Dear Professor Theophilus:

I'm not a college student, but I appreciate your columns. Here's my question. How do Christians deal with defeat? You remind us that we are to combat sin of all kinds in our lives. The Christian life is a constant war against our sinful tendencies and against the evil one. Quite often we lose a battle. How do we deal with the discouragement that follows? Can discouragement become a sin in itself? How can we prevent ourselves from adopting an attitude of resignation — "I'll never drive sin completely from my life, so why try?" It seems to me from my own walk with God that this can become a convenient excuse — a "I'll never be completely rid of sin, so I may as well be lazy/lustful/proud this time."

Reply:

It is discouraging that we continue to sin. Yet, however uneven and unsteady our progress may be, by the grace of the Holy Spirit we do make progress, and we have the assurance that, one day, God's labor to sanctify us will be completed. Then, pure in heart, we will be among those who see God. We should abide in this thought. I'm glad you see that the struggle with sin is a real war. But our commanding general is Jesus Christ. Just recognizing this ought to make us lift our heads, like soldiers who hear the trumpet.

You ask whether discouragement can be a sin. Yes, I think it can. Of course there are different ways to be downcast. The sorrow that leads to repentance is a blazing grace of God which is followed by the joy of forgiveness, and we needn't fear it. But the moral torpor which tempts us to give up is a flaming dart of the adversary which is followed by despair, and we should battle it like an invader in our home. If you want to know how to battle it, read Ephesians 6. And don't be discouraged about your susceptibility to discouragement! Christ can defeat that too.

Traditionally, the sinful kind of discouragement was called "acedia" and considered one of the seven "cardinal" sins. Some people are tempted to acedia when they see the depth of sin in our cultural institutions. Others, perhaps like you, are more strongly tempted to it when they see the depth of their own sinful tendencies. A common element in both temptations is doubt in the sovereignty of God — doubt in His power to do what He says He will do, to establish His Kingdom both inside and outside of us. We imagine that sin is stronger than He is. But it isn't.

Right after Paul's description of the helplessness of sin in Romans 7, he says "What a wretched man I am!" and asks "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" But he answers himself instantly: "Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Just a chapter later he says "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I think you'll also be encouraged by the following quotations from the letters of C.S. Lewis.

1. "I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc. don't get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give it up. It is just when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of his presence." (Jan. 20, 1942.)

2. "The stories you tell . . . belong to a terribly familiar pattern: the man of good will, saddled with an abnormal desire which he never chose, fighting hard and time after time defeated. But I question whether in such a life the successful operation of Grace is so tiny as we think. Is not this continued avoidance either of presumption or despair, this ever renewed struggle itself a great triumph of Grace? Perhaps more so than the (to human eyes) equable virtue of some who are psychologically sound." (May 28, 1952.)

3. "You know what Luther said: ‘Do you doubt if you are chosen? Then say your prayers and you may conclude that you are.'" (Aug. 3, 1953.)

Grace and peace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

TORTURED

Dear Professor Theophilus:

I am a third-year student at a state university, and I'm writing for help with an issue that is absolutely torturing me. I read your article in First Things on conscience and I figured you could help me out. I feel like my conscience has become a dictator. I feel like it's not working properly.

For me, conscience is like God's voice. So whenever the slightest impulse comes to suggest that something is a sin, I sit down to think about it. Over the past year I've been consumed by extreme guilt concerning matters that my parents think are ridiculous.

Sometimes I think that I am not really led by the Spirit, but by emotions. For example, I feel guilty for listening to classical music because I think about the Apostle Paul's words in Ephesians 5:18-19 (NKJV): "And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." The first thought that comes to mind in this instance is that the music I am listening to isn't spiritual. But then the question "What is spiritual music?" comes to mind. I don't think that listening to classical music is wrong, but I constantly feel guilty to the point where I can't pray or carry on in my life.

I don't struggle with issues that the Bible clearly discusses, like lying, hatred, pride or keeping your mind clear of adulterous thoughts. In all these cases I am sure of what God wants from me. I am talking about issues that the Bible does not discuss. For example I feel the need to throw out one possession after another out of fear that they have become my idol, when in fact, deep down inside, I don't think I love the possession.

What is my problem? I have no one to talk to about this. My parents are genuine Christians but they just do not understand me. I don't know anyone that can help me with this issue. I came across the verse in Romans 14:23 which says, "But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not of faith is sin." My problem is that if I were to stop listening to music because I can't figure out if it's "spiritual" or not, I wouldn't be acting based on faith. In other words, I feel like I am sinning by listening to music and I would feel like I was sinning if I was to stop.

Moreover, I am terrorized by passages like 1 John 3:8-9, which says that no one born of God commits sin. I am terrorized by God's holiness. I am literally crushed. The more I read the Bible the more doubts I have about whether I am one of God's chosen. I am sure the Calvinist view is the orthodox one. But then I am not sure if I am chosen. Where do I turn for help? I know prayer is the way, but I feel like I need a mature person to guide me.

Reply:

I think you are asking seven different questions. Let's take them in order.

1. Is all this guilt and worrying appropriate or inappropriate? In your case, inappropriate. Of course, you should do your best to avoid sin, but when you have done your best to avoid it, and done your best to choose a path which is pleasing to God, then you should walk on that path boldly.

2. Assuming that it's inappropriate, what's my problem? The older Christian writers had a name for what you've fallen into: "Excessive scrupulosity." It's the habit of worrying too much, in small matters, about whether you might be sinning. It is actually a sin. One reason is that, by spending all your time worrying about whether your life is holy, you are leaving yourself no time to actually live a holy life. Another reason is that excessive scrupulosity diverts your attention from God to yourself; continuous worry about the possibility of sin is a form of self-absorption. (Now don't start feeling excessively guilty about excessive scrupulosity — just do something about it.)

3. Why do I have the problem? People fall into excessive scrupulosity for various reasons. Some fall into it because it gives them a feeling of being in control — every action is scrutinized. Others fall into it because there is some real guilt which they are trying not to think about, and it expresses itself by making them feel guilty even about things that are innocent. Still others worry too much about sinning for reasons for which they are not necessarily to blame — for example bad theology, something bad that has been done to them, or a psychological disorder. I don't know which of these reasons is behind your own tendency to be excessively scrupulous.

4. What can I do about it? That depends on why you've fallen into it. If excessive scrupulosity feeds a need to feel "in control," then practice the discipline of relaxing and yielding control to God. There lies freedom. If excessive scrupulosity results from some real guilt that you are trying not to think about, then repent and accept God's forgiveness. There too lies freedom. If you have been taught bad theology (for example, a theology which says God does not forgive repented sin for the believer who turns to Christ), then learn good theology. If you are suffering from something bad which has been done to you, or if you have a psychological disorder, then seek the assistance of a Christian professional who is qualified to help you with such a problem.

5. But is it really a problem? After all, how can I tell what's right in doubtful matters? It's not really that hard. There is such a thing as sanctified common sense — what the Bible calls "wisdom” — which supplements the Bible's explicit commands. For example, concerning classical music: Is there anything in it that inevitably leads us away from God? I don't think so. J.S. Bach inscribed his compositions "S.D.G." — Soli Deo Gloria — to the glory of God. As you enjoy classical music, you can inscribe your listening with the same thought. And concerning possessions: Of course it's good to live simply; luxury is one of the ways to make an idol of possessions. But to throw away all your possessions just out of fear is just another way to make an idol of them, because they are still ruling you. Either way you are making too much of them. Instead, take your possessions lightly, thinking less about possessions than about God and neighbor.

6. When I sin, am I right to be terrified of passages like 1 John 3:8-9, which says that no one born of God commits sin? No. John doesn't mean that if you ever discover that you've committed a single sin, you're going to hell and there is no point in repenting. He is talking about obstinate, unrepented sin — sin we refuse to give up. After all, it is the same John, in the same letter, who wrote "My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2). So: You should fear sin; you should fear obstinacy; and you should fear refusal to repent. But you should not fear that God does not desire your restoration, and you should not fear that He won't forgive you when you do repent.

7. If Calvinism is correct, then how can I know whether I am one of the elect? It goes beyond my office as "Theophilus" to declare whether Calvinism is correct or incorrect. But what Calvin taught was that certain people were foreordained never to repent, never to turn to Christ, never to persevere in faith, and never to receive the mercy of God. He never taught that someone could repent, turn to Christ, persevere in faith, and yet not receive the mercy of God.

Here is a prayer for you. "Oh, my God, my Rescuer, I hardly know how to find my own faults. The burden of them is intolerable. Forgive me for wrongs both known and unknown. Cleanse me from secret sins. When you cleanse me, I shall be clean indeed. Thank you for allowing me the release of confession, of forgiveness, and of new life. Thank you for your love, and for the assurance that I cannot be parted from it. Thank you for being the full and sufficient sacrifice for all my sin and guilt. I pray in the name of your son Jesus Christ, and in the help of His Spirit. Amen."

I'll pray for you too.

Grace and peace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

PERSONAL TO "EMPTY"

Dear Empty,

I won't print your original letter, partly because it was so long and detailed, and partly because I want to protect your identity. However, the answer I offered you might be helpful to other readers too, so here it is for the record.

Yes, you can be saved. In fact nothing in your letter suggests that you aren't saved. Certainly, nothing in your letter confirms your worry that you have committed the sin against the Holy Spirit. The problem is that you have agitated, unwanted thoughts, combined with a tendency to a morbid degree of self-examination. There is another issue, too, but I'll get to it later.

If I understand you, the sequence of events is something like this.

1. In certain moods, you just can't stop thinking. As though you have had too many espressos, your mind races through all sorts of ideas, images, and possibilities, both plausible and implausible.

2. While you are in this mood, there is no limit to the thoughts that might present themselves to you, so naturally some of them are deeply disturbing (like reality being an illusion) or contrary to the faith (like Jesus being just another man).

3. You try to banish these thoughts by good reasoning, but an argument can only refute a thought — it can't banish it. Besides, your mind is racing so fast that you can't always remember the arguments anyway. The sheer fact that you can't stop thinking about such disturbing possibilities makes you wonder "Could they be true?" And you can't get that thought out of your mind either.

4. Bitterly, you accuse yourself, viewing the unwanted thoughts and images as though they were deliberate acts against God. That makes you wonder if you have committed the unforgivable sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit, and so you worry that you are going to hell.

5. Finally, the fear of going to hell makes the "espresso" feeling even more intense, so you go 'round the cycle again — that is, until you crash.

Let's take these things one at a time. The first point is that an unwanted thought or image concerning God — however horrible — is not the same as a deliberate act against God. So you can stop worrying about that.

Another point is that a doubt about God is not in itself a sin. It is only a temptation to sin — a temptation to withdraw your trust from the Savior.

The next point is that if you have at some points withdrawn your trust from Christ, a repented withdrawal of trust is no different than any other repented sin. When we repent, we have an advocate with the Father — Jesus Christ, the righteous.

Finally, thinking or wondering terrible things about God is not the sin against the Holy Spirit. The sin against the Holy Spirit is doing what certain scribes and Pharisees did in Matthew 12 and Mark 3 — even knowing what they knew, they deliberately claimed that Jesus performed His miracles through the power of the devil.

Now I suspect that as soon as you read the previous paragraph, a thought came into your mind unbidden, declaring "Jesus did perform His miracles through the power of the devil!" That is not the sin against the Holy Spirit; it is just a thought racing through your mind, and that is just how you should think of it. Don't think "I am committing the sin against the Holy Spirit"; think "I am having another unwanted thought."

Jesus can support your doubting spirit in the deluge of unbidden thoughts and fears, just as He held up the doubting body of Peter in the deluge of water (Matthew 14:22-33). He isn't just standing aside watching; He has held you all this time and He will hold you still. Don't trust the water; trust the Lord of the water.

Here is another thing that may help you. You write,

... that is how I work through things intellectually. I mean, I don't feel comfortable accepting the existence of my best friend without having taken some time to really consider and take seriously that He just might not be there. I just wouldn't feel intellectually honest with myself if I did not consider that possibility and maybe even possibly accept it for a minute or two.

Intellectual honesty is good, but your idea of what intellectual dishonesty requires is mistaken. It is not dishonest to take some things for granted, like the reality of your best friend. Consider: To refuse to accept anything without proof is futile. The mind does not reason from the unknown to the known, but from the known to the unknown. In other words, in order to know anything, you must first believe something; in order to find out the truth about what you don't know, you must begin with what you do know.

For example, geometry uses axioms to prove theorems. The axioms themselves cannot be proven — but they don't need to be. They are what we already know and use to prove all the rest. Such starting points are called "first principles." You might say that we take them on faith. How remarkable that even reasoning depends on faith — faith that we really do know some things without having to prove them. It is the same with your friend. The mere facts that you can't prove his reality and find yourself able to doubt his reality don’t mean that you don't really know he exists.

However, you have been working on the opposite assumption. Just because anything can be doubted, you have been assuming that everything must be doubted as a point of intellectual honesty. What that means is that you are trying to reason without any first principles. That cannot be done; it is contrary to the relation God placed between the created intellect and the rest of created reality. It is like trying to pull yourself into the air by your shoestrings. Try as you might, you won't raise yourself up that way; you will only drive yourself frantic. So there is no need to doubt everything anymore.

At the beginning of the letter, I mentioned that I would also raise another issue with you. I would like you to ask a psychiatrist for an evaluation. Anyone may suffer unbidden thoughts at a certain time, or to a certain degree. Some people, however, have a condition of one kind or another which makes such thoughts more persistent and burdensome than the ordinary. If you do have such a condition, it needs to be diagnosed so that it can be treated. Do not try to diagnose yourself. I know that you have already tried a mild antidepressant, but there are several different conditions that can produce obsessive thoughts and "espresso" moods like those you have described, and they are not all treated in the same way. A Christian friend of mine, for example, receives medications for type II bipolar disorder. I'm not qualified to recommend treatments, but just tell the psychiatrist what you have told me. If you have already visited a psychiatrist, and it was he who prescribed the antidepressant, then see him again and explain what happened when you used it. Make sure he understands that you are still experiencing the obsessive thoughts and "espresso" moods.

Perhaps now the thought "Theophilus thinks I'm nuts!" is troubling you. Nope. I only think you are a young Christian man whom Jesus loves, whom He has gifted with unusual intelligence, and who has a problem which is too big for him to deal with all by himself. That can happen to anyone.

Christ be with you. Write again later to tell me how you are doing.

Grace and peace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

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