Chapter 10: Substantial Healing of Psychological Problems
Chapter 10
Substantial Healing of Psychological Problems
In the past chapter we discussed the problem of the thought-life. Now we are going on to consider the Christian life in relation to psychological problems. This is the problem of man’s separation from himself, and his relationship to himself in the world of thought. Now as God is a person who thinks, acts, and feels, so I am a person who thinks, acts, and feels. But that person is a unit. I can think of my parts in various ways: as body and spirit, or as my physical part and my spiritual part. I can quite correctly think of a division of myself of intellect, will, and emotions and it is right that I should think so, because these things are open to observation. But we miss the biblical concept if we miss its emphasis that man is not just the parts, but he is a unit. Our thinking should start there. There is a Francis Schaeffer who is neither just a collection of isolated parts, nor yet just a flow of consciousness. Anything that hurts that unity is destructive of the very basic thing that man is and what man needs to be.
Once I begin to feel this, I begin to see something far, far beyond our usual restriction of the concept of sin merely to a forensic element. The forensic element is there very strongly, because God is holy, and must declare me guilty, but sin is not just a legal matter. It is something more.
The truth is not just an abstract truth; there is a truth of what I am. Now we could think of two basic areas in considering the question of man. The first is Being, or the question of his existence. This is the dilemma of all men, regardless of what their philosophy is. It is the basic thing which no man can escape, that he does exist. Endless problems are thrown up to the non-Christian man as to the question of his existence, of his Being. No matter who he is, no matter what his philosophy is, he exists and there he is. He cannot ever escape this dilemma, even by committing suicide, because if he commits suicide he may think that he can cease to be. But even in his own thought forms, suicide does not erase the fact that he has been. So we can think first of all of the problem of Being.
The second area relates to what man is in the circle of his existence. In other words, I am, but what am I in comparison with what God is? I exist, and God exists: what is the difference between the circle of my existence and the circle of his existence? And on the other side, what is the difference between my existence and the existence of the animals, plants, and unconscious materials? Because they also exist. So now we have bare existence, and then differentiations of myself from God on one side and the animals, plants, and machines on the other side.
In the area of bare existence there is no rational answer without the personal Creator, the God of the Bible. I am not saying here that there is no rational answer without the word “God,” because one can have the word “God” without its having the content of the infinite-personal God who is the Creator as the Bible presents him. So it is not the word “God” that is the solution. It is the existence of this God of the Bible—without the existence of this personal Creator, there is no rational answer to bare existence as such. There is no answer without an infinite reference point of a personal nature. Man needs two things as he wrestles with this question. He needs an infinite reference point, but even an infinite reference point is not high enough. The infinite reference point must be of a personal nature, and that is what the God of the Bible is. On the other hand, when as a Christian I bow before this God who is there, then I can move out of the only logical position that the non-Christian can hold, and that is he must dwell consciously but silently in the cocoon of his being, without knowing anything outside of himself. This is the final dilemma of positivism of any variety. It is a hopeless situation: if he is going to be really, rationally, and intellectually consistent, he can only dwell in a silent cocoon; he may know he is there but he cannot make the first move out of it.
Now when a Christian bows before God, he can move out of this with rationality in place. The other man, man without God, if he is going to be absolutely consistent to his position, may know that he exists, but nothing else. He cannot know that anything else exists. His problem is that he cannot live so; and no man does. Man logically and rationally cannot live in this cocoon of silence. So he is immediately damned in his intellect, not just by God saying, “You are a sinner,” but by the being that he himself is. God has made him rational. He cannot move from this cocoon and yet he must—and so he is crushed by what he is. It is not just a legal act of God that says “You are guilty”—though that is there. What man is has separated him from himself. The tension is within man. On the other hand, when a Christian bows before the personal Creator for whom man’s very existence shouts aloud, then there stretches from his feet to the end of infinity a bridge of answers and reality. That is the difference.
The Christian position states two things: that God is there, this infinite-personal God; and that you have been made in his image, so you are there. There is from your feet all the way to the infinite an answer that enables you to make the first move out of your intellectual cocoon. God has spoken, and what he so teaches is a unity with what he has made. Beginning with these two things there is a bridge stretched before you, as the moon stretches a silver bridge across the ocean, from the curve of the horizon to yourself.
Now then, the wonder is that these answers do not end simply with an abstract, bare, scholastic understanding of Being, though that would be wonderful in itself. They end in communion with the infinite-personal reference point who is there, God himself. And that is tremendous. Then you can worship. This is where true worship is found: not in stained-glass windows, candles, or altar pieces, not in contentless experiences, but in communion with the God who is there—communion for eternity, and communion now, with the infinite-personal God as Abba, Father.
All of this is introduction; it is a parallel to what follows. We must now ask what I am, as a man. One could give several answers, but “rational and moral” is probably the best thing to say in the twentieth century. I am, I exist, but I exist specifically as rational and moral. Immediately I am distinguished on the left hand and on the right, as it were. First of all, I am separated from God, because he is infinite and I am finite. He exists, and I exist; he is a personal God, and I have been created personal in his image. But he is infinite, and I am finite. On the other hand, I am separated from the animals, the plants, and the machines because they are not personal, and I am personal. So if I am to begin to realize my dilemma in the present life, my separation from myself, it is good to ask, “Who am I?” I am personal, I am rational, and I am moral. On the side of my personality, I am like God; but on the other side, I am like animals and machines, because they too are finite. But I am separated from them because I am personal, and they are not.
Now the rebellion of man is trying to exist outside the circle in which God made him to exist. He is trying to be what he is not. But as he tries to be what he is not, all the elements of what he is as man rise up against him. When man stands before judgment, and God judges him, everything that man is has already risen up and judged him in the present life.
Let us think of this in two areas: on the one hand, in the area of rationality. In this area man tends, and never more so than in our own generation, to rely on a leap of absolute mysticism for the real answers, such as the problem of the unity of the whole and the purpose of man. He says on the one hand, “Why does existence have to be seen rationally? Why not just accept it as irrational?” Yet he is damned by himself. By the way God has made him, he understands that there must be some unity. So every man has the tension within himself, brought about by what God has made him as a rational man. In contrast to the animals and machines, he is rational and his very rationality damns him. Beginning by not bowing to God, with a loud shout of rationality he ends with a jump in the dark. Yet as he jumps in the dark his own rationality is always there to demand a basic answer to the unity of the detail, and thus he is constantly embarrassed, constantly torn within himself. It is not enough for him to begin with himself and work outward. This demands an infinite rationality. So the point I am making here is that in the area of rationality there is a natural seperation of man from himself.
In the area of morality, we find exactly the same thing. Man cannot escape the fact of the motions of a true right and wrong in himself: not just a sociological or hedonistic morality, but true morality, true right and true wrong. And yet, beginning with himself, he cannot bring forth absolute standards and cannot even keep the poor relative ones he has set up. Thus in the area of morality, as in rationality, trying to be what he is not, as he was made to be in relationship to God, he is crushed and damned by what he is.
Think of it in another way. We can say personality is shown by that which thinks, acts, and feels. Thinking we have already dealt with under the terms of rationality, but let us think of writing. Here is will and action—but everything cuts across my will. I would do a certain thing, but I cannot put my will into infinite action, unlimited action. Even in the small area of a painter’s canvas, I cannot do it. I cannot have an unlimited action in the smallest things in life, let alone the largest. And so if I am demanding infinite freedom, whether it is in the whole of life, or in a small area of life, I cannot have it; I cannot be God in action and practice. So again I fall to the earth, crushed with natural tensions in myself, and I lie there like a butterfly that someone has touched, with all the lovely things gone from the wings.
It is the same in the area of feeling, the emotions. There is no better illustration of this than the example of Freud and his fiancée. Freud, not really believing in love—saying that the end of all things is sex, but yet needing real love—writes to his fiancée: “When you come to me, little Princess, love me irrationally.” I have often said that no sadder word could be written, coming from such a man as Freud. Freud himself at this particular place comes to what I would call a shuddering standstill. He is damned by what he is, by the emotions of real love in himself, because he has been made in the image of God. So again we come to the fact that there are these separations in man from himself, as he has revolted against God.
Thus, in rebellion, not staying within the circle of what man is but trying to move into the circle of the existence of God, man falls crushed within himself at every turn. At that point he has two possibilities, and just two, if he is going to stay in the circle of rationality. He can return to his place before the personal Creator, a personal creature before a personal Creator. Or else he can go lower than his place. This second choice is not made on any necessary intellectual grounds based on facts, but because of his rebellion man chooses to go lower rather than return to his proper place as a creature before the absolute Creator. So he chooses to go lower, for he must either go back or go down. Man in revolution against the God who is there has no pointing finger, like the Renaissance paintings of John the Baptist, pointing upwards. So sinful man takes his place among the lower circles of existence; he moves down from being man into the lower existence of the animals and the machines. Man is thus divided against and from himself in every part of his nature. Think of it in any way you will—he is divided from himself in his rebellion, in rationality, in morality, in his thinking, in his acting, and in his feeling. By rebellion he is divided from God by true moral guilt, and he is damned by what he is, by wanting to be God and not being God because he is finite. He is also damned because he cannot hide among the animals and the machines, where he would try to hide. He still bears the marks of the image of God. He is damned on both sides, in both directions, simply by what God has made him. Every part of his nature speaks and calls out, “I am man.” No matter how dark the night of his soul in his rebellion, there are voices that speak from every part of his nature, “I am man; I am man.”
It is no wonder, then, that by the Fall man is not only divided from other men (as Cain kills Abel, for example), but is also divided from nature and from himself. At death the body and soul will be separated for a time, but God has also put a witness in the present life, in that the individual man in many ways is divided from his body even now. As I read the curse that God placed upon man in Genesis 3, it is quite obvious that a large section of the curse falls upon man’s division from himself now. The emphasis here is largely physical, but it certainly carries more with it:
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children [she is divided from her own body] and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake [this is a curse external to himself, in nature]; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:15-19)
At death there is a division from the body, but this separation does not wait till death. There is a division in man from nature and a division from himself here and now. It is not only that man is divided from his body; he is divided from himself in the thought-world of which we spoke. Man in the present life is divided in his personality. Since the Fall there is no truly healthy person in his body, and there is no completely balanced person psychologically. The result of the Fall spoils us as a unit and in all our parts.
Now into this situation comes the modern non-Christian psychologist, trying to bring an integration into the thought-world. But the non-Christian psychologist, by the very nature of what he believes, will try to bring about an integration on the level of the original rebellion. Or at the most he will try to root it in an upper-story leap, without a base. He cannot go beyond that. As a result, the integration will be an attempt to relate what is broken in the person to the animals and the machines, or it will ask for a romantic leap. Now this does not mean that there are no details that we can learn from these psychologists; there is much to learn from their insights, because they are brilliant men and good observers, but the whole does not meet the need, for it treats man as that which he is not. It is rather like having a very fine motor mechanic and, because we see certain similarities between the physical structure of man and a machine, turning over all our physical healing to him. There could be insights that the doctor might get from the motor mechanic! But the total would not be enough. The basic questions and problems remain to swing forward and upward again. Thus a man must hide from these things deep in himself, and as he does so these things make new divisions and new scars. At some level of consciousness, man cannot forget that he is man; he cannot totally deny his true rationality or his true morality.
Surely at this point there should be a cry within us. Surely there must be a real answer in this life to the separation from myself. Or is there nothing which is real? And the answer is, “Yes, thank God, there is.” I think the key, in a way, is asking the question: How is it that the psychologists who act as if God is there, but merely pragmatically, like Carl Gustav Jung, are able to help their patients to some degree? I think that it is because that which really helps is always in the direction of the reality of what is. At least a man like Jung has the word “God.” Or behind that, there may be at least a sense of some universal purpose, accepted blindly and irrationally, as Viktor Frankl does. And this is in the proper direction, especially in the case of those who at least use the word “God,” and so it helps. To these men these things are a piece of theater; but without their knowing it, it is in the direction of what is. In fact, he is there, a personal God who is holy in a moral sense. Not bowing, they do not acknowledge him, and yet pragmatically they find they must act as if he is there.
Now just as in the area of the problem of being, the bowing of man in the cocoon of his consciousness opens a bridge all the way before him, so when we see what is involved here, we see we must also truly bow at this point of the divided self, and a bridge of understanding and practice opens before us.
At this point we must make an important distinction. There is indeed purely psychological guilt, in the poor things that we as men in our rebellion have become. I feel that often evangelical Christians are very harsh here. They tend to act as though there were no such thing as psychological guilt. But there is, just as there are broken bones. Psychological guilt is actual and cruel. But Christians know that there is also real guilt, moral guilt before a holy God. It is not a matter only of psychological guilt; that is the distinction.
When a man is broken in these areas, he is confused, because he has the feelings of real guilt within himself, and yet he is told by modern thinkers that these are only guilt “feelings.” But he can never resolve these feelings, because while they are merely guilt feelings, he also has true moral awareness and the feeling of true guilt. You can tell him a million times that there is no true guilt, but he still knows there is true guilt. You will never find a person who does not still find these movings somewhere in his conscience.
Earlier we have discussed the question of salvation from our consciences. We have seen there is a strong parallel between justification and salvation from the conscience. I come now as a Christian; I call the specific sin sin; I claim the finished work of Christ; I can say, “Thank you” to God, and my conscience can be at rest. Let us notice that in this process the real guilt is not overlooked, it is not swept under the rug. Real guilt is placed in a completely rational framework, and it is met within the framework, with intellect and feelings of morality meeting each other, without any fracture between them. With all rationality in place, and consciously in place (on the basis of the existence of God and the finished, substitutionary work of Jesus Christ), my real guilt now is not overlooked, but is accepted as my responsibility because of my own deliberately doing what I know to be wrong. Then it is reasonably, truly, and objectively dealt with in Christ’s infinite substitutionary work. Now I can say to my conscience, “Be still!” Thus real guilt is gone and I know that anything that is left is my psychological guilt. This can be faced, not in confusion, but to be seen as part of the misery of fallen man.
To say that there is no real guilt is futile, for man as he is knows that there is real moral guilt. But when I know the real guilt is really met by Christ, so that I do not need to fear to look at the basic questions deep inside myself, then I can see that the feeling of guilt that is left is psychological guilt and only that. This does not mean to say that psychological guilt is still not cruel. But I can now be open with it—I see it for what it is—without that awful confusion of real moral guilt and psychological guilt. This also does not mean that we will be perfect in this life psychologically any more than we are physically. But thank God, now I can move; I am no longer running on ice, that is the difference. It does not need to be the old, endless circle. It is not any longer the dog chasing his tail. The light is let in. Things are orientated, and I can move as a whole man, with all the rationality I possess utterly in place. I will not expect to be perfect. I will wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the body to be perfect morally, physically, and psychologically; but there now can be a substantial overcoming of this psychological division in the present life on the basis of Christ’s finished work. It will not be perfect, but it can be real and substantial.
Let us be clear about this. All men since the fall have had some psychological problems. It is utter nonsense, a romanticism that has nothing to do with biblical Christianity, to say that a Christian never has a psychological problem. All men have psychological problems. They differ in degree and they differ in kind, but since the Fall all men have more or less a problem psychologically. And dealing with this, too, is a part of the present aspect of the gospel and of the finished work of Christ on Calvary’s cross.
A very practical thing for ourselves and for those whom we would help is that it is not always possible to sort out true guilt from psychological guilt. At this point the iceberg concept is a valid concept. This always was important, but today it is more important because men are thinking in this direction. We are constantly brought face-to-face with the concept of the subconscious, which is a realization that man is more than that which is on the surface. All too often the evangelical Christian acts as though there is nothing to man except that which is above the surface of the water.
Since the Fall, man is divided from himself, and so since the Fall, there is that which I am that is below the surface. We can think of it as the iceberg—one-tenth above, nine-tenths below—in psychological terms, the unconscious or the subconscious. I am not to be surprised that there is something that I am that is deeper than that which is on the surface. Here I am—the iceberg. As we said previously, it is not possible to say at this given moment, “I know that I am perfect—free from all known sin.” Who can know perfectly what he knows about himself, as man now is? This is true even at our best moments, and it is doubly true when psychological problems and storms break over us as they surely will break over all people, including Christians. When someone comes to you in a psychological storm, and he is really torn up, it is not only unreasonable but it is also cruel to ask him, in every case, to sort out what is true guilt and what is psychological guilt.
We all have our problems, we all have our storms, but some of us can have exceedingly deep storms. In the midst of these storms that break over us, it is beautiful to know that we ourselves do not need, in every case, to sort out true guilt from psychological guilt. We are not living before a mechanical universe, and we are not living just before ourselves; we are living before the infinite-personal God. God does know the line between my true guilt and my guilt feelings. My part is to function in that which is above the surface, and to ask God to help me to be honest. My part is to cry to God for the part of the iceberg that is above the surface and confess whatever I know is true guilt there, bringing it under the infinite, finished work of Jesus Christ. It is my opinion, and the experience of many of God’s children, that when one is as honest as one can be in dealing with what is above the surface, God applies this to the whole, and gradually the Holy Spirit helps one to see deeper into himself.
We may know, as the value of Christ’s death is infinite, so all the true guilt in us is covered, and the guilty feelings that remain are not true guilt, but a part of these awful miseries of fallen man: out of the historic fall, out of the life of the race, and out of my own personal past. The comprehension, moment by moment, of these things is a vital step in freedom from the results of the bonds of sin, and in the substantial healing of the separation of man from himself.