Tag Archives: Affections

Some thoughts on Stoicism

11 Tuesday Feb 2020

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I read quite a bit of Stoic philosophy and thus realize that it is far more nuanced than simply detachment and reserve. But detachment and reserve; a purposeful attempt to avoid all trouble is the popular form of the concept. A cheaper and American version is to simply avoid all thoughts of something “negative”; which is a kind of ostrich happiness. I will be happy by simply not knowing. We have even medicalized this, so that feeling bad is a disease (and yes, I know there are severe cases of depression which are quite different than merely feeling sadness, loss, and such).

There is a tacit belief among som Christians, that a stoic dullness to trouble; a complete equanimity to all things is a kind of holiness.  If something bad takes place, I should not care. This is matched by a kind of stoicism to trouble as a sign of mental health.

There is much to be said for not being troubled; but that standard alone is insufficient to respond to all things. Should we be untroubled at injustice? She we be untroubled at death of those whom we love? The examples are easy to multiply.

The fault would not be in sorrow, fear, love, anger, et cetera. The trouble is the whether and when of such affections. The trouble as Christianity would have it is not that one expresses some emotion, but rather the question of whether the affection is based upon a true and right understand.  What we need is not a placid soul. What we need are rightly calibrated affections:

In this psalm you find the man of God under divers passions, sometimes of joy, sometimes of sorrow, sometimes of hope and courage, and sometimes of fear. As there is a time for all things in this world, there are several conditions and duties that we run through, and we have affections planted in us that suit with every condition. Religion doth not nullify, but sanctify our affections. Some have vainly thought affections to be an after-growth of noisome weeds in our nature corrupted; whereas they are wholesome herbs, implanted in us by God at our first creation, of great use to grace when rightly stirred and ordered:

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 8 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 230.

Schopenhauer on Happiness.8 Thinking Makes it So

08 Saturday Feb 2020

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Here, Schopenhauer makes the argument that all happiness or woe takes place not in the environment but in the mind: happiness or sorrow or merely how I feel. Or, as he puts it, is “purely intellectual”; it is a matter of the mind.

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for the mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the way of happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant alternations of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments it produces.

At one level, he makes a correct observation: happiness is not an objection in the environment, like a flower or a star. Happiness is a conclusion about that flower or star. When confronted by a flower, I see it, understand it in some manner and conclude that I am happy.

There is a “natural” movement from a pleasing event or object and a pleased contented experience: in a colloquial manner, the flower “makes” one happy.

He is right that the happiness is not in the flower, but in the person.

For instance, if I have just buried a loved-one and have put flowers on the casket, then the sight of flowers would produce sorrow rather than happiness.

It seems that Schopenhauer counsels a decoupling of the environment from response so that one routinely responds with happiness. Nothing is either good or bad, happy or sad, but thinking makes it so.

Let’s consider this a bit more. There are steps to move from observation of environment to happiness or sorrow. There are the mechanical aspects of observation and recognition.

There is then a evaluative process by which the object becomes meaningful. For instance, the flowers in a garden or the flowers on a grave will each have a different meaning. The meaning takes place in the subject’s intellectual apprehension.

The meaning assigned to the object then produces an emotion: Flowers mean death and loss of someone I loved; I feel sad. The emotion itself is not the result of a conclusion about what emotion I desire; rather the emotion is the result of the meaning I assign to the object and circumstance.

Therefore, I achieve a particular emotion, I do not lean my will upon my emotion. Rather, I must alter my evaluation of the event: I must change the meaning of the event so that the conclusion will be a meaning which produces happiness.

Here are two problems: First, and most importantly for Schopenhauer, what rational basis within the context of his worldview is there for evaluating anything in such a manner as to produce happiness? All of live is accidental, contingent, brief, meaningless. Necessity governs all things; and even my subjective experience of free will is an illusion. (One wonders how I will ever be able to alter my evaluations when they are the result of necessity.)

Second, if ignore the fact that Schopenhauer needs to cheat on his system to even make this argument we have to consider the cost of our reliance upon this process.

We should seek to have increasingly accurate understandings of the world, so that our emotive responses properly follow from experience (and this opens up a great series of issues, which I will bracket for right now). But I take as a self-evident that a goal of one’s understanding of the world should be rational and accurate to the degree possible.

Schopenhauer can provide no basis for why I should hope for a rational or true understanding. Indeed, a rational response would be despair. But since despair is unpleasant and I desire happiness and desiring happiness is itself rational, I should hope for a false understanding of the world. He needs to decouple reason and truth.

And then, we cannot be certain that such a decoupling will itself produce a greater happiness. With the “reasonable” goal of avoiding sorrow we transform the nature of what it is to be human. Our excessive desire to avoid sorrow and pain stunts our development as human beings. There is a depth of joy and love which comes only at excessive cost.

An awakened understanding of loss and the potential of loss and the rarity of joy and love and happiness, causes us to better treasure and better love.

A stoic distance protects us from pain, but at the cost of maturity. Again, we will bracket maturity.

Or take the matter at another level: What do we think of someone who would smile at the death of a child; who would laugh at results of a fire? Would the “happiness” of the one laughing through a cancer ward be a true benefit?

Schopenhauer is correct that happiness or sorrow are the results of “intellectual” exercise; that judgment is in the mind, not in the object. He is implicitly correct that a great deal of sorrow follows from the defects (if you will) in thought. But Schopenhauer can offer no real help in correcting our thought in such a manner to lead to any sort of increase in true (well-grounded) happiness.

The only real thing which he can offer is a Stoic resignation.

At this point, I’d offer some observations of Puritan Thomas Brooks on a Stoic resignation to trouble:

First, There is a stoical silence. The stoics of old thought it altogether below a man that hath reason or understanding either to rejoice in any good, or to mourn for any evil; but this stoical silence is such a sinful insensibleness as is very provoking to a holy God, Isa. 26:10, 11. God will make the most insensible sinner sensible either of his hand here, or of his wrath in hell. It is a heathenish and a horrid sin to be without natural affections, Rom. 1:31. And of this sin Quintus Fabius Maximus seems to be foully guilty, who, when he heard that his mother and wife, whom he dearly loved, were slain by the fall of an house, and that his younger son, a brave, hopeful young man, died at the same time in Umbria, he never changed his countenance, but went on with the affairs of the commonwealth as if no such calamity had befallen him. This carriage of his spoke out more stupidity than patience, Job 36:13.

And so Harpalus was not at all appalled when he saw two of his sons laid ready dressed in a charger, when Astyages had bid him to supper. This was a sottish insensibleness. Certainly if the loss of a child in the house be no more to thee than the loss of a chick in the yard, thy heart is base and sordid, and thou mayest well expect some sore awakening judgment. This age is full of such monsters, who think it below the greatness and magnanimity of their spirits to be moved, affected, or afflicted with any afflictions that befall them. I know none so ripe and ready for hell as these.

Aristotle speaks of fishes, that though they have spears thrust into their sides, yet they awake not. God thrusts many a sharp spear through many a sinner’s heart, and yet he feels nothing, he complains of nothing. These men’s souls will bleed to death. Seneca, Epist. x., reports of Senecio Cornelius, who minded his body more than his soul, and his money more than heaven; when he had all the day long waited on his dying friend, and his friend was dead, he returns to his house, sups merrily, comforts himself quickly, goes to bed cheerfully. His sorrows were ended, and the time of his mourning expired before his deceased friend was interred. Such stupidity is a curse that many a man lies under. But this stoical silence, which is but a sinful sullenness, is not the silence here meant.

 

Edward Taylor, Meditation 26, My Noble Lord

19 Thursday Sep 2019

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Edward Taylor Meditation 26

Reference, Acts 5:31

31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

My noble Lord, thy nothing servant I

Am for thy sake out with my heart, that holds,

So little love for such a Lord: I cry

How should I be but angry thus to see

My heart so hidebound in her acts to thee?

 

Thou art a golden theme; but I am lean

A leaden orator upon the same.

Thy golden web excels my dozie beam

Whose linsy-wolsy loom deserves thy blame.

It’s all defiled, unbiased too by sin:

An hearty wish for thee’s scarce shot therein.

 

It pities me who pity cannot show

That such a worthy theme abused should be.

I am undone, unless thy pardons do

Undo my sin I did, undoing me.

My sins are great, and grievous ones, therefore

Carbuncle mountains can’t wipe out their score.

 

But thou, my Lord, does a free pardon bring.

Thou giv’st forgiveness: yet my heart through sin,

Hath naught but naught to file thy gift  up in.

An hurden haump doth chafe a silken skin.

Although I pardons beg, I scare can see,

When thou giv’st pardons, I give praise to thee.

 

O bad at best! What am I then at worst?

I want a pardon, and when pardon’d, want

A thankful heart: both which thou dost disbursed.

Giv’st both, or neither: for which Lord I pant.

Two such good things at once! Methinks I could

Avenge my heart, lest it should neither hold.

 

Lord tap mine eyes, seeing such grace in thee

So little doth affect my graceless soul.

And take my tears in lieu of thanks of me,

New make my heart: then take it for thy toll.

Thy pardons then will make my heart to sing

It Mictham-David: with sweet joy within.

 

 

The first stanza:

My noble Lord, thy nothing servant I

Am for thy sake out with my heart, that holds,

So little love for such a Lord: I cry

How should I be but angry thus to see

My heart so hidebound in her acts to thee?

Taylor meditates upon the proposition that Jesus has been exalted to give repentance and forgiveness of sins. The exaltation of Jesus comes upon the death and resurrection of Jesus, which comes upon the Incarnation of the Son of God. The reference to Acts comes from a sermon by Peter. The preceding verse in this sermon reads: “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.”Acts 5:30 (ESV)

He begins with the contrast between Jesus – My Noble Lord; and himself, thy nothing servant. He condemns himself seeing himself so little moved when contemplating such a matter.  This condemnation for not responding appropriate to the knowledge of God’s love in Christ, is the primary concern of the poem. It is a bit of self-examination and self-rebuke, and thereon, a plea for pardon.

He prays for a heart that will weep that it cares so little for the goodness of God, and that such weeping will be received in sincere repentance. And then, having been forgiven anew for his sinful lack of a proper response to God’s goodness will become a present basis for rejoicing.

We see here, that those within the Puritan tradition placed a great emphasis not just upon intellectual apprehension but also upon due affections, that is, emotions and desires. As would be written by Jonathan Edwards in the next generation after Taylor:

True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed. John E. Smith and Harry S. Stout, Revised edition., vol. 2, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 95.

In line two, the accent must fall heavily upon the word “out”; it is an imperative:

Am for thy sake OUT with my heart, that holds,

Remove a heart that holds so little love.

Hidebound: this is an especially useful adjective to describe a heart which cannot fill with the expansive joy and love fit for the occasion. The flesh and skin have closed about his heart and it cannot swell with joy.

Second Stanza:

 Thou art a golden theme; but I am lean

A leaden orator upon the same.

Thy golden web excels my dozy beam

Whose linsy-wolsy loom deserves thy blame.

It’s all defiled, unbiased too by sin:

An hearty wish for thee’s scarce shot therein.

The word “lean” picks up the image of “hidebound” which originally referred to cattle whose skin had grown taunt over a famished body.

God is gold; I am lead. Gold is celestial; lead is dull and earth-bound. He cannot speak in a manner fit.

He then turns abruptly to the imagery of weaving.

The cloth to be woven is a “golden web”. However, the poem’s “loom deserves thy blame” – condemnation.

The beam of the loom is dozy (slow, stupid).

“Linsey-woolsey” was originally referred to a textile made of linen and wool. But it was used figuratively to refer to something as being confused or nonsensical. The poet’s loom – his poem – is all confused and not fit for the beautiful garment which should be produced.

Sin has infected the process and thus the poem won’t go correctly.

This is critical consideration in the poet’s argument. Sin is not merely some particular bad act; sin is also a disease, a corruption of his entire frame. He is not a man who occasionally sins. He is a man who is constantly affected by sin. The sin is so pervasive that it affects his ability to even express the appropriate emotions.

To make this seem not so strange, consider a circumstance where someone witnesses a great horror or tragedy and yet does not respond with appropriate emotions. They laugh at seeing a death; they feel no compassion at seeing great suffering. We consider such people to be “wrong.”

Taylor is saying: this theme is far greater than any other theme I could consider. This should bring me to soaring notes of golden joy. But sin has obscured my ability. Indeed, it is a sin for me to not even care rightly about this.

Third Stanza:

It pities me who pity cannot show

That such a worthy theme abused should be.

I am undone, unless thy pardons do

Undo my sin I did, undoing me.

My sins are great, and grievous ones, therefore

Carbuncle mountains can’t wipe out their score.

I need pity in my state; and yet, ironically, I do not express the right pity over such a thought, that Christ had died for me. I need pity from you God, because I am in sin that I do not have a heart which expresses pity as I should. Note in the first line that “pity” carries the accent, which throws great emphasis on the word:

it PITies ME WHO PITy cannot SHOW

I need pity, and in danger of judgment “I am undone”.

Here, the irony intensifies: Taylor begins to mediate upon the forgiveness of Christ. He see that he does not have the proper affections when considering the subject. He thus falls into new sin when contemplating the forgiveness of his sins, which necessitates the need for forgiveness again:

   Unless thy pardons do

Undo my sin I did

A carbuncle mountain would be an entire mountain of ruby. (See, e.g, Hawthorne, “The Great Carbuncle”; Fitzgeard, “A Diamond as Big as the Ritz.”) My sin is so great that nothing in creation can answer for their debt.

 

Fourth Stanza 

But thou, my Lord, does a free pardon bring.

Thou giv’st forgiveness: yet my heart through sin,

Hath naught but naught to file thy gift up in.

An hurden haump doth chafe a silken skin.

Although I pardons beg, I scare can see,

When thou giv’st pardons, I give praise to thee.

 The trouble becomes more acute because even though God does give forgiveness, the poet’s heart is not fit to receive forgiveness. He is a “nothing servant” with a “heart through sin, /Hath naught but naught”.

I was unable to find any use of the phrase “hurden haump” except in this poem. What we do know from context, it must be something which would ruin in the finest of things (silk would be extraordinary expensive and rare).

Finally, even though he is begging for pardon, he realizes his heart will still lack the praise which is due or the pardon received.

Fifth Stanza:

O bad at best! What am I then at worst?

I want a pardon, and when pardon’d, want

A thankful heart: both which thou dost disbursed.

Giv’st both, or neither: for which Lord I pant.

Two such good things at once! Methinks I could

Avenge my heart, lest it should neither hold.

At best, when contemplating this theme, I am “bad”. But what if I am at my worst? First, I want – lack – a pardon. I need a pardon. And then upon receiving the pardon I need, I “want” – lack – a heart which will express the thankfulness due. I can only have a thankful heart, if you God give it to me. Therefore, he prays for both a pardon for his sin and a heart which will express the proper thankfulness in response to the forgiveness.

But if his heart will not hold such pardon and joy, he will “avenge” himself upon it:

Methinks I could

Avenge my heart, lest it should neither hold.

 

Sixth Stanza:

Lord tap mine eyes, seeing such grace in thee

So little doth affect my graceless soul.

And take my tears in lieu of thanks of me,

New make my heart: then take it for thy toll.

Thy pardons then will make my heart to sing

It Mictham-David: with sweet joy within.

 

He end with a call to weep for his sin:

Lord tap mine eyes, seeing such grace in thee

So little doth affect my graceless soul.

“Tap mine eyes”, put a tap in my eyes to drain the tears in repentance for my sin.  This theme was taken up by Edwards (although I don’t have any knowledge that Edwards had ever seen Taylor’s poems; however, Taylor knew Edward’s father, thus there is a basis to see a continuity of thought):

 

True contrition may be known by the principle it arises from, and the effect it produces in the heart:

By the principle it arises from, and that is love to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The sinner, thinking of the merciful nature of God, thinking of his great compassion and pity manifested to men, he sees that God is really exceeding merciful and compassionate. He wonders that God should so condescend to the children of men. He sees that really and truly God has shown an unparalleled goodness and a most sweet, condescending compassion in that act of sending his Son into the world. He admires the goodness of God herein; he wonders that so great and glorious a God should be so full of pity and compassion. What, the King of the Universe, the Infinite God, the Eternal Jehovah pity man at this rate?

Such thoughts as these make him to love God, and think him most excellent and lovely, that ever he should be so full of mercy and pity, that ever he should be so exceeding gracious; that ever so great a God, that has been so much affronted by proud worms, should be so full of goodness and astonishing clemency as to take pity on them, instead of punishing them, especially when he considers that he is one of those wretched rebels whom He so pitied. This makes him to love this so good God above all things in the world; his very soul is all drawn out: how doth it melt with such thoughts, how doth it flow in streams of love!

And then when he reflects on his sin, as [on] his vileness, on his disobedience to this so lovely God, his proud and contemptuous behavior towards him, how he dishonored him by his unreasonable, most ungrateful disobedience—that ever he should be so ungrateful and so vile: then what sorrow, what grief, what deep contrition follows! How doth he loathe himself; how is [he] angry with himself! See the motions that the penitent feels at this time excellently represented by the Apostle: 2 Cor. 7:11, “For behold this same thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you; yea, what clearing of yourselves; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge!”

I do not say that a true penitent’s thoughts always run exactly in this order, but I say that they are of this nature, and do arise from this principle.

Jonathan Edwards, “True Repentance Required,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1720–1723, ed. Wilson H. Kimnach and Harry S. Stout, vol. 10, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1992), 513–514.

He then proposes a solution to his trouble:

And take my tears in lieu of thanks of me,

New make my heart: then take it for thy toll.

First, God, take my tears of repentance, since I have not shown the joy which I should. Renew my heart:

Psalm 51:10–12 (ESV)

10          Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

11          Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

12          Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

 

Then, when I have wept for my sins, I will rejoice in my present forgiveness:

Observe, gospel-tears are not lost, they are seeds of comfort; while the penitent doth pour out tears, God pours in joy; if thou wouldst be cheerful, saith Chrysostom, be sad: Psal. 126:5. ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.’ It was the end of Christ’s anointing and coming into the world, that he might comfort them that mourn, Isa. 61:3. Christ had the oil of gladness poured on him, as Chrysostom saith, that he might pour it on the mourner; well then might the apostle call it ‘a repentance not to be repented of, 2 Cor. 7:10. A man’s drunkenness is to be repented of, his uncleanness is to be repented of; but his repentance is never to be repented of, because it is the inlet of joy: ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ Here is sweet fruit from a bitter stock: Christ caused the earthen vessels to be filled with water, and then turned the water into wine, John 2:9. So when the eye, that earthen vessel, hath been filled with water brim full, then Christ will turn the water of tears into the wine of joy. Holy mourning, saith St. Basil, is the seed out of which the flowers of eternal joy doth grow.

Thomas Watson, “Discourses upon Christ’s Sermon on the Mount,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 123–124.

A Michtam (or Miktam) is a title, probably a musical notation, in certain Psalms of David.

 

God is God in all places

21 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Fear, Fear of the Lord, Richard Sibbes, Uncategorized

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It is a curious thing, but true that even we professors (those who profess, not teachers) Christ can more easily be frightened of the knowledge of other people rather than the knowledge of God:

Examine what affections we have to God: for it is affection that makes a Christian. Single out some few that we are most offending in. As, first, for fear, it may shame us all. Indeed, a Christian upon his best resolution is better. But the ordinary carriage of men is, they fear men more than God; they fear everything more than him that they should fear above all. For instance, is the retired carriage of men to God such as their carriage is to the eye of the world? Will not they do that in secret ofttimes that they will not do openly? In secret they will commit this or that sin, and think, Who seeth? There are secret abominations in the closet of their hearts. They will not fear to do that in the eye of God, that they fear to do in the eye of a child of six years old, that is of any discretion. Is this to make God our God, when we fear the eye of a silly mortal creature more than the eye of God, that is ten thousand times brighter than the sun, that is our judge? Is God our God the whiles? Undoubtedly, when God is made our God, there is an awe of the eye of heaven upon a man in all places. Therefore this is the condition of the covenant, ‘Walk before me,’ or ‘Walk as in my sight,’ 1 Sam. 2:30. How do we walk before God as in his sight, when there is such a great deal of difference in our carriage secretly, and before the eyes of men? when we labour more to approve our carriage to men, than we make conscience of our spirits to God? This may shame us. Even the best of us who are in covenant with God, and have made God our God, we have cause to be abased for this: and surely one of the best ways to make God’s children abased and humbled, is to compare the different proportion of their carriage; how they carry themselves to men whom they respect, and to outward things in the world, and how they carry themselves to God. If God be our God, there will be an universal fear and care to please God in all times and in all places, because he is everywhere; darkness and light are all one to him.

Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 6 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1863), 10.

Charles Hodge learns spiritual affections are given by God

21 Friday Jul 2017

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As a young man of 22, Charles Hodge, the great Princeton theologian, was extremely self-reflective about his spiritual affections. He intently searched his emotions and thoughts to gauge his spiritual state. Then, he seems at one point (recorded in his journal) to realize that such introspection was not profitable. As he biography Hoffecker explains:

That is, he found the more a person examined his subjective spiritual state, the less apt he was to experience what he was looking for because he sought something that was not under his control. When focusing so intently on experience, the cognitive act itself preceded a person’s experiencing the alternative subjective activity being sought. Genuine spiritual “experience” wold come not as the result of efforts to achieve it but as something given by God. Hodge hereby recognized an irony in spiritual experience. The religion affections were not subject to human manipulation; rather than being under human control, they arise as a gift. Thus, when Hodge was least apt to think positively about his experience because of spiritual depression, taking his thoughts off looking for the beginning of spiritual impressions actually freed his mind so that the affections stirred by God could arise. Perhaps Hodge came to realize that description of pious experience such as those he narrates in his diary were a disguised form of what he would condemn in other contexts as ‘works righteousness.’

W Andrew Hoffecker, Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton, American Reformed Biographies (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub., 2011), 61.

This is a detailed, well-researched and very readable biography of Charles Hodge. Recommended.

Kierkegaard: Shadowgraphs in Either/Or

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in affliction, Kierkegaard, Philosophy, Uncategorized

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This essay is about 60 pages long in my edition. The essay’s stated concerns has to do with art: “In order, therefore, for a subject to lend itself to artistic representation, it must have a quiet transparency, so that its inner essence resets in a corresponding outer form.” This contrasts with poetry, “art expresses repose, poetry movement.”

This makes joy a better subject for “art” because, “It is of the essence of joy to reveal itself, while grief tries to hide, sometimes even to deceive. Joy is communicative, social, open-hearted, and desires expression; grief is secretive, silent, solitary and seeks to retire into itself.”

The essayist then moves to his true topic, “reflective grief.” This type of grief cannot be displayed in art, because it is “like a squirrel in a cage ….it lacks repose, …”

Such a grief may be the cause of a particular person’s nature, “An abnormally reflective individual will transform every sorrow that comes to him into reflective grief.”

But such a grief may have an objective cause: the loss of love on the basis of deceit. The remainder of the essay are the “shadowgraphs” which demonstrate instances of such reflective grief. This is indirect teaching: I cannot talk about the subject directly, but I can see the reflective elements.

The point in reflective grief is the fact that sorrow is constantly seeking its object; this search is its life and the secret of its unrest….Thus, when unhappy love has its ground in deception, its pain and suffering are due to its inability to find its object. If the deception is proved, and if its victim understand that it is a deception, then the grief does not cease, but it becomes an immediate sorrow, not a reflective one. The dialectical difficulty is readily evident, for why does she grieve? If he was a deceiver, then it was just as well that he left her, the sooner the better; in fact, she should be glad that he had left her, and mourn only because she loved him. But the question whether or not he really was a deceiver is precisely the unrest which gives perpetual motion to her grief. To establish certainty for the external fact that a deception is really a deception, is always very difficult, and even this would by no means settle the matter, or end the movement of reflection. A deception is for love an absolute paradox, and herein lies the necessity for a reflective grief.

The realization that one’s beloved is not really what they seemed — and thus my beloved does not exist – but my love was real….

Another aspect of suffering and hope mingled is added:

When a possibility is destroyed, the suffering for the moment may perhaps not be so great, but it often leaves a small ligament or two whole and uninjured which remains a constant source of continued suffering.

George Whitefield Sermons, Walking With God.2

26 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, George Whitefield, Preaching

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Continued, from here

Whitefield then sets forth the outline for the remainder of the sermons
First, What the phrase “walked with God” implies.
Second, The means to “walk with God”.
Third, Encouragement to “walk with God.”

He breaks down the concept of walking with God into four parts: (1) The enmity with God is taken away; (2) positive reconciliation has replaced that enmity; (3) there is communion with God; (4) progress is being made in relationship with God.

Walking With God Means that the Enmity With God has Been Taken Away

he Enmity With God has Been Taken AwayThe doctrine of original sin, or total depravity, or enmity between God and human beings has not been an easily received doctrine. When Whitefield says, “Perhaps it may seem a hard doctrine to some”, he is not merely making a rhetorical flourish. There was an active conflict on this matter during his lifetime.* Even if there were not an active theological controversy, there would be the matter of the natural human recoiling at the proposition that I am an enemy of God. Therefore, to get a hearing Whitefield has some serious work to do with his sermon.

First, Whitefield both admits that it s a hard doctrine and at the same time states this fact is unavoidable:

And First, walking with God implies, that the prevailing power of the enmity of a person’s heart be taken away by the blessed Spirit of God. Perhaps it may seem a hard saying to some, but our own experience daily proves what the scriptures in many places assert, that the carnal mind, the mind of the unconverted natural man, nay, the mind of the regenerate, so far as any part of him remains unrenewed, is enmity, not only an enemy, but enmity itself, against God; so that it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Indeed, one may well wonder that any creature, especially that lovely creature man, made after his Maker’s own image, should ever have any enmity, much less a prevailing enmity, against that very God in whom he lives, and moves, and hath his being. But alas! so it is.

Whitefield’s argument is based upon the passage in Romans 8:5–7 (ESV):

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

Throughout the sermon, Whitefield naturally quotes Scripture, even when he does not stop and say, “turn to Romans 8, I will begin reading in verse 5”. There are two ways to think about this. On one hand, a preacher’s language should naturally flow out in Scripture. On the other, it is a sad fact that even in the most dedicated churches the congregation has less biblical literacy than Whitefield could assume for his hearers. (I will admit that I don’t have a precise source for this fact.) Therefore, the stop and turn instruction has the effect of at least teaching congregants their way around the Bible.

Another issue here would be likelihood that most people in attendance would not have a Bible with them while they stood in a field and listened to Whitefield preach (I would be interested to discover when the habit of bringing a Bible with one to church and following along with the sermon began.)

Now Whitefield, having made his point, needs to bring the hearers to accept his point. Many sermons fail in effect because the preacher thinks that it is enough to merely state a proposition. It is essential that the necessary propositions be stated plainly, but that is not enough. In addition to the proposition being made clear, the proposition must be digestible. You will never move a hearer to act by providing information alone; the affections must be engaged of there will be no action.

Whitefield brings his hearers to understand his point by telling the story of Adam’s family. Whitefield was a genius of story telling. He uses the story to move from the abstract proposition to the tangible motions of life:

Our first parents contracted it when they fell from God by eating the forbidden fruit, and the bitter and malignant contagion of it hath descended to, and quite overspread, their whole posterity. This enmity discovered itself in Adam’s endeavoring to hide himself in the trees of the garden. When he heard the voice of the Lord God, instead of running with an open heart, saying Here I am; alas! he now wanted no communion with God; and still more discovered his lately contracted enmity, by the excuse he made to the Most High: ‘The woman (or, this woman) thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat’. By saying thus, he in effect lays all the fault upon God; as though he had said, If thou hadst not given me this woman, I had not sinned against thee, so thou mayest thank thyself for my transgression. In the same manner this enmity works in the hearts of Adam’s children. They now and again find something rising against God, and saying even unto God, What doest thou? ‘It scorns any meaner competitor (says the learned Dr. Owen, in his excellent treatise on indwelling sin) than God himself.’ Its command is like that of the Assyrians in respect to Ahab—shoot only at the king. And it strikes against every thing that has the appearance of real piety, as the Assyrians shot at Jehoshaphat in his royal clothes. But the opposition ceases when it finds that it is only an appearance, as the Assyrians left off shooting at Jehoshaphat, when they perceived it was not Ahab they were shooting at. This enmity discovered itself in accursed Cain; he hated and slew his brother Abel, because Abel loved, and was peculiarly favored by, his God. And this same enmity rules and prevails in every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam.

At this point, Whitefield turns the story to his hearers: Whitefield does not merely exegete the text, he begins to exegete the heart of those who can hear him:

Hence that a averseness to prayer and holy duties which we find in children, and very often in grown persons, who have notwithstanding been blessed with a religious education. And all that open sin and wickedness, which like a deluge has overflowed the world, are only so many streams running from this dreadful contagious fountain; I mean a enmity of man’s desperately wicked and deceitful heart. He that cannot set his seal to this, knows nothing yet, in a saving manner, of the Holy Scriptures, or of the power of God.

Having brought the point home, Whitefield returns to his main proposition which he restates and expounds. When I was a young lawyer, the very successful attorney who first trained explained that in a brief one must, Tell them what you going to tell them, Tell them, Tell them what you told them. Whitefield uses the same technique by returning and restating his original proposition:

And all that do know this, will readily acknowledge, that before a person can be said to walk with God, the prevailing power of this heart-enmity must be destroyed: for persons do not use to walk and keep company together, who entertain an irreconcilable enmity and hatred against one another. Observe me, I say, the prevailing power of this enmity must be taken away; for the in-being of it will never be totally removed, till we bow down our heads, and give up the ghost. The apostle Paul, no doubt, speaks of himself, and that, too, not when he was a Pharisee, but a real Christian; when he complains, ‘that when he would do good, evil was present with him’; not having dominion over him, but opposing and resisting his good intentions and actions, so that he could not do the things which he would, in that perfection which the new man desired. This is what he calls sin dwelling in him. ‘And this is that phronhma sarko”, which (to use the words of the ninth article of our church,) some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affectation, some the desire, of the flesh, which doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated.’ But as for its prevailing power, it is destroyed in every soul that is truly born of God, and gradually more and more weakened as the believer grows in grace, and the Spirit of God gains a greater and greater ascendancy in the heart.

*An excellent discussion on the disputes surrounding the doctrine of original sin can be found in the introduction to the Yale Press edition of Edwards’ work “Original Sin” found here

1 Peter 1:17, How Doctrine Leads to Life

08 Tuesday Sep 2015

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1 Peter 1:13–21 (ESV)

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

How Knowledge, Desire & Conduct Work Together 1 Peter 1:13

15 Saturday Aug 2015

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1 Peter 1:13–15 (ESV)

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,

How We Change: 1 Peter 1

13 Thursday Aug 2015

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How do knowledge, affections and conduct work together to change our hearts and lives?

1 Peter 1:1–21 (ESV)

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.