IDEALISM, SELF-AWARENESS, AND WISDOM

 Idealism is necessary but dangerous when not accompanied by wisdom. Through idealists like Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, idealism has murdered more than the common criminals.

 

The late Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis had observed that idealism is often more costly than purposeful criminality:

 

·       Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

 

 We are left to ask, “How does something that was intended to create good end in genocide?” Unless we first resolve our personal but hidden drives for love and significance, these life-controlling psychological drives take over and twist our best intentions. How? Because our primarily driving force focus is not on the needs of others but on the needs to prove our worthiness and goodness in the face of our accusing conscience.

Sometimes, these drives are expressed in twisted and unexpected ways. For example, in In The Significant Life, attorney George M. Weaver identifies the overwhelming and often twisted drive to establish our self-importance:

 

·       In 2005 Joseph Stone torched a Pittsfield, Massachusetts apartment building… After setting the blaze, Stone rescued several tenants from the fire and was hailed as a hero. Under police questioning, Stone admitted, however, that he set the fire and rescued the tenants because, as summarized at trial by an assistant district attorney, he “wanted to be noticed, he wanted to be heard, he wanted to be known.” (44)

 

Evidently, this drive for significance is so powerful that it can overrule the moral dictates of conscience. One mass-murderer explained in his suicide note, “I’m going to be f_____ famous.” (45)

 

This drive for significance can even override all other affections. On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman, a zealous fan of the Beatle John Lennon first obtained his idol’s autograph before gunning him down. He explained:

 

·       “I was an acute nobody. I had to usurp someone else’s importance, someone else’s success. I was ‘Mr. Nobody’ until I killed the biggest Somebody on earth.” At his 2006 parole hearing, he stated: “The result would be that I would be famous, the result would be that my life would change and I would receive a tremendous amount of attention, which I did receive… I was looking for reasons to vent all that anger and confusion and low self-esteem.” (47)

 

However, Chapman’s idealism has now been re-channeled in a constructive direction. Pastor Ken Babington spent thirty-five years communicating with Chapman, including in-person prison visitations. According to Babington, Chapman demonstrates a deep remorse and regret for what he’s done. He and his wife Gloria started a ministry called All About Jesus Ministries and has written three booklets about his life and provides them free of charge to any prison ministry, as well as pays for the postage. https://myfaithradio.com/2016/god-redeemed-tragic-choice/

 

We all need love and validation. Generally, we spend our entire lives pursuing these without ever admitting to ourselves that it is these needs that drive us. Instead, we attach ourselves the people and ideals that might fulfill our needs.

 

How then can we meaningfully fulfill our needs so that they will no longer commandeer our ideals? Even after clinging hopefully to every word of five highly recommended psychologists, I have found relief and awareness only through the One who loves me and has died for my sins and who promised:

 

·       “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)

 

It has only been through the assurance of His love that I have been able to face the truth about myself. Besides, with self-acceptance have learned to accept others with all their brokenness.

 

DISSATISFACTION WITH MYSELF

Are you dissatisfied with yourself? I certainly am! Today, I read a newsletter from an ex-gay who works with people having various forms of sexual dysfunction. He wrote:

•    Why is it that we are more easily moved to anger rather than tears over the state of things in this world? Why is it that we can quickly, in a nanosecond, go to mad – instead of sad?

He then contrasted our moral failure with Jesus who wept over the very Jerusalem which was about to crucify him.

I grieve that I do little weeping for the plight of others. I wish I did more – far more. I wish that I ached about their eternal destiny. Instead, I slide into anger with the ease of a mad dog barking, while compassion is a fleeting as a cool breeze under the July Mississippi sun.

This makes me feel very inadequate, but I should feel this way! This is because I am inadequate and unworthy of anything good from above. However, few can face their inadequacy. Oddly, it was a Roman commander who understood his inadequacy better than anyone else! He had asked Jesus to heal his servant, but then told Him that he was unworthy that Jesus should even enter his home. Instead, he wisely suggested that Jesus only needs to speak the word and his servant would be healed. The commander explained that he himself only needs to speak the word to his subordinates and things get done. The commander wisely reasoned that if he, a mere man, had such authority, Jesus had even more to heal. Consequently:

•    When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” (Matthew 8:10)

I feel bad about my many personal failures, but Jesus reminds me that we are all inadequate –- all unworthy of anything from Him. He also reminds me that this inadequacy doesn’t really matter, because He is our Savior. He even claims that when we realize our utter need and unworthiness, this becomes a source of great blessing:

•    "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:3-5)

Therefore, I need not punish myself for my moral failures. He has paid the price for all of them:

•    God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)

This doesn’t mean that we should be complacent about our lack of love and compassion. We mourn over it and cry out for our Savior’s help, but we rejoice that it’s now all about Him, not us:

•    I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

We also trust that He will compensate for our moral poverty:

•    …If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

This understanding frees us up to turn our eyes away from the depressing sight of who we really are and to re-focus our tearful eyes on Him alone! What a relief to be free!
    
 


    



    

    

    

THE ESSENCE OF PSYCHOTHERAPIES

What accounts for the “success” of psychotherapy? According to many voices in the field, it has nothing to do with the specifics of the particular therapy. Sol L. Garfield, the former editor of the Journal of Counseling and clinical Psychology, wrote,

•    It thus appears that some type of explanation [or diagnosis] offered by the therapist during psychotherapy has a positive impact on the patient. It seems that whether or not the explanation or interpretation given is “true” …is really of little significance in the therapeutic situation. (Handbook of Eclectic Psychotherapy, 151).

What then makes the difference? Why do clients report improvement? According to Jerome Frank,

•    It is generally agreed that the success of a psychotherapist depends in part on his genuine concern for the patient’s welfare. (Persuasion and Healing, 183)

This concern is so critical to the “therapeutic” process that Hans H. Strupp has argued that

    “future research efforts must be aimed at matching a particular patient with a particular therapist for the purpose of achieving a human relationship in which the patient as a human being can feel respected, accepted, and understood. (Divergent Views in Psychotherapy)

We need to feel loved, but shouldn’t this be what true friendship is about! Therefore, former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson regards displays of psychotherapeutic concern and friendship as manipulative and deceptive:

    It is not difficult to appear to be attentive when one is rewarded handsomely. If we place our trust in somebody, it matters very much whether that person only appears to be worthy of our trust, or actually is worthy…The therapeutic relationship always involves an imbalance of power. One person pays, the other receives. (Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing, 244)

Consequently, Masson believes that “therapy is never honest”:

    Because therapy depends for its existence on the postulate that the truth of a person’s life can be uncovered in therapy [which Masson denies], the therapist is rarely willing or able to acknowledge that the profession itself is fraudulent. (240)

Masson supports his claim by citing several self-serving myths that psychotherapists tell themselves and others, like “he came to me after he had tried everything else.” However, the biggest myth seems to be that psychotherapy represents healing insights rather than a “relationship” and the power of suggestion.

Does this mean that insights have little to do with genuine healing or that counseling can’t impart significant truths? Of course not! I think that Positive Psychology has made strides in identifying some commonsense life-strategies that really make a difference—forgiveness, respect, thankfulness, honesty, and confession of wrong-doing.

However, it’s noteworthy that the Bible had been there all the time. For example, take Paul’s admonition:

•    Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephes. 4:31-32)

Nevertheless, relationship does bring healing. Therefore Jesus pleaded:

•    “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)

The Engine of Natural Selection

 

Darwin had argued that the engine of natural selection (NS) had built the most complex organs one step at a time, each step conferring an adaptive survival advantage as it approached its “final goal.” However, design theorists have argued that this mechanism cannot produce any new and useful structures. Instead, any organ or structure is irreducibly complex in such a way that NS could not construct it one step at a time. Many integrated parts had to be present simultaneously before an organism could profit from it.

Michael Behe illustrated the principle of irreducible complexity by comparing a new beneficial structure with a mouse trap. In order for the mouse trap to be functional and useful, it required a minimum of five parts. Without just one of them, the trap would be of no use.

There are millions examples of irreducible complexity. Arguably, every organ or structure is irreducibly complex. A spider web is a good example of this. Von Vett and Malone write:

·       Spiders are capable of producing one of the finest filaments strands known to man. These threads can be 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair, yet the silk is five times stronger than an equivalent weight of steel cable. Scientists have yet to learn to synthesize an equally strong artificial silk nor do they know how a spider keeps from clogging its spinnerets as the emerging silk immediately solidifies upon exposure to oxygen. (Inspired Evidence)

Von Vett and Malone marvel at how a “pre-spider” could have evolved such an incredible substance, but also have simultaneously evolved the mechanisms and instincts necessary to use it effectively without getting caught in its own web.

In order for the spider to derive any advantage out of his silk, he would also have required the ability to make a web out of it. And these abilities and organs had to exist simultaneously! To have the silk without the instinct and tools to make the web would not have given him any advantage. Instead, the silk would have been a useless encumbrance.

Since natural selection can only work gradually, the theory of evolution remains a car without an engine. From the outside, it might appear substantial, but it is incapable of going anywhere.

 

A LETTER TO A RARE SEEKER

 

 

I appreciate your openness to dialogue with me—a rarity today.

 

I also can understand your disappointment with not finding that sustaining relationship with Jesus. I too had been searching for God for years but had never asked that the truth be revealed to me. I just wanted God in my own way—according to my Jewish traditions and identity! Consequently, I wasn’t finding. Finally, I gave up trying to “find.”

It was only as I was bleeding to death that Jesus revealed Himself to me. But you don’t have to be bleeding to death to find Jesus. Instead, He promises:

·       Matthew 7:7–8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

 

·       John 6:40 “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

 

But how to believe if you cannot? Jesus has made it easy:

·       John 7:17 “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.”

 

If want to serve God, He will clear the way for you to believe! Once you believe, He will confirm it for you, but He aids those who are seeking the truth. Therefore, commit yourself to finding the truth, and you will find:

 

·       Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

 

From my perspective, you seem to be very close. SUGGESTION: Do you know anyone who loves the Lord according to the Bible? Ask to go to church with them.

Why according to the Bible? It is God’s prerogative to set the terms of salvation—Believing in His Good News (the Gospel)! Why? The Gospel conveys many essential truths that He wants us to understand:

1.     We are sinners whose only hope is in the Savior Jesus.

2.     Our sins have separated us from our righteous Creator.

3.     It’s purely by the mercy of God that we are forgiven and saved.

4.     Jesus dying for us on the cross demonstrates, as nothing else could, the love of God for us.

5.     It also demonstrates the righteousness of His divine nature. Sin, therefore, must be punished. And it was punished through Jesus taking the sins upon Himself and dying for them.

6.     This demonstrates God’s hatred of sin that only His death could possibly pay the price.

 

There is probably much here that you will find difficult to accept, at least for now. Why? These are truths that come from above, from the mind of God, something foreign to us. Therefore, we need His help to accept them and then to understand them.

Truth is central to God as Jesus had taught:

·       John 4:23–24 “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

 

Therefore, God wants to be loved for who He truly is and not for who we want Him to be. No surprise—We too want to be loved for who we truly are.