“It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.
“Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off’ you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.”
(From “Faith,” in Mere Christianity, p. 139, 140-141)
What I Used to Think:
I think I always believed, at least in a sense, that faith was a mental exercise; that reason and faith (head) were meant to combat emotions and imagination (heart). For me, however, that exercise was more like a boxing match than anything else. In a way I used faith to punish myself for feeling emotions. When I was sad because I boy I liked wasn’t interested in me, reason took over and said, “Come on, Adriane, you know you are a child of God. He loves you. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of you. Stop moping over a boy and feel happy.” When I felt depressed it went something like this: “Adriane, you know that Christ suffered your every pain, sorrow, and affliction. Now, exercise some faith and just get over this.” I thought that if I just reasoned to myself, I could make it through any trial, and get over any negative emotion.
But the questions come: Where is a faith like that when I am not suffering? Where is my faith when I am not sad, or lonely, or depressed? If my faith is only something I pull out from time to time in order to beat my emotions to submission, then what good is it really?
What I am Coming to Understand:
What I am starting to sense from Lewis is that Faith is more than just something used to counter my emotions. It is something I hold on to in spite of my emotions. It is not the emotions themselves that are bad, for I know that there must be “opposition in all things. If not so...[one body] must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation” (2 Nephi 2:11-12). I was created to have and experience emotions, both positive and negative, and there is nothing inherently wrong in that. There is in fact a purpose in my existence and an end (to become my “real self”) to my creation, so I cannot live without opposition. And sometimes that opposition comes in the form of negative emotions, which we are expected (and I would suggest even required) to feel in this life.
So rather than beat myself up because I “know better,” than to feel sad or depressed, I am realizing that what real Faith does is tell my emotions where to “get off” so I can be controlled by God, and not the natural man. If I start to feel those emotions are destroying or weakening my faith, then would be the time to take a stand, but Faith is something to hold on to as I sail through the sea of life on my “undulating” feelings. My feelings will change from time to time, the “rebellion of moods” against me will come, and sometimes they will make a “blitz on [my] belief” (Lewis, 140) but Faith in this sense is something that I keep refreshed constantly enough that those emotional attacks can be recognized, acknowledged, and eventually set aside as I continue on in spite of them.
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