Feelings

I sometimes listen to a widely syndicated Christian radio broadcast that is hosted by several psychologists who answer phone calls and dispense advice to the callers. These psychologists and their ministry provide many outstanding and effective resources through their on-air and off-air ministries, but there is one characteristic of their advice that is a cause for concern. Most of the time, their focus is on the “feelings” of the caller with questions like, “What are your feelings about this matter?” and “How does he/she make you feel when they do this?” Notwithstanding the validity of this information in the overall healing and sanctification process, when the emphasis is placed on fixing or improving the caller’s feelings, the weightier matters of biblical truth are often minimized.

This mindset is not unique to Christian psychologists. It is a pervasive, ingrained aspect of our culture. Refinement of this way of thinking can be traced to philosophical and theological movements that go back as far as the late 1700’s. David Hume’s 18th century theories of Noncognitivism reduced morality to one’s feelings about the moral issue.(1) The 20th century theories of Logical Positivism dismissed anything that could not be verified by empirical observation.(2) The theories of Emotivism developed by Charles Stevenson were synthesized largely out of Noncognitivism and Logical Positivism in moving morality far from the realm of absolute truth into the relative world of individual feelings.(3)

Neo-orthodoxy, Emotivism’s theological fraternal twin, filters biblical precepts through these philosophical screens and sets aside such things as inspiration of the Holy Spirit, inerrancy, and the closed canon. This reduces Scripture to being only the opinions and perspectives of the human authors and legitimizing new revelations from God. Truth is determined by individual interpretation [or feelings] and not by scriptural precept. (4)

Jeremiah lived in a culture that followed similar philosophies and theologies, and God provided some straightforward revelation on the subject:

Jeremiah 17:5 “Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and withdraweth his heart from the Lord.”

Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful and wicked above all things, who can know it?”

God also revealed the solution for the problem:

Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the water, which spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not feel when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not care for the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:10 “I the Lord search the heart, and try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his works.”

So, to the radio program caller who has been mightily wronged on numerous occasions by another and is feeling anger, exhaustion, and is experiencing a miserable, less-than-effective existence; perhaps the advice given and the questions asked should early in the process include:

Bad feelings are not necessarily and often not a reflection of reality. We are fallen, totally depraved sinners whose hearts are deceitful and wicked above all things. We need to filter these feelings through Scripture to see what God would have us do to deal with them.

Is it possible that these feelings and the destructive emotions they facilitate spring from a root of bitterness (Hebrews 12:15) that needs to be taken to God in repentance and prayer?

Is it possible that these feelings and the destructive emotions they facilitate spring from your usurping, even if only in your thoughts, God’s prerogative to exact vengeance (Hebrews 10:30) on evildoers in his providential time and in his providential way?

Etc., sola scriptura.

At the very least, these are the type of things that God used in my own life to convincingly prove to me “…that all things work together for the best unto them that love God, even to them that are called of his purpose” (Romans 8:28)

(1) http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/n9.htm#noncog
(2) http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/l5.htm#logp
(3) http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e.htm
(4) http://www.gotquestions.org/neoorthodoxy.html
Note: Scripture quotations from the 1599 Geneva Bible (http://www.1599GenevaBible.com)