God's Anger and Ours (Part 4)

How could God have a real personality and not see what we see when we are sinned against, not thinking of sin as a theological abstraction, but as something that happens in a relationship?  This leads me to the core of what we've been thinking about together.

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One modality used in therapy is CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.  One way to approach therapy in this modality is  Albert Ellis' "A-B-C Theory."  

A=Activating Event

B=Belief about A

C=Consequent emotion and action.

Most people only see the connection between A and C, and they think A causes C.  For example, "I am angry (C) because my girlfriend doesn't help out with the dogs (A)"  As a future therapist, I would  help clients focus on or see the "B" belief that they are not putting into the equation, such as "If my girlfriend doesn't help with the dogs in the way that I want her to, she doesn't care about me."

So, cognitive behavioral therapy posits that it is not events that cause emotions and actions, but our thoughts and beliefs about the events.  If a brother received a phone call (activating event) stating that his sister had been in a horrible car accident, he would feel (consequent emotion) distress and thus want to get to where she is (consequent action.) But if the police called back (activating event) and said "Sir, we're sorry to distress you, we actually made a mistake.  Your sister is completely fine.  We had inaccurate information...," the brother would feel relief (consequent emotion) and thus thank God (consequent action.)  The only thing that changed in the brother's experience is what he believed about the activating event.  

Apply A-B-C theory to what I asked my pastor--about what God sees when I sin--or to questions about God's anger, judgment, and reaction to sinful people.  What we as a church seem to be teaching is that God's thoughts or beliefs about sin are drastically different from ours, misunderstanding verses like "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts; as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts about your thoughts."  We take this verse to mean that when we see black, God may in fact see white, or that God is arbitrary.  C.S. Lewis made it clear that this is illogical.  People would ask Lewis if God obeyed His own commandments, for example.  Lewis replied that God neither obeys nor creates His commands.  They are an expression of what He is.  God is not simply good, He is goodness.  So His commands (and thus emotions, which comes from his perceptions) are not arbitrary.  This is crucial to understanding God's anger and ours.

It means quite simply that God sees adultery like we see adultery.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that God is actually more hurt and angry than we are, that he feels things perfectly, and thus more intensely than us. For example, when David committed adultery with Bathsheba, God CONTINUALLY referred to Bathsheba as "Uriah's wife."  That sounds like God saw adultery exactly as it was.  He didn't take into account that David was "a man after his own heart," or that Bathsheba may have been lonely, etc.  He saw what David did for what it was, an evil act against God, Bathsheba, and Uriah--even against Israel, even against the unborn baby that died as a result of David's sinful act.  God saw and felt what we see and feel about an adulterous act.  Nathan's illustration to David to convict David of his sin makes the point even more.  David was furious about the illustration Nathan gave him, as any sane reader would be.  In other words, emotions have to be transferrable if they are real.  Nathan's illustration, and God's response through Nathan, showed that God saw and felt about adultery just as any person should see and feel about that evil act.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should take our feelings, multiply them by a bazillion infinities, and make that what God feels.  But I am saying that our emotions are reflections of his, so that when God perceives an evil act, He feels what we feel about it when we are in our right minds--He feels it even more so.

Again, as Christians, we say things like, "Well, God knows my heart...only He knows our motives...etc."  Apply this to my wife walking in on me having sex with another woman.  Does God see...the blood of Jesus?..."my heart/motives?"--which are....what exactly?...as I'm having sex with another woman and my angry wife watches?  Does God see "a hurt little boy who doesn't really know how to love because his mommy never loved him and so Olatunde tries to find love in women?"  Is that what my wife sees?  I'm sure every adulterer or adulteress has "sexual/emotional baggage."  I'm sure the slave masters who beat and raped black people had "baggage."  I'm sure Hitler had "baggage."  But does this change what God actually sees, perceives, feels, and does?  

Consider two illustrations of ABC Theory:

Illustration 1:

Activating Event:  Hitler puts Jews in gas chambers.

God's Belief about what Hitler did:  ????

God's consequent emotions and actions:  ????

Illustration 2:

Activating Event:  God's temple is being misused

Jesus' Belief: Zeal for God's house

Jesus Consequent emotions and actions:  Make a whip and drive out the money changers?

In these illustrations, I'm highlighting the false way I believe we as Christians tend to think about God's perceptions of sinful actions.  In illustration 1, we all know Hitler's actions were inexcusably evil, but we struggle to believe that God perceived those events like we do.  In Illustration 2, we use this example a lot to show that Jesus got angry, but I think we make his anger out to be a kind of Sunday school lesson; we don't believe that Jesus really felt genuine anger, like the anger we feel, but a perfect anger.  I'll say more about "perfect anger" in the climax of what I'm writing.

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Click HERE for Part 5