Eyre Lines

At Experimental Theology a while ago Richard Beck discussed a then-recent book by Harry G. Frankfurt “Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting it Right”; his thesis mainly concerns free-will -v- determinism, and how to construct that theology taking into account the growing consensus in psychology and neuroscience that we are not actually making free decisions very much if at all. I’m there doing very little justice to a long series of excellent blog posts, which deal in detail with, for instance, the problem of imputing moral responsibility (including sin) to someone who is actually not making conscious decisions to do most of what they do, whether reprehensible or admirable.

One quote he extracted struck me:-

“[S]uppose that we are doing what we want to do, that our motivating first-order desire to perform the action is exactly the desire by which we want our action to be motivated and that there is no conflict in us between this motive and any desire at any higher order. In other words, suppose we are thoroughly wholehearted both in what we are doing and in what we want. Then there is no respect in which we are being violated or defeated or coerced. Neither our desires nor the conduct to which they lead are imposed upon us without our consent or against our will. We are acting just as we want, and our motives are just what we want them to be. Then so far as I can see, we have on that occasion all the freedom for which finite creatures can reasonably hope. Indeed, I believe that we have as much freedom as it is possible for us to even conceive.” (p. 16)

My transition from severe depression into the light of something-like-normality a couple of months ago was also the transition from feeling incredibly constrained and being able to do very little which I wanted to do (or thought I should do) to a situation where there is very very little which I do which is not the result of wanting to do it and wanting to want to do it (and as many further recursions as you like). This is, I suspect, an enviable position; certainly it is agreeing with me very well indeed!

However, I note that it is actually a rather seriously constrained position. Back to the serenity prayer; God is giving me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, such that I can practice to a great extent “radical acceptance” and not want to change these. Note, the number of things which I might have wished to change has not altered, it is purely my own volition and my own perception which has been adjusted. Again, I am experiencing no problem in finding the courage to change the things I can (or, at least, to move in the direction of changing these). I am still overreacting to anxiety triggers, but my system is generally returning a verdict of “exhilaration” and/or “energy” rather than the fight-flight-freeze reaction (mostly expressed as “freeze” in the recent past after a lot of work on converting the other two).

I’ve mostly given up on praying for the wisdom to know the difference; for most purposes I just pray for instruction as to which is the correct course of action, and by and large it comes; to the extent it doesn’t, I’m content to wait until an answer does come. If wisdom is required, it’s in discerning whether an answer has come, or whether some part of my subconscious is playing tricks on me again – and that is rarely the case now, although I’m vigilant against it.

I’m reminded of an Earl Hightower (Earl H.) talk entitled “How Free Do You Want To Be”, the nub of which is that surrendering your will and your life to the care of God, apparently paradoxically, makes you completely free. This is, of course, the Twelve Step step 3. It is one which I have been having particular difficulty with during the last seven years, primarily because however much I “surrendered”, a total lack of ability to feel what God wished me to do left me with no volition at all. This is, of course, the result of the only mode of experience of God of which I have reasonable knowledge and in which I’m practiced being at least in part an emotional experience; remove the ability to feel emotion, and you remove that category of experience. Between 30th November 2006 and 25th May 2013 I felt nothing of God (and it was not for the want of trying!); the only directions I could take during that period were scripture rationally interpreted, twelve step literature rationally interpreted and the guidance of my wife, friends and my twelve-step fellowship. Oh yes, that guidance was also rationally interpreted and sometimes rationally censored – I’ve never found a way to turn rationality off long term!

The remarkable thing is, it worked. I didn’t have either of the two main “engines”, the driving forces of twelve step. I couldn’t achieve anything through submitting to the will of God achieved through prayer and meditation (Step 11); there was no instruction, no implanted will. More fundamentally of course, I was unable to wish not to move inexorably towards institutionalisation, insanity and death. There was no emotional charge available; I could see the progression and how to avoid it, but had no basis on which to make a choice to do so.

The impression I’ve given above is that emotion just turned off in 2006 and returned in 2013. Actually, this was not quite the case. In “About” I write about my internal self-separation; while GF (“God-feeling Chris”) stopped functioning, EC (“Emotional Chris”) was still delivering motivations for quite some time – the trouble was, they were almost all negative, contrary to all the sources of guidance which I was prepared to accept. There was anger (largely against myself, and so self-destructive), shame, guilt, rage, anxiety, panic, terror, frustration and, of course, compulsion. The early part was therefore spent in fighting against all of these, and effectively SR (“Scientific Rationalist Chris”) fighting against EC, or in other words fighting myself. The fights became less intense and less frequent as time went by, and eventually SR won. The trouble is, having “won”, there was no EC to call upon; EC had taken her bat and ball home and was not playing any more, not even to let SR have some idea of what it had been like to have emotion (i.e. emotional recall) and what Chris might have done in a given situation when whole.

Alexander Pope wrote “Europe is balanced, neither side prevails; for nothing’s left in either of the scales”. He had in mind, I think, the exhaustion after the Nine Years’ War in Europe; the same could be said of my psychology five years ago. The devastation was perhaps not complete; there was still a thin thread of generalised compassion there, a tiny scrap of empathy which enabled me to feel slightly good (or bad) for others on occasion. None for myself, of course; if there was any emotion there, it was mutual hate between EC and SR.

I have found it extremely difficult to get anyone who has not been in that position to understand how all outcomes, however “good” or “bad” could become and could remain emotionally neutral, but that was the case. What is more, with the damage to emotional recall, the lack of basis for mutual comprehension was mutual; it became difficult, near impossible, to understand why others thought differently.

It seemed a hopeless situation (if “hope” could have been understood), but as it turned out, it was not. There were rules of action to follow, there were suggestions from others, there was a huge amount of “acting as if” (with SR working hard to work out what that might be) and there was time. It’s easy practising “radical acceptance” when there’s no emotion, when no course of action is more attractive than another. The depression gave me a lot of time to practice this; it may be that I couldn’t now look at life with quite the degree of equanimity (and lack of worry) which I now do without that period of practice.

I underline the importance of “act as if” as well. Heard in a sermon today (since I started writing this) “We cannot choose to love”; according to Beck’s blog series, this is correct. How then can I manage the Great Commandments (love God, love your neighbour as yourself) if I can’t choose to do so? Another paradox?

It would appear, in exactly the same way I proceeded when unable to feel anything of significance, that is to say via “act as if”. Eventually the emotions will catch up, it seems. So perhaps, in a roundabout way, there is here a form of “salvation by works”, because those works can produce love, and love is the wellspring of faith.

In the next-to-last post of Beck’s series he starts to address this:-

“1. Frankfurt’s model unites three things theologians are extraordinarily interested in: Freedom, love, and normativity. Frankfurt provides an way to unite these three things in a really interesting way. For example, think of the implications for soteriology. What does it mean to be saved? How are we saved? Frankfurt shows linkages among all three of these things:

Normativity: Being saved is about goodness/holiness.
Freedom/Volitional Unanimity: Being saved is about becoming free from sin.
Love: Being saved is about coming to love as God loves (God is love.)

Think about this list. Frankfurt shows how all three are linked in a coherent psychological model of the person.

2. In Frankfurt’s model, love is the bedrock. Clearly, this is a VERY hospitable place to start a theological project.

3. However, Frankfurt’s model is weak-volitional (see Part 1). As Frankfurt says, “Love is not a voluntary matter.” And this is the piece that will need to be accommodated by theological systems.”

I venture to suggest that although Paul may be correct in saying that “works without faith are dirty rags”, they do not necessarily continue to be without faith. We should not disparage them just because “salvation is by faith”, we should just ask for more than that. And we should be cautious about equating “act as if” with hypocrisy. It can become so much more than that…