Nathan Vonnahme

The Christian Spirit

Regent College

30 April 1999

* Very few of the ideas in this paper are my own; I have drawn extensively from my class notes and the required text in an effort to pull together some themes from the class as a whole. I have tried to give credit where possible, but have not noted every time an idea or phrase was lifted out of my class notes.

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

Jesus' radical statement about the self is one of the few sayings that is recorded in every gospel, and it even occurs twice in Matthew and Luke. For two millennia his followers have struggled not so much to understand this command but to live it.

          For believers in our century, Jesus' command is perhaps more confusing than it has been in the past because of the way Western modernity has systematically rejected transcendence of any sort in its demand for control, and the concept of human life has been reduced to its material, biological functions. "The great struggle of man today is to remove and explain away mind, soul and body--we are left with dust." The loss of transcendent self is attenuated by the efforts of those who have challenged the ideological power structures of modernity and have succeeded in their deconstruction. The postmodern suspicion about the capacity of language to communicate in the face of human subjectivity is really a continuation of modernity's denial of the transcendent. Max Weber's observation is that "the last stage is having sensualists without heart, rationalists without spirit." The modern concept of the "self" is really quite out of place--it is an assertion of apparently transcendent selfhood in the face of the facts, which are that human beings are a simple amalgamation of externally observable processes.

          Contrary to all of this, Jesus insists on using the embarrassingly pre-modern term psyche for life, self, soul. The metaphor implicit in the word is that of breath or wind. The soul and spirit represent a denial of materialism and an assertion that we are more than machines or animals. St. Augustine expressed it well when he spoke of the empiricists of his day:

          They have not known the Way, your Word through whom you made the things that they count and also those who do the counting, and the senses thanks to which they observe what they count, and the mind they employ to calculate. . . . They have not known this way by which they may descend from themselves to him and through him ascend to him.

It is through the amazing discovery that the Way, the Truth and the Life is a person that we begin to find the essence of what it means to be a soul, a self, and a spirit. We realize that we are capable of going beyond ourselves. Our capacity to go beyond ourself and enter into relationship with another person is an indication of our real transcendence, and in contrast to the modern "self," which finds meaning by focusing inward, the action of the soul is outward, and it finds meaning in its relationships with others. Augustine pictures descent as the first necessity in the approach toward God. The descent is from false notions of self to the true Person of Jesus, the living Word, and through relationship with him there can be a miraculous piggyback ascent to participation in the relationship of the Trinity.

          The idea that the significance of the soul is found in its exience from itself clashes particularly with the modern self-making industry. Grounded in ancient Stoic ideals of self-awareness, self-love and self-attachment, modern therapy fashions "authentic" selves by reuniting people with their most inner, unconscious desires and thoughts. Jesus challenges us to see that the inward quest to find our life leads only to the pit of our own depravity and self-deception, and it is only through losing our inner selves through relationship with him that we can find them. Introspection ends not in greater self-understanding but in greater alienation from the external world, which results in uncertainty and existential anxiety. Self-centered study curves in on itself and becomes in-human. In contrast, extrospection and relationship with others lead to partial fulfillment of the soul, and through relationship with the divine Person the soul finds its full rest and the person its true humanity:

'Happy is the person who loves you' (Tobit 13:18) and his friend in you, and his enemy because of you (Matt. 5:44). Though left alone, he loses none dear to him; for all are dear in the one who cannot be lost. Who is that but our God, the God who made heaven and earth and filled them? . . .
          'O God of hosts, turn us and show us your face, and we shall be safe' (Ps. 79:8). For wherever the human soul turns itself, other than to you, it is fixed in sorrows, even if it is fixed upon beautiful things external to you and external to itself, which would nevertheless be nothing if they did not have their being from you.

          By seeing the essence of humanity in terms of relationship to God we are saved from the spiral paths of human anthropologies, which reduce humanity to what can be thought of in mythical, historical or philosophical terms. Instead, by grounding our identity in relationship with God, we find our true significance, which starts with simple recognition--as an infant transcends herself the moment she recognizes her mother's smile and responds to it, through recognition of God we begin to escape the illusory kingdom of the self and find our life in the kingdom of heaven. "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

          The reason that we are capable to enter relationship with God at all is that we are made in his image and likeness. As the Trinity is love in himself because of the participation of the three members in each other, so God gave us the ability to love, though as monopersonal beings we require an other to practice it. The special relationship of God's covenant with humankind is the miracle of preferential friendship-- "what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" This covenant has been broken, but through Christ we can accept a restored relational righteousness with God.

          This Christian understanding of humanity, which is theological anthropology because it studies humankind through its relationship with God rather than in isolation, paints a radically different picture of humanity than human anthropology does. The contrast is between the human as an observer, homo spectans, and a participant, homo participans. Self-based "objectivism," with its rational generalizations, contrasts with other-based reciprocity with its gratuitous particularity. We have uniqueness not in narcissism, where our only companion is an echo of ourself, but in the uniqueness of a particular relationship with God. "God particularizes beyond our imagination--he's counted every hair on our heads. There's a playfulness because we're in his hands."

          Theological anthropology understands humanity not on its own terms but in reference to God. Who we are in Christ is determined not by the human conditions of our past but by the reality of what we shall be, not by our actions but by his mercy. Freedom is not through independence from others but through self-transcendent relationship. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Faith is not intellectual assent based on our own rational certitude but a relationship of trust with our Beloved.

          Christian spirituality through the centuries has always deeply involved this abandonment of self to find fulfillment in Jesus, and the various expressions of this concept can illumine our experience today. In the New Testament, the call of discipleship can be seen as a redefinition of self in terms of the Master.

Discipleship means orientation out of oneself in the service of others. The individuality recreated by the call is an ex-centric orientation toward the call of God and service of others.

The redefinition of self that discipleship to Jesus implies is total--it encompasses every human relationship, every area of life, and all of human identity. The future is the first and most radical reorientation. We are promised eternal life and union with him, and our lives are no longer defined by our history but have an eschatalogical orientation. "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." By the gift of community with Jesus we are liberated from bondage to our own will and experience true freedom--Jesus calls each disciple by name and welcomes him into the fulfillment of communion with him, and by this we are freed to give ourselves to others. We find we are never more ourselves than when we are most outside our selves and in Christ Jesus.

          The New Testament experience of discipleship begins with personal attestation, as Jesus attends to the disciple and is recognized by him. Through relationship to him, the disciple becomes real. "Jesus is the real person we relate to in order to become a real person." The result is a true community, where the disciple is centered in Jesus and Jesus is centered in the disciple. Jesus prays, "I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me."

          The first few centuries after Christ were characterized by martyrdom. The boldness of the martyrs to bear witness to the truth in the face of violent opposition came out of their security in Christ's loving relationship. Like beloved princes playing in a throne room, we have boldness to approach the throne of grace and be fully ourselves before God and others. Ex-centric identification with Jesus frees us from shame and aloneness and gives us confidence because we are clothed in him and bear his name.

          The word "martyr" comes from the Greek word martus, which means a witness, and it is testimony to the truth rather than persecution that originally characterized martyrs. Karl Barth wrote, "Even Stephen is not called a martyr because he dies. He dies because he is a witness of Christ." One of the most striking witnesses in the first four centuries of the church was John Chrysostom, whose prophetic stand against the wealthy, corrupt government that ordained him as bishop of Constantinople ended in exile and death. His boldness to confront the powerful of his day came implicitly from a realization of his relationship with God:

          God's exceeding desire to be loved comes from loving exceedingly. This is why Jesus said, "Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." He even calls us to esteem that which is most precious to us--our soul--as second to the love of God, for our Father wishes to be loved by us entirely.
          When we do not love a person we do not wish to be with them, no matter how great or noble that person may be. But when we love someone, we want to be with them, and we view their love for us with great honor even if they are not a person of great rank. For this reason--and not because of our great rank--God values our love. So much, in fact, that he suffered greatly on our behalf.

          The legalization of Christianity in the early fourth century resulted in increased nominalism as people flooded into the church for political and social reasons, and in reaction to this many Christians fled to the deserts to pursue a "white martyrdom" of ascetic monasticism, now that the "red martyrdom" of death and persecution was unavailable. The Desert Fathers saw asceticism as an awakening from the sleep-walk of habitual life that led to contemplation of God and finally union with him. The experience of the deprivation of the desert provides an opportunity to "vomit the false self," deny the tyranny of the self, and focus ex-centrically on God.

          Early on, desert monks started going to more experienced monks for counsel and direction.

In the words of a sixth-century Abba, Dorotheos of Gaza, 'nothing is more burdensome, than directing oneself; nothing is more fatal'; because the fatal flaw of our inner lives is our tendency to self-deception. Outside help is therefore essential.

The monastic practice of radical self-disclosure to another human being in order to illuminate and cleanse the logismoi, the sins hidden to the self because of self-deception, shows another way in which losing our life in our relationships with others can enable us to find our true life. "Much of our personality is really false self, but in the desert it is bleached, cleansed and purified."

          Medieval monastic mysticism contrasts with desert monasticism in that its main symbol was not the desert but the garden of the Song of Songs, the garden of love's delight. The Song was for medieval monasticism what the book of Romans was for the Reformation--over 800 commentaries on it were published during the Middle Ages. The relationship between the Lover and the Beloved was expounded as an allegory of Christ's love for the church, and it grounded all of life in that relationship. Rather than seeing prayer as an action toward God, medieval monks viewed it as participation and involvement in relationship with him. The garden has also always been a symbol of Eden and Paradise, and the only way back to Paradise is through resurrection in Christ. "We can enter the garden of the Lord to live a resurrected life only as we die to ourselves and to our false desires."

          Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the greatest medieval mystics, wrote incisively about the four stages of love: First, we love ourself for our own sake. Second, we love God for our own sake. Third, we love God for his own sake, and fourth, we learn to love ourself for his sake. Bernard writes,

I am not certain that the fourth degree of love in which we love ourselves only for the sake of God may be perfectly attained in this life. But, when it does happen, we will experience the joy of the Lord and be forgetful of ourselves in a wonderful way. We are, for those moments, one mind and one spirit with God.

The completion of love is found in complete self-forgetfulness, which at the same time is full self-knowledge and fulfillment. "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

          The sixteenth century Reformers sought, among other things, to restore the dignity of the person before God. Rather than being a consumer of the religion industry or a metaphysical token in the scholastic theologian's system, each human being is a real person and capable of a devotional relationship with God. The spread of popular devotion through movements like the Beguines and the Waldensians and the renewed interest in the vitae apostolica, or apostolic life, set the stage for the Reformation. The interest of Reformers like Calvin in classical literature was also an indication of the recognition that human life is more complete in the relationship of speaking and listening to one another. And the emphasis on the sovereignty of God brought with it a clear sense of belonging in his love relationship which cannot co-exist with self-ownership. Calvin writes,

If we are not our own, but the Lord's, it is clear to what purpose all our deeds must be directed. We are not our own, therefore neither our reason nor our will should guide us in our thoughts and actions. We are not our own, therefore we should not seek what is only expedient to the flesh. We are not our own, therefore let us forget ourselves and our own interests as far as possible.
          We are God's own; to him, therefore, let us live and die. We are God's own; therefore let his wisdom and will dominate all our actions. We are God's own; therefore let every part of our existence be directed towards him as our only legitimate goal.

We can see here that our abandonment of ourselves is not only because of our love relationship with God but also our new relationship of being his property, his chattel; "You are not your own; you were bought at a price."

          In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries we find two French monks who teach us further about what it means to be abandoned to Christ and found in him. Brother Lawrence, a simple and uneducated Carmelite lay-brother who devoted his life to practicing the presence of God in each moment, found profound meaning in being with God, and recognized that in order to relate to him, everything must be offered to him in love:

          All we have to do is to recognize God as being intimately present within us. Then we may speak directly to Him every time we need to ask for help, to know His will in moments of uncertainty, and to do whatever He wants us to do in a way that pleases Him. We should offer our work to Him before we begin, and thank Him afterwards for the privilege of having done them for His sake. This continuous conversation would also include praising and loving God incessantly for His infinite goodness and perfection.

          Closely parallel to Brother Lawrence is Jean-Pierre de Caussade, a French Jesuit whose book The Sacrament of the Present Moment, originally titled Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, demonstrates a deep realization of the necessity of soul-losing in order to find soul-fulfillment.

In order to understand [the inner revelation of the Holy Spirit] it is necessary to be in a state of total self-surrender, completely detached from every purpose and every interest, however holy, to have no other interest in the world than passively to submit to divine action in order to devote oneself to the duty of one's state, allowing the Holy Spirit to act in us regardless of what it is doing, happy, even, to remain in ignorance.

The practice of the presence of God, entered into by an attitude of self-surrender and passive response to his initiatives, leads the way to a knowledge of God, not in the sense of mental acceptance of a proposition but of familiarity, friendship and intimacy (c.f. Spanish saber and conocer).

[The experience of the presence of God] produces a knowledge of God through love, made possible only by experiencing God in the most intimately personal way. We see this knowledge illustrated in the closeness of a married couple, where each knows intuitively what the other thinks and so communicates it to those outside.

This relational knowledge of God produces transformation in us, as our heart, soul, mind and strength are drawn in to the relationship of love by the beauty of the Lover. "Instead of being a theology of speculation, it is one of admiration and prayer, where prayer is the means of admiring and sharing the mind of God." Mature love for God results in a transformation of all the affections into conformity with God's will.

Knowledge by love is to will what God wills, and to adhere to it unchangeably; affectus is an unwavering attachment of heart and will to God.
          This conjunction of our will with God's will makes it possible to have "the mind of Christ." It is the "renewal of our mind" which can take place when we offer him our very personalities. It is the opposite of natural knowledge, even when we call it "theology," for it does not "objectify" knowledge as "out there," but recognizes that God's nature is to reveal himself personally to them who love him.

          In the history of Christianity there have been many attempts to understand the command of Jesus to lose our lives for his sake, but the problem, as with much of the spiritual life, is not so much in understanding the command as in obeying it and practicing it. We find it hard to be interested in what is outside ourselves, and we remain imprisoned in our own self-deception. The modern quest for inner knowledge through introspection only intensifies the problem because we are having relationship only with ourselves and are trapped in a closed circle. May the prayers of St. Augustine and the Sons of Korah help show us how to find our rest and our home only in communion with the triune God.

My God, I give thanks to you, my source of sweet delight, and my glory and my confidence. I thank you for your gifts. Keep them for me, for in this way you will keep me. The talents you have given will increase and be perfected, and I will be with you since it was your gift to me that I exist.

How lovely is your dwelling-place,
          O LORD Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
          for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
          for the living God.
Even the sparrow has found a home,
          and the swallow a nest for herself,
          where she may have her young--
a place near your altar,
          O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
          they are ever praising you.                                         Selah

Works Cited

Augustine of Hippo, St. Confessions. Trans. by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford U. Press 1992.

Caussade, Jean-Pierre de. The Sacrament of the Present Moment. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982.

Foster, Richard J. and James Bryan Smith, eds. Devotional Classics. San Francisco: HarperCollins 1993.

Houston, James. The Heart's Desire: Satisfying the Hunger of the Soul. Colorado Springs: NavPress 1996.

Lawrence of the Resurrection, Brother. The Practice of the Presence of God. New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House 1982.