Dr Greg Bahnsen - The Place of Logic and Emotion: The Place of Emotion in Christian Thinking (Part2)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Two or three weeks ago I was with you on a Friday evening discussing Christianity and logic, the theology of logic and the logic of theology. And at that time it was requested that I come back and address what appears to be, anyway, a topic that is totally different and that is Christianity in emotion. And I think it's appropriate that we talk about it not simply as a counterbalance to having talked about logic, but because it's a subject which is short, I think, is very sorely in need of discussion in the reform community at large in these days. And as I go through my presentation this evening, I hope to make clear why that is. I want to begin by reading, however, a long paragraph from B.B. warfield, one of his shorter articles entitled Authority, Intellect and Heart. And I do this just as a way of indicating that Reformed theologians of note have always tried to present something of a balance or approach toward human nature. And it's important for Reformed people to do that because of such a tendency to overdo the intellect and doctrine and matters of authority and dispute and such things Theology and Warfield has this to say at the end of his article. Thus, authority, when pressed beyond its mark and becoming traditionalism, intellect, when puffed up into rationalism, and the heart, when swamped in mysticism, alike, illustrate the danger of one sided, consistent instruction. Authority, intellect and the heart are the three sides of the triangle of truth. How they interact is observable in any concrete instance of their operation. Authority in the Scriptures furnishes the matter which is received in the intellect and operates on the heart. The revelations of the Scriptures do not terminate upon the intellect. They were not given merely to enlighten the mind. They were given through the intellect to beautify the life. They terminate on the heart. Again, they do not, in affecting the heart, leave the intellect untouched. They cannot be fully understood by the intellect. Acting alone, the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. They must first convert the soul before they are fully comprehended by the intellect. Only as they are lived are they understood. Hence the phrase believe that you may understand and has its fullest validity. No man can intellectually grasp the full meaning of the revelations of authority, save as the result of an experience of their power in life. Hence, that the truths concerning divine things may be so comprehended that they may unite with a true system of divine truth. They must be first revealed in an authoritative word, second, experienced in a holy heart and third, formulated by a sanctified intellectual. Only as these three unite, then can we have a true theology, and equally, that these same truths may be so received that they beget in us a living religion. They must be first revealed in an authoritative word, second, apprehended by a sound intellect, and third, experienced in an instructed heart. Only as the three unite, then, can we have a vital religion. Now a problem arises for many people in Reformed circles over the question of the place of emotions in their lives. They ask this sort of should we ever follow our emotions? And that touches on the more general question in Christian ethics of guidance. We ask, what role should our emotions play in guiding us as Christians? Now, there are some who would say we should never follow our feelings. In fact, that has become, in the 20th century, something of a Reformed cliche. Don't ever follow your feelings. Now others insist that we should follow our feelings and not worry about our thoughts, our intellect, our doctrine. So tonight I'm asking, where should we stand on this issue? On the one hand, you have the mystical, if you will, Pentecostal approach to Christianity, where you follow your feelings and emotions. On the other hand, you have the icebox approach to Reformed theology that says no, you always douse your emotions and follow your inclinations as to intellect and doctrine. Now, in my teachings in Christian ethics, those of you who have read very much of my material or have heard me will know that I have a tendency to stress the interdependence of doctrine and life. There is a reciprocal relationship between one's use of the Word of God and. And the holiness of one's life. It's to our shame that so often we talk about the use of God's Word. And the holiness of life is supposed to come after when, as a matter of fact, the Bible also says that the holiness of one's life has a great deal to say about his ability to use and apprehend the Word of God. And so a better use of Scripture begets a better life, and a better life begets a better use of Scripture. There is a reciprocal relation there. Spiritual health, spiritual wisdom, spiritual discernment are grounded in doctrine, to be sure. And yet good doctrine, according to the Bible, stems from a good spiritual life. Now we can talk about hope as Christians, we can talk about faith as Christians, we can talk about love, we can talk about hatred, we can talk about any number of things, all of which amount to emotion in the Christian's life. These are certainly emotional aspects of our Christian lives. I don't wish to suggest that they are merely emotions, but I think they certainly are emotional in some respect. There are emotional aspects to all of them. There are many other emotions about which the Bible speaks, such as joy. Joy functions as a kind of motive. In the New Testament, you'll notice Hebrews 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. I mean, right there, there's probably half a year's worth of sermons, if you wanted to be very honest as to what that should do about our Christian life. There is Jesus despising the shame of the cross for the joy that was set before him. Jesus did all these things with an eye to the joy that was set before him. And we also have joy in the sense of an inward motive as Christians. Joy is an indwelling motive. John 15:11. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. In Galatians 5:22, you notice that joy comes after love and the fruit of the Spirit. And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, etc. So there are many emotions which function in the Scriptures in ethical ways, function in ethical context, function as ethical motives for our lives. Scripture, of course, doesn't deal with the emotions as an independent item of concern or problem or topic. You won't find some chapter in the book of Colossians or somewhere else in the Bible that talks about the emotions. But of course you won't find any chapter in the Bible, as far as I know, that deals with the intellect either, or the will or the systematic theology or the logic. I mean, the Bible doesn't deal with separate matters in that way. Yet we should remember that Scripture does deal with a lot of concepts, which I think in our ordinary language, we're inclined to call emotional concepts. The Bible deals with a lot of particular emotions like grief and joy and awe and terror and anxiety and woe and happiness and hatred and love and trust. And the list goes on and on. Now, if being a Christian, if living the Christian life involves a regenerate heart and the beginnings of sanctification, you know that I think that it does. If living the Christian life involves a regenerate heart and the beginnings of sanctification, if it involves the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us, then a real change of life, in other words, has got to take place. Then there is a sense in which the Christian life involves Christian emotions, Christian passions, and involves a change in our emotional life. When you are born again, you see, you come to love Christ and you come to hate evil. Initially, it seems to me there is no reason to assume that a knowledge of the facts either precedes or follows those Christian emotions. I'm not of the conviction that one comes first of all to a certain knowledge about good and evil and then after that generates a certain feeling about good and evil. Seems to me these come as a package, part of a package deal. When the Holy Spirit takes over a man's life, he works, changes in the whole of life. And there's no particular reason to say that he works in the intellect first and then by means of the intellectual, he gets into the rest of us. You see, he goes kind of like through our brain and then finally gets to our heart. I just don't see that as a biblical picture. It seems to me that the whole picture is interdependent. It's interconnected. The Holy Spirit operates on the whole man, the whole process of human living. So the Lord opens up a whole new package of responses, a whole new way of living, a whole new life for us. And you get a whole new way of life through the word of God. And that means you get a whole new emotional structure and an outlook on emotions. So according to Scripture, regeneration reorients our emotional life. There must be a reorientation in our emotions. If we're Christians, we learn to love God and to hate evil, to rejoice in the good, to be content in the face of difficulty. The very opposite of unbelieving emotional dispositions. You notice that the Bible presents the Christian as able to respond in ways which the unbeliever is unable to respond in. The unbeliever will not hate evil. The unbeliever will sorrow unto death. But the unbeliever is not true of him. Now, regeneration, I'm not saying regeneration does not necessarily make us more emotional or less emotional than we would ordinarily be. I think we have to assume in this respect that believers will differ from one another. That isn't to say that when you become a Christian, everybody's the same emotional cast. On the other hand, our emotional life, however active it may be, is now the Lord's. The Lord now owns your emotional life, and thus your joys and your sorrows and your pains and your hatreds, your loves and all the rest are different from what they would have been if he had not been converted. The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches us that sanctification, moreover not only does regeneration involve a reorientation, but sanctification is throughout the man. In chapter 13, section two of the confession, which is on sanctification, we read these words. This sanctification is throughout the the whole man, he goes on to say, yet it's imperfect in this life, etc. In the larger catechism at question 75 reiterates the same teaching. There we sanctification is a work of God's grace, whereby they whom God hath before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are in time through the powerful operation of his spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God. And that's why those who are regenerate, those who are being sanctified, those who have saving faith, are going to respond to different portions of the Bible in different ways. You know, the way we respond to the Bible in saving faith is not merely to assent to the words found in the Bible. We also have a certain emotional reaction to those words. In The Confession, Chapter 14, Section 2, on Saving Faith, the authors write, by this faith a Christian believeth to be true. Whatsoever is revealed in the word of God, for the authority of God himself speaking therein. And here's the crucial point. And acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. So you have not only believing these things, but you're to tremble at the threats. You're to embrace the promises in hope. You're to sing the psalms with praise. You're to sorrow with those who are sorrowing. You're supposed to hate the evil that the Bible sets before you. You're supposed to laugh at the jokes that the Bible tells. And by the way, there are jokes in the Bible. I don't know why. It is so often in sermons we can overlook some of the most humorous aspects of what Jesus had to teach. I mean, he really was able to taunt and kid his opponents. But nevertheless, there are all these different functions of language in the Bible and we're supposed to respond differently to them. And I say that's a confessional outlook. It's not simply that just in this 20th century we're coming to finally now, some people suggest that you cannot teach feelings, that feelings are things that just sort of happen to you. The slogan is, you cannot help the way you feel, okay? So you tell somebody, okay, now cheer up. I can't help the way I Feel, you know, or, you know, calm down. Well, I can't help it if I'm excited.

Something like that.

Hegel said. The philosopher Hegel said that Christianity is much worse than Judaism as a religion, because while Judaism commands behavior, Christianity actually goes so far as to command feelings. And Hegel the rationalist, thought that was terrible. You see, Christianity commands you to love, to be joyful, to sorrow, not as those who have no hope, by the way the Bible says, not as unbelievers sorrow, but to sorrow in some other way. Presumably Christianity commands emotions, and Hegel thought that was incredible because you can't help the way you feel. You. You cannot command someone to feel a certain way. You cannot teach someone to feel a certain way. And so in his early theological writings, Hegel says that Christianity is a more reprehensible, authoritarian religion than even Judaism, because Christianity goes so far as to even command emotions, feelings. And there, I think we have very clear contrast between the secular mindset and the biblical mindset, because the Bible teaches us a view of human nature that says that we certainly can teach and mold our emotions. The biblical teaching certainly is that emotions can be commanded, emotions can be taught. Our emotions are things for which we are responsible. In fact, Scripture assumes that feelings ought to be changed to conform to God's will and. And that they can be changed by thought, by new habits, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Scripture teaches about the emotions not only by commanding us to change our emotions, but also by presenting sin and its true ugliness, presenting the new life in Christ as something beautiful and delightful. And so, you see, there's something of a rationale here, I think, for emotive sermons. Our sermons ought to appeal to the emotions and show us the ugliness of sin and the beauty of new life in Christ. If you love the devil and the world in sin, if you are passionately attracted to them, the Bible says God is displeased with you. And on the other hand, if the word of God is your delight, if you love your Christian brothers, if you sorrow not as those who have no hope, if your sorrow is a godly sorrow, then God is pleased with you. Notice how much of Scripture is devoted to arousing the emotions of the reader. You see, you may be inclined to use the Scriptures in a very didactic teaching way, simply telling people what the responsibilities are. You see, we stand up before people. We say, now this is what God wants you to do. Go out, do it. But Scripture has so many other functions, and so much of Scripture is given to really, you see, inspire us to motivate us. They change the way we feel about things. I think in this sense, you can contrast the Bible with a lot of secular literature. You see, we see so many books, television programs, movies, literature which go out of their way, I think, to portray sin as a glamorous thing, Something beautiful, enjoyable, some kind of really neat experience. And even when they admit that it is wrong to do what they are promoting these programs or books or what have you at least presented as turning out to be a kind of delightful wrong. As if a righteous person is really missing out on a lot of joy in living, missing out on a lot of thrill. I mean, you only go out. You only go around once in life, right? So grab for all the gusto you can get. Now, in Scripture, we have an alternative emotional reaction to the things of the world. However, notice that scriptural literature doesn't write. It doesn't come across this way. We have these matters very explicitly reflected on. I want you to look at the narrative of the fall. For instance, in Genesis 3, you notice Satan is tempting Eve. And in part, he is tempting Eve. By a kind of emotional recommendation of the forbidden fruit. Satan might be called the first hard sell advertiser in that sense. Notice there's a lot of emotional terminology here. Eve looks at the fruit, discovers that it is good for food. And it seemed like it would be tasty to her. It seemed like it would be kind of nice to eat it. It was a delight to the eyes. She said. So you have the concept of beauty being brought in here. And it was desirable to make one wise. It's a kind of lust for knowledge or a lust for wisdom. And Eve was a kind of connoisseur of beauty in that situation. A kind of gourmet. And of course, the fruit, as God had made it, was beautiful. The mistake that Eve made was in the subtle linking of that created beauty. With the supposed pleasure that might come from breaking God's commandment. And so I think Scripture makes it clear that there's kind of an aesthetic adventure Eve took part in. It brought her very low emotionally. However, in the end. And so immediately we find a kind of shame, a sexual shame between the man and the woman. Also between man and woman and God. There's a kind of fear of God's presence that grips them. And so they run from the voice of God in the garden. So again, there's another emotion, a kind of hatred for one another. As each other blames the other for the situation in which they find themselves. And so Just look at the fall of man, the emotional fall of man. There is Eve tempted by the beauty of the fruit and this lust for knowledge and this aesthetic, kind of gourmet approach to life. The idea that it was going to make her high, she was really going to be something great, she was going to be happy if she ate the fruit. But she and her husband became low emotionally. They felt shame, they felt fear, they felt hatred, all as a result of eating the fruit. It seems to me that the Scripture teaches us about emotions not only by telling us to change our emotions and to have them reformed by the word of God, but the Scripture is a very emotional book in itself. It presents sin in its ugliness. It presents the life in Christ in its beauty. Now, when we read about Christ coming into the world, moreover, we see that he came in part to give us new emotions. Some people sort of get upset when you preach that Christ came to give us new emotions. And you have to make a few qualifications at that point, like I already have. Some people would just hate to think that redemption makes them kind of emotional, that makes them kind of excited about the Lord. You know, you preach to some Calvinist and you preach the idea that you have to be emotional about the Lord to some Calvinist and you may not get along too well. I've already granted that some people are not as emotional as other people. Not all people are equally emotional any more than all people are equally intellectual, by the way. And so when you talk about emotions, some people are not going to be as emotional as others. Some people feel comfortable clapping their hands and whatnot, and some people don't. But I think the point has got to be made nonetheless, that our emotions, whatever they are, and however great their intensity, must be brought captive to Jesus Christ. They must become Christian emotions instead of non Christian emotions. We must learn to take delight in the things that God takes delight in. We learn, therefore, to feel differently about different situations. Jesus comes to give us, among other things, new emotions. The regenerate man learns to feel differently about things than the unregenerate man. He learns to weep with them that weep, to rejoice with them that rejoice, or more fundamentally, to rejoice when God rejoices and to weep when God weeps. Doctrine as the teaching of the Word of God can, therefore. And it ought to help us develop Christian emotions. It ought to impress us with the need that we have for changing our emotional lives. It ought to inspire us, it ought to make us weep, it ought to make us joyful. I think in a real sense that true preaching of the Word of God, true doctrine must present to us the emotional life of our Lord. I wish I had time tonight to go through B.B. warfield's article by that title. I don't, but let me recommend that you pick it up and read it. BB Warfield, the Emotional Life of Our Lord. An excellent article talking about the emotions of Christ. And I bring that to your attention because there is a teaching in Reformed circles these days, promoted especially by Gordon Clark, that says that God himself is really without passion, without emotions. God is logic, pure and simple. God is thought or mind, and the idea of emotion is something that's associated with human nature. Now, Clark, when he was speaking at Reformed Seminary shortly after I came, gave some lectures in which he spoke to this issue. He said that Christ had emotions because Christ was a human being as well as God, but that God himself, pure and simple, does not have emotions. And yet, if you read Warfield, the Emotional Life of Our Lord, I think it will be clear that what we see in the emotions of Jesus Christ is not the effects of sin are the effects of human nature, but rather what we have expressed in human nature are the emotions of God. Jesus responds as God would respond to this or that situation. He shows us on a human plane, God's own response to things. I think maybe I should take just a moment to say something about the Westminster Confession of Faith in Chapter two, because there we read the statement that God is without passions, and that's been subject to, I think, misunderstanding. Chapter two of the confession says there is but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure Spirit, invisible, without body, hearts or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, Almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and withal, most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. But now, part of that little statement about God is that he is without passions. Now, what are we to make of this emotion in the Christian life? How are we to imitate God if God is without passions after all? Well, in the first place, you must understand that the writers of the confession were not promoting a cold, Calvinistic God here. They were not trying to teach us that God was without emotions. Now, there are three suggestions, three possible ways of interpreting this passage in the confession of faith. The one says that God is without passions, means that God is without suffering. See, the Latin word patior, from which we get passions, means to suffer, to undergo some kind of experience. And the idea then would be that God is impassible. He does not experience things, he does not suffer things. The difficulty is that I don't think there's any support in the context of the confession for that interpretation. There seems no reason for their authors to be addressing that subject, and there's nothing in the proof text or in the context to suggest it. A second alternative is that God is without uncontrollable emotions, which is the most common idea in most of the commentators on the confession. What that means is God does not find himself out of control in emotion. He's not without passions that carry him away. And there's some support to that. One of the proof texts suggested Here is Acts 14:11. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lysania, the gods are come down to us in the likeness of men, and saying, sirs, why do you do these things? We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that you turn from vanities unto the living and true God. We are of like passions with you. Don't attribute to us godliness, don't think that we are gods. We are just like you. We have passions like your own. So a lot of people have interpreted the confession to say that while men have passions that can carry them away, God does not have lustful emotions that just consume Him. Now, while that is a popular idea, I want to suggest to you a third alternative tonight, one which I think comes a lot closer to the context of what's being presented here, and also the language of the 17th century, which is very important. Thirdly, we can say that God does not have passions, means that he does not have the attributes of a body, that God is passive in the sense that he does not have bodily attributes. You say, well, that's a strange way of saying that. Well, in the 20th century it certainly would be, but I think it's suggested by the context. First of all, listen, there's but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body parts or passions, immutable, etc. So, right in context, it's the spirituality of God that's being stressed. He's invisible. You can't see him he's without body, he's without parts, he's without passions. Now, that doesn't prove my point, but it certainly shows in context that this could be one of the ideas being suggested. Now, I want to go ahead and confirm that, however, by noting that in the 17th century, the term passion often was used in the sense of a passive property or attribute of something, especially a passive property of a body. And so you'll read in 17th century Literature phrases like the passions of a triangle. And nothing could be further from a 20th century use of the word passion. If you spoke of the passions of a triangle, you would obviously have to be joking. Triangles don't have emotions. But here the word passion, you see, doesn't mean emotion. It means the attributes of a triangle. Their passions are things like the extension of a body or the weight of a body. The Oxford English Dictionary, if you want to check me out here, if you look under passion, definition 5b, speaks of passions of metals, passions of water, passions of parallelograms, passions of bodies. Okay, so now when Was this written? 17th century. Here's the use of passion in the 17th century. God is without passions means he's without the attributes of a physical body, which is right in context. He's a most pure spirit, invisible, without body parts or passions. Okay, that's something of an excursion because when you run across that statement in the confession of faith, it's easy to fall prey to Gordon Clark's idea that God doesn't really have emotions, only Jesus has emotions because he was human. Humans have emotions, but that's really not dignified. That's not the way God would be God. It's logic and mind and intellectual. But as a matter of fact, if you read the Bible, God has emotions, God grieves at sin. God hates rebellion, God loves his people, God weeps, God rejoices, God laughs. So the Bible presents an emotional God to us. And as B.B. warfield wrote, which is where I took off in this point, we can read of the emotional life of our Lord as well. So true preaching ought to present to us the richness of our emotional experience as you find it in the lives of the Bible characters and the Lord himself. And through all these different means, theology, doctrine, teaching of the Bible ought to work to change our emotional makeup. And that's how we come to grow in emotions. Okay, now we could leave it at that. But you see, now there's got to. If you're thinking along this subject with me, there have got to be some questions that are being raised in your mind. What if it happens that our emotions beat our intellect to the punch? What if there's a discrepancy, you see? What if there's a discrepancy between our emotional feelings about something and our intellectual understanding of that thing? I find Calvinists are very. What, reluctant to admit that this sort of thing happens. But let's admit it. It happens. Sometimes our emotions get the best of us. I mean, our intellect says one thing and our emotions are saying another. That just happens. Sometimes. It'd be nice to say that there should be no conflict, and of course there should be no conflict. But sometimes there is. Sometimes we find ourselves enjoying something which perhaps our theory would lead us to believe we shouldn't enjoy. Sometimes we find ourselves rejoicing at something which up until that point, we hadn't expected to rejoice in. Perhaps even something theologically dubious, which up to that point has struck us as being theologically wrong. Say you come from a Reformed church. You've grown up in a Calvinistic environment, and you've been raised all your life to think that worship ought to be of a certain kind and that only Reformed worship is truly aware of the majesty and the dignity of God. And then you find yourself someday in a Pentecostal meeting, actually enjoying it, actually rejoicing when these people rejoice. Now, you see you're in a difficult situation. You say, my theology says this doesn't respect the majesty and the dignity. God, my feelings are such. There's something right about this. We should rejoice like these people rejoice. So what do you do? Okay. Gordon Clark says, well, you simply throw a bucket of cold water on your emotions in the name of your theory and say, this is simply a temptation from Satan. This is simply a lapse in my sanctification. I should not be feeling that way. And therefore I will simply grit my teeth and frown and walk out. Now we can laugh. But you see, there are people who take that kind of approach. I think Gordon Clark, in some of his writings, takes that kind of approach. Some of you may have heard of an article he wrote, one of his earlier articles, the Primacy of the Intellect, it's entitled, where he argues that our emotions must be subject to our intellect at all times. And he says, if our emotions are not subject to our intellect, then we'll always be in the danger of skepticism. And then he points out that different philosophies are bad philosophies just because they don't properly subject the emotions to the intellect. And then he says, but Christianity does subject the emotions to the intellect. So it's a very proper philosophy. It does demand that our emotions be subject to the intellect. Therefore, Christianity saves us from this terrible possibility of skepticism. Well, that was an early article of Gordon Clark's. Later in his book Religion, Reason and Revelation, Clark says that we shouldn't talk so much about the primacy of the intellect. After all, what he says is we should talk about. He's not going to correct himself very much. We should talk about the primacy of truth, and we ought to insist upon the unity of the personality, he says. I think Clark is recognizing that in his earlier writings. He is assuming that man is made up of will, emotion, and intellect. Kind of this tripartite three parts to man. And if you have that view of man, you want the intellect to dominate, to be sure. But now Clark still wants the intellect to dominate, but he doesn't want to be held to this really. This faculty psychology that was really becoming outmoded and disputed in most psychological texts by the time he wrote his next book. And so he talks about the primacy of truth, insisting upon the unity of personality. He doesn't like anymore to make such a sharp distinction between intellect and emotions. Nevertheless, there is still some of the same emphasis in this later Clark as there was in the early Clark. He reprobates Kierkegaard as a philosopher, for instance, because Kierkegaard was an emotionalist, primarily because Kierkegaard made his intellectual judgment subject in some sense, to his emotional attitudes. So I think that even the more recent Gordon Clark would say that in a situation such as the one I've described, you're in the meeting, you're rejoicing with these Pentecostalists, but your intellect tells you it's wrong. He would say you ought to follow your intellect and sort of scold yourself for enjoying something your intellect tells you you should not en. And I have rather strong doubts about that point of view. I don't think scripture ever suggests that emotions in general must be subordinated to reason or that reason should be subordinated to the emotions. Greek philosophers thought that the emotions should be made subject to the reason. And later philosophers like David Hume felt that reason ought to be made subject to the emotions. But I don't think the scripture takes that unbalanced approach to either one. The emotions and the reason ought to agree, to be sure. But sometimes disagreements arise. And these disagreements between emotions and reason are best understood, I think, as disagreements between one set of emotion reasons and another set of emotion reasons. I don't think you can have emotion and reasons separated into these nice watertight compartments. So what you have is one emotional reasonable response and another emotional reasonable response. In conflict, one set will have a more emotional cast to it, the other a more rational set. But neither one will be totally devoid of either emotion or reason. Now, in cases where reason and emotion disagree, the resolution may involve a better analysis or a better, more godly emotional response to the previous analysis of our situation. Okay, so you're in the situation. Your mind says one thing, your emotions say another. Now, as you analyze, it may turn out that you've got to change your analysis. You were just wrong in the way you looked at it. Or it may be that your emotional response has got to be changed. The direction of the solution, I don't think, is dictated by the nature of the relationship between reason and emotion. You can't say there's one standard stereotyped move whereby we resolve these kind of disagreements. Okay, so you're persuaded rationally there can be no good in Pentecostal worship. But then you attend the service, you find yourself surprisingly clapping along with the people, singing, shouting amen from the heart. Now, do you simply rebuke your emotions because they contradicted your intellect? Do you simply abandon your previous conviction because it no longer feels right? I mean, those are extremes, right? A person can say, well, now look, it sure feels good, so my thought must have been wrong. On the other hand, you can say, now look, my thought says it's wrong, so I shouldn't feel this way. And the answer is neither. That's just too easy. That's just too path. That's just too stereotype. The resolution does not take any one set normal way of resolution. And so the answer is, well, to think through the situation, pray about the situation, Study the scripture again, train yourself in godly emotions. The resolution, it seems to me, can go either way. I have strong doubts about the idea that we should follow our emotions over our mind or follow our mind over our emotions, because it seems to assume these pat approaches that the intellect is always more sanctified than the emotions or vice versa. But I think one can legitimately doubt that from a study of scripture. There's no reason to think that our intellectual is automatically more sanctified than our emotions. There's something of an interesting contrasting position to that of Gordon Clark's to be found in Dr. Van Till's introduction to Christian theology, pages 32 to 36 of that introduction to Christian Theology. Van Till speaks of the primacy of the intellect. And I won't have time to read these for you. But I would like to just summarize my markings because it's a very valuable discussion. He's not talking about Clark per se. He's talking about Charles Hodge and the idea of the primacy of the intellect. And what Van Til says is, as the various aspects of the human personality together constitute a unity, that unity as a whole is the analog of the unity that constitutes the being or personality of God. And it follows that there is no aspect of human personality that has any higher metaphysical standing than any other. This, of course, is not to deny that there's a primacy of economy. There may be a working between the mind and the will and the feelings and so forth, but nobody can say that somehow the intellect is higher metaphysically, that it has a greater dignity or a higher standing in the eyes of God. As the whole of created human personality was willingly subject to God before the Fall. The primacy of the intellect over the will and the affections is naturally one of economy, not one of being. One subject rules over another subject for the sake of and in obedience to their common master. So Van Til here is recognizing that the intellect, the will and the emotions before the Fall had all one master, and they worked together harmoniously to serve the one Lord. Now after the Fall, you have the doctrine of total depravity. Total depravity means that man is depraved throughout his being. That includes his intellect as well as his emotions. But against that Christian conception, Van Till points to the primacy of intellect that hails from the ancient philosophers. And he says, the ancient philosophers. And he goes through Calvin, showing how Calvin recognizes the ancient philosophers always thought there was something wrong with the emotions and the will of man, and it was to be made right by subjecting them to the reason of man. But what's the false assumption there? The false assumption is that somehow reason is better off than the emotions. But that is just to deny total depravity. If you really believe in total depravity, you can't assume that just by making man more intellectual, you're going to make him more godly. And so I think Van Till really has a good corrective to Gordon Clark's emphases here. I remember reading in Plato in the Phaedrus, Plato speaks of these three parts of man as the intellect or the reason, and the emotions, or the feelings, and then the appetites and the body and will. And Plato likens these three things to two horses and a charioteer. He says, you have these two horses One is this noble white steed. You know, this is feeling. And when aroused and controlled, this white horse will take you to the right place. And it's really quite a grand thing. Then there's the body and will and the appetites and all that. And he calls that a gray, ugly, bloodshot eyes kind of horse that you just have to beat to get to do the right things and all that. But then there's got to be a charioteer that controls both these horses and makes them work together. And what's the charioteer? What's left? Reason. So if reason's got the reins as the charioteer, then these other horses, emotion and the rest will be controlled. But Vantil says that's wrong. That's to assume that somehow reason is in a more dignified position, that it's not depraved. Mantill's argument that man is made in the image of God. And just as in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there's an equality of power, glory, an equality of honor and sovereignty and equality in their divine attributes. Therefore none of them is ontologically subordinate to one or the other. So also in man there ought to be an equal ultimacy of these things. We shouldn't think that the intellect is higher in being or dignity or glory or sovereignty in the human nature than are the emotions or what have you. Whatever aspects there may be to man's being are ontologically equal to one another. There are none of them that needs to be subordinate by its very nature to the others. You cannot say that the emotions are inherently unruly, as the Greeks said. For instance, the Greeks argued that the emotions are inherently unruly. They must be brought under dominion of the intellect. And essentially that's what Clark attributes to Christianity. Christianity sees his mouthing Plato all over again. And Vantil says, no, you can't make that kind of judgment. You can't say the emotions are inherently unruly. You can't say that the emotions are any more sinful, or that the intellect is any more sinful or anything like that. Man is created as a complete human being with all his faculties in order, with all of his faculties subject to the law of God. And salvation then does not come about through the subordination of one aspect of man to another aspect of man. Salvation doesn't mean quelling your emotions in the name of intellect and reason. It doesn't come about, as the trichotomous scheme would suggest, with man, by subordination of the body and soul to the Spirit, that is not the way redemption works. Redemption is redemption of the whole personality. Redemption of all of our faculties together. So let me reiterate then. Scripture doesn't ever suggest. That the emotions are naturally more sinful or less sanctified than the reason or the other way around. Man as a whole is depraved. Man as a whole is redeemed. At some particular point, however, emotion may signal an inadequacy in our reasoning. And at some particular point, reason can signal an inadequacy in our emotions. We've got to check and balance them against each other. Assuming that, however, you can say that there are some varieties of subordination. That is to say that emotions ought to. To be in accord with what the intellect regards as true. We have to go on to say that there ought to be a mutual subordination. The emotions ought to recognize what the intellect seems to be true. But it also works the other way around. The intellect, I think, should affirm those realities which are felt by our emotions. So that when you feel something, you feel it for a reason. That feeling is a kind of sensitivity. It's a kind of conception, a kind of realization of something in the world. And I think the intellect ought to take that into account. When it formulates its own understanding of reality. So there are various kinds of ways in which we have to work. In order to bring all of our faculties into accord with one another. As the Lord works in us to remove the effects of sin from our lives. And the practical implication of that seems to be that when a conflict arises between the emotions and the intellectual. We shouldn't blindly follow our feelings. Nor should we throw cold water on them in the name of reason. First, recognize there's a problem. Realize there's something wrong. And we must recognize that what is wrong may not be obvious on the surface. It needs some resolution, some thinking and some praying about it. Perhaps our feelings under the nurture of God's Word. Have become sensitive enough to respond to certain factors in the situation. That our intellect has not yet conceptualized. And that often happens. I think that, by the way, in my illustration. Is what usually happens. Our reformed conception of worship. Prevents us from clapping our hands, saying Amen. Feeling the rejoicing that the Pentecostalists. And yet, when you go into a Pentecostal service. For all of the abuses that you might want to correct doctrinally. You can nevertheless feel something from these people. And it's right. And I think what we have to say is that our emotions are comprehending something. Under the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit that our minds have not run to yet. The emotions have in fact beat our intellect to the punch. I think that happens. Think of the ways you learn things in life. Take the process of reading a book. Think of how your feelings and your ideas are interdependent.

When you read a book.

When you read through a book, you get a feeling about it, don't you? Very often you say that this is good. I really like it. I really resonate to this or that in the book. Or you say, that's terrible. And when you go back and look at it again and try to figure out just what it is that was so terrible about it, you're not quite sure. And then if you don't feel anything at all, you would never go on with the book. You might read page one and put the book down. Not have any sympathy for the book, any criticism of the book, any good feeling, any bad feeling. You may not even read it now. You wouldn't see any need to read it at all if that happened. But your feelings sort of guide your evaluations more often than not. Generally, you don't reason out an evaluation and then say, I don't like that. Rather, the feeling very often precedes the analysis, the intellectual analysis. And the feeling is one of the instruments by which the analysis proceeds. There's a great deal of interaction. As you get to analyze it more clearly, your feelings may change. You go back and you reread it. You say, oh, well, I didn't feel right about that. You may say to yourself, well, I thought that was pretty terrible. Well, now that I've thought about it and read it again, it really isn't so bad after all. It might, in fact, be a pretty good idea. And when you start thinking along those lines and your feelings may change again and your analysis may change as you redo your analysis, all of a sudden you come to a different feeling about the book. So I think there's a great deal of interweaving and interaction between our emotional lives and our intellectual lives. So much so that we might just be wise to question the idea that there's a total separation of emotion and reason. The important point is that there's a hermeneutical circle between our feelings and our intellectual interpretation, interaction. As I interact with the book, my emotions may be guiding me. As I look at those emotions, I may change them on the basis of a better analysis. And there's just kind of this interaction, this mutual or reciprocal relationship. Now, one more point has to be made. Before I stop tonight, obviously the only norms we have to live by as Christians are scriptural norms. I'm not suggesting tonight in the slightest that we have any norms that go beyond the Bible. That is, that we can live by our emotions means that whatever feels good is right. I think that there is a very important point to be made in ethics, that Scripture is sufficient for every good work, for every good deed. 2nd Timothy 3, 17. All scripture is inspired of God profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work, Scripture is utterly sufficient. So any position that says that we must get new norms from some other source, whether it be Scripture, excuse me, whether it be reason or emotion, has got to be wrong. But on the other hand, we must always remember that the Scripture has got to be read, it's got to be applied, it's got to be understood. And we must be able to perceive how those norms bind us in particular situations. And for that task, God gives us various ways of our intellect as well as our emotions. So we can talk about wisdom as Christians. We can talk about knowledge or perception or spiritual sensitivity or spiritual growth as a means of opening our eyes and seeing how the norms of God's word relate to our particular situations in life. And it may turn out there are certain experiences in which you suddenly perceive the relevance of the scriptural norm to a particular moral situation. And that can come. That perception can come in a lot of ways, even through your emotions. It could come through your feelings. So don't despise your feelings. Don't rule out your feelings. Our feelings are, after all, God given. If we feel in a strange way about something, maybe the Lord is trying to make us sensitive to something in our situation to help us see how His Word applies to it. So it seems that guidance is not purely an intellectual matter. That guidance can, in a very real sense be an emotional matter for the Christian as well. Okay, I may not be saying things that you're used to hearing, and I may not be saying things that you like, may not be saying things that you understand. So let me give a few minutes for you to question all of this.

Yeah, I believe that John Bunyan had two characters, passion and patience. That story was allegory, was written in the 17th century also, I think. Did he use the word passion there in the more as we would understand the 20th century meaning.

I would have to go and look at Bunyan. I just couldn't answer that off the cuff. My guess is that probably so. Now, remember, I didn't say the 17th century couldn't use the word passion as emotion. What I'm saying is we must understand they have technical use for property of a body also.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to clarify.

And in the context of the confession of faith, I think it's clear that's what is being said. Well, now, two or three weeks ago, when I was talking about logic, we had a lot of questions about logic. It can be that emotion is so much more difficult that you don't have any to ask about that. Yes, sir.

You mentioned or you quoted an introduction to Van Till made in a book called Christian Theology.

Yes.

Which book is.

That's Introduction to Systematic Theology by Van Till. It's a course and it's now available in the Dim Dalp foundation series. It's putting out Van Til's writings. You can get it at the discount bookstore.

Or order it from PNR.

In.

Chapter two, in which he talks about the primacy of the intellect.

Let's take the example of being in the Pentecostal meeting because I have charismatic people in my family and, you know, they just are convinced that I don't have the Spirit in so many words.

Not quite that harshly.

But it's so hard to get involved with the routine when you feel like by saying, by getting involved with the routine and acting like them, you feel like you're endorsing everything else that's going on. Because in a sense what you're doing is praising not only the Lord as you agree to find, or some common denominator of truth that really is truth, but then those divergencies, those areas that you don't agree upon, which you don't feel biblical, which are either being said or applied in their actions or in the preaching and all the praise is an endorsement of that.

Well, now remember, I'm not talking about praising Pentecostalists.

I'm not saying if you're in the meeting and you're talking about joining in and my feelings said, it looks all right. But you should I or shouldn't I?

Well, my feeling on that is that the abuses of Pentecostalism, or what have you, other Christian groups could be used as an illustration. That's just the one I chose. But the abuses ought not to keep us from endorsing that which is proper and good in it. Often enough we throw out the baby with the bath water, if you understand that. For instance, the Roman Catholic Church has the celebration of the Mass of Christ, which we call Christmas Christ Mass and many Puritans refused to celebrate Christmas. In fact, Christmas was not celebrated as a Protestant holiday in this country. It's been less than 100 years that it's been celebrated in this country as a Protestant holiday. And the reason for that is because there was such a reaction to the Mass that Christmas and other Roman holidays, Romanist Roman Catholic holidays, were tossed out as a way of showing our denunciation of Romanist theology. Now, it seems to me there's a very good reason why, or there's at least an appropriateness to celebrating the Incarnation or Easter or what have you. And the fact that we want to dispute with Roman Catholics their theology and even their doctrine of the Mass does not mean that we cannot celebrate the Incarnation of the Resurrection and make some special point of it. I mean, there may be separate grounds for which we can do this. Likewise, in our own services of worship, it seems to me we can incorporate those elements which are proper in Pentecostalism. You know, the joy of the Lord and the ability to express your emotions without going to the extremes or the abuses of Pentecostalism. And all I was suggesting in my illustration about going to a Pentecostal service, because that shows you that sometimes your emotions can beat your intellect to the punch. I think that's true with me. I mean, I knew the errors of Pentecostalism, and nevertheless I rejoiced with these people when I was with them. And that causes you to say, what's wrong here? I mean, obviously there's something wrong with my emotions, right? No, it's not obvious at all. It may be that my analysis of the errors of Pentecostalism led me to believe there couldn't be anything right in Pentecostalism. And my emotions were correcting my intellect at that point. And so, yeah, you're right. You join in with them. You don't want to give the impression you approve of everything. But on the other hand, if you don't join in with their emotions, the expression of the joy of the Lord or what have you, then you give, it seems to me, equally mistaken impression to these people, not that you approve their abuses. Rather, you give them the impression that you don't have a heart, or if in their expression, you know, you don't have the spirit or what have you. And we certainly don't want to give that impression. I mean, Presbyterians or Calvinist Reformed people ought to be most Pentecostally oriented. It seems to me we're the ones who understand the doctrine of Pentecost and the giving of the spirit and all that. After all, what was John Calvin's? You know, we have these logos today, right. And everybody has this kind of little thing that stands for their point of view or their. Their firm or their organization. John Calvin's little logo was a flaming heart being held up in the hand to God. The idea was, you know, I give you my heart on fire for the Lord. And so Calvinist ought to be, you know, really Pentecostal in that sense.

I don't want to let them steal my viewer.

That's right. But it happens.

So part of the issue then is also how we respond to error. Not the fact that we disagree, but how are we going to show our disagreement and not being too petty or stressing the positive.

That's right. The way that you can rebuke error, being easy to, being treated, teachable. You know, Peter says, be ready to give an answer to any man who asks you yet with gentleness and respect. Yeah. That has a lot to do with the style of disagreement. And that's something that Calvinists have not often worked on.

The book that you mentioned, Introduction to Christian Theology, how difficult is that? Is that a book for basic evangelical.

Type Christians who really don't know anything.

About the Reformed doctrine?

No, I could say it's more advanced. I shouldn't say it's too difficult, but I wouldn't give it to a new convert or somebody that's new in the reform faith. I'd say it's probably medium difficulty, Something easy to swallow. Right.

In light of your discussion tonight, would you have any suggestions for how we might reorder our liturgy or. Or different ways in which we might worship God on Sunday to give a due amount of emphasis to the emotion?

No, I don't have any particular suggestions because I haven't worked out the application of these things. But I will say this much. I think we certainly should reorganize our worship. Our worship so centers on the preaching of the Word in one sense. That's right. I mean, the Word should be on the pulpit and the pulpit should be in the center of the service because it's God addressing us. But on the other hand, worship is also bringing our praise to God. And that's an emotional sort of experience as well as I'm teaching and praying and thinking and intellect. And so, yeah, I really think that our worship could go a long way towards stressing the emotional sides of human nature without minimizing the preaching of the Word.

Do you find that.

Our modes of.

Prayer, for instance, by kneeling, standing and raising hands and so forth would lend itself to bring emotion more into the proper perspective of worship.

Could. I don't think there's any automatic answer to the kind of question you're asking. But sometimes the emotions are stimulated just by a change in routine. I have family members who either were or are involved in Episcopalian church services. And, you know, they always promote the idea of the liturgy and the kneeling and so forth as being more worshipful and getting into the mood and that sort of thing. But it strikes to me after you've done that, you know, for six months to a year, it probably becomes just as routine as sitting there while you pray. I mean, we have to recognize that sometimes change is really what we're talking about, not whether you're in this posture or the other when you pray or sing. But on the other hand, I'm not one to despise the idea of body language as entering into worship. The Bible has an awful lot to say about raising our hands in praise to God. It's hard to do, though, because, you know, all the context in which I've been asked to do that sort of thing, it's always been with people that I just really wondered about your theology.

We did that. You could just hear that.

There are some people who are trees for the Lord and some people are stumps. You know.

I think part of that, too, is the focus of one's consciousness, that if your consciousness is on the truth of God and the. I don't know, the true belief of God's existence, then you can believe that you are in God's presence. And if you live in that reality.

I think it's easier to orient yourself.

To the fact that you're in God's presence as opposed to in a room with people. I think that has a lot to do with the food.

Yeah. That is a crucial factor is communication to the very presence of God, A sense of awe standing in the very presence of God. I think that's something that we don't calculate or we don't inculcate in ourselves in our prayer lives. I mean, totally apart from public worship. But in our prayer lives, we tend to think of making a phone call to God and this whole idea of distance. But you see, just because of the nature of God, every time we bow our heads and pray, we're coming right into the very throne room of God. And if I had a more vivid sense of what I was doing when I prayed, I think maybe my mind wouldn't wander so much and I wouldn't have the difficulties in Prayer that probably we'll all experience. The presence of God has a lot to do with our emotions. That's right. Well, are there any other questions on the.

Kevin, would you explain what you mean when you say in the 1:10, if I read you right, the intellect has.

A currency in terms of economy.

That's a Mantillian phrase, and maybe we don't.

Economy versus ontology.

As human nature is working. Economy means the working of something. You know, the machinery has an economy. There's an interrelation between parts toward the whole function. I doubt that anybody could have any emotions about anything without having thoughts about them. Okay. And so there may be that economic primacy of the intellect, Vantil says, whereby in a psychological sense, you couldn't feel good, bad or indifferent about something unless you had a thought about it. Get to think about ants in Ethiopia before you can either hate or love ants in Ethiopia. But if it never enters your mind, something that never enters your mind, that it doesn't go through the intellect, you can't have feelings about. Well, that may very well be true. But on the other hand, one might want to say, I'm not sure that you can think about something without having a feeling about it either. You say, well, what kind of feeling do I have about the theorems of Euclid? Well, even the feeling that, well, this is really kind of dry and pasty, and who cares much about that? That's a feeling, too, right? So I think there's this mutual dependence. But the language of economic subordination in Mansfield is simply the idea that you.

Can'T have one without the other.

Okay, given that, can you give some examples and explain what's going on when you say the Bible appeals to emotion?

Yeah, the Bible tells us what happened to Judas. It seems to me we aren't supposed to say. Now, here's a historical incident for you, bringing a list of all the things that happened in 30 A.D. one of the things that happened is this guy named Judas, and he hung himself. I think the Bible presents it rather vividly. And we're supposed to say, wow, that is ugly. That's what happens to people who betray their Lord. So it's appealing to our emotions. You could just simply say, and the following things happened on Good Friday. It doesn't. It appeals to our emotions. It presents it in a way just like, you know, advertisements do today. They don't come on and just say, now, the chemical components in this dish powder are. No, they try to tell you it's going to make your hands beautiful. And they're going to get your plates clean so that people always comment on it or try to comb their hair by looking in the flames. Yeah, something really upstairs gives you some feeling about it. Well, the Bible gives us some feeling about the truths that it presents. It doesn't just present it in some kind of, you know, take it or leave it fashion.

Well, the reason I ask you about.

This week, I get a lot of.

Comments about my preaching.

You too? I'm wondering how you're supposed to.

What obligations a preacher has if he wants an emotional response from his congregation. Is he supposed to feel directly to their emotions?

Or is he supposed to present doctrines but nevertheless rely, I think, more on.

The Holy Spirit to reduce the emotions in the people?

No, I think that's a very false idea, Kevin. I mean, I've only heard you once and I thought you did a fine job. So I'm not commenting on your preaching at all or even on mine or any particular person's. The Holy Spirit doesn't do. You know, we present the intellectual part, the reason, and the Holy Spirit picks up the tab after that and does the emotions. No, that just isn't right. The preacher has got to stimulate emotions in his people. I'm always. I have a hard time not laughing sometimes when people pray, and I hope that's not a completely disrespectful attitude. I mean, that may be an admission that isn't a good one, but on the other hand, I know. I just really don't know how to handle this when people say, you know, dear Lord, thank youk so much for saving our lives. And giving us food and. And, well, we'll be back tomorrow. I just can't go through that sort of thing. You know, granted, not all of us express the same voice tone or have the same manner of expression or the same kind of imagery that we use when they speak. Not all of us are equally emotional in that way. But it does seem to me there's something inappropriate about preaching a sermon on joy when you get along space. I'm being rather obvious, but the point is that the preacher, I think, does have to work emotively upon his people as well. Now, I know one particular preacher I don't mind mentioning, Mike Stingley in Manhattan Beach. There's a guy who, when he preaches on joy, you can't sit still. You're either going to sit there and say, this really is grating on me and I wish he'd get done, or you're going to sit there and you're going to get happy. Because I mean, he just really. I mean, you know, he's quite active. You know, he walks around and he uses things that really get people involved emotionally. Stories that draw them into it or exhortations to the heart and that sort of thing. And I think there is a real place in preaching for stimulating that sort of thing. That isn't to say I'm a model of that. I shouldn't say that tonight's presentation was all that emotional. I mean, it was really addressing your intellect in favor of, you know. And at some places, I hope, you know, you were aroused one way or another. Maybe you want me to stop. Maybe you want to, you know, to know more about this joy, or maybe you want to laugh more at yourself or, you know, whatever it takes to be sanctified. But I think we have to work.

On people that way.

No more than. I can tell you what the program for worship is. Can I tell you what the program for preaching that way? I just. I don't teach homiletics for obvious reasons.

You mentioned that there are several areas in scripture in particular where Christ is being humorous in the way in which he's addressing certain individuals. I don't doubt it for one minute. I'm sure it's my own dull wit that doesn't catch it all. But there's always.

Probably has something to do with the coolness with which you approach the Bible. It could be. No, I mean that when we approach the Bible because this is God's word, there should be a certain respect. And we're conditioned to think that respect is inconsiderate. It's inconsiderate if you respect somebody and be laughing along with them or something like that.

Yeah, well, there's a.

He's really focused on at his opponents.

I think there's a passage in Judges, chapter four that I've had a hard time really honestly understanding the emotion involved there, because when it was first related to me, it was done in a very humorous way. I won't go into that. But the passage in particular is in verse 21, where it says, then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the.

Tent and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and.

Smote the nail into his temples and. And fastened into the ground. For he was fast asleep and weary, so he died.

I'm not quite sure whether I should.

Laugh at that, but that is my initial reaction.

What verse is that?

Judges 4:21. Yeah, well, I think that's your average devotional passage.

I think That's a translational infelicity. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground and he died. Which isn't to say, and lo and behold, after all that he died. And this is the manner in which he died is the Hebrew expression. On the other hand, you know, you read Elisha, excuse me, Elijah on Mount Carmel, you know, mocking the priests of baal, if you don't laugh at that, there's something wrong. And also if you don't fear in a godly way the Lord, when you see what happens to those priests after the test is done. But I mean, Elijah just makes fools of these people. What's wrong here? God, is he falling asleep? Is he on vacation? What's the problem with him? And then he goes to the extreme of dousing his own sacrifice and all this water. And that's funny, I think Jesus, you know, talking about a camel going through the eye of a needle and that sort of thing, I mean, that's supposed to make us chuckle or about, you know, you can just imagine the guy who's so worried about this moat that's in the eye of his brother when he has his beam sticking out of his own eye. We get so accustomed to the stories of the Bible and the language, we forget to see that Jesus is drawing a terribly humorous picture of a person who has a beam out of the socket of his eye, and yet he's worried about going, trying to find some speck in the eye of somebody else. I think that's funny. When I think about it.

Verse that God laughs the wicked the way he can make a fool out of the fool. I guess that's the proper grammar, like the ass that speaks to Balaam and those type of examples. Because even when the Lord presents preposterous circumstances to the wicked to the foolish, they still won't listen.

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonsen Institute. Duplication, sharing and distribution is encouraged. For more information about the life and Ministry of Dr. Greg L. Bonson, visit our website, bonsoninstitute.com where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.