"If I were perfectly aligned with God, I would respond with love for my oppressor (as Christ teaches in Matthew 5:44), trust in divine providence (Romans 8:28), and acceptance that all events in God’s world are either willed for good or permitted to yield greater good."
This is so beautiful, true, unworldly and so counter-cultural. As a former Marxist Social Justice Warrior, understanding that union with God in this life and the next is our reason for being is so 'liberating' in the best sense. I imbibed so many lies living in that false worldview, but all Glory to God for the Grace of conversion, I now understand that no external circumstances can keep me from the love of God, only an act of my will (sin) can do that. Acknowledging that oppression and injustice are part of our fallen condition was a hard pill for me to swallow, but acknowledging that they present no barrier to God's work in my soul has been transformative. I know many 'oppressed' people who are very happy because they have a relationship with the Divine. Thank you Lord for delivering me from the lies of Marxism and thank you for this article Dr. Clayton. I look forward to reading your book, which I have purchased.
Thank you Carla, we see this Christian approach to the pursuit of happiness as directly contradicting the Marxist ideology of misery that you escaped from. By this dichotomy, when a crisis hits, it at least allows for an alternative. We can respond by either turning to God instead of seeking affirmation in our resentful sense of injustice or we can turn to God be restored to him . So many now only know the former and stoke anger and direct it to destruction of society. It feels good temporarily to be told that we should be angry or resentful. The Christian approach allows us to forgive our oppressors and if driven by passions they are in harmony with reason and we demonstrate a zeal for the good, which is always exhilarating and constructive. I just read about this zeal , that was the word used, to describe Judas Maccabeus, coincidentally
An insightful and thought provoking post. I do think you could more clearly distinguish between anger and resentment, with the latter being necessarity caused by attachment to self and develop the idea of the former possibly being an appropiate reaction to injustice. A deficiency in anger in some circumstances is a sin or sign of it. Fear and anger shouldnt be eliminated but harnessed or transfigured by hope, or so i believe.
Thank you Stephen. I do think that I dealt with your point regarding fear in the article. The question you raise is, if I am understanding you well, how do we distinguish between righteous anger and sinful anger. The answer I would give is that the righteous anger is anger stripped of the self-centred component that shuts out God. Righteous anger might alternatively be described as a zeal or passion for what is good and is driven by intense love for what is good. The model of this might be Our Lord overturning the tables in the temple. When we are fired up in this way we act rationally and feel good in the face of evil. Interestingly, from memory, Our Lord is not described as angry at that moment in the temple but is described as having zeal for his Father’s house. From the outside the emotion of righteous and sinful anger will look similar, but in fact they feel very different. There is no resentment present in loving anger and we are fired up with love, not the resentful desire for revenge. The danger for us is that we can use the idea of righteous anger to justify our sinful anger and the result is misery both for us and for those it is directed towards.
I threw in fear only becasue fear and anger are the principle passions tied up with the irascable appetite and i think they are dealt with similarly. Regarding anger, the quote that provoked my comment was when you suggested we would only be able to react to grave injustice without anger on account of a special grace. I think this is wrong, and by distinguishing between rightious and unjust anger in your comment you must agree if that sentence appeared to contradict this idea. You say its dangerous to use the possiblity of righteous anger to harbor immoderate anger in our hearts. Again here, the opposite is possible and equally as common, where people use the possibiltiy of malignant forms of anger to condemn righteous anger.
I haven´t dove into this topic but when you say the interior reality of the two is manifestly different, perhaps I am confessing my depravity here, I dont think the interior reality is markedly different in some cases, because the justice of anger is contingent upon contextual knowledge. One reason prideful people are angrier people is that they are blind to their own flaws and thereby see injustice being done against them when in fact it is no injustice at all but a circumstance and the result of errors they refuse to acknolwedge. In contrast the slothful have a deficiency in anger, in part because they are blind to their own worth, or the worth or good of others. We read in Eph 4:16: Be angry, but do not sin. The psalmist is so often angry, 139 comes to mind, “habe ich nicht gehasst o Herr die dich hassen? die nicht verabscheut did gegen dich erheben? Ich habe sie gehasst mit einem glühenden Hass.“ forgive me for using ecclesiastical language, i forget the english, “i hate your enemies with a burning hatred.” is my translation. By saying this the psalmist means to prove his fidelity to God. So it would be interesting if there are any phenomenological analyses of righteous and unjust anger and how one can distinguish one from the other. I personally doubt it. Anger is dangerous, but its also essential to a well lived life and virtue. Here is st thomas in the sed contra of II-IIq158a8 ”He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but even the good to do wrong.”
I comment because anger in the world we live in is so bizarre and apparently disordered. so its worth trying to think through. I live in germany and people get angry about how donald trump is decorating the white house, but dont care about genocide in other parts of the world, or know feminists who become furious about women earning a little less than men but dont care about hundreds of millions of missing women in china and india. but by and large I worry we lack appropriate anger in the face of injustice, i worry that this absence is a unique feature of life in the last 100 years where people with deficiencies in anger or the virtue of justice were not selected against evolutionarily speaking as they previously were, nor is martial virtue passed from father to son as it was when most sons knew they would be required to defend themselves and their villiage city, country at some point in their life. In the european context, those deficient in this regard were the ones who survived more often than not, due to the nature of modern war and the tragedies of 20th century wars.
I disagree with you, Stephen. Righteous anger is not defined by what we are angry at, but by what motivates that anger, I would say. If it is love for what is good then that is righteous and is not a state of unhappiness. But suppose it is resentment and a self-centredness that excludes God, even in the face of evil and injustice. In that case, we do not need to be unhappy; happiness does not depend on our circumstances, but on our relationship with God. That is the premise of this. I will say that your objections are not uncommon. Many pious Christians I have encountered in the past - and I mean pious in a good sense - push back against this because they feel that if they are unhappy, they would rather blame their circumstances than examine themselves. I am not saying this is what is driving your objections - I don't know you sufficiently to have an opinion on that. I would say that, regardless, this is very understandable as pride resists the self examination necessary. I speak from experience here, and as I say, I had to be shown how to cultivate joy and prior to be ready to listen had to admit that this was my problem. And that method is in my book. All I can say is, have a look at my book, The Vision for You, and then try the exercises. I'll happily answer questions about them privately at that point if you are interested in going through the process..
thanks for your thoughtful response and candor. Id be happy to take a look at the book and get back to you. thanks for recommending it.
i dont think you grasped my point. ill try once more. approaching this from a thomistic angle, what motivates us is the end, and the end here is justice and justice is social and thus often determined by circumstance, and thus the prorpiety of anger s contingent upon proper knowledge of circumstance, rather than strictly intention. This was my point: that interior conditions do not alone guarantee the propriety of this emotion. I find it hard to believe you disagree but perhaps I am missing something. Blaming others or circumstances as a defense mechanism or because one is unhappy or self absorbed seems categorically different and would likely be interiorly different as well.
Incidentally because I passed the article by a friend who teaches moral theology and is a Dominican priest, and so deeply immersed in St Thomas, because I was aware that it might be a contentious point. That doesn't automatically make it right of course but it gave me the confidence to post it.
"If I were perfectly aligned with God, I would respond with love for my oppressor (as Christ teaches in Matthew 5:44), trust in divine providence (Romans 8:28), and acceptance that all events in God’s world are either willed for good or permitted to yield greater good."
This is so beautiful, true, unworldly and so counter-cultural. As a former Marxist Social Justice Warrior, understanding that union with God in this life and the next is our reason for being is so 'liberating' in the best sense. I imbibed so many lies living in that false worldview, but all Glory to God for the Grace of conversion, I now understand that no external circumstances can keep me from the love of God, only an act of my will (sin) can do that. Acknowledging that oppression and injustice are part of our fallen condition was a hard pill for me to swallow, but acknowledging that they present no barrier to God's work in my soul has been transformative. I know many 'oppressed' people who are very happy because they have a relationship with the Divine. Thank you Lord for delivering me from the lies of Marxism and thank you for this article Dr. Clayton. I look forward to reading your book, which I have purchased.
Thank you Carla, we see this Christian approach to the pursuit of happiness as directly contradicting the Marxist ideology of misery that you escaped from. By this dichotomy, when a crisis hits, it at least allows for an alternative. We can respond by either turning to God instead of seeking affirmation in our resentful sense of injustice or we can turn to God be restored to him . So many now only know the former and stoke anger and direct it to destruction of society. It feels good temporarily to be told that we should be angry or resentful. The Christian approach allows us to forgive our oppressors and if driven by passions they are in harmony with reason and we demonstrate a zeal for the good, which is always exhilarating and constructive. I just read about this zeal , that was the word used, to describe Judas Maccabeus, coincidentally
An insightful and thought provoking post. I do think you could more clearly distinguish between anger and resentment, with the latter being necessarity caused by attachment to self and develop the idea of the former possibly being an appropiate reaction to injustice. A deficiency in anger in some circumstances is a sin or sign of it. Fear and anger shouldnt be eliminated but harnessed or transfigured by hope, or so i believe.
Thank you Stephen. I do think that I dealt with your point regarding fear in the article. The question you raise is, if I am understanding you well, how do we distinguish between righteous anger and sinful anger. The answer I would give is that the righteous anger is anger stripped of the self-centred component that shuts out God. Righteous anger might alternatively be described as a zeal or passion for what is good and is driven by intense love for what is good. The model of this might be Our Lord overturning the tables in the temple. When we are fired up in this way we act rationally and feel good in the face of evil. Interestingly, from memory, Our Lord is not described as angry at that moment in the temple but is described as having zeal for his Father’s house. From the outside the emotion of righteous and sinful anger will look similar, but in fact they feel very different. There is no resentment present in loving anger and we are fired up with love, not the resentful desire for revenge. The danger for us is that we can use the idea of righteous anger to justify our sinful anger and the result is misery both for us and for those it is directed towards.
I threw in fear only becasue fear and anger are the principle passions tied up with the irascable appetite and i think they are dealt with similarly. Regarding anger, the quote that provoked my comment was when you suggested we would only be able to react to grave injustice without anger on account of a special grace. I think this is wrong, and by distinguishing between rightious and unjust anger in your comment you must agree if that sentence appeared to contradict this idea. You say its dangerous to use the possiblity of righteous anger to harbor immoderate anger in our hearts. Again here, the opposite is possible and equally as common, where people use the possibiltiy of malignant forms of anger to condemn righteous anger.
I haven´t dove into this topic but when you say the interior reality of the two is manifestly different, perhaps I am confessing my depravity here, I dont think the interior reality is markedly different in some cases, because the justice of anger is contingent upon contextual knowledge. One reason prideful people are angrier people is that they are blind to their own flaws and thereby see injustice being done against them when in fact it is no injustice at all but a circumstance and the result of errors they refuse to acknolwedge. In contrast the slothful have a deficiency in anger, in part because they are blind to their own worth, or the worth or good of others. We read in Eph 4:16: Be angry, but do not sin. The psalmist is so often angry, 139 comes to mind, “habe ich nicht gehasst o Herr die dich hassen? die nicht verabscheut did gegen dich erheben? Ich habe sie gehasst mit einem glühenden Hass.“ forgive me for using ecclesiastical language, i forget the english, “i hate your enemies with a burning hatred.” is my translation. By saying this the psalmist means to prove his fidelity to God. So it would be interesting if there are any phenomenological analyses of righteous and unjust anger and how one can distinguish one from the other. I personally doubt it. Anger is dangerous, but its also essential to a well lived life and virtue. Here is st thomas in the sed contra of II-IIq158a8 ”He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but even the good to do wrong.”
I comment because anger in the world we live in is so bizarre and apparently disordered. so its worth trying to think through. I live in germany and people get angry about how donald trump is decorating the white house, but dont care about genocide in other parts of the world, or know feminists who become furious about women earning a little less than men but dont care about hundreds of millions of missing women in china and india. but by and large I worry we lack appropriate anger in the face of injustice, i worry that this absence is a unique feature of life in the last 100 years where people with deficiencies in anger or the virtue of justice were not selected against evolutionarily speaking as they previously were, nor is martial virtue passed from father to son as it was when most sons knew they would be required to defend themselves and their villiage city, country at some point in their life. In the european context, those deficient in this regard were the ones who survived more often than not, due to the nature of modern war and the tragedies of 20th century wars.
I disagree with you, Stephen. Righteous anger is not defined by what we are angry at, but by what motivates that anger, I would say. If it is love for what is good then that is righteous and is not a state of unhappiness. But suppose it is resentment and a self-centredness that excludes God, even in the face of evil and injustice. In that case, we do not need to be unhappy; happiness does not depend on our circumstances, but on our relationship with God. That is the premise of this. I will say that your objections are not uncommon. Many pious Christians I have encountered in the past - and I mean pious in a good sense - push back against this because they feel that if they are unhappy, they would rather blame their circumstances than examine themselves. I am not saying this is what is driving your objections - I don't know you sufficiently to have an opinion on that. I would say that, regardless, this is very understandable as pride resists the self examination necessary. I speak from experience here, and as I say, I had to be shown how to cultivate joy and prior to be ready to listen had to admit that this was my problem. And that method is in my book. All I can say is, have a look at my book, The Vision for You, and then try the exercises. I'll happily answer questions about them privately at that point if you are interested in going through the process..
thanks for your thoughtful response and candor. Id be happy to take a look at the book and get back to you. thanks for recommending it.
i dont think you grasped my point. ill try once more. approaching this from a thomistic angle, what motivates us is the end, and the end here is justice and justice is social and thus often determined by circumstance, and thus the prorpiety of anger s contingent upon proper knowledge of circumstance, rather than strictly intention. This was my point: that interior conditions do not alone guarantee the propriety of this emotion. I find it hard to believe you disagree but perhaps I am missing something. Blaming others or circumstances as a defense mechanism or because one is unhappy or self absorbed seems categorically different and would likely be interiorly different as well.
Incidentally because I passed the article by a friend who teaches moral theology and is a Dominican priest, and so deeply immersed in St Thomas, because I was aware that it might be a contentious point. That doesn't automatically make it right of course but it gave me the confidence to post it.
I may be wrong but I think I do understand your arguments, but think that what is going on is that we disagree with each other