Divine Love
Framy

Some of us are so convinced of this, that we begin to embrace the depravity cowering in the fear that we may, in fact, be right.

That we’ve crucified Christ again in our inability to repent once and for all from the particular sins that dog us, and fear that we may have “blasphemed the Holy Spirit”.

That we may, in fact, be unforgivable.

I see the same jerks on my (far less-read) blog from time to time, and their inability to fashion an argument that doesn’t involve name-calling or snide remarks only serves to weaken whatever argument they attempt to make. It’s the anonymity of the internet that gives little girly-men the machismo to say things that they otherwise wouldn’t have the…gumption…to say in person. Now…

No, I’m not, per se, into “nouthetic” counseling, though I have many sympathies with what I know of it. I do believe, of course, that the Bible is our authority for life, and so I’m going to try to be as biblical as I can in my terminology and my practice (not the qualifier “as I can”). I do believe words mean things, and so as I said, I think that while most of us understand what is meant by “forgiving myself”, I still will maintain that the terminology does more harm than good.

Now, as to ’secular psychology’, a few thoughts: one, all truth is God’s truth. The proverbial blind squirrel finds the proverbial acorn from time to time, and psychology neither bats 1.000 nor does it strike out all the time. Certainly, as I think you’re saying, our commitment to Biblical authority has to trump the insights of psychology, and when the two are at odds–as they are sometimes–we ought to diligently guard our minds and hearts so that “God (is) true, and every man a liar”. If I exercise God-given discernment, having had my mind renewed with the Word, then I can read findings of psychology and interpret them through that Biblical grid, eating the meat and tossing the bones.

Now then, as I said, I’d encourage your jettisoning that term to avoid confusion, but the existential struggle to apply the grace-forgiveness extended to us by God in Christ is, as I said, one with which most all of us can identify. Don’t you think it’s because grace is so, so foreign to our very human way of thinking and living? I mean, we’re told we ought to work for what we want in life, that nothing is handed to us on a silver platter (unless, I guess, we’re Chrysler or GM), that “you get what you pay for”, etc. And in every other realm of life, this self-sufficiency is the model way to live. And yet, when it comes to our relationship with God…well, you know the score. We get what He paid for, and He gets what we did. It violates every rule of ordinary human behavior. And try as we might, that total depravity that affects and infects every one of us puts us into the conundrums such as you describe: intellectually understanding that my sins are as far removed as the East is from the West, but still wrasslin’ with the scummy, crummy feeling of worthlessness that comes from sin, not wanting to accept that God’s grace really, honestly, deep-down does that 101% forgiveness job.

So I totally get what you’re saying, and agree with you, if you’ll tweak the lingo a tad. Howzat?

I appreciate your very respectful and kind disagreement- a model for other commenters who don’t know how to disagree without being a jerk- but I see a lot of exceptions.

1. Nouthetic counseling? If so, not interested.

2. I don’t agree with a division between Biblical understanding and “secular” psychology. Biblical concepts inform my psychology and self understanding. Biblical concepts are the way I interpret psychology.

This kind of division causes people to reject psychiatric diagnosis, psychiatric medicines and needed psychiatric treatment.

I believe God uses psychology as he uses all fields of secular knowledge according to his gracious sovereignty.

3. I admitted that “forgiving” the self may not be an accurate Biblical concept, but the existential inability to “forgive” myself is real.

I have no explanation for this. Some of my sins have deeply wounded people I love, and experiencing forgiveness in every dimension is a journey, not just an announcement.

Thanks and peace

ms

The whole thing (excellent post that it was, with many, many good and salient points) was gotten off on a bit of a bad foot with Michael’s (unfortunate, IMHO) use of the term “forgive myself”. To his credit, when Pastor Todd (and a couple others) pointed out that this wasn’t Biblical, Michael readily accepted the change in terminology. My challenge would be to suggest that this is deeper, though, than a semantic issue; we need to be done, once and for all, with the very idea of the need to “forgive ourselves”. This is not a Biblical concept whatsoever; find it in Scripture, and I’ll pay you $1000; the concept comes right out of ’secular’ psychology, and like certain other concepts that have no Biblical basis (the need to raise our ’self-esteem’, for instance), has been more or less incorporated right into our Christian vocabulary. I don’t mean to sound uncharitable at all, nor to beat Michael up; as I said, that terminology aside, his post is really helpful, because he describes emotions and wrestling that all of us, in our honest moments, pretty much have to admit to.

But the issue must be, in the final analysis, agreeing with God on the truth of His Word. I have to trust God, that He has completely and utterly forgiven my sins, to remind myself of that fact, and even when I feel crummy/guilty because I have committed some sin for the 1,435th time, God declares me justified, completely without guilt on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice. And it’s incumbent on me to believe that to be true, to do the things Michael suggested as far as squelching the pride that I carry that says, “I have a right to wallow in my own guilt! Who’s God to say otherwise?”

With Michael, I grant that sometimes that’s not easy…but that’s the answer, that’s God’s grace, and, uh, who ever said that the Christian life was going to always be easy anyway?

The other thing that helped was coming to a true belief in the goodness of God and that He IS the lover of mankind. Mankind includes me. It includes lots of other unsavory characters, too, and that’s hard to accept, but at least it includes me. It helps that every Sunday before the Eucharist I, along with the whole congration, confess that of sinners, I (each of us) am the first. At least we got that out of the way and I’m in good company.

And you know what really helped me? Getting rid of the “angry God” theology. I don’t live in fear anymore that God is waiting for me to mess up so that He can squish me like grape.

Thanks for this post, Michael. The whole clone thing can be so frustrating. I get irritated that people won’t be real about their pain. Like somehow admitting that one is suffering puts God in jeopardy. No. He can handle it. Maybe the evangelical theology regarding suffering needs work? I don’t know. Anyway, thanks for this post and your continued honesty. It must cost you a lot, but it’s why I read your blog.

Confessing your sins and then hearing a priest prayerfully tell you that God forgives you seems like it might feel good.