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Thursday, June 18, 2020

Duty


In Steve’s memoir, he said “most of what I post on my blog is written from a sense of duty rather than personal interest” (page 74).  Steve and I had a couple of email exchanges along that topic over the years.  A lot of what drove that feeling is the difference between writing about what interests you and writing about what people need to hear.  For example, if I wrote about what interest me, I would write about Chaos Theory, mathematics, logic, music theory, and trying to become a polyglot.   Yet these topics would not be very useful for the church as a whole.

Indeed, I remember something my father once told me about a complaint R.C. Sproul made around the time when I was in high school.  It’s so long ago, I don’t have a way to verify the quote, but it seems accurate enough.  Essentially, Sproul’s complaint was that publishers kept having him dumb-down his books for a wider audience, so he was never able to talk about the things he wanted to talk about in the detail he wanted to express it.

But there’s another aspect to Steve’s quote that does need to be examined as well.  In using his quote as my launch pad, I should clarify that I do not believe what I’m going to discuss was Steve’s primary reasoning in the slightest—but it’s also not completely alien, given our conversations behind the scenes.  And that is the dichotomy that arises from writing about what you know to be true at times when you do not feel it to be true.

There is a reason that I use the distinction between knowing and feeling here.  Steve mentioned how for him it was a no brainer that God exists, but that the emotional problem of evil was far more difficult to tackle (see page 43 of his memoir).  This is something that I have also struggled with.  I’ve never doubted the existence of God—logic makes no sense unless theism is true.  But given theism, the question of God’s goodness definitely still remains one that can be struggled with.

Now at this point, I want to speak solely for myself.  While Steve and I did discuss the topic, as I mentioned, it’s in the midst of some emails that I am unable to dig through at the moment, given the nature of the events that were going on in my life during the time we had these exchanges.  So while I’m fairly confident I can accurately reproduce from memory what we discussed, I don’t want to inadvertently put words in Steve’s mouth that he would never have actually said simply because I mis-remembered the conversation.

So to my point.  There can be a radical difference between what you intellectually know to be true and what you feel at any given time.  My personal struggle arose from a time when I felt God had betrayed me.  This feeling of betrayal was a real feeling, but even a cursory logical look at the circumstances indicated that there was no such betrayal.  While confidentiality requires that I not give too many specifics, it involved the fact that at one point while I was in prayer and fasting, I believed God answered my prayers by affirming that I should remain faithful to my word and continue to pursue something that all my reason told me was impossible to achieve.  What I concluded from this was that God had told me, “If you remain faithful to your word, I will work out the details so you will get the result you want.”  But the truth was that never was the “message” that I got from the prayer—it was a simple command to be faithful without any indication that God was promising to do anything further.

The net result was, of course, that not only did I not get the ultimate desire I was hoping to achieve from my prayers, but it turned out that by remaining faithful to my word I ended up in a far worse position than I would have been in had I ceased my efforts when I knew it was hopeless.

Now here’s the rub.  The feeling of the betrayal was a real feeling, but it was not a reasonable feeling.  I could logically tell myself repeatedly all the facts.  I knew God had never promised to give me the end result I wanted, contingent upon my following through on my word.  For that matter, the affirmation to be faithful to my word was merely the bare minimum of what God wants us to do anyway!  In short, had I broken my word, that itself would have been sinful, and God is not obligated to bless you simply because in one instance you avoided sinning.

But reason doesn’t enter into matters of the heart.  I felt pained.  I felt betrayed.  I felt that God was unjust.

But I still knew God was just.  And here is where this ties back into the topic of this post.  At the time that I was struggling with this dichotomy between what I felt and what I knew, a former friend of mine who had apostatized to atheism started to engage me in debates on Facebook.  He would consistently make arguments about how if God existed, He would be nothing more than a moral monster.  That God was actually evil, not good.  Etc.

I engaged with this friend by arguing from reason.  I would object to his claims by showing the flawed logical assumptions and presuppositions underlying the claims, and how they had no teeth in an atheistic universe.  I used every bit of my intellect to focus on the reason his claims were false.

Yet the reality was, as soon as I hit “Submit” and turned off my computer and went to bed, my prayers would be accusing God of the very things the atheist had accused Him of, and which I had just spent so much time to refute.  And I was well aware that those emotions were genuinely felt, even though irrational.  I knew I had answered all my own questions, but it wasn’t an intellectual issue.  It was the emotional pain driving everything.

Why did I bother debating my atheist friend on logical grounds when emotionally I felt the same way he did?  Because I had a duty to do so.  I know that God is real and good and just.  And I know that my emotions, while genuine emotions, are not reality, nor can they be used to condemn God.  I can’t jettison what I know on the basis of what I feel.  As a result, I would write what I knew to be true despite how I felt.

I believe there is a sense where some (by no means all!) of Steve’s writing was based on that same balance sheet.  That some of what he wrote he did so because he knew it was true, and the sense of duty that compelled him to write it was required because the reality of evil in this world had hurt him in the same way it had hurt me. 

It’s easy to throw in the towel and let emotions rule the day.  It’s easy to vent, to rage, to cry out, to despair, to throw a tantrum against God.  It’s much harder to acknowledge that those emotions aren’t truth, and the truth still needs to be said.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

The point of this somewhat lengthy meandering post is thus to assert a simple claim: To write the truth despite how one feels is actually a very good thing.

13 comments:

  1. Sometimes when reading steve I would notice that he made statements to his detractors which, in light of your post, now seem clearer.

    Statements along the lines of, and I'm paraphrasing: "Christianity, though not without difficulties, is nevertheless much better than *your* worldview which is fraught with many more and significantly worse difficulties, so why would I trade my worldview for yours?"

    I always thought this was a very honest take on things. It established that we're all, Christian and non-Christian alike, faced with difficulties in reconciling our worldviews, and even though Christians "see through a glass darkly", at least we *can see*, whereas the unbeliever is totally blind.

    There's both humility and confidence built into such a worldview. It's durable. It can weather the storms of life. That's truth worth defending.

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    1. I agree with your conclusions as well, Coram Deo. When I look at the bad things that have happened in my life for which I bear the responsibility, virtually all of them were due to emotional decisions. The logical mistakes that I made were often due to insufficient information, and for that reason I can still often conclude that I made the best possible decision given what I knew. But my emotional decisions were very frequently CONTRARY to what I knew to be true, but in my rage, fear, or hope, I ignored what I knew.

      My faith in Christ comes due to the fact that He satisfies me intellectually. Emotions churn and move to and fro; logic is constant and needs evidence and reason to budge.

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  2. You make a fantastic point, Peter. Having been in a similar situation, I knew that I was duty-bound to argue for the truth in the face of the arguments of the rebel.

    Thank you for articulating such an important point.

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  3. If you're a believer, there is little comfort that things will be "ok". They won't. He'll break you in two. Your heart will be shattered into a thousand pieces.

    And then you'll become closer to what He wants you to become.

    I wish there were an easier path.

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  4. Peter--

    I have certainly had experiences where my hurting heart overruled my faithful mind. But there have been other times when my faithful heart had to keep my errant mind in line: I remember, for example, early on in my Christian walk, not specifically seeing the Trinity in Scripture. I was kept on the straight and narrow, however, by the unified stance of every mature Christian I knew. Instinctively, intuitionally, I realized that that many people I trusted couldn't have made a mistake. Therefore, I was the one who had missed something.

    We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. RTS's motto is "A Mind for Truth, A Heart for God." Puritan groups have sometimes expanded that to a triumvirate: Head, Heart, and Hand. If our feelings don't coincide with our beliefs, I'm sorry, but that's a red flag. We're not as convinced, or we're not as committed to that truth as we ought to be. God is Love. And we are to speak the truth in love (to the best of our abilities). If we merely proclaim the letter of the truth without imparting the spirit of the truth, we are not being as faithful as we could be.

    Of course, life can really mess with our cognitive abilities. Likewise, it can severely traumatize our emotions. Perhaps that's what you're talking about. But such a state is not normative.

    Evidently, I'm different from you. The Problem of Evil has never placed the slightest concern into my heart. The Problem of Good instantly overrides it. I have had more difficulties with my faith in the existence of God being overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of scientific materialism in this culture. But my heart trusts in God my Savior. The Hound of Heaven hunts me down whenever I try to hide. My Good Shepherd actually "warms my hackles" by yanking at my neck. His rod and his staff, they comfort me. Heartfelt worship can get me through a ton of intellectual doubt and confusion.

    Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the life of the mind. But that's just it. I ENJOY it. It's not a duty. I love architecture and literature and theatrical productions and politics and sport (and linguistics and music theory).

    But then again, I love theology more. Far more. Far, far more.

    How does one love God and not love the study of God? It's like "loving" your wife but not wishing to know all that much about her. I am absolutely fascinated by every minute detail of my young children's lives: their games, their thoughts, their prayers, their interactions, their expressions, their jokes, their sweet nothings, their fights, their "eureka" moments... EVERYTHING!!!! It doesn't become a chore for one bless-ed second!

    The heart CAN be deceitful, but it is not inherently so. Christ dwells in our hearts, regenerates our hearts, sanctifies our hearts, and will in time...glorify them.

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    1. Eric said:
      ---
      If our feelings don't coincide with our beliefs, I'm sorry, but that's a red flag. We're not as convinced, or we're not as committed to that truth as we ought to be. God is Love. And we are to speak the truth in love (to the best of our abilities). If we merely proclaim the letter of the truth without imparting the spirit of the truth, we are not being as faithful as we could be.
      ---

      But is what you write here written out of love? Does it show compassion for those who have been overwhelmingly hurt? Does it show tenderness for those who know the truth, and yet who have been traumatized and who are doing everything they can simply to soldier on with what they know is true despite the pain?

      Since tone can't be expressed, I want to be clear that these are not accusatory questions. I'm asking if you have considered that telling someone that their struggles with the emotional pain they are going through means that they are not as faithful as they could be actually adds more burden upon the Christian who is suffering.

      You wrote:
      ---
      But such a state is not normative.
      ---

      I would argue that no state we find ourselves in this side of heaven is normative. I don't deny that sin will cause different issues for different people. As you said, we are different from each other. Sin may cause intellectual doubt for many people. But I have never struggled with intellectual doubt at all. If sin can cause intellectual doubt in you, then surely you can empathize that sin may cause emotional doubt in others?

      The point isn't that one type of sin is worse than another type of sin at all. Sin will hit each individual at the point that they are weakest. Satan is, after all, a roaring lion. Or as God put it to Cain, it's crouching at your door waiting to pounce.

      You said:
      ---
      I am absolutely fascinated by every minute detail of my young children's lives... It doesn't become a chore for one bless-ed second!
      ---

      Evidently they are not teenagers. :-D

      But that aspect also misses the point. You do realize that what you are implying is that if you don't always feel absolute fascination about God, obsessing over every minute detail, that that indicates you don't actually love God. That is both an impossible standard (and one I don't believe you actually do, not even with your wife and children, even if it's your primary approach) and not even the correct standard to boot. The Psalms are replete with cries of anguish to God. There are many laments, even an entire book called Lamentations, where the authors express their pain to God, and yet affirm through it all that nevertheless God's will be done.

      Are there people who take their grief too far? Yes. But I would maintain it is those very people who CEASE to do their duty because of their pain, not those who still behave based on what they know to be true despite the pain of what it has already cost them.

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    2. Peter--

      It is indeed a shame that text cannot convey tone or underlying motivations. I wasn't being accusatory in the least.

      My own intellectual doubt IS a red flag that my mind gives undue weight to prevailing modern arguments, perhaps for no better reason than its ubiquity. Perhaps, I subconsciously seek approval. Either way, it is sin. I'm neither absolving myself nor self flagellating. It is what it is. Part of the human condition.

      What you and Steve are describing is the result of deficit and trauma. What I meant by non-normative is that, all things being equal, one shouldn't get a pass for a relatively cold and calculated obedience to God. One shouldn't be allowed to say, "That's just the way I am" or "That's my personality" or "That's a male gender trait."

      I worry like crazy about my kids. I'm sure I'll pound bloody fists on heaven's door on behalf of my kids before all is said and done. The fact that I believe love includes emotion doesn't imply that I think it includes only positive emotions!! And it doesn't exclude the fact that there have been plenty of times when I was so physically and emotionally spent that all I had left as a motivation was duty. And yet, even in those situations, duty was an emotion of sorts. I was more than glad to sacrifice. Moreover, since I was incapable of normal emotion. I wouldn't even classify it as a sin. But as something noble and god-honoring.

      So, most likely, I'm not being accusatory of either of you guys. Much, much more likely, I'm actually being laudatory. Trouble is, since I'm not a mind reader, I'll have to let God decide the matter.

      The one minor accusation I'll make--tongue planted firmly in my cheek--is that you totally misread me. Ain't texting grand!!! 😎

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    3. Thanks for your clarifications, Eric. Yes, I think we do agree on the broader aspects.

      One clarification I would add is that I'm not using the sense of duty as synonymous with "cold and calculated obedience to God." I know people use the word "duty" in that sense--in fact, my pastor in his sermon this Sunday actually did so, and the only reason I noticed it was because I had written this post already! (I should add that as far as I know my pastor does NOT read this blog.)

      In any case, speaking for myself, there's nothing cold or calculating about the sense of duty I was describing. As pertaining to "cold", at those times when I'm struggling with the emotional pain, those emotions are definitely not cold at all! They want to rage at God and to cry out and demand to be heard, and so on. But while that is going on, I know it's my duty to still proclaim the truth regardless of those feelings.

      And as to calculating, I suppose there's a sense where that may fit, but in general "calculating" seems to imply a sort of manipulation. Of trying to get something or bargaining. And true, as a sinner, I sometimes do try to do that with God. But the sense of duty to which I refer is that sense where you know you're not going to get anything from God and you still proclaim the truth. It's that point where you feel you've been kicked in the face repeatedly by God, and you don't expect it to stop, but you still say, "This is what is true." That, to me, implies the opposite of the general use of the term "calculating."

      So to wrap up: yes, I agree that one shouldn't just say "That's the way I am" and shrug it off, but that's also not how I meant "duty" to be understood :-)

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    4. Peter--

      Thanks. I was assuming we were pretty much on the same page. Just enjoying digging into the nuances of "duty." It definitely can be an impassioned act.

      You speak of anger towards God. Even deeper emotions can remain hidden underneath our bitterness. How was Job able to say, "Though he slay me, yet will I praise him." The love and thanksgiving which had always characterized his relationship to God overwhelmed his present circumstances. If one of my kids gets hurt right in the middle of my yelling at him or her, the anger is gone immediately...if not sooner.

      Sometimes how we feel emotionally must give way to who we ARE in Christ. Our mundane, earthly desires must submit to more substantial spiritual desires.

      At any rate, thanks for the discussion!

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  5. Guys, just a suggestion, but as time passes and fresh wounds heal other current (and eternal) topics will no doubt resume at T-blogue. With this in mind would it be possible to permanently affix a header on the main page that says something like "In Memoriam: Steve Hays (1959-2020)" and have it hyperlinked to his memoir for ease of access to all visitors?

    I think this would be a tasteful yet simple tribute to the man's legacy here. It's been a while since I blogged on either Blogger or WordPress, but from my recollection permanent headers are an option, however it may be dependent upon the template that's been chosen, I'm not sure.

    Honestly speaking that's another thing I've always appreciated about T-blogue and its contributors, the simplicity and purity of the format. It's about the words, and the freight they carry, not about flashy photoshop pics or colorful animation. Not that there's anything wrong with those things, it's just that T-blogue seems to be boiled down to the essence of what a blog should be about - the writing.

    Maybe I'm just too much of a purist.

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    1. Thanks for the encouragement!

      We linked the memoir under the Triablogue graphic ("Steve Hays' Autobiography") on the day he died.

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  6. Ok. I didn't know that. I read on an android phone so I only see posted articles and the header. But I'm probably in the minority.

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