Christianity and Emotions (Part 2)

This is the second of three articles dealing with emotions as they relate to morality and our spiritual life. In the preceding article, I sought simply to come to an understanding of what emotions are. As we saw there, emotions are not merely a physical event in our bodies (though we do experience them in that way); rather, they are rather a mode of perception about reality. When we feel grief over a tragedy or fear in a moment of danger, those are not merely events within our own body--they are an experience of the nature of tragedy or danger. Obviously, in real life, it is more complicated and less precise than that, but that is, in general, what emotions are.

We are now in the position to discuss the moral question. Can having a certain emotion (or not having a certain emotion) be, in itself, a sin? And, on the other hand, can having (or not having) some emotion be a virtue? What is the relation between emotions and morality?  There are two schools of thought regarding this question. Some people would answer “Yes,” that our emotions can be sins or virtues. They would say it is unChristian or at least carnal to feel fear or anger or not to feel joy or contentment. Other people would answer “No,” that emotions cannot be a sin. They would say our emotions are not part of the moral universe at all, that how we feel is just a fact about ourselves like our blood pressure, and that we really have no duty regarding it all.

Both of these viewpoints are wrong.

It is true, strictly speaking, that our emotions are not part of the moral universe at all. Thoughts are also not part of the moral universe, but that doesn't mean there are no sins of the intellect. The body is not part of the moral universe, but there are bodily sins and bodily duties. As C. S. Lewis said, “Everything that exists matters” and everything that matters has some kind of moral quality. To treat emotions as morally irrelevant is to treat them as non-entities, but that is so extremely counterintuitive and goes so thoroughly against the consorted testimony of the vast majority of the human race (at least up to our own age) that I think it can be safely discarded.

But to treat our emotions as sins and virtues is equally problematic. There are no improper emotions. Whatever the relation of morality and emotion, we can say from the outset that it does not lie in certain emotions being always wrong and others always right. Emotions are not an end in themselves but are a means of perceiving reality. So there are negative emotions simply because there are negative things in reality. There are things in this world that are dangerous, therefore it is only proper that fear exists. There are things in this world that are despicable, therefore it is only proper that anger exists. All emotions are proper in so far as they are an accurate perception of reality.

And I would have thought this was too obvious to merit a lengthy discussion, but this point is usually missed in that blend of pop psychology and pseudo-mysticism which is one of the main religions of our day. To some people, anger, fear, and grief represent evil while joy, peace, compassion are good. They are described as “negative” and “positive” as if they were part of some impersonal force like magnetism or electricity. And this viewpoint, I maintain, is fundamentally wrong. To treat all instances of anger as wrong because some instances of it are wrong is analogous to saying that marriage is wrong because fornication is wrong.

I believe this false view of emotions is doing great harm to our society. By dividing the positive emotions from the negative ones, we have created an entirely false and poisonous emotional atmosphere. I realize this is a complex issue and would require an article much longer than this one to discuss in itself, but I do quite honestly believe that part of the reason why we have seen a rise of random and meaningless violence in western culture is because we have treated anger as a sin. We have forbidden people from using anger for its proper and appropriate purpose and so it has instead become something illicit and uncontrolled. And I think the damage to positive emotions has been just as real. Joy, peace, and compassion are not always right. They may become something monstrous if worshipped as gods rather than allowed their proper place. And all emotions are the worse for being divided from each other. A joy that never feels grief is calloused. A grief that never feels joy is morbid. Compassion which never feels anger is maudlin. Anger which never feels compassion is cruel. Reality is multifaceted and so are our emotions. To deny some emotions is to deny part of reality.

And this is an especially relevant point to Christians since the mystical view of emotions creates issues for Christian theology. If anger is intrinsically wrong how can we believe in the wrath of God? If jealousy is always ungodly, why does the Bible describe God as a jealous God? If guilt is, in itself wrong, how can we make a distinction between those who feel guilt for their sins and those who feel guilt for their neurosis? If fear is always wrong, how can the fear of the Lord be the beginning of wisdom? The Christian religion is built upon the view of emotions I have outlined so far. Of course, it is certainly true that some emotions are more dangerous and so have more warning concerning their misuses, but dangerous does not equal immoral.

So, while it is clear that there is some kind of relation between emotions and morality, it cannot be as simple as saying some emotions are right and others wrong. To get the reality of that relationship, let us take one specific example. I used fear as the example of a “negative” emotion which is nevertheless a necessary one. And I realize it may sound odd to say that fear is a necessary or even permissible emotion. Revelation 21:8 states that the fearful will have their part in the lake of fire. Many civilizations have praised courage as one of the foremost virtues and cowardice as one of the lowest vices. To be “fearless” is one of the highest compliments you can give a man.

But what exactly is courage? The first obvious point is that courage requires danger. To say that a man is brave only when there is no danger is simply an ironic way of saying he is not brave at all. Courage may exist in a seed form in peaceful times, but it can only blossom when in the presence of danger. The danger may not be physical or even definable, but there must be a danger if there is to be courage.

But consider this example. Supposed a hardened and ruthless criminal had escaped from prison and had taken refuge in an office building. On the second floor, a young policeman stands before the door of an office. He has just heard a sound inside the room and believes this to be the hiding place of the convict. Knowing fully well what it could mean to face such a dangerous man, he nevertheless draws his gun and boldly pushes open the door. But, as a matter of fact, the sound he heard was only a squirrel which had gotten into the building and other than the squirrel there was no one in the room. The convict had actually taken refuge in an office directly below on the first floor. And at the same moment that the policeman was opening that door on the second floor, a clerk from the office who, through a lack of communication, knew nothing about the possibility of a convict hiding in the building, throws open the door to his office like he does every morning, having no idea that he is about to come face to face with the criminal.

In this example, we have two men both going through doors--one faces no danger while the other faces great danger. But which man can be said to be an example of courage? Obviously, it is the policeman who knows of the danger and believes he is facing it--not the clerk who is ignorant of the danger. Courage does not go with the fact of danger, but with the perception of danger. One has to know and believe there is danger--that is, perceive the danger--before he can have courage. But, as we saw already, one part of the perception of danger is fear--fear is a mode of perception; it is how we recognize the reality of danger. Therefore, so far from courage meaning the absence of fear, courage necessitates fear as a starting point.

So what is courage? I think there are two kinds of courage, though they may not exist as completely separate things. The first kind of courage is courage which faces danger with fear; fully knowing and fully fearing the power of fear and yet chooses to act contrary to fear--to do the thing feared for some reason or another. I think it was John Wayne who defined this kind of courage as “Shaking in your boots but saddling up anyway.” This kind of courage has fear but refuses to let fear control the actions. It is the setting of the will on a course contrary to that dictated by fear.

The second kind of courage is similar. It also involves facing the reality of danger and the feeling of fear. But this kind of courage is a discipline of the mind by which fear, though it still exists in principle, ceases to be operative in the mind. It is the ability to remain calm and firm in the midst of danger, to face fear “with gallant heart unshaken.” This kind of courage can be called 'fearlessness' because fear, while still existent, is pushed to the border of the mind so that it is no longer operative. In its final extremity, this kind of courage is itself an emotion, an emotion that is called in to cancel out the effects of another emotion.

We can put it this way: the first kind of courage is the defiance of fear while the second kind is the suppression of fear. The first is purely a matter of the will, while the second is a discipline of the mind and even perhaps of the body. (It may be significant that this kind of courage is often referred to with physical terms: it is 'nerve' or even 'guts'.) Both kinds of courage--like any attitude of the will--strengthens as they are used, but this is especially true of the second kind, which must be built up and trained like a skill or art. The two kinds of courage can exist separately, but anyone who has the first would desire to have the second.

We can return to the question of morality and draw out the following conclusions. Having “negative” emotions is not a sin. Suppose your house is on fire. Feeling fear from the fire is no more immoral than feeling the heat. Suppose someone punches you in the nose. A spurt of anger is no more a sin than a spurt of blood. And the same is true of “positive” emotions. If you see a poor beggar rattling his cup, it is no more a virtue to feel pity than it is a virtue to hear the rattle. To feel joy on a bright, sunny day is as natural (and therefore amoral) as to feel the sunlight. In so far as emotions are a mode of perception, they are prior to morality.

In fact, there is one important qualification we must make here. We must recognize that, on a certain level, emotions are not anything definite at all. There is a constantly changing flux of emotions that passes through our consciousness. A man would be hard-pressed even to state what emotions he had during the course of an average day. When there are no specific stimuli to crystalize an emotion, they pass without rhyme or reason across the stage of our heart. In much the same way, for most of us, when we are not deliberately thinking about something, our minds are filled with idle and unconnected thoughts, with words, phrases, pictures, and ideas which pass without meaning and without connection. Both thoughts and emotions are, by nature, perceptions about reality, but these wandering thoughts and emotions are not about anything. They are only the sound of nails rattling around in a tin when there is no hammer to put them in their proper place.

I do not think there is anything especially moral about these emotions nor do I think that they are even definite enough to be the object of intelligent conversation. When I am speaking of emotions, I am meaning an emotion which has taken a definite form enough so that we can definitely say: “I feel ____” Of course, even this is not simple, because we can feel different things intently at the same time. So in a moment of tragedy one might feel grief, anger, compassion, and depression all at the same time. But in so far as these emotions are definite they can be the subject of discussion and can have a relation to morality.

The moral point comes in here. We cannot use our emotions as a guide. It is only natural to feel fear. It is not a sin. But the question is: how do we respond to our fear? Courage is a virtue and cowardice a vice, but both courage and cowardice require fear as a starting point. A man who was literally fearless could have neither. A person who could not perceive an offense and never felt anger would be incapable of seeking revenge and would also be incapable of forgiveness. Emotions are not sins or virtues because they are the context in which moral decisions are made. And it should be noted that, for this purpose, the emotions do not have to be “right.” A man could be courageous when facing an unreal danger. A man could be bitter about a non-existent wrong. But the point is that morality comes with our response to reality (as we perceive it) and therefore to emotions.

We cannot follow our emotions and we cannot deny them. The fact that we feel fear does not mean we should run away nor does it mean that we SHOULDN'T run away. In some situations to act on fear would be right and in others, it would be wrong. The emotion of fear cannot tell you which situations are which. Emotions are essential but they cannot, in themselves, settle moral questions.

W. S. Gilbert wrote: “In sailing o'er life's ocean wide/No doubt the heart should be your guide;/But it is awkward when you find/A heart that does not know its mind!” The heart--the sentiments and emotions--is necessary, but it cannot be our guide. Indeed, if we try to make our emotions our guide, our emotions themselves may betray us. That stanza of poetry comes from Ruddigore and in Ruddigore, several characters claim to act on sentimental reasons when really it is something else altogether. So Rose breaks off her engagement to Richard and marries his friend Robin because her heart told her to--but in reality, it was not the voice of love (right or wrong) but avarice. Richard then ruins Robin's life by revealing his deepest secret because he felt it was the right thing to do, but in reality, it was only revenge prompting him. The very imprecise and fuzzy nature of emotions makes it impossible that they should be our guide on moral questions, because not only are our emotions not always right, we cannot even be sure what our emotions actually are. They can prompt us to do what is right but they can never, on their own, show us what is right. To find that we must turn to other sources.

We need to stop here to make a distinction. In so far as emotions are a response to reality, they can be “true”--in the sense of corresponding to reality--without being “right”--in the sense of being an emotion we should act on. So feeling fear may be true because there is real danger, but to act on the fear would be cowardice. Feeling anger may be true because there is a real wrong, but to act on that anger would be unChristian. In the same way, in the mental world, there are certain thoughts that are true but are not right. It may be true that your neighbor is a lazy slob, but to allow the thought of your neighbor's faults to fill and dominate your mind would be wrong. There are pictures that are accurate representations of reality which would be immoral to hang on your wall. All that is straightforward enough.

The difficult problem comes in here. Take anger. Suppose someone smites you on the right check--suppose someone deliberately, consciously, and without reason hurts you. That is wrong and so feeling anger is not improper. It is the natural reaction of the situation. If it wasn't, there would have been no point in Jesus bringing up the situation in the first place. But Jesus also makes it clear that (all other things being equal) it is wrong to act on that anger; to seek personal revenge for a personal wrong is a sin. As obvious as it may be, the course of smiting him back is not the right course. But if you planned to smite back but the other man dodged the blow, it would still be a sin because it would still be revenge, though frustrated revenge. If you wanted to smite back but didn't because the other man was bigger than you, that would also be a sin because it would still be revenge, even though it was never enacted revenge. Jesus said that the man who is angry with his brother is a murderer, even if he never caries out any designs of murder. In other words, it is not enough to say that emotions become sins when they are turned into actions. (And the same would be true of acts of virtue.)

We can think of emotions like a tier list. On the lowest tier, we have emotions as they pass through our perception without rhyme or reason; emotions that are not definite enough even to be discussed. On that level, there are no questions to be asked. On the next tier, we have emotions as a perception of reality. And on that level, the question to ask is: is this emotion “true”? Does it really correspond to reality? And the point I'm trying to make is that a third tier exists between that and the top tier (which is the actions we take). On the first two tiers, emotions cannot be a sin, while on the third tier they can be, exactly as on the final tier actions can be. And then we must factor in the fact that in real life we cannot actually break down our emotions so exactly. In light of all this, what are we to say about the relation of emotions and morality?

We are now at the central conundrum of this topic and the main reason why it is such a controversial matter. I am not confident that I can solve it, but that's not going to stop me from trying.

Suppose a guy has a crush on a girl. It may be a wandering and uncertain emotion, mixed up with a dozen other emotions and maybe even a dozen other crushes. It may be impossible for him to sit down and honestly say whether he does or does not have a crush. That is the uncertain and imprecise nature of our feelings and emotions. This state can go on for some time. But there comes a point where he makes up his mind. He makes his plans and goes out to find the girl and asks her to go on a date. She may say no; he may lose his nerve before he actually asks the question. But, still, at that point, he has endorsed his feeling with the decision of his will. At that point, something which before was only vague and perhaps subconscious has become an actual part of his being. A feeling has become a decision; an atmosphere has become an experience.

And that is what happens in general with our emotions. As we will see in the next article, I do believe we have some duty regarding them even in their basic form. But they do not become sins or virtues until they reach the point where they have the involvement of our will. In so far as emotions are merely emotions they have no moral quality. But before they become actions, they must receive the stamp of the will. And they can have that without ever becoming actions. We can endorse an emotion with our wills without ever having any intention of acting it out. That is the fundamental issue--what feelings do we chose to accept, do we choose to endorse?

If you like, you can put it this way. Emotions are not sins; they are opportunities. Every time we feel an emotion that is unChristian--when we feel anger at personal wrong or when we feel joy in another's misfortune--it is an opportunity to go into sin. Every time we feel a good emotion--when we fill pity for someone in need or sorrow for the lost--that is an opportunity to go into virtue. Emotions come knocking at the door of our soul, just as thoughts come to the door of our mind--the question in both cases is whether we will, with our volition, open the door and embrace them or steel ourselves against them. Someone has said: “You can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”