An Open Letter on Emotion

I doubt that you will ever read this and I don't suppose it would change your stance even if you did, but a personal letter (even unread by its recipient) seems the best form to address such a personal issue. Perhaps I should have entered into controversy at the time you first expressed your opinions, but even if time and decorum had not prevented it, I was so shocked and perplexed by your position that I don't think I could have answered it coherently. For a man of your standing and sanity to say, with all apparent seriousness, that we in the Conservative Wesleyan/Holiness tradition view emotions as something obscene, that we are far too intellectual and downplay feelings too much--when someone says that, I really am at a loss to know how to respond. If I were standing in the middle of a lush, steamy jungle, and man tells me there is too much water in the scene, I might disagree with him, but at least I could see his point and argue it out. But when the same man says the same thing to me while standing in the middle of the Sahara Desert, I do not see how the conversation can go anywhere. I will not say that we, as Conservative Wesleyan/Holiness people, are too emotional, but I do think you would have a much easier time convincing me of that than of your position.

However, I do not wish to argue that here. After all, you do have wider experience with the church than I do, and there may be vast pockets of arid, emotion-hating churchgoers out there which I have simply never met.  Whether or not there is a problem does not here concern me--because, even if there is a problem, I disagree with your solution. However, before we start thinking in terms of problems and solutions, we need to have a grasp of the nature of the issue itself. You have to know what health is before you can either diagnose or treat a disease.

The first thing to say is that there is no balance between emotion and intellect. You implied as much as do many people when speaking on this subject. There are some things in life which must be balanced. If your body becomes too hot or too cold, you will die, and so you have to find the perfect point which is neither too hot nor too cold in order to survive. I quite understand that. What I deny is that any such tension exists between emotion and intellect. What is there to prevent a man from thinking and feeling at the same time? How does having an intellectual awareness of a thing destroy your feelings for it? How do having emotions about something prevent you from having accurate knowledge of it? A college text book is intellectual and not emotional. A country love song is emotional and not intellectual. Many of the great poets are both and many newspaper articles are neither. And when you have said that, what else is there to say? Indeed, we as Wesleyans should know this better than anyone. Read the great hymns of Charles Wesley--read “Arise, My Soul, Arise” or “And Can It Be?”--and tell me whether they should be classified as intellectual or emotional. Some people tend more to one thing than to the other--just as some people prefer peanut butter to jelly, but there is nothing stopping someone from liking both peanut butter and jelly and putting them with joy into the same sandwich.

I do not think there is any necessary tension between the intellect and the emotions, and one piece of evidence tends to support this position--that those forces in the world which really do threaten emotionalism also equally threaten intellectualism. There is a kind of brute animalism--the ignoble side of the noble savage--which objects to emotion. There is a kind of man who says that showing emotion is a sign of weakness. (It usually is a man and not a woman and I think that it has more to do with a false ideal of masculinity than any deeper philosophy). But the man of the world who thinks emotion is a weakness also thinks that careful, thorough, abstract thought is a weakness. The man in the street who mocks the emotionalist would mock the intellectual with equal scorn. The more studied cynic who decries emotion may make some lipservice to intellectualism, but cynicism cannot support intellect in the end any more than emotion. The rising tide of Nihilism will destroy both emotion and intellect, because both are part of our humanity and cannot be supported by inhumanity.

And even in the church, I agree that there are those who oppose emotion--not in the context of religion (have you ever read any of the choruses we sing in church?), but in a broader context. I will grant you that we, as Holiness People, do have some coldness to ordinary human emotions, especially the more “negative” emotions. So you will find some Holiness people who will condemn someone for even feeling such emotions as anger or fear or depression (unless they are directly caused by sociological or political causes in which case they are seen as a sign of great depth of perception.) There are people in our church to whom ordinary human emotions are an embarrassment--but to these, human intellect is also an embarrassment, because humanity is an embarrassment. The neo-orthodox and postmodernist members among us can make nothing of the concept of the whole of man being fully redeemed in this life.

That is my first objection, then, to your position--that we have some kind of careful balance to maintain between the emotion and the intellect. I see no reason why both might not go forward together, strengthening one another and feeding upon the same foods.

My second objection is that you cannot praise or idealize emotions as a thing in themselves, because emotions are not things in and of themselves.  If you have a good, hot cup of coffee on a frosty morning, then you will have steam rising from the coffee. It can be considered a part of the total package of the experience--it may even be a very important part of the experience. I do not deny that. I only say this--that if you try to get coffee, you may get steam. But if you try to get steam, you will get nothing. Idealizing emotion is exactly like saying you want more steam and don't care whether coffee comes with it. I agree with C. S. Lewis that our emotions are intentional, “They are about something.” (“The Language of Religion” in Christian Reflections) He uses the example of a parent, anxious and worried for a child in a dangerous situation. They do not want freedom from their negative emotions--they want the safety of their child. If they child makes it home safely, they would be happy, but being happy is not primarily what they want--they want the safety of their child. You cannot make emotions an end in and off themselves, because they intrinsically point to something outside of themselves.

But with that being said, emotions are like steam in another way--unquestionably real but impossible to hold in your hand. Emotions are fleeting things, caused or suppressed by all kinds of other circumstances. If we were purely rational creatures, we would also be purely emotional and always have exact and precise emotional correspondence to the causes of our emotions. But we are not. People in happy circumstances do not always feel happy and people in sad circumstances do not always feel sad and people in dangerous circumstances do not always feel scared. We are changing creatures and cannot feel one thing consistently for very long. I'm sure you have seen this in sick rooms and funeral homes--people in the saddest situations do not usually feel constantly and consistently sad (which may be a sign of the mercy of God). Sometimes the very strength of the cause of our emotion makes emotion impossible--at least, I am told that people who experience very sudden tragedies or very sudden good fortune cannot at the moment emotionally process the event and feel a simple dullness at first. That is precisely why we should seek the thing that causes an emotion and let the emotion worry about itself.

The whole thing is summed up in the phrase from the Declaration of Independence--that one of the rights of man in “the pursuit of happiness.” The Founders were not such fools as to think you could pursue an emotion or that the government could prevent anyone from having certain feelings. Rather what we can do (unless a tyrant government stops us) is seek for a life which we believe will cause us happiness. When we say that a man has a happy marriage, we do not mean that he feels positive emotions at every conscious moment of his married life or even that he never has negative emotions even about his marriage. We mean that he does have, as a whole, a marriage that is productive of positive emotions. The word “happy” comes from the same root as “happen,” “perhaps,” and “mayhap”--and seems to have the idea of good luck or good fortune. A rich man may not always feel rich, but he is rich because he has good fortune. A child whose parents care enough about him to correct him when needed may not like it (“no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous”), but we know (and he will someday know) that he is fortunate to have it. He may look back and say he had a happy childhood precisely because there were moments in it in which he did not feel happy. That is why Jesus could utter a paradox like “Happy, blessed, and/or fortunate are they who mourn”--because the kind of mourning in question is ultimately good fortune even if it is not pleasant at the moment.

Very briefly, then, I do not think we can idealize our emotions--instead, we once we have idealized other things, emotions will follow naturally, just like steam comes from coffee. But there is another reason why we can't idealize our emotions is that we can't quantify them--any more than you can quantify steam. I take one of the main thoughts of your positions to be that in order to be a Christian one must have certain emotions at certain times in certain degrees--which is like trying set the rule for exactly how much steam has to come off your cup of coffee for it count as a valid cup of coffee. Even if your coffee always steams (does it always?), you cannot even measure let alone dictate how much steam it has. Does a given man in a given service feel happy enough to count himself as a happy Christian? Who knows? And (with all due reverence) who cares? To rank emotion as essential part of religion is simply nonsense. A man may have twenty emotions in the space of an hour, many of them caused in part by the weather and last night's dinner--he cannot stop and consider what all of them were let alone whether they fit within someone's schemes of what emotions he ought to have had during that time. But if emotion is an essential part of religion, that is exactly what he must do. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith” is  a difficult thing, but it is a meaningful command. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the emotions” is not.

I do not deny that in an ideal world our emotions would work differently--probably they did for Adam and most certainly they will in the Resurrection. Our emotions are divine things, they are the only contact we get with a certain part of ultimate reality. If you cannot touch the coffee, you can only know its heat by the steam. There are certain awe-full energies of the God that we can only know now through the fleeting medium of emotions, for we feel now through a glass darkly. But because the body is (at least, in part) the sacramental wafer through which partake of these things, they are limited by the limitations of the body. There are measures of the fulness of God which we cannot experience now because they would kill us, like pouring new wine in old wineskins. For the matter of that, I do not doubt that there are truths which God cannot yet teach us because our minds (which are also limited by the physical limitations of our brain) could not receive them. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, but one can only fit so much treasure in an earthen vessel without breaking it.

I cannot claim to be dispassionate in my analysis. I have a personal stake in this particular controversy. Your position seems to come down to this: that I am damned simply because I have a different emotional make up than other people. In many ways, I am not like most people (fortunately for them). I tend to feel things that other people do not feel and not to feel things that other people do feel. I almost never in emotional sync with everyone around me. And this, you seem to say, is exactly what God requires of us--to feel justly and feel merciful and feel as if we are walking with our God--that, say, during a church service we must have a certain pitch of reverent excitement during “To God be the Glory” which then immediately gives way to a certain pitch of soulful earnestness during “Rescue the Perishing” which then gives way to--well--whatever emotion one is supposed to feel during a Contemporary Praise Chorus. And all I can say is I don't usually feel exactly that way at exactly those times. I do not say I could not by brute willpower force myself to feel in the right way (though I am not sanguine about the enterprise), but according to you, that is exactly the experience which is worthless to God. Emotion cannot be forced. But how does one create the uncreated? How does one goes about prearranging the unpremeditated? How can one orchestrate spontaneity? It seems to amount to this: that if you do not already feel the right emotions at the right time, you are a terrible human being. But in that case, there is no point in having a philosophy of emotion in the first place. If you are a good person, you will have the right emotions and if you don't have the right emotions you are not a good person. And what are the right emotions? The ones had by good people. Et cetera.

But there is a greater objection to your doctrine, and it is not specifically mine. I think this kind of religion is cruel and if it is an accurate picture of God, I cannot see how it would be a god worthy of worship. The emotionalist doctrine deprives a man of God at the exact moment when he most needs him. When a man is happy, God is pleased with Him for having the correct emotion. But when he is not happy--when he has come to the end of himself--when the world is cold and gray and lifeless and soul cries out for God--that is the time when God will not answer. It is as if God said He would pour water only on those who are not thirsty and give food to those who are already full. Have you ever read Commissioner Brengle's description of a time of discouragement? “God seemed nonexistent. The grave seemed my endless goal. Life lost all of its glory, charm, and meaning... Feeling, except that of utter depression and gloom, was gone.” Such a state has been experienced by some people. And according to your doctrine, not only will God not help a man in such a state, but God is angry with him, for feeling or not feeling the proper emotions at the proper time. The only thing such a man can do is what Brengle did do--“give thanks and to praise God, though I felt no spirit of praise and thanksgiving.” But as I understand your point of view, that is exactly what he cannot do--because religious activity which arises solely from the intellect and volition without the emotions are meaningless. I suppose you could say that if a person feels in such a way, that proves they have sinned and are no longer in a right relationship with God. That is possible (though hardly likely), but grant that it is true. If they have sinned, what are they supposed to do? Repent. But what if they do not feel like repenting? If religious actions performed by the volition without the emotions are worthless to God, then such a repentance would accomplish nothing. But what else is a man to do? And for what it is is worth, we have Scriptural examples which seem to argue against your position. Following Elijah's victory on Mt. Carmel, he entered into a time of depression and despair so much that he asked God to let him die. But God did not speak to Elijah through his emotions, through the fire and earthquake. Rather, God spoke to Elijah through his intellect (a still small voice) and, even more, through his volition (“Go, return on thy way”).

You used the example of marriage--you said (and I agree) that a marriage which a man feels no love for his wife but acts on intellect or pure volition is not ideal. But what about arranged marriages, which have been and perhaps still are common in other cultures? What about marriages in which one partner deceives or betrays the other? In short, what is a man to do if he finds himself (for one reason or another, perhaps even beyond his control) in a marriage relationship (bound by the laws of God and man) where he has no emotions of love for his wife? What on earth is he supposed to do? What, on your philosophy, can he do? The only moral course, seemingly, would be for him to act out of bare, naked volition to perform the part of a loving husband even though he felt no such emotions. But if actions which arise solely out of the volition without the emotion are valueless, then there is really nothing he can do.

Having said all that, I should make one qualification. I do not believe we can directly control our emotions, but I do not mean to say that we have no part to play in the matter. I do not believe that we (or most of us) can will our emotions any more than most of us can will ourselves to fall asleep or wake up. But you can train your body to follow certain sleep patterns and you can also train your emotions. Shelley (I think it was) said that this was the distinctive thing about humans, that they could regulate their emotions to correspond to reality. This training of the emotions is done partly by the volition but mostly by the imagination which is to the emotions what exercise is to the body. James said to count it as a joy or consider it a joy when we fall into great trouble. I do not find troubles to cause joy and if most people did, James wouldn't have bothered to say it. That is why we must “count it”, consider it, train ourselves to see it. Some of the early Christians were happy to be martyrs; Nathan Hale was happy to give his life for his country; and you told me once about how you were happy when your child were born. I know people who not find happiness in any of those situations--since religion, patriotism, and the family are not things the modern world encourages. Sir Walter Scott wrote a fine poem in which he asked if there could be anyone with “soul so dead” that they did not feel a swell of emotion and pride in their homeland. Well, many people in the world today do not feel that emotion--and probably at least in part because our modern culture is not formed by Sir Watler Scott. It is the imaginative and poetical part of man (more than either his volition and intellect, though these are involved) which have the power to channel the emotions so that they flow in proper channels or improper ones as the case may be. And I should point out, by-the-by, that it is precisely this imaginative side of man which the Holiness Church does not especially encourage. We do not consider emotion as something obscene, but we do sometimes treat the imagination in that way. We have dismissed the imagination, because we want emotions to rise spontaneous and miraculously, not to grow naturally out of the natural soil God ordained.

In conclusion, I will offer one final thought, perhaps with a hope of synthesis. You said that emotion is an essential part of religion. If you mean that in order to be a Christian we must feel certain things at certain times and at certain degrees--that we should aim for and judge ourselves by certain emotions--then I think you are wrong. But the statement that emotion is “essential” to Christianity could be taken another way. You said (and thus far we agree) that having emotions is part of our human nature just like having a body. There may be some people who do not have emotions just like there are some people with physical paralysis, but it is still broadly true that to be a human is to be emotional. We cannot (most of us) stop having emotions any more than we can stop breathing. It could be that what God requires of us is not to have specific emotions at specific times, but rather to offer all our emotions to him. The widow gave a mite because that was all she had and God accepted it. Perhaps if, at a given moment, sadness is all we have, God will accept that if we give it to him. The Bible pictures our relationship with God as friendship, but friendship is not an emotion--rather, it is a relationship in which one shares many emotions with someone else. I'm not a parent, but I can't help thinking of it this way: if I had a son, I would want him to be happy. (What parent doesn't?) But if he was sad, I would still want him to feel that he could come and talk to me about his sadness. Even, for the matter of that, if he was angry and upset--angry and upset with me--I would rather have him be able to come and honestly talk it out than sulk in the corner. Isn't that the lesson of the book of Job? Job was confused and so sought God--and was accepted (though also rebuked). Job's friends were quite content and did not seek God--and so did not find Him. I remember a poem (though I have forgotten the author) which began: “I lift my heart, as spring lifts up/A yellow daisy to the rain/My heart shall be a lovely cup/Although it hold but pain.” Perhaps this is the essential part of religion--lifting up our heart to God, regardless of what emotion we are feeling at the time. And if, because of physical or mental exhaustion, we have no emotions, we should lift up our hearts all the same. When the sun shines, we can praise God in the sun and when it rains, we can praise God in the rain. When all is bright, we will rejoice in the light. And when the light is gone, we may give what Chesterton called “the strange, strong cry in the darkness/Of one man praising God.”