There Is No Fear In Love

As I approach the three month mark of being off the dogchain that is nicotine dependency, I feel like I am finally out of survival mode and am in a frame of mind in which I can reflect on the savage business of addiction with a bit more detachment.  And it is indeed a savage business, whatever goods you trade in.

You know you've reached a state of dependency with these things-- whether it be food, sex, alcohol, drugs, or simply dopamine--when you have moved from using them as a source of pleasure to using them as a way to mitigate the pain that comes with their absence. For addicts, this pain of periodic withdrawal from something your body has become dependent on is known as "dope sickness," and it can be very unpleasant, both physically and psychologically.

Nowhere is this psycho-spiritual portrait of enslavement so well captured as in St. Paul's seventh chapter in his epistle to the Romans.  

 "For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I work, I understand not. For I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I will not, I consent to the law, that it is good.

Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not.

For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do.

Now if I do that which I will not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me.

For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members.

Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom 7:14-24)

Amazing insight into the wretched state of man sold in sin. He knows what is good, but cannot carry it out. Something in him is working against the spirit. The law of concupicence so often overpowers the moral law of God, even when the will of man recognizes that the law of God is good. And not only trips up, but captivates man in the law of sin in his members. 

St. James paints a portrait of the birth of sin in the spirit of man as a kind of embryotic seed of death. "Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death" (Ja 1:15).

What does this mean, "desire has conceived, and gives birth to sin?" If we look back at Genesis 3, we see an allusion to this pregnancy of desire:

"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." (Gen 3:6-7).

In this case, the birth of knowledge comes from an illegitimate union; ie, the result of disobedience (sin). St. Paul again most likely has this in mind in his exhortation, when he says,

"But I do not know sin, but by the law; for I had not known concupiscence, if the law did not say: Thou shalt not covet.

But sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

And I lived some time without the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived,

And I died. And the commandment that was ordained to life, the same was found to be unto death to me.

For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, seduced me, and by it killed me.

Wherefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good". (Rom 7:7-12)

But with whom was desire joined in coitus? Curiosity? Pride? This may be debated by exegetes, and is beyond this scope. But one thing I want to point out as well, is that when desire conceived and gave birth to sin, there was a conjoined twin that traveled through the canal, expelled into the world not unlike Jacob grabbing onto the heel of Esau. The name Jacob means "he grasps the heel" which is a Hebrew idiom for deceptive behavior. And that twin was fear. 

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (Gen 3:8-10)

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If sin, born of desire, is indeed slavery, I want to make the case that slavery's modus operandi is fear. Sin and fear are like twin henchmen, a tag-team pair of boondock saints bent on destruction of the race by way of doubt, deception, and death. The skids are greased with fear first, at which point sin slides itself into the host to inject its legion seed. 

If man can be convinced that God is to be feared, and not to be trusted, he is more amenable to counterfeit agape.  The kind of "love" that promises and does not deliver, which withholds parts of the truth and conjoins it with lies, and creates an abusive co-dependency in which the host becomes convinced he cannot live without the source of his abuse.  

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As I mentioned above, addiction operates very much like this abusive co-dependent relationship between man and his deepest fear. A worldly addiction to substances mimics the spiritual slavery of sin.

For those addicted to alcohol or drugs, they cannot imagine life without the bottle or the needle and have been gaslit to believe that the solution to their problems is the bottle or the needle, when in fact it is the cause. 

Beyond that even deeper is the fear that they will, in fact, die without it. Maybe not literally, but in their consciousness, and not unlike an inversion of the lie of the serpent in the garden, who said "You will not certainly die." (Gen 3:4). Instead, he convinces the enslaved "You will certainly die" without X. His mind has been taken over, held hostage by the biggest stick in the slavemaster's toolshed: fear.  

 

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I came across three passages--two secular, and one spiritual--that I think illustrates well the psychological and spiritual power of fear and its usefulness in the realm of enslavement. But they also illustrate that this stronghold, as real as it can feel, is largely illusory. It's power of manipulation is strenghtened by obscurification of the truth; that is, if the guard can convince the prisoner he will never be able to escape convincingly enough, it doesn't matter that the cell door is actually unlocked. In other words, fear lives and feeds off lies. 

The first describes the slavery of human trafficking and how it is psychological perpeted: 

"Human trafficking, slavery, is not just about controlling someone’s body, their time, or their sexual behavior. Modern forms of slavery require that a human being can be put into a situation where their life depends on submitting to the domination of another person. In order to submit to violence and threat, the human mind must do a lot of mental gymnastics in order to convince itself that it is not under threat and therefore that it should not revolt. 

One horrendous consequence of mind control, as you can imagine, is that survivors, once out of slavery, start to think and feel like they are “losing their mind.” What are my thoughts and beliefs? Do I really like that? Wait, but everything I knew about the world is totally wrong. But it was all I knew. How do I trust anything else?

Slavery requires that people lose trust in themselves. If they can’t trust their own mind, their own capacities to defend themselves, to care for themselves, or to be autonomous people; they will sink into roles of dependency and, worse yet, feel helpless and hopeless. It requires that people lose their sense of identity. Slavery requires that people believe they are slaves, rather than treated as if they are slaves. Thus, as we continue to fight slavery, we need to ask: what leads people to believe they are slaves? No one comes to that belief on their own." [1]

The second is a passage I came across when I was writing my article, Christian Men, Take the Beating, which I felt the author of the essay talking about civil disobedience during the Civil Rights Movement described well, and which Christians could learn from:

"They made black people experience the worst of the worst, collectively, that white people could dish out, and discover that it wasn't that bad. They taught black people how to take a beating — from the southern cops, from police dogs, from fire department hoses.  They actually coached young people how to crouch, cover their heads with their arms and take the beating.  They taught people how to go to jail, which terrified most decent people.  

And you know what? The worst of the worst wasn't that bad.  Once people had been beaten, had dogs sicced on them, had fire hoses sprayed on them, and been thrown in jail, you know what happened?

These magnificent young black people began singing freedom songs in jail.  That, my friends, is what ended the terrorism of the south.  Confronting your worst fears, living through it, and breaking out in a deep-throated freedom song.  The jailers knew they had lost when they beat these young Negroes and the jailed, beaten young people began to sing joyously, first in one town then in another.  This is what the writer, James Baldwin, captured like no other writer of the era.  

Please let this sink in.  It wasn't marches or speeches. It was taking a severe beating, surviving and realizing that our fears were mostly illusory and that we were free." [2]

The third is from Book VIII of Augustine's Confessions, in which he describes his attempts to detox from the flesh, the allure of Lady Continenance, and the snagging of the trifles which kept him bound like a dog to the world:

"Thus was I sick and tormented, accusing myself far more severely than was my wont, tossing and turning me in my chain till that was utterly broken, whereby I now was but slightly, but still was held. And You, O Lord, pressed upon me in my inward parts by a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame, lest I should again give way, and that same slender remaining tie not being broken off, it should recover strength, and enchain me the faster. For I said mentally, Lo, let it be done now, let it be done now. And as I spoke, I all but came to a resolve. I all but did it, yet I did it not. Yet fell I not back to my old condition, but took up my position hard by, and drew breath. And I tried again, and wanted but very little of reaching it, and somewhat less, and then all but touched and grasped it; and yet came not at it, nor touched, nor grasped it, hesitating to die unto death, and to live unto life; and the worse, whereto I had been habituated, prevailed more with me than the better, which I had not tried. And the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer it approached me, the greater horror did it strike into me; but it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but kept me in suspense.

The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities, my old mistresses, still enthralled me; they shook my fleshly garment, and whispered softly, Do you part with us? And from that moment shall we no more be with you for ever? And from that moment shall not this or that be lawful for you for ever? And what did they suggest to me in the words this or that? What is it that they suggested, O my God? Let Your mercy avert it from the soul of Your servant. What impurities did they suggest! What shame! And now I far less than half heard them, not openly showing themselves and contradicting me, but muttering, as it were, behind my back, and furtively plucking me as I was departing, to make me look back upon them. Yet they did delay me, so that I hesitated to burst and shake myself free from them, and to leap over whither I was called — an unruly habit saying to me, Do you think you can live without them?"

But now it said this very faintly; for on that side towards which I had set my face, and whither I trembled to go, did the chaste dignity of Continence appear unto me, cheerful, but not dissolutely gay, honestly alluring me to come and doubt nothing, and extending her holy hands, full of a multiplicity of good examples, to receive and embrace me. There were there so many young men and maidens, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and ancient virgins, and Continence herself in all, not barren, but a fruitful mother of children of joys, by You, O Lord, her Husband. And she smiled on me with an encouraging mockery, as if to say, Can you not do what these youths and maidens can? Or can one or other do it of themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me unto them. Why do you stand in your own strength, and so standest not? Cast yourself upon Him; fear not, He will not withdraw that you should fall; cast yourself upon Him without fear, He will receive you, and heal you. And I blushed beyond measure, for I still heard the muttering of those toys, and hung in suspense. And she again seemed to say, Shut up your ears against those unclean members of yours upon the earth, that they may be mortified. Colossians 3:5 They tell you of delights, but not as does the law of the Lord your God. This controversy in my heart was naught but self against self. But Alypius, sitting close by my side, awaited in silence the result of my unwonted emotion." (Confessions, Book VIII, Ch 11; 25-27)

The words "fear not" appear 365 times in the bible. Why so much? Maybe because fear, the cousin of sin and its henchman, is a tool of Satan himself. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and soberness of mind (2 Tim 1:7). Our Lord knows our desire is ultimately for Him but that we settle for cheap counterfeits presented by the Devil, trifles which will not love us back and will attempt to enslave our will so that we cannot direct it to God. "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" as St. John says. (1 Jn 4:18).

Sin is slavery, and addiction to the flesh abets this crime. Who will save us from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! We were made for freedom, not deception, dependance and slavery. In Christ we are already free, for "If the son makes you free, you are free indeed" (Jn 8:36). 

The door has already been unlocked; all you need to do now, is leave your cell.