Anyway, imagining oneself as one truly is, a person with all the resources available to them that Paul or Peter had is not unwise or unhelpful or untrue (2 Peter 1:3-11). But such imagining must be accompanied by the same thing Paul and Peter did: daily effort. Paul’s apparently instant moral transformation was build upon a lifetime of “exercising to have a clean conscience before both God and man.(Acts 24:16)” This continual state of self-management probably explains Paul’s quick adoption of Christian moral norms. Many people have untrained moral habits upon conversion, so following Christ is a process of learning supernatural and natural virtue all at the same time!

 

 

Beginning Christian Spirituality

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The central reality of Christian spirituality is this:

John 8:31-32  So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, (32)  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

There is a startling array of things that a new Christian can do or that people will recommend to them.

There are (and this is good) like 50 spiritual disciplines to choose from.

There are a million Bible reading plans.

There are 25 million prayer books.

But I want to simplfy things.

When you first become a Christian or want to be more serious about your faith in Christ, here is a three step plan to help you for the first few months.

  1. Say the Lord’s prayer daily. Jesus said to pray this way. God answers prayers according to his will and what prayer is more in line with God’s will than one Jesus said to pray?
  2. Read a chapter of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). These are the books about Jesus. If you want to “abide in” Jesus’ words, you’ve got to know them.
  3. Read a chapter of Proverbs a day and read the chapter that corresponds with the date (31 chapters in the book).

I recommend writing in a journal when you read. This will help you to do three things:

  1. Write questions.
  2. Write down what you’ve learned about Jesus, his greatness, his teachings, and about daily nuts and bolts wisdom.
  3. Write down what you could do better in life.

I suspect that a plan like this would be very helpful for busy parents, people who hate reading, long time Christians who do not know Jesus very well, or Christian academics who study the Bible for work but who do not store it in their hearts.

Pathos 2: Tribalism

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In the first post on pathos, I talked about the existential fear of ending up on the wrong side of an eternal power. Another aspect of Christianity’s appeal is its inherent tribalism. (This post is in a series.)

Now wait, isn’t Christianity a universal experience? Isn’t it available to all? Doesn’t Jesus say, “Make disciples of all nations…”?

And yes, Christianity is universalist in that sense. Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, said so:

Romans 3:29-30 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, (30) since God is one–who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

On the other hand, Jesus said things like this:

Matthew 23:8-10 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. (9) And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (10) Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.

His call to priority in the lives of his followers is rather tribal.

The fact of the matter is that we all look up to leaders and even great leaders typically see themselves as carrying on a legacy, renewing a tradition, or filling the gap left by another. In the case of Christianity, there are lesser leaders: Peter, Paul, Moses, Augustine, Aquinas, Wesley, local pastors, parents, etc. But at the end of it all, the question every person has to ask is something like this, “Who is my leader, to whom do I owe allegiance?” The first answer to most people is, “myself.” This is well and good everybody has a duty to seek the wellbeing of their soul. The other answers are probably good too. I’m loyal to my family, my boss, my nation, the traditions that made it, my school, favorite team, my church, and so-on. And again, these things can be good, but only some of them are steady and some can go wrong. Moses himself even said, “You shall not fall in with the many to do evil…” Tribal loyalties have limits.

For the Christian, the conversation goes further:

John 6:66-69 After this [some difficult to accept teaching] many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (67) So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (68) Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, (69) and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

For the Christian, the answer of final allegiance boils down to this question: Do I find Jesus to be a compelling guide and do I find the movement he started to be worth preserving?

When people have your back it’s a good feeling. When the man out front is excellent and does all things well, one feels proud and excited to be a part. I remember seeing my karate instructor, at the time 41, best a much younger Brazilian jiu-jistu instructor in several practice matches to help the younger man get ready for a tournament (in which he placed first). Knowing that my karate instructor could, with a relaxed face perform so well against another trained fighter felt pretty good.

Similarly, knowing that Jesus is simply the best and highest revelation of God, or rather seeing him as the most compelling tribal leader among the many is encouraging. This, coupled with the fact that he enjoins those who follow him to “love one another even as I [Jesus] have loved you,” means that in the church one has a community with a tribal leader of universal relevance and a concern for the group that helps you know that your needs won’t be trivialized.

So, I’m a Christian because I see Jesus as my teacher and my leader in this way and I see his people as my people. In tribal terms, I am a Christian.

What are people like? What I learned from Copywriting

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Since I teach rhetoric, I’m always looking for ways to give my students an edge and this leads me down all sorts of great rabbit trails: books on hypnotism, psychology, watching speeches by famous politicians, ancient rhetorical manuals, books on family systems communication, and even books on marketing.

Today I started Victor Schwab’s classic, How to Write a Good Advertisement.

He wrote it in the 1940s and one of his main points is that you have to advertise to the people who will be buying your product, not to the person you are, that you wish you were, or that you wish everybody was. He gave this list of what he thought was an alarming trend in the United States in the 40s. He thought people were leaning toward:

Success— instead of— Integrity
Spending— instead of— Saving
Restlessness— instead of— Rest
Self-Indulgence— instead of— Self-Discipline
Desire for the New or Novel— instead of— Affection for the Old and Tried
Show— instead of— Solidity
Dependence— instead of— Self-Reliance
Gregariousness— instead of— Solitude
Luxury— instead of— Simplicity
Ostentation— instead of— Restraint
Easy Generosity— instead of— Wise Giving
Quick Impressions— instead of— Careful Thought[1]

If he’s right, and he is. And if things are worse today, and they are. Then what does this mean for evangelists and pastors?

When Paul evangelized Felix, this happened:

Acts 24:24-26  After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus.  (25)  And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”  (26)  At the same time he hoped that money would be given him by Paul. So he sent for him often and conversed with him.

 

Now, Paul’s method is summarized by Luke here and we discover that this went on some two years. But I do wonder, when we share the gospel and we start by talking about self-control or right/wrong and the people to whom we speak do not even comprehend these concepts, where must we start?

 

 

 

 

[1] Schwab, Victor (1942) How To Write A Good Advertisement: A Short Course In Copywriting (Kindle Locations 1206-1216). Pickle Partners Publishing. Kindle Edition.