Feeling, Knowing, and Believing

Our world is changing.  At an ever-increasing pace, these changes are impacting family and societal relationships, value of our currency, health care, education, employment, and constitutional rights.  All of these can impact our emotional, rational, and spiritual sense of well-being and our outlook on the future.  On any given day or even hour of the day, if we are asked how we are doing, we might choose a different emoji to describe our feelings.

Complexity of issues, sheer volume of information, and politically biased reporting make it more and more challenging to stay accurately informed.  Rational thinking skills and wise decision-making based on objective reporting of information are becoming more and more critical—and harder to find.  In this article, we consider some challenges we face and some factors to consider in order to navigate them wisely. 

To begin, let’s say that someone asks us a question.  There are several ways we might respond:

(1)   “I feel ….”

(2)   “I think ….”

(3) “I believe ….”

When someone asks us how we are feeling, we typically reply with #1, “I feel….”  Responses #2 and #3 are how we might begin to share our opinion or a faith-based answer, respectively.  Let’s consider Response #1 first.

Emotional Responses
Our “feelings” are an important part of our self-awareness and our physical and emotional health.  Our physical and emotional health require that we maintain a relationship with at least one person; or if necessary, with pet animal.  We are strengthened and encouraged through face-to-face communication with others or through letters, phone calls, and social media.  

Many of us have pressed “smiley face” stickers on our letters to convey a wordless message of encouragement.  Now that we have cell phone apps, we can digitally insert our choice of emojis along with our text messages and e-mails to communicate briefly how we are “feeling” about something in a wordless fashion.

Health professionals routinely ask their patients how they feel before or after a medical procedure.  Recognizing the difficulty that some patients have in expressing how much pain they actually “feel,” medical facilities often post a “pain scale” consisting of cartoon faces ranging from very distraught (“worst pain imaginable”) to a smiling face (“no pain”).  Health care professionals and all of us need to be aware that a person’s “feelings” have roots that go deeper than physical pain and reach into our emotional and spiritual state.

For many of us, it is easier to describe “how we feel” when someone asks us about our physical pain than when they ask “how we feel about our pain.”  How we feel about joint-replacement surgery during recovery is affected by both the severity of our physical pain and by the degree of our concern about whether we will ever recover.  Some people recover very quickly and have a positive outlook all the way through their pain and physical therapy.  Others struggle with both the physical pain and the related fear it causes.  Why is this?  The truth is, how we see our condition at a given time depends on our physical condition (1, “how we feel”) and our frame of mind (2, “how we think about” our situation.  The differences in how different people respond to similar situations also depends on how they “choose to think” about their situation.

Rational, Faith-Grounded Responses
Dr. Caroline Leaf, a communication pathologist and audiologist has conducted research for years in the field of cognitive neuroscience.  She believes that God created our minds in His image and has given us the free will to choose “how we will think” and react to our circumstances.  Therefore, Dr. Leaf has based her research on God’s revelation in Scriptures.  In Romans 12: 2, God commands us to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and in Deuteronomy 30: 19, God lovingly invites us to choose life in order that you may live….

Dr. Leaf integrates this Scriptural principle with neuroscience in her book entitled Switch on Your Brain (Baker Books, 2013).  She writes,

Free will and choice are real, spiritual, and scientific facts. Your mind (soul) has one foot in the door of the spirit and one foot in the door of the body; you can change your brain with your mind and essentially renew your mind.

The author cites scientific research pointing to a cause-and-effect relationship between “what we believe” (Response #3 above) about God and our capacity to overcome challenges to physical health. 

As we have cited in a March 22, 2020 Oikonomia article, Dr. Leaf describes a University of Miami study of patients being treated for (Human Immunodeficiency Virus).  The researchers concluded that the most significant factor affecting healing in HIV-infected patients “was their choice to believe in a benevolent and loving God.”  These kinds of scientific findings emphasize the important link between “how we think” (2), how we “choose to think,” and “what we believe” (3).  [Note:  We also recognize that in the eternal span of time before each of us came into being as creatures in God’s image, capable of making choices, He chose us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.  In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will…(Ephesians 1: 4-5). The "Doctrine of Election" is a subject for another time, but those who wish to study the subject can begin HERE with a resource by Dr. John MacArthur.]

Although feeling, thinking, and believing are interconnected, “feeling” is heavily based on our physical senses; whereas, “thinking and believing” are heavily based on our rational ability, our faith, and our worldview that forms through our experience and learning.

How would you respond if someone were to ask you, “Do you believe there is a God?”   Which of the following would your choose to begin your response:
(1) “I feel ….”
(2) “I think ….”
(3) “I believe ….”

Clearly, our response to “the God question” cannot be based solely upon “what we feel” or “what we think.”  Unless we claim to be God, we have no capacity to claim whether or not God exists.  However, it appears that more and more people are presuming to take the place of God when they deny the existence of objective truth.  The term objective truth applies to a proposition that is considered true no matter what we believe to be the case.

Worldview by "Cut-and-Paste"
We have amassed great knowledge, yet increasing numbers of people question whether objective truth even exists.  This trend is supported by a recent study.

Based on a survey of 2,000 adult Americans (1,000 by phone; 1,000 online) taken in February, 2021 by George Barna, over half (54%) embrace the postmodern idea that all truth is subjective and there are no moral absolutes.  Barna concludes (emphasis added), “We’re just at a place in our country’s history now where that’s the default view.  Most people would say all truth is subjective and there’s no kind of objective truth based on an external standard.  They would say they’re the standard that determines what truth is.”

Barna’s survey, conducted through the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, offered a series of questions designed to determine the personal worldview of each respondent.  The results, reported in the American Worldview Inventory 2021, are very disturbing, not because of the views expressed but because the views were not based on well informed and coherent thinking.

Based on the respondents’ answers to the questions, only 6% were identified as truly holding to a “biblical worldview.”  Given this low percentage, it is at first puzzling that the biblical worldview was “the most prolific of the seven worldviews tested.”  Another approximately 6% of respondents were scattered among six other worldviews with no more than 2% qualifying to be assigned to any one of the six particular worldviews (see table).   What about the remaining 88% of respondents?

Instead of “developing an internally consistent and philosophically coherent perspective on life,” 88% of Americans are adopting points of view or actions that feel comfortable or seem most convenient” – i.e. using a cut-and-paste approach to making sense of, and responding to life.”   As a result, most Americans who claim adherence to a given belief system are insufficiently developed in both their intellectual understanding and in their behavior and lifestyle to qualify them as being true representatives” of that particular worldview.  For example, 9% of respondents “have a moderately strong set of beliefs and behaviors related to Marxism, Eastern Mysticism, or Nihilism, but “an insufficient breadth of such beliefs and behaviors to qualify as being a true representative of any of those worldviews.”

Feelings Rationally Grounded
Returning to our range of responses, feeling, thinking, and believing, we can explain at least one cause of the troubling trend detected by George Barna’s 2021 worldview inventory; namely, emotion-driven reactions and decisions are replacing those based on careful exercise of critical reasoning.  At the very time when our culture faces both great societal challenges and great tools for addressing these challenges, we seem least prepared to respond emotionally, rationally, and spiritually.

The table below lists seven major societal issues followed by a brief statement we might commonly hear in the media or in conversation.  Notice the prominence of an emotional component in the responses.  However, even though compassion and empathy are important qualities we ought to express toward those who are struggling, these qualities must be guided by rational and moral policies if we are going to solve these problems.

Each of these societal concerns have grown out of a history of what many believe are deviations from God’s commands revealed in the Bible.  The Old Testament, in Exodus 20, reveals how God gave His chosen people, the Israelites, the Ten Commandments, or the ten “Thou shalt not’s.”  God’s purpose was not to “steal their joy” but to give them a moral foundation for a society that would protect them from evil and help them become a “shining city on a hill” for the rest of the world to see and want to copy.   To the extent that Israel followed these commands, they prospered.  But deviations from these spiritual laws gradually caused the Jewish nation to lose their godly distinctions and eventually to be exiled by pagan nations.

Out of His mercy in order to redeem His people Israel, God came in the incarnate form of His Son, Jesus Christ.   Jesus came not to replace the Law but to fulfill the Law through His sinless life, atoning death on the Cross, and resurrection in victory over death that whoever believes in Him as their Savior from sin “should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3: 16).”  Jesus added,

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil (John 3: 17-19). 

God has already come to us with objective truth claims in the Bible that He is the Creator, His creation reveals His power and nature, and that it is so obvious that we are without excuse if we deny it (Romans 1: 20).  The Apostle Paul elaborates about how the tendency of mankind has been to reject and suppress God’s truth (Romans 1: 18).  Those who reject God’s truth, will fall prey to accepting nonsense and be morally and spiritually corrupted to the core of their lives.  Paul described this awful result in Romans 1: 21-23:

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

The rest of Romans 1 reveals the tragic downward path of those who reject God’s authority and absolute truth.  They are left to live in the darkness of moral relativism in which “truth” is what each individual deems it to be.  Returning to the seven (7) commonly heard statements above we can see how each cultural problem results from a deviation from the moral standards given in Scripture.  Each statement is also rooted in one or more misconceptions expressed by a person who has rejected or is ignorant of God’s moral and ethical principles.  In each of the seven, we briefly point out how the problem can be corrected by addressing the deviation from God’s ideal.  However, in no way do we want to imply that the solutions are simple.

Summary: Feeling, Thinking, Believing
In summary, each of us have physical, emotional, rational, and spiritual dimension to our lives.  All of these are interrelated components of our personality; but by itself, each is limited as a way of knowing and judging truth and reality.  We may answer a question about “how we feel” in words, or by our facial expression, or by pointing to a cartoon face or an emoji.   However, to answer questions related to “how we feel about” or “how we choose to react” to our situation, we must draw more heavily upon our rational and spiritual components.  We must be aware of our worldview and what we are basing our reasoning upon.   Recall Barna’s statistics on poorly grounded worldviews?

Thinking carelessly and communicating with tweets and emojis will not be adequate.  And problems in family, church, community, and government resulting from rejection of God’s revealed wisdom in the Bible will certainly not be solved by atheistic, humanistic approaches.  First Corinthians 2: 14 states, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The proper function of family, church, school, private corporations, and government depends upon documents such as the U.S. Constitution as well as various bylaws, legal codes, and covenants, all written in words in a rational manner.  Most of these in turn, rest upon the objective revelation of the Bible concerning the nature of man.  Due to our tendency to lust for power, there is a need to avoid the concentration of power and its corrupting influence, and to incorporate ways to hold individuals morally and spiritually accountable. 

God’s Word makes clear that ultimate reality is not this physical, temporary universe which we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell.  We can only discern spiritual reality when we submit to the Word of God and His Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2: 13) to renew our minds (Romans 12: 2) and teach us to discern spiritual truth (John 14: 26).  Then, the Peace of God will replace our anxious feelings, and His love and care will uphold us for the challenges we face.

We hope this article will help you toward better discernment of issues in our world through proper exercise of your capacities for feeling, knowing, and believing.  As always, we welcome your “Comments” using the link below; or, please write privately to silviusj@gmail.com.  You may want to express how you feel, or what you think about this article, and share what you believe and why. 

Valentines and a Better Love

Valentine’s Day is upon us.  Are you ready?

I believe I am.  My valentine, Abby, will be in Florida with her sister over Valentine’s Day, so I’ve already written and sent a card which will be followed by a special gift to encourage her for the holiday.

But, before you think I must be a great husband, you should know two things.  First, this year will mark the 51^st Valentine’s Day I have celebrated with Abby.  Yet I’ve never been noted for being very creative and generous on Valentine’s Day and other special occasions.  Second, I hope we all realize that even the most thoughtful and generous monetary expressions are only a small part of the ongoing expressions of our love that are so important to our spouses and significant others.  (You can ask Abby how well I do in between holidays.)

Expressions of human love are measured in a “currency” much above dollars and cents.  As an indication of how hard it is to maintain good marriages and keep wedding vows, consider the annual monetary expenditures in the “divorce industry” which is estimated at $28 billion.  Interestingly, according to the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend an estimated $19.6 billion on Valentine’s Day, in 2018.  Thankfully, true love builds an enduring “capital” and stability into relationships.  Love is based on a “currency” that is freely and generously given without thought of return.  This is unconditional love, or (in Greek) agape love.   

The word “love” in English can mean many things. The Greek language at the time of Christ was included at least six words that are now translated “love” in modern English. The three most common are phileo (love between friends), eros (erotic or sensual love), and agape as we have defined it above.  All of these are gifts of God and all are essential elements that sustain God’s gift of marriage.  Of the three, agape love is the foundation upon which the others depend.   

As we approach Valentine’s Day, 1 Corinthians 13 has been challenging me as a husband.  For example, I can possess great stores of knowledge but if I am arrogant (v. 4), easily upset, rude, insisting on my rights, and remembering all the wrongs that my beloved commits against me (v. 5), then I’m not agape loving her.  Furthermore, I can have great faith (v. 2), but if I lose hope and stop believing in the person I love (v. 7), then I’m not showing God’s love.  I can even give all my possessions to feed the poor, and deliver my body to be burned (v. 3), but if I am jealous or distrustful of her; or, if I focus on her bad qualities and consider giving up on the one whom I say that I love, then I am surely not showing God’s unconditional love.

When a man and a woman exchange wedding vows, they enter a special relationship God has ordained from the beginning, one that will not reach its potential unless they both continually rely on the bread of God’s Word and His love poured into their hearts by His Holy Spirit (Romans 5: 5).  One Christian leader has said that in creating marriage, God created a relationship which is clearly beyond man’s ability to achieve unless they both respect and heed His loving authority.  When a man and woman cleave to one another and become one flesh in marriage (Genesis 2: 24), they become one in spirit when each one reaches for God’s love, “the glue” for the marriage.

God’s manual for married lovers on Valentine’s Day and throughout the year continues in 1 John 4 where we learn that our ultimate source of agape love is from God (v. 7).  Indeed, God is love (v. 8) and God shows His love to us in that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him (v. 9).  Therefore, the wellspring of my love for my wife must be replenished continually by my willingness to abide in God’s love through the Spirit and the Word (v. 12, 16).  In turn, when I love my wife, His love is perfected in me (v. 12).

When God’s love is active and being perfected in me (1 John 4: 12), then I can experience another truth from John’s “love manual;” namely, there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.

When the faith and love of one spouse falters, does this free the Christ-following spouse to react in kind?  No!  Instead, when trouble comes, the real uniqueness of a Christian marriage ought to show.  When one or more of the loveless works of the flesh we just noted show up from one or both spouses, each spouse can either react in kind or obey the Scripture.  Obedience for the husband means love your wife as Christ loves the church (Eph. 5: 25) and love her …even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband (Eph. 5: 33).

Christ’s amazing love for us can overcome the loveless works of the flesh that often doom marriages that once were strong.  Specifically, the power of agape love described in 1 Corinthians 13 can help revive troubled marriages when it along with other fruit of the Spirit begins to open the door to good communication between spouses.    Agape love is patient, kind, self-effacing, gracious, doesn’t insist on one’s rights, forgiving and forgetful, enduring, trusting, and truthful.  These love-related traits can bring calmness where there was tension and strife.

Good communication may also require the more spiritually mature spouse to remain silent, even in the face of hurtful, untrue accusations.  In 1 Peter 3, the inspired writer exhorts husbands to live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker (v. 7), not returning evil for evil or insult for insult (v. 9), for …even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed (v. 14).

The wife or husband who expresses patient, enduring, unconditional love toward his or her spouse when greeted with unwarranted, unloving or disrespectful words or even abuse may suffer in silence with seemingly no one to turn to for comfort.  But we do have One to Whom we can cling; namely, Jesus Who died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God (1 Peter 3: 18).

From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus was falsely accused, maligned, and abused.  Referring to reports of the virgin birth of Christ, the unbelieving Jewish leaders scoffed, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God" (John 8: 41).  When Jesus professed to be God, His accusers responded, "You have heard the blasphemy…” And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death. Some began to spit at Him, and to blindfold Him, and to beat Him with their fists… (Mark 14: 64-65).   Then, in perhaps the greatest expression of agape love, Jesus Christ allowed Himself to be nailed to a Roman cross to be a spectacle for the world to see.  Yet, He did not open His mouth other than to defend His deity (Isaiah 53: 7).

He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
                                                               -- Isaiah 53: 3b-5 (NLT)

In the world’s greatest misunderstanding, He Who had no sin, became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5: 21); but, His accusers thought He was only getting His just punishment.  Although we are not sinless as Jesus was, He calls us to show His love through sacrifices, too.  Do I love my wife or a significant other person enough to remain silent when love demands it of me--even when my silence may cause others to find fault in me?

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  Are you prepared to celebrate the wonder of love for those who are precious to you?  I’m ready to show my love for Abby.  She may have a surprise for me, but I know for sure that she’s made preparation to show our love to our family.  But, when the holiday is over, the love that binds us in our relationships will not depend on our material gifts, physical health, intelligence, or feelings.  It will depend on our faith relationship with the risen Christ.  He gave His very life because He loves us so much.  Then, He ascended to heaven so He could send us His Spirit to enable husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gave Himself for her (Ephesians 5: 25); and, to enable wives to respect their husbands out of  the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God (1 Peter 3: 4).   This Valentine’s Day, may our great love for the “Great Lover” of our souls move us to love our spouses and others after the example of Christ.

"EPILOGUE"
Now, it's Valentine's Day, and I will add these additional words from a writer of a much higher caliber.  There seems to be no other explanation for me finding these this morning  than God directing my hands as I leafed through A. W. Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy.  He seems to have guided my fingers to Chapter 20, "The Love of God."  As I read this chapter, it was as if God was saying,  "It's not about you, as if you are the source of love, or the source of wisdom on the subject of loving relationships.  Rather, it is about My great love for you, My friend, and how much I desire to have your first love in return.  Here are Tozer's closing words to "The Love of God," offered in a forceful prayer of praise to God:

"Thy love is uncaused and undeserved. Thou art Thyself the reason for the love wherewith we are loved. Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us. Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what Thou has declared Thyself to be. Amen"