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Michael traces a bit of the human and Christian history on the devaluation and dismissal of the affections, explaining along the way some of the reasons for that low assessment. He then outlines some biblically-informed objections to our collective abuse of the affections (and affectional people), and proceeds to discuss the distinction between the affections and the emotions and some ways to order and cultivate the affections.
LINKS
“The Enticing Sin of Empathy,” by Joe Rigney
“The Sentimentality Trap,” by Benjamin Myers
Discussion of the Passions in Aquinas (a bit meandering, but generally good)
I have some comments, a question, and an idea:
1). I enjoy the parallel between the order or Revelation in Scripture which emphasizes the Father first, the Son next, and send the Holy Spirit last and the order of the reformations of the Church that you observe and predict: will first, intellect second, affections last
2) You have no idea how liberating it was for me to hear you describe emotions/passions as involuntary! The reason I so often hate my emotions is because they will not submit to my will. My body and mind mostly submit to my will, but my emotions almost never do. I believed before that the only reason my emotions felt involuntary was that I’d worn such a groove from thought to emotion through repetition that I just jumped from trigger to feeling. And to fix it I needed to will myself into stretching out the timeline or interrupting the groove so I could make myself feel differently. This never worked. Feeling like a failure, I got my helper intellect to try to argue myself into different emotions. This had some limited impact, though now that I think about it, it was most successful when the argument focused on changing my perspective on the situation, rather than pure propositions. But whatever small success my intellect had was hard fought and very frustrating. I willingly take responsibility for the sinfulness of my sinful passions. That’s not the issue. It was just so discouraging to want to change and not know how to. It is so encouraging to think all my failures were because I was trying in the least effective way and not because my will or reasoning are broken. Now, my will is skeptical of being “let off the hook” of a responsibility, so I’ll need some time to digest this, but it is a hopeful possibility.
3) I am having trouble imaging what it would be like to let my affections lead their own improvement. I’m very out of practice in listening to them. I feel like this question has a lot in common with my old question about how to get started appreciating art, but other than curiosity about my emotions, do you have any other “beginner’s exercises” in affections?
4). This conversation helped me fit Phillipans 4:8 in with what else I think I understand from Scripture. This passage has always puzzled me when I interpreted “think” as cogitate. Because so much of Scripture includes ugly stories and difficult, sad things, so why are we encouraged to be Pollyanna and look on the bright side. Rigorous thinking involves, in my estimation, looking at all sides, and so you have to at least spend some time considering false, ignoble, unrighteousness arguments to really understand truth fully. So I couldn’t understand what this commandment meant in a consistent way. But maybe the “think” means something more in line with your idea about forming a picture of the good life. In the context of affections, one might want to spend as much time as possible beholding (concentrating on? picturing? experiencing? I’m not even sure what verb to use) the good life, and very little tasting what isn’t delicious. If that is the context, this is a list of delicacies to form the taste, and it seems to fit better into the larger picture of how to grow in Christ than as a restriction or command concerning thoughts.
These are good thoughts.
1) Yes, you are right! I did not make this claim in the episode explicitly, but if you look at the order of the Hebrew Old Testament, you have Torah (The Law: oriented to the will), followed by the Nevi’im (The Prophets: oriented to the intellect), and the Ketuvim (The Writings—including the Psalms: oriented to the affections). Not to say there are not clearly overlaps, but the order of revelation does seem to correlate to the historical order of the development of the human spirit.
2) This has been liberating to me as well. And I should have said that the passions are not sinful in the sense of a conscious choice (how could something involuntary be sinful in that sense?). Even when they indicate a disordered base of affections, it is not iniquitous to feel what you feel and be honest about it, though it does indicate how your affections might need addressing. I’ll talk about this a little more in response to 3). I’m glad that was helpful to you.
3) First, the affections cannot be changed involuntarily. If you are attempting to forcibly restrain your passions or gaslight yourself, you are not allowing the affections to lead in their own development. And, as you can confirm, this has limited or no positive effect on the affections. Any true change in the affections will need to be free and voluntary. The affections cannot be forced, either internally or externally. So if the intellect is attempting to say “You feel this way because you don’t see things as you should” or the will is saying “This feeling you have is wrong or inconvenient or impractical,” it’s not likely that the affections are being allowed to freely arrive at change on their own terms. The intellect and the will can be enlisted, but the affections (as made known through the passions) should be directing this assistance and voluntarily recognizing a need that the intellect and will validate in serviceable submission.
I’ll give an analogy. The affections as a sense are more like smell than sight. Sight is more like the intellect. Let’s say you open the fridge and you smell something really stinky and repulsive. You say, “I’m not sure what it is, but something in there really stinks.” The intellect (sight) may come in and say, “Yeah? What is it that stinks? You know I can’t smell anything, and I don’t see anything rotten. Where is the rot? Articulate it. If you can’t articulate what it is, you should shut up about it. Nothing looks off to me.” And the will says, “Hey, if it smells so bad to you, we’ll just leave the fridge closed or I’ll plug your nose when we have to open it. Problem solved.” Instead, the intellect and will assisting the affections would be, “You’re almost certainly right something is rotten in there, or you wouldn’t be smelling that stench you say you smell. Let’s check each container [will] until we can see what it is and then we can label it correctly [intellect] and address it if it needs to be addressed. It’s possible too that you’re smelling your upper lip. But it’s basically impossible that you’re not smelling anything.” In other words, the intellect provides articulation to the affections and the will acts to both search and correct what it willingly validates from the affections. I hope that makes sense.
Accepting your passions as valid, and not in themselves sinful, is a big step. The Psalms are a great place to start in this. Search in the Psalms for resonance in how you are already feeling, and then do what the Psalmist does: lay bare those feelings in their full and honest scope, before God through the words of the Psalmist. This obviously takes courage, and it also violates the aims of the will and intellect very often. The will wants to feel strong and righteous. To present passions before God seems to be “weak” and “wrong.” And passions often contradict what the intellect may think it knows—either what it confesses about itself or what it knows concerning the world. You can see the Psalmist regularly coming up against these obstacles and overcoming them with bold vulnerability before God. Whether the Psalmist feels rage, shame, disappointment, grief, sorrow, joy, hope, or whatever, the psalms fully expose and express these feelings before God (and sometimes before “the congregation”). Before you can be honest about your feelings in a constructive way with others, however, you must begin by being honest and vulnerable with God. When you feel a feeling, rather than trying to suppress or rationalize it, fully express it to God in its rawest form and ask Him to help you sort and process it. This is a great beginner’s exercise in the affections. That’s where I started, and it’s where I recommend others start.
4) Yes! Recognizing that “thinking” might be beholding or envisioning is really good!
Thank you for these good comments and questions. I’m very thankful for your engagement!
The smell analogy was very helpful. Thank you.
This episode was super, super helpful and thought-provoking, Michael. I’ve recently read THE SEXUAL REFORMATION, Aimee Byrd’s book on the Song of Songs, and it had huge relevance to some of the issues you discuss with regards to the affections, both in terms of embodiment of spiritual realities and in terms of the importance of the affections. I think one of the challenging things I took away from the book is the Song’s depiction of Christ as lover, as one whose affections and emotions are engaged towards his church, which is something kind of shocking to someone like me, who’s grown up largely in Reformed streams of faith.
Also, I will say that I have found a stream of Christianity that promotes affections, and it probably makes sense that this is Pentecostalism. Of course much of what passes for affections among the Penties is also quite sentimental and immature, and it’s often accompanied by a troubling anti-intellectual streak, but it’s here that I’ve found an emphasis on relationship, affection, emotions, and passion that is quite alien to the Reformed over-emphasis on intellect.
Hi, Suzannah! Thanks for commenting. I want to read Byrd’s book. I’m glad she has done that work. The purely allegorical interpretation of Songs, though useful in its place, is limited. And I agree with you on Pentecostalism. I plan on discussing just that in the eighth episode of the podcast on the powers and anthropology. Good to hear from you, and thank you for the encouragement!