Transcript: Episode 0098

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Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast.

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I am Corey J.

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Mahler.

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And I'm still, whoa.

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On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing Psychologizing Sin.

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We're going to focus mostly on addiction today, which is a subject that was recommended by a listener.

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Before we begin, a warning to parents, we'll definitely be covering some adult issues that would be unsuitable for younger children.

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So you have to decide whether this is something you want your kids to hear.

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We know a lot of parents listen with their kids, and that's awesome.

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But some of this is definitely going to be a bit too old for certain younger people.

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The reason that this subject resonated with us when it was recommended is that the problem of addiction, which is itself to some degree, a psychological and a medical evaluation of what is effectively sin, it kind of goes right down the middle of a number of different problems that we have as Christians living in the world talking about everything.

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On one hand, there is the overwhelming pattern in modern life, and I'm guilty of it too, of using way too much psychological talk to speak like a psychologist when describing other people's behavior, to attribute their actions or their motivations, is that you can see inside their psyche, which is another psychological term or philosophical term, and you know what they're doing because you know something about them, then maybe they don't even know about themselves.

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And while that's possible to some extent for some people, in general, it's a bad habit, because you're not taking things at face value that if you just did, you would have a better understanding than if you tried to read into it like crazy.

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And so there is this circumstance where the general discourse, just average people, are talking like they're psychologists or psychiatrists.

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And it generates a lot of noise.

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It just leads to silly conclusions.

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It ends up making it, in a lot of cases, more difficult to actually talk about what's going on.

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So one part of this, the minor part, is maybe talk like that less often, try to break yourself of the habit of thinking about it, things like that.

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Because psychological terms, the notion of inner motivations and processes, and you know, hormones, you know, things like dopamine, that we'll talk about in a little bit.

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In the sense that all these things are describing problems, they're perfectly fine.

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In essence, psychology originally was a science.

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It's a soft science, like economics.

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So it's describing reality, but it's describing a fuzzy reality.

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It's not like math.

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It's not something that has absolutes.

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There's things in psychology where it's, you know, it could go one way or the other.

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You can try to describe something, but you're still not going to be 100%.

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That's perfectly fine.

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It's working.

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That's why it's called a soft science.

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But fundamentally, it's describing how people behave, how people think, how we feel, how we operate, what motivates us, what causes us to act or not to act.

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Everything, everything about the human life.

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From the moment you get out of bed until you go back to bed, like it's all of it will fall to some extent under the lens of psychological evaluation.

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Just in terms of trying to understand, like you don't ever have to think about any of this stuff and you can be a perfectly healthy person.

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And this is one of the reasons that it really struck me when the subject was raised is that I realized that 200 years ago, literally no one talked this way because none of this stuff had been invented yet.

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And so that bothers me kind of on principle, like how did Christians, how did anyone talk about being a human before Jewish psychology and psychiatry was invented to tell us how we basically operate like automatons, which is not a thing we'll get into later.

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And so it kind of bugged me.

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I want to sort of find a way of talking about these things that isn't completely bound up in this modern thing just because people worked fine before.

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Like we had all these problems, we just didn't necessarily have words for them.

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You know, so before clinical depression existed, people were just melancholy.

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It was describing basically the same thing, and it was with the same care in some cases, but like that guy's just melancholic.

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You know, typically as a girl, that's more of a feminine thing, but it was understood that these things existed going back to antiquity, and psychology came along and sort of systematized some of it, which is valuable.

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The problem is that because the origins of psychology and then psychiatry are almost exclusively atheistic and largely Jewish in origin, they're coming at all these problems from the perspective that there is no God.

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You know, we are evolved from monkeys, we're just these meat robots that are doing stuff, and we have programming, and we have these habits, we have brains, and we have all these things that keep us going.

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And so for the atheist who is approaching these things scientifically, absent God, everything becomes mechanistic to a degree.

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And that's where the real problem comes in with this approach to evaluating life.

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As soon as you shift from the descriptive form of, okay, well, someone had something bad happen, and so they tend to be sense of about it, that's descriptive.

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When it becomes explanatory and you try to reach in deeper and attribute to them that this person is permanently damaged, something about them has changed forever and nothing can ever fix it, that's just who they are now.

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As soon as it is elevated to identity and to have explanatory power, you've opened the door to excluding morality from the conversation.

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Because if someone was okay and then something bad happened to them and they had some change, you know, psychological change, and it's a permanent change or it's a change you want to deal with, but they're kind of stuck with it, and maybe they struggle against it, they don't want to do it.

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All that conversation about someone who's struggling with something is going to be in terms of the explanation for why they're doing it without any regard to the morality.

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And that's why this is a Christian concern, because the outer limit of this conversation, the key part to remember is that all human action is either godly or it's sinful.

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Those are the only two options.

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That's the only binary that for Christians, it should be our principal focus when we're looking at things.

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Everything should be filtered through that lens.

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Is what I'm doing godly or is it sinful?

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And then working back from there, if you find that someone has given you excuse, like you're doing this thing, you're addicted to something, but it's not really your fault because of biology, because of trauma.

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The because of is a license to then sin.

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Say, well, it's not really sin.

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That person, they're stuck with it.

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They're a victim.

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No, it's still sin is just a complicated problem.

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As we've said in many past episodes, one of the chief dangers of sin itself is that it breaks things to the point that it can't necessarily all be fixed.

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You can choose or can have things done to you that will permanently alter the trajectory of your life.

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And if it's a sin and you realize it and you repent and you're forgiven for it, and you can step away as much as possible from whatever evil you were doing, you may still have permanent consequences.

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The silly example, if you chop off your arm and then you repent of defiling your body, your arm's not going to grow back.

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God will forgive you for harming yourself, but you don't get a new arm.

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You're stuck with what you've done.

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So there are certain aspects of this stuff that psychology will say, okay, well, this has changed and we just have to sort of deal with the outcomes.

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But they omit deliberately because again, this is an atheistic science in some regards.

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They will omit that God is present and therefore, morality never comes into it.

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And that's a real danger.

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It's not so much of people talking in psychological terms as annoying although it kind of is, and you end up sounding silly and not making a lot of sense most of the time.

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But the more we get into that habit, and really a lot of this episode is about habits, the harder it is to then bring morality back into the conversation because if it's all just habitual, if you just do this stuff because of trauma or because of biology or addiction or whatever, if you're a victim, if you're down in it and you can't help yourself, then you're absolved.

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You don't need God to forgive you because you're the victim.

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You're not the actor doing bad things.

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You're the victim of some bad thing just having floated from the sky.

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And that's the true danger, is that people will get into the state of habitual sin and then pretend that victimhood is an excuse from moral culpability.

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And as Christians, we have to draw the line there.

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So we're taking this subject from the approach of morality always has to be a factor.

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And because it is necessary as Christians to be sympathetic to the fact that these bad things do happen to people.

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Sometimes, you know, some people are subjected to things that they had no intention of being participants in, and it changes them in ways that then lead to sin in some portion of their life.

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That actually happens.

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It does not excuse the sin that flows from it, but it does explain how they got into that position, why they're doing this instead of something else.

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And so, while I don't want to encourage people to be more, have a greater affinity for this psychologizing or thinking about things in psychological terms, and they're kind of two different things, but it's, psychologizing is when, you know, armchair guys like me, I'm not trained and I don't care, but sometimes I do apply the principles that I think I understand.

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That's really the problem.

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When people think they understand something they don't, you start saying idiotic things that don't really apply.

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So it's a trap to get into that, but more importantly, you start drawing lines that make it impossible to talk like a Christian, which again, 200 years ago, nobody talked like this.

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We would talk about things in different terms, even though we were talking about the same things.

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But the modern approach of saying, okay, I now know the cause, I have the explanation for why you're doing this, then it becomes a disease or becomes a disorder or becomes something you're a victim of.

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And so, you don't have to...

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You know, changing is maybe going to be good for you.

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It's going to be a positive outcome, but it's not a question of you stopping sinning.

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And that's really the crucial thing.

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We have to understand that as Christians, we can't save ourselves.

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Again, we always say this because we're frequently accused of it.

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And it's so absurd.

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We will never say, stop sinning and obey God so that you can be saved.

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We say, stop sinning as much as you can and obey God because you were saved.

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God has done these things for you.

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He's forgiven all these terrible sins.

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When you know that as a Christian, the Christian reaction is to say, hey, Lord, have mercy and to fall into the arms of the gospel and to love the law.

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To say, okay, the God who has created me, who's created a world where when I sin, when I do these harmful things, everything gets worse.

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I want to live a better life.

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I want to live a life without these sins.

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And God's word tells me how to do it.

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So when we talk about behave, stop sinning, all this stuff, you can't possibly save yourself by doing it.

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But because you are saved, because God loves you, he has told you both in your heart and in creation and in scripture, this is harming you or this is good for you.

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And as Christians, we're supposed to be there for each other, to encourage each other and to help each other.

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Because again, some of these things, when people get into these holes, when they get into these situations, whether through their own sin or through the sin of others, it takes people helping.

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It actually takes someone else intervening.

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And that should be the foremost duty of a Christian, to be able to understand what's actually going on so that we treat it as though there's sin occurring.

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And the fact that there's harm is the proof that there's sin, but you still have to deal with what's right in front of you.

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And that may mean that you can't just lecture someone morally.

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You may have to help them.

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You may have to do something that is inconvenient to you so that they can step away from whatever's hurting them.

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And part of that is understanding that while repentance is a decision to say, I turn away from my own evil in my past, it's also going to be a process.

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There will be things where you decide I'm going to stop doing this.

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And particularly in the cases of things that we now describe as addiction, there's a pattern.

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And breaking that pattern is usually not going to be instantaneous.

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In case of some addictions, chemical addictions, it can actually kill you if you quit certain drugs, cold turkey.

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So even in the act of repenting and saying, I turn away from this evil, I want to stop this sin, you know, in the case of someone taking methadone to get off heroin, you're still taking drugs, but you're not any longer taking drugs to get high, you're taking drugs to stop getting high.

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And so even though the behavior is similar in one small sense, you were no longer participating in sin, you're actively fleeing from it.

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And in other cases, you slipped back into something and do something you wanted to stop.

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For Christians to understand these things in spiritual terms and in Christian terms and in psychological terms is very helpful.

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It's actually beneficial, which is why I think that not disregarding the science of it is so crucial, is that to help someone who's in trouble is you being God's hand in their life.

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And that's going to take more than just lecturing them, it's going to take actual understanding.

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Here are some of the mechanisms, here are some of the underlying reasons, but it doesn't explain to the extent that this guy's just stuck being a sinner, he can never stop doing that.

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That's not Christian.

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It may be hard, it will absolutely require God's support and help in his prayer, in your prayer as a friend, but it requires you to acknowledge that the more we sin in our lives, the more complicated we make things, and often, the more difficult it is just to unwind it.

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Sometimes repentance is not a single step.

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You can easily get so deep into something that you have to unravel a whole bunch of stuff.

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In other episodes, we've talked about how that's the case with all of our civilization.

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We could solve any one of these problems, and there are going to be 30 more equally dire problems that also have to be solved.

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It is not an excuse not to solve any of them.

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It's an acknowledgement that when a civilization goes off the rails, when an individual's life goes off the rails, through sin, the accumulated harm from that takes a while to fix.

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And as Christians, we can never say, you know, go and sin no more, you know, be fed and warm and just be happy.

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Like, no, you're going to struggle.

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And as Christians, we have to acknowledge that so we can actually help each other.

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In a number of previous episodes, the issue of the nature of man with regard to division into parts has come up.

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And subsequent to those discussions, I've had a number of people ask me, a fair number at this point, to expand on why I believe man is tripartite instead of simply bipartite, which is to say man has three parts instead of just two.

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Because in philosophy, you typically have historical discussions and still ongoing today regarding the division of man into body and mind, usually.

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And then in theology, you usually have discussions of the division of man into body and soul.

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I believe that there are three parts to man.

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Now, I'm not saying you necessarily have to believe this.

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I'm saying I believe it is correct, and I believe it is a useful way to look at man.

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But you are not bound to believe this.

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It is not sin to disagree with me on this point.

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And so, man is body, mind, and soul.

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Sometimes, historically, and in some context, you'll see someone say spirit instead of soul.

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I typically try to avoid that one, because some people use spirit to mean mind, and some people use spirit to mean soul.

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So that one can be a little confusing.

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It's why I prefer to say body, mind, and soul.

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The problem that we have and that we're discussing in this episode is partly that scientists, atheistic scientists, I mean, when I say that, and others in some of these fields focus only on the body and the mind.

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Now, setting aside the fact that there's a very real problem for them of what is the mind, how do you have this immaterial thing in a purely materialistic universe, but they focus solely on those things.

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And so, they wind up looking at man as being mechanistic, as being essentially an automaton, a robot.

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On the other hand, you have Christians who will look at these things, and they typically won't bother with the tripartite division, so they'll focus completely on the soul.

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Well, if you do that, you've effectively become a Gnostic, because what you're doing is you're denying the reality of the flesh.

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If you don't look at the fact that man has these different parts, you are going to approach these things in a way that is not going to be beneficial, because with regard to the atheist, he is going to ignore the spiritual aspect.

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He's going to ignore these things are sins.

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He's going to ignore why these things are even occurring.

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The fact that we're fallen, the fact that we have these proclivities, the fact that original sin gives us this tendency toward these behaviors.

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And on the other hand, if you're looking at the Christian side of things, they're going to ignore that many of these also have biological foundations.

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There are parts of our biology that feed into many of these problems.

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If you don't look at man as being this Gestalt, something that is greater than the sum of its parts, and then looking at the parts themselves, you are going to miss something.

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Inevitably, you are going to miss something.

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And so essentially, the breakdown is that the body is your biology, and so there are biological bases for some of these things.

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For instance, addiction.

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If you are addicted to alcohol, you have created in your biology an addiction to ethanol.

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And in fact, that is one of the addictions, that if you quit cold turkey, it will kill you, in many cases.

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It won't always kill you.

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But that's not how you quit using alcohol.

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You have to wean yourself off of that, because if you go cold turkey, you are probably going to induce an emergency with regard to your biology.

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Then there is, with regard to the mind, the second part of man, psychology.

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Psychology primarily attempts to address how the mind works, what the mind does, how it interacts with the biology, because of course those two are very closely linked.

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Your biology and your mind are incredibly closely linked, to the point where we almost can't disentangle the two.

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But of course the same can be said with regard to the mind and the soul, which I'll get to in a minute.

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But certain parts, certain subsets of the field of psychology deal in large part with the biological seat of the mind, which is the brain, which is your neurochemistry.

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Because we know there are certain things we can do to the brain that change not necessarily the mind itself, but how the mind is able to express itself in reality.

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And so if certain parts of the brain are damaged, it can change your behavior, it can change your personality.

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If certain parts of the brain are destroyed, it can change your capabilities, at least until neuroplasticity allows the brain to compensate for that, to some degree, not perfectly, of course.

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It's never good to lose any portion of your brain.

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But the mind is a part of who and what you are.

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And so it is necessary to have some field, some undertaking to understand that, and we call that psychology.

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That is the study of the mind.

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Yes, of course, again, to repeat myself and to emphasize it, today we have a lot of study into the neurochemical processes, into the actual biological foundation of these things within the field of psychology.

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Part of that is just because now we have the machinery and things where we can actually test these things.

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We didn't have functional MRIs in years past.

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Now we can actually look into the brain and see what it's doing, particularly when you are, say, formulating certain thoughts or you are viewing certain stimuli.

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That's very useful to the field of psychology.

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And then third, the third part of man, we have the soul.

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Well, that's religion, that's Christianity.

00:21:36.832 --> 00:21:40.312
You need that as well to address these problems.

00:21:40.312 --> 00:21:52.172
Because if you simply address man as being biology, and then somehow that produces a mind, again, ignoring the problem of making that leap, you haven't looked at the totality.

00:21:52.172 --> 00:21:57.892
You haven't looked at the whole of the situation, because why do we do these things?

00:21:58.752 --> 00:22:01.132
Why do we have these proclivities?

00:22:01.132 --> 00:22:07.012
Why are we inclined toward sin, toward these destructive behaviors?

00:22:07.012 --> 00:22:10.552
Biology does not provide sufficient reasons.

00:22:10.552 --> 00:22:11.672
Religion does.

00:22:11.672 --> 00:22:14.932
Christianity gives you the answers to those questions.

00:22:14.932 --> 00:22:18.492
And it is also part of the solution to these problems.

00:22:18.492 --> 00:22:24.892
So if you have an addiction, it is necessary to approach it with all three of these in mind.

00:22:25.812 --> 00:22:34.192
An addiction is not generally something that you are going to solve purely biologically, purely psychologically, or purely spiritually.

00:22:34.192 --> 00:22:48.412
And so those who simply tell you will stop sinning are doing you a very real disservice if they don't recognize that certain sins do also have either a biological basis or a biological consequence.

00:22:49.532 --> 00:22:57.712
Because for some sins, if you engage them at least over a long period of time, actually some sins, it can be instantly, for instance, heroin.

00:22:57.712 --> 00:23:15.012
But generally speaking, if you engage in certain sins over a long period of time, you are going to create a reinforcing mechanism biologically that gives you a predisposition toward that, even if you didn't have it originally, which you may very well.

00:23:15.012 --> 00:23:17.492
That is another aspect of this.

00:23:17.492 --> 00:23:23.512
There are genetic predispositions in certain populations to certain kinds of sins.

00:23:24.672 --> 00:23:34.692
That is simply a reality of the fallen world in which we live, and we've gone over this in previous episodes with regard to biology, with regard to race, and things like that.

00:23:34.692 --> 00:23:47.672
If you are part of a population that has a genetic predisposition to a certain sort of sin, you should be more careful in avoiding that than would be someone in a population without that genetic predisposition.

00:23:48.812 --> 00:23:51.892
One of the most obvious examples would be the Amerindians.

00:23:52.712 --> 00:23:57.292
The Amerindians have a reputation of being alcoholics.

00:23:57.292 --> 00:24:11.492
Part of the reason that they have a proclivity toward that particular kind of sin is that they lack the same level of an enzyme that breaks down alcohol, that breaks down ethanol, when compared to European populations.

00:24:11.492 --> 00:24:13.132
We have more of it.

00:24:13.132 --> 00:24:29.232
And so if you drink the same amount of alcohol as a European, you are not going to have the problem with alcoholism that an Amerindian would at the same level of consumption, because his body is not going to break it down in the same way that yours does.

00:24:29.232 --> 00:24:31.332
Of course, there are also differences across gender.

00:24:31.332 --> 00:24:36.072
Men break down alcohol more readily and in greater volumes than women.

00:24:36.072 --> 00:24:44.252
These are biological differences, and they play into that addiction, potentially, we call alcoholism.

00:24:45.272 --> 00:24:51.532
Now, there are, of course, psychological aspects to that, because for many, it is going to be a coping mechanism.

00:24:51.532 --> 00:25:05.492
And saying that something is a coping mechanism is not psychologizing, it is not using psychology to explain away the sin, because something can be simultaneously a sin and a psychological condition.

00:25:06.692 --> 00:25:18.752
So, for instance, if you take heroin, you are going to create a biological dependence on that drug, in most cases, the first time you do it.

00:25:18.752 --> 00:25:21.932
So, incidentally, do not do heroin.

00:25:21.932 --> 00:25:24.232
This is not something where you say, oh, I'm going to experiment with.

00:25:24.232 --> 00:25:29.672
You can't experiment with certain things, because you will be addicted immediately.

00:25:29.672 --> 00:25:35.452
Incidentally, caffeine is the same way, but the caffeine addiction is nowhere near as destructive as a heroin addiction.

00:25:35.452 --> 00:25:38.752
And unlike heroin, caffeine actually has legitimate uses.

00:25:40.132 --> 00:25:48.772
But you are going to create that biological basis for that addiction, partly because the system already exists, because if you didn't have the receptors for the drug, you couldn't become addicted.

00:25:48.772 --> 00:25:52.252
But using the drug reinforces that.

00:25:52.252 --> 00:25:54.752
You become addicted immediately.

00:25:54.752 --> 00:26:02.432
And then there's the psychological aspect, because psychologically speaking, you are going to enjoy using the drug.

00:26:02.432 --> 00:26:05.752
If heroin didn't feel good, no one would do it.

00:26:07.132 --> 00:26:09.412
The problem is that it does feel good.

00:26:09.412 --> 00:26:11.092
It's also extremely destructive.

00:26:11.092 --> 00:26:14.132
It will destroy your life and everyone around you.

00:26:14.132 --> 00:26:15.952
That's the problem with sin.

00:26:15.952 --> 00:26:23.472
As we've mentioned many times before, if sin weren't enjoyable in some sense, no one would do it.

00:26:23.472 --> 00:26:26.732
Because ultimately, it is incredibly destructive.

00:26:26.732 --> 00:26:32.872
It has to have some sort of perceived positive it brings along with it, or no one would be enticed.

00:26:34.312 --> 00:26:41.912
If Satan just came up to you and said, hey, you should chop off your foot, very few men are going to say, that sounds like a great plan.

00:26:41.912 --> 00:26:47.012
But if instead Satan says, hey, you should drink a gallon of soda every day, well, guess what?

00:26:47.012 --> 00:26:50.332
You wind up losing your feet just the same.

00:26:50.332 --> 00:27:00.812
But there is that perceived positive that comes along with it, because you probably enjoy drinking the soda, if you're the sort of person who likes really sugary beverages, which most human beings do.

00:27:00.812 --> 00:27:01.732
That's how sin works.

00:27:01.772 --> 00:27:06.592
There has to be that perceived, at least, positive that comes along with it.

00:27:06.592 --> 00:27:13.892
But psychologically speaking, what you've done is you've now created what starts out in many cases as a habit.

00:27:13.892 --> 00:27:15.552
Obviously, heroin doesn't start as a habit.

00:27:15.552 --> 00:27:17.292
It starts out as an addiction.

00:27:17.292 --> 00:27:20.752
But it starts out as either an addiction or a habit.

00:27:20.752 --> 00:27:28.772
And eventually, once you've lost control of it, which again, in some cases happens immediately, it becomes an addiction, psychologically speaking.

00:27:28.772 --> 00:27:30.992
Well, now you have biology and psychology at play.

00:27:31.712 --> 00:27:34.412
With regard to this addiction.

00:27:34.412 --> 00:27:39.372
And spiritually speaking, it's a little different, but at the same time, it's not.

00:27:39.372 --> 00:27:42.492
Because what is it going to do?

00:27:42.492 --> 00:27:47.992
It is going to become an idol, is essentially what you're dealing with when you're dealing with an addiction.

00:27:47.992 --> 00:27:49.432
Now, it's sort of a minor idol.

00:27:49.432 --> 00:27:53.192
You're not really looking to it for all good in your life.

00:27:53.192 --> 00:27:55.832
But you're looking to it for some good in your life.

00:27:55.832 --> 00:28:00.592
Because this has become the thing you turn to in order to feel good about your life.

00:28:01.112 --> 00:28:07.992
In order to maybe feel like you have control, or feel like something is going right, although really you're making it worse.

00:28:07.992 --> 00:28:11.612
But there is a spiritual aspect to addiction.

00:28:11.612 --> 00:28:20.852
This is the reason, again, that those who are atheistic in their views cannot truly treat addiction, because they always ignore one of the aspects of it.

00:28:20.852 --> 00:28:23.712
There is a spiritual aspect to addiction.

00:28:24.872 --> 00:28:37.672
But if you as a Christian ignore the biology and the psychology, you are not doing yourself or the other person any good, because what you're doing is you're telling him, just stop sinning.

00:28:37.672 --> 00:28:41.752
Has that ever worked in all of history?

00:28:41.752 --> 00:28:51.132
The answer is no, because you have to have some sort of concrete steps in order to stop engaging in the sin, regardless of what the sin happens to be.

00:28:51.132 --> 00:29:02.672
If, for instance, it happens to be drugs, then you should probably put some safeguards in place where you are not exposed to those drugs, where you don't have the opportunity to acquire them.

00:29:02.672 --> 00:29:07.132
That is a concrete step to avoid engaging in that sin.

00:29:07.132 --> 00:29:14.152
And so, biologically, physically, you are preventing yourself from being in a position to engage in the sin.

00:29:14.152 --> 00:29:25.252
Psychologically, you are putting up barriers to defend yourself against engaging in that behavior, and then that is what is enabling you not to sin, not to commit the spiritual transgression.

00:29:26.012 --> 00:29:29.572
All three parts of man are involved in these things.

00:29:31.132 --> 00:29:46.972
And one of the examples, and the reason that Woe gave the parental warning in the opening, one of the best examples is pornography, because it is so rampant in our society, unfortunately, and very little is being done to combat it.

00:29:46.972 --> 00:29:57.632
It plays on a number of systems in the brain, but we'll simplify for the sake of the episode, because we're not doing a biology or psychology podcast, neurochemistry.

00:29:58.992 --> 00:30:03.232
It basically plays on the dopamine system, which is the reward system in your brain.

00:30:03.232 --> 00:30:14.132
And simplified, how the reward system in your brain works is that when you do something that your biology likes, it releases dopamine.

00:30:14.132 --> 00:30:19.052
And the dopamine is a feedback loop so that you will do it again.

00:30:19.052 --> 00:30:20.312
It's a reward.

00:30:20.312 --> 00:30:27.172
It feels good, you do it again, because generally speaking, that is how we respond.

00:30:27.172 --> 00:30:35.012
It's definitely how animals work, and insofar as we are creatures, we are biological, we are mammals, we are animals.

00:30:35.012 --> 00:30:38.272
It's just that we are more than that, because again, we are tripartite.

00:30:39.332 --> 00:30:52.612
And so what happens is you do this thing, your brain gives you a reward, and now you want to do it more, because you have that biology telling you, this was good, here's a drug, and that's what dopamine is, it's a drug.

00:30:52.612 --> 00:30:54.152
Not all drugs are bad.

00:30:54.152 --> 00:31:00.512
Dopamine is fine if it's doing its actual duty, if it's doing the thing it should be doing in the body.

00:31:00.512 --> 00:31:08.272
And then psychologically, you have a proclivity toward this now, because you had that reward, and your mind goes, I want more of that.

00:31:08.272 --> 00:31:12.632
This is a good thing, because I got a reward when I did it.

00:31:12.632 --> 00:31:18.112
Pornography is hijacking the system that is supposed to help you pair bond with your wife.

00:31:18.112 --> 00:31:28.052
And I'm just going to speak in terms of being a man, because overwhelmingly, this is a male addiction, and I'm male, and I'm speaking to mostly men.

00:31:28.052 --> 00:31:35.832
This is a system that is supposed to be used to help you pair bond with your wife, because sex gives you a reward.

00:31:35.832 --> 00:31:38.192
It releases a number of neurochemicals, obviously.

00:31:38.192 --> 00:31:40.032
It's not just dopamine.

00:31:40.032 --> 00:31:43.872
You've also got serotonin and oxytocin involved, other things like that.

00:31:43.872 --> 00:31:48.572
But the reward system that is dopamine gives you that reward when you have sex.

00:31:49.832 --> 00:31:53.632
Because biologically, your body wants you to do that again.

00:31:53.632 --> 00:32:00.332
Partly, this is how God built in a reward for doing the thing you are supposed to do in marriage.

00:32:00.332 --> 00:32:07.492
Do remember that God told us to be fruitful and multiply, and you can't really do that unless you have sex with your wife.

00:32:07.492 --> 00:32:12.012
So it's partly a reward for doing that thing you are supposed to do.

00:32:12.012 --> 00:32:17.892
And in that context, it's good, because it builds that relationship with your wife.

00:32:18.912 --> 00:32:20.812
Which is what it should be doing.

00:32:20.812 --> 00:32:23.272
But pornography hijacks that.

00:32:23.272 --> 00:32:25.552
Because you're not building a relationship with your computer.

00:32:25.552 --> 00:32:28.352
At least I hope you aren't.

00:32:28.352 --> 00:32:45.092
But that's what it gets you to think, because it's building on that system, in your biology, in your brain, to get you to have the same reaction, the same sort of feedback loop, viewing this horrible material that you would actually interacting with your wife.

00:32:46.412 --> 00:32:49.352
There are a number of points here that are vitally important.

00:32:50.432 --> 00:32:55.492
One is that this system is part of God's design in your brain.

00:32:55.492 --> 00:32:59.012
It is part of God's design of your biology.

00:32:59.012 --> 00:33:01.752
You cannot get rid of it.

00:33:01.752 --> 00:33:05.512
You will never be 100% the master of it.

00:33:05.512 --> 00:33:09.832
It is something that is to some degree out of your control.

00:33:09.832 --> 00:33:14.012
Similar to how you will never be 100% the master of hunger.

00:33:14.812 --> 00:33:17.252
You can suppress it while you are fasting.

00:33:17.252 --> 00:33:19.732
You can suppress it in order to lose weight.

00:33:19.732 --> 00:33:21.132
But it will still be there.

00:33:21.132 --> 00:33:22.532
It will still nag at you.

00:33:22.532 --> 00:33:24.832
And it will get stronger over time.

00:33:24.832 --> 00:33:31.892
There are certain things built into your biology over which you cannot exercise 100% control.

00:33:31.892 --> 00:33:37.212
Because to believe that you have perfect control over your biology would be Gnosticism.

00:33:37.212 --> 00:33:43.012
It would be denying the reality of the flesh and saying, no, it's the mind or it's the soul that's completely in control.

00:33:43.112 --> 00:33:44.512
It's not the biology.

00:33:45.712 --> 00:33:48.852
Now you are to discipline your body.

00:33:48.852 --> 00:33:54.232
But that is because there is a proper outlet for these things with regard to hunger.

00:33:54.232 --> 00:33:58.612
You eat good food in reasonable portions.

00:33:58.612 --> 00:34:04.272
With regard to this reward system insofar as sex is concerned, you have sex with your wife.

00:34:04.272 --> 00:34:05.792
You're supposed to do that.

00:34:05.792 --> 00:34:09.912
The system is working as it should when you use it in that way.

00:34:11.212 --> 00:34:16.272
But again, pornography hijacks it, and that is how it works.

00:34:16.272 --> 00:34:19.892
So you can't completely suppress that drive.

00:34:19.892 --> 00:34:24.992
Because as a man, you are always going to enjoy seeing naked women.

00:34:24.992 --> 00:34:29.792
Unless you are given the gift of celibacy, and you probably aren't.

00:34:29.792 --> 00:34:33.832
I highly doubt there's a single man listening to this podcast who has been given that gift.

00:34:33.832 --> 00:34:37.672
And if he is, I don't know why he's listening to this particular episode, or at least this section of it.

00:34:39.552 --> 00:34:46.772
So it's something that is going to be with you your entire life, because it has a legitimate purpose.

00:34:46.772 --> 00:34:50.652
It was designed by God to serve a legitimate end.

00:34:50.652 --> 00:34:55.672
It is just that sin hijacks it and uses it toward wicked ends.

00:34:55.672 --> 00:34:58.992
That's the spiritual aspect of this, because that's a sin.

00:34:58.992 --> 00:35:00.492
We all know that.

00:35:00.492 --> 00:35:03.592
Viewing pornography is a sin.

00:35:03.592 --> 00:35:09.612
Having the inclination to view it is also a sin, because we have that only due to original sin.

00:35:09.612 --> 00:35:11.912
That is part of our fallen nature.

00:35:11.912 --> 00:35:19.052
In a state of perfection, you would not have that inclination, because your only sexual desire would be toward your wife.

00:35:19.052 --> 00:35:20.432
And that is perfectly legitimate.

00:35:20.432 --> 00:35:21.192
That is a good thing.

00:35:21.192 --> 00:35:22.672
That is from God.

00:35:22.672 --> 00:35:25.092
You should embrace that and focus on that.

00:35:25.092 --> 00:35:30.012
And incidentally, that is the cure that Scripture gives.

00:35:30.012 --> 00:35:31.412
Let each man have his own wife.

00:35:31.412 --> 00:35:34.612
That is the cure for sexual sin according to the Word of God.

00:35:36.372 --> 00:35:49.852
But with regard to this addiction, which is what viewing pornography becomes for so many men these days, you can't address that addiction without addressing all of the parts of that problem.

00:35:49.852 --> 00:35:56.832
Biologically speaking, it's going to depend on how long you have been viewing it, and how frequently.

00:35:56.832 --> 00:36:01.192
Because the longer you do that, the more it is going to affect you.

00:36:01.192 --> 00:36:03.352
It actually decreases the gray matter in your brain.

00:36:03.452 --> 00:36:07.352
It rearranges connectivity in the frontal lobe.

00:36:07.352 --> 00:36:10.032
There are all sorts of things that it does.

00:36:10.032 --> 00:36:12.492
It obviously impacts your dopamine system.

00:36:12.492 --> 00:36:16.752
It actually causes some resistance to dopamine.

00:36:16.752 --> 00:36:24.272
It requires a greater dose of dopamine for you to feel anything when you've been engaging in this behavior for too long.

00:36:24.272 --> 00:36:25.012
Various things like that.

00:36:25.012 --> 00:36:27.132
We're not getting into necessarily all of the biology right now.

00:36:27.132 --> 00:36:28.512
It's not the point of the episode.

00:36:30.012 --> 00:36:34.732
But biologically speaking, it alters your brain.

00:36:34.732 --> 00:36:54.132
And so you have to account for that in how you address the sin, because you have created by your own actions a feedback system, a feedback loop, in which you are now more biologically addicted to this thing than you were at the beginning.

00:36:54.132 --> 00:36:57.192
And so biologically you have a problem.

00:36:58.152 --> 00:37:02.172
It's not just psychological, it's not just spiritual.

00:37:02.172 --> 00:37:05.192
There is a biological basis to it now.

00:37:05.192 --> 00:37:07.192
That has to be addressed as well.

00:37:07.192 --> 00:37:12.992
Unfortunately, in this case, the best way to address that is simply to stop.

00:37:12.992 --> 00:37:21.692
But you have to stop and hold to that for a period of time, because your brain has to repair itself from the damage that you have caused.

00:37:21.692 --> 00:37:30.972
Psychologically, we have some better tools, because psychologically it's not just, hey, you have to stop and then hope for the best over a period of time.

00:37:30.972 --> 00:37:38.752
Psychologically, what you can do is remove the things that create that temptation.

00:37:38.752 --> 00:37:43.212
You can avoid the things that cause you to fall into that sin.

00:37:43.212 --> 00:37:47.552
And so for every man, it's going to be different, because there are going to be different temptations.

00:37:47.552 --> 00:37:51.472
There will be some similarities, of course, across men, but it's going to be specific.

00:37:52.292 --> 00:38:02.112
And so maybe you need to have your computer in a public part of your house, so that you don't have that temptation, where you are alone with this thing that facilitates your sin.

00:38:02.112 --> 00:38:07.012
Or maybe you should restrict your internet usage between certain hours.

00:38:07.012 --> 00:38:11.952
There are all sorts of steps you can take, that will help you psychologically.

00:38:11.952 --> 00:38:18.252
Maybe when you have that temptation, you go to 50 push-ups, or whatever it happens to be, run a mile.

00:38:18.252 --> 00:38:20.492
These are sorts of behavioral approaches.

00:38:20.572 --> 00:38:23.372
We're almost talking about cognitive behavioral therapy here.

00:38:23.372 --> 00:38:42.952
But there are sorts of approaches here psychologically, where you can use the same sort of psychological systems that were hijacked in order to get you to engage in this behavior and continue engaging in it, to diminish the engagement and form a positive habit instead, which is really what you're doing.

00:38:42.952 --> 00:38:49.252
You're trying to form a new habit to replace this old habit, which is a point I want to emphasize here.

00:38:50.392 --> 00:39:02.552
If you have a negative habit, generally speaking, you are going to have more success replacing it with a positive habit than simply trying to get rid of the negative habit.

00:39:02.552 --> 00:39:22.712
It is more effective to create a replacement than simply attempt to suppress or destroy the old habit you no longer want, which is what you are trying to do when you create a new set of incentives or circumstances that will have you doing something other than the sin.

00:39:22.712 --> 00:39:25.592
And again, so every man, it's going to be different.

00:39:25.592 --> 00:39:32.192
But spiritually, the third aspect of this, because again, man is tripartite, it is sin.

00:39:32.192 --> 00:39:34.932
You need to confess the sin.

00:39:34.932 --> 00:39:43.132
It may be, and in many cases, it definitely is, that confessing the sin to another man is going to be beneficial.

00:39:43.132 --> 00:39:45.032
That doesn't have to be your pastor.

00:39:45.032 --> 00:39:53.072
Maybe it isn't your pastor, because these days many pastors are questionable, we'll say, without getting too deeply into that topic here.

00:39:53.072 --> 00:39:59.892
It is certainly not going to be your wife, and I want every man listening to understand that.

00:39:59.892 --> 00:40:11.612
If you decide that the wise thing to do, and it's not, but if you decide that the wise thing to do is to confess this sin to your wife, you are going to destroy your marriage.

00:40:11.612 --> 00:40:13.052
At the very least, you are going to harm it.

00:40:13.832 --> 00:40:19.572
This is something that you confess to a male friend whom you truly trust.

00:40:19.572 --> 00:40:24.812
This is something you confess to another Christian man who is going to hold you accountable.

00:40:25.892 --> 00:40:30.512
This is the reason that we need to have male Christian friends.

00:40:30.532 --> 00:40:31.232
One of the reasons.

00:40:31.232 --> 00:40:38.612
It's not the only reason, obviously, but it's one of the reasons, because we are to confess our sins one to another.

00:40:38.612 --> 00:40:40.452
But that's a matter of wisdom.

00:40:40.452 --> 00:40:42.632
You need to know to whom to confess that sin.

00:40:43.172 --> 00:40:48.292
And it's going to be, again, another man who can help hold you accountable.

00:40:48.292 --> 00:40:55.752
And one of the ways that you can create that sort of accountability is that if you fall back into the sin, you tell him.

00:40:55.752 --> 00:40:59.572
And he'll chastise you for it, encourage you to stop.

00:40:59.572 --> 00:41:10.312
And that's part of it, encouraging each other to avoid these things, helping each other to avoid the circumstances that create the temptation to fall back into that sin.

00:41:12.892 --> 00:41:18.312
I'm not saying that any of this is going to be easy, because obviously, for some men, it's going to be very difficult.

00:41:18.312 --> 00:41:21.672
Different men are tempted to different things.

00:41:21.672 --> 00:41:23.552
Not every man is an alcoholic.

00:41:23.552 --> 00:41:26.292
Not every man is addicted to pornography.

00:41:26.292 --> 00:41:31.252
The difference, of course, in the case of pornography, is that every man, again, enjoys seeing naked women.

00:41:31.252 --> 00:41:32.852
Not every man actually enjoys alcohol.

00:41:32.852 --> 00:41:34.292
Some don't like it at all.

00:41:34.292 --> 00:41:37.712
And some have no inclination whatsoever toward being addicted to it.

00:41:39.512 --> 00:41:45.932
Each man is going to be tempted in different ways toward different things.

00:41:45.932 --> 00:41:57.632
And so, the takeaway from understanding man and man's nature as a tripartite being is that you need to address all three.

00:41:57.632 --> 00:42:09.332
If you address only one aspect, you're handicapping yourself, you're hobbling yourself, you are setting yourself up for failure by not addressing the totality of the problem.

00:42:09.332 --> 00:42:21.652
If you address only part of a problem, you probably aren't going to solve it, because really what you're effectively doing is you're addressing symptoms in many cases instead of the root cause.

00:42:21.652 --> 00:42:36.912
If you have a leak in your house, let's say you have a leak in your roof or a leaky pipe in your crawl space, whatever it happens to be, and instead of fixing the leak, you just keep repairing the ceiling, you haven't really made things better.

00:42:36.912 --> 00:42:44.212
Sure, you've probably stopped the water temporarily from dripping on your head, but you haven't addressed the actual problem.

00:42:44.212 --> 00:42:49.092
And so if you focus only on the biology, you haven't really addressed the addiction.

00:42:49.092 --> 00:42:57.812
The same thing is true of focusing on the psychology, which is so common today, or in the case of many Christians, focusing only on the spiritual aspect.

00:42:57.812 --> 00:42:59.652
You have to focus on all three.

00:42:59.652 --> 00:43:01.492
You can't deny the reality of the flesh.

00:43:02.152 --> 00:43:06.692
You can't deny the reality of, quite frankly, psychology, because psychology is real.

00:43:06.692 --> 00:43:08.212
We know that.

00:43:08.212 --> 00:43:14.032
One of the things that can be used to test a world view is its predictive power.

00:43:14.032 --> 00:43:19.372
Many things that have come out of psychology have very strong predictive powers.

00:43:19.372 --> 00:43:20.712
They're true.

00:43:20.712 --> 00:43:22.552
They have been proven time and time again.

00:43:22.552 --> 00:43:24.432
They have been tested.

00:43:24.432 --> 00:43:27.372
When we say that it can be dangerous, you don't want to go overboard.

00:43:27.372 --> 00:43:37.692
We're talking about psychologizing, which is what those who deny the reality of the soul do, because they say that everything is just biology in the mind.

00:43:37.692 --> 00:43:39.952
And so just leave the soul aside.

00:43:39.952 --> 00:43:41.652
It's not a sin.

00:43:41.652 --> 00:43:44.852
It's because of this, that, and the other.

00:43:44.852 --> 00:43:47.992
But we know as Christians that we have a soul.

00:43:47.992 --> 00:43:52.332
We know as Christians that the spiritual itself is also real.

00:43:52.332 --> 00:43:54.972
And so that has to be addressed along with the other two.

00:43:56.732 --> 00:44:03.352
And so again, what we're really doing in this episode is we're saying that there is a via media.

00:44:03.352 --> 00:44:09.412
As we have said in so many other episodes, we are recommending that you fall off neither side of the horse.

00:44:09.412 --> 00:44:15.352
Because if you fall off the left or the right side of the horse, in either case, you've fallen off the horse.

00:44:15.352 --> 00:44:17.032
That's not what you should do.

00:44:17.032 --> 00:44:19.572
It may be that falling off one side is worse than the other.

00:44:19.572 --> 00:44:22.872
I've mentioned before, as an example, maybe there's a cliff on one side.

00:44:23.812 --> 00:44:30.172
If you just psychologize, that's probably worse, because you're denying that man has a soul.

00:44:30.172 --> 00:44:32.872
In that case, you're basically an atheist.

00:44:32.872 --> 00:44:42.612
That doesn't mean that it's good to deny the biology and the psychology by making everything spiritual, because then you're spiritualizing, which is falling off the other side of the horse.

00:44:42.612 --> 00:44:44.772
That is also bad.

00:44:44.772 --> 00:44:48.592
Recognize that all three of these things are part of man.

00:44:48.592 --> 00:45:01.572
They're all three in play with regard to addiction, and they all three need to be addressed, because otherwise, you are approaching it with an incomplete solution that will probably wind up making things worse.

00:45:02.712 --> 00:45:48.292
If you think about these things from the perspective of Satan the Temptor, it makes perfect sense that he would target a part of the human body, you know, dopamine receptors, some aspect of your biology that God put there for a good reason and for our pleasure and enjoyment, Satan is going to target that thing that's going to feel good as a mechanism, so that he doesn't simply have to convince you mentally, oh, here's a good idea, like Corey said, you're not going to conclude even with suggestion that you should chop off your own foot, but you will conclude that two liters of Coke tastes pretty good, and you keep drinking them and a long enough timeline, you get diabetes and you lose your feet.

00:45:49.052 --> 00:45:55.292
So the temptation comes by applying a misdirection.

00:45:55.292 --> 00:46:02.332
The evil outcome, the same ones, is for you to engage in sin, and ultimately, essentially, to make your belly your own god.

00:46:02.332 --> 00:46:06.292
This is something that scripture says explicitly.

00:46:06.292 --> 00:46:13.812
Philippians 3 says, Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

00:46:13.812 --> 00:46:20.772
For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

00:46:20.772 --> 00:46:28.132
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things.

00:46:28.132 --> 00:46:41.692
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

00:46:41.692 --> 00:46:49.612
When it is written, their god is their belly, it's specifically talking about the seed of physical desires and appetites.

00:46:49.612 --> 00:46:51.712
It's talking about these mechanisms.

00:46:51.712 --> 00:46:53.572
As Corey said, you get hungry.

00:46:53.572 --> 00:46:55.472
God made you to get hungry.

00:46:55.472 --> 00:46:58.532
He made you to hunger for good things.

00:46:58.532 --> 00:46:59.912
What's Satan gonna do?

00:46:59.912 --> 00:47:02.472
He's not gonna try to convince you not to be hungry.

00:47:02.472 --> 00:47:06.712
He's gonna take that thing that you've been given as a gift and weaponize it.

00:47:06.712 --> 00:47:15.112
It's Aikido, it's Judo, it's misdirecting the momentum of one side to redirect it to do something else.

00:47:15.112 --> 00:47:19.212
That's where the power of evil temptation comes from.

00:47:19.212 --> 00:47:21.892
It's not by trying to get you to do a 180.

00:47:21.892 --> 00:47:23.692
That doesn't work on most people.

00:47:23.692 --> 00:47:29.592
It's trying to just get you to maybe accelerate into the thing that you already want to do and then move you off course.

00:47:29.592 --> 00:47:37.652
So that, as Corey said, you have a natural desire for the female body, but then it is disordered because it's not for your wife.

00:47:38.272 --> 00:47:43.592
And if you don't have a wife, you have a real problem because you have a natural desire without an outlet.

00:47:43.592 --> 00:48:13.512
And so Satan uses what God has made for good for evil purposes, and we let him because we're greedy, we're impatient, we would rather have the pleasure of eating too much, of consuming substances that, you know, maybe they can be good for us, but in excess they're not, or doing actively evil things because we want to cheat, we want to cut in line, not going to wait to get married, we're not going to have sex with our wife, we're going to do something else because we want our fix now.

00:48:13.512 --> 00:48:22.772
The fix, the biological satisfaction, the psychological satisfaction that we get from doing something that would have been good if it were done in the proper context.

00:48:22.772 --> 00:48:28.152
When we get greedy, when we get envious of what someone else has, we just want more and more and more.

00:48:28.152 --> 00:48:31.912
When we make our god our belly, we're engaging in idolatry.

00:48:31.912 --> 00:48:34.052
That's really what this boils down to.

00:48:34.772 --> 00:48:44.832
It becomes idolatry to substitute even something that's good, that's given for a good purpose, and then to effectively bow down to it.

00:48:44.832 --> 00:48:52.092
You make your god your belly when you make yourself subject to your own appetites, whatever they are.

00:48:52.092 --> 00:48:53.992
And it could be a good appetite.

00:48:53.992 --> 00:49:00.712
I've said before, I don't have any physical appetites for anything for which there's a psychological category or a sin.

00:49:00.712 --> 00:49:07.052
I don't suffer from alcoholism or anything like that, but you put sugar in front of me and I'm going to consume all of it.

00:49:07.052 --> 00:49:10.312
I don't go down the candy aisle because I don't want the temptation.

00:49:10.312 --> 00:49:13.272
I know if I bring it home, it's not just that I'm going to eat it.

00:49:13.272 --> 00:49:15.172
I'm going to eat it all in one sitting.

00:49:15.172 --> 00:49:19.212
I bring home two pounds of gummy bears, tarbo gummy bears, I'm going to eat them all.

00:49:19.212 --> 00:49:20.472
That's bad.

00:49:20.472 --> 00:49:25.852
So my self-control in the face of that temptation is to leave it at the store, not to buy it.

00:49:25.852 --> 00:49:32.912
Or if I occasionally enjoy it, I do it once in a while, knowing that even if I go overboard a little bit, it's going to be months before I do it again.

00:49:32.992 --> 00:49:39.512
And I don't know to what extent I'm indulging in sin and to what extent I'm just sort of metering out my lack of self-control.

00:49:39.512 --> 00:49:43.312
But I have to at least have a conscious choice.

00:49:43.312 --> 00:49:45.172
I'm not going to go down that aisle.

00:49:45.172 --> 00:49:50.672
I'm not going to buy that thing because I know I don't have the self-control to leave it alone.

00:49:50.672 --> 00:49:51.532
That's what I struggle with.

00:49:51.532 --> 00:49:52.652
And there's not a name for that.

00:49:52.652 --> 00:49:53.652
Like, there's no disorder.

00:49:53.652 --> 00:49:56.072
It's just being greedy for sugar.

00:49:56.072 --> 00:49:58.672
But I know personally that that is my weakness.

00:49:58.672 --> 00:50:00.872
Other people find sugar repellent.

00:50:00.872 --> 00:50:02.192
They don't even like the taste of sweets.

00:50:02.612 --> 00:50:04.232
I think that's kind of crazy.

00:50:04.232 --> 00:50:12.852
Part of the reason for talking about these distinctions in psychological terms is acknowledging the fact that we are different.

00:50:12.852 --> 00:50:18.972
We all have the same basic set of appetites, the same basic set of potential sins that we're going to commit.

00:50:18.972 --> 00:50:23.032
None of us are doing anything original, but we do fall into different buckets.

00:50:23.032 --> 00:50:27.592
I've said in the past, like, my sins, my particular sins, probably not yours.

00:50:27.592 --> 00:50:30.272
I'm tempted by things that you are not tempted by.

00:50:30.272 --> 00:50:36.272
The reason for acknowledging that is that if I say, well, I'm not tempted by this, so I'm better than you, like, crap, no.

00:50:36.272 --> 00:50:39.912
I'm tempted by things that you find laughably non-tempting.

00:50:39.912 --> 00:50:43.872
I can't try to one up myself and one up you and say, look how much better I am.

00:50:43.872 --> 00:50:45.012
That's nonsense.

00:50:45.012 --> 00:50:48.332
I'm weak to things that wouldn't even register for you.

00:50:48.332 --> 00:50:50.172
And maybe the vice versa is true.

00:50:50.172 --> 00:50:59.352
That's what's essential for us as Christians to understand about each other, is that my weakness is not going to necessarily be your weakness, but we do have the same propensity for weakness.

00:51:00.352 --> 00:51:12.332
And I think that's one of the valuable things about acknowledging, not only from the spiritual side, the sin problem, the fact that we will tend towards sin, but also the psychological elements.

00:51:12.332 --> 00:51:21.932
Because when you begin to break down the differences among men, it's possible then to become sympathetic, even to someone who has a problem that you don't have at all.

00:51:21.932 --> 00:51:30.072
You know, another example from psychology that some people will laugh at, some people take seriously, I think it's a useful tool like all this stuff.

00:51:30.072 --> 00:51:31.792
The Myers-Briggs text.

00:51:31.792 --> 00:51:35.832
I'm not recommending it, but Corey and I are both INTJs.

00:51:35.832 --> 00:51:37.112
Rabidly so.

00:51:37.112 --> 00:51:47.412
And that is a very particular approach, a mental approach, a psychological approach to life, to problem-solving, to everything that happens.

00:51:47.412 --> 00:51:50.012
This is very much an INTJ podcast.

00:51:50.012 --> 00:51:52.072
And you don't have to know anything about that or care.

00:51:52.072 --> 00:51:53.132
It doesn't matter.

00:51:53.132 --> 00:51:54.292
I'm not suggesting you care.

00:51:54.972 --> 00:52:03.612
I bring it up because there is a certain explanatory power to the Myers-Briggs description of personalities.

00:52:03.612 --> 00:52:09.232
There's certainly some degree of malleability to the way Myers-Briggs breaks down some of the personality types.

00:52:09.232 --> 00:52:18.872
And although it originated with Jung, who is an absolutely despicable human being, it really rearranges the way he approached things in a fundamentally different way.

00:52:18.872 --> 00:52:21.132
Again, I'm not recommending you take it.

00:52:21.132 --> 00:52:26.912
I am bringing it up because Cory and I are so very specifically INTJ-like.

00:52:26.912 --> 00:52:30.852
That if you were to read those descriptions, I guess exactly what those guys are like.

00:52:30.852 --> 00:52:34.772
And it's an immutable property of who we are as men.

00:52:34.772 --> 00:52:40.532
When you read, so there's INTJ and then there's ESFP would be the alternate.

00:52:40.532 --> 00:52:44.792
There are four parts with two possibilities for each of them.

00:52:44.792 --> 00:52:49.932
As an INTJ, when I read the ESFP description, I find it to be nightmarish.

00:52:50.572 --> 00:52:57.132
I am looking at the description of the most crazy, insane person beyond imagining for me.

00:52:57.132 --> 00:53:03.432
But the reason that I think it's valuable to have that awareness is that they're not a bad person.

00:53:03.432 --> 00:53:05.592
I'm not morally condemning them.

00:53:05.592 --> 00:53:10.332
The reason that it's valuable is I look at that like, okay, this is a different type of person.

00:53:10.332 --> 00:53:18.352
This is a person that's going to approach different problems in different ways that I find completely alien, that for me would be completely distasteful.

00:53:18.352 --> 00:53:24.132
But if someone else is out there doing that thing, and there are a lot of them, they're more than me, I can't hate them.

00:53:24.132 --> 00:53:29.992
I can't think that they're retarded or dumb or immoral, or they're not defective, but they're different.

00:53:29.992 --> 00:53:39.492
And I think that that's another valuable thing that we can learn from psychology, is that the acknowledgement is something that's completely obvious, like obviously people are different.

00:53:39.492 --> 00:53:47.972
When these things were systematized, it made it more clear that there are certain subgroups of people that are going to approach life in different ways.

00:53:47.972 --> 00:53:54.372
And when I learned about it, I was thankful, because it made me more sympathetic to someone that I find alien.

00:53:54.372 --> 00:53:58.152
Before I knew about that, I would have just thought these people are crazy and retarded.

00:53:58.152 --> 00:54:00.552
Like I said, when I read the description, it's horrifying.

00:54:00.552 --> 00:54:04.932
But then when I see the people in reality, they're not horrifying, they're strange to me.

00:54:04.932 --> 00:54:08.672
I read some of their approaches and their conclusions, like how did you get there?

00:54:08.672 --> 00:54:18.952
But when I realize that it's a different approach to the very same set of facts that's in front of me, and they reach different conclusions, I can't get angry at them, I can't condemn them.

00:54:18.952 --> 00:54:24.952
I think as a Christian and just as a person who wants to try to be right, that has value of its own.

00:54:24.952 --> 00:54:32.252
So realizing that different people have different problems, have different approaches, makes us more sympathetic to people who are different than us.

00:54:32.992 --> 00:54:41.232
You know, some people will listen to 15 minutes of this podcast, and because we talk and think like INTJs, they want nothing to do with it.

00:54:41.232 --> 00:54:45.892
I honestly think that a big part of that is a serious mismatch in that personality type.

00:54:45.892 --> 00:54:47.612
And so it doesn't bother me.

00:54:47.612 --> 00:54:53.172
I don't think they're stupid or wrong or dumb for not enjoying our approach, because it's very particular.

00:54:53.172 --> 00:54:58.032
And some people find it very appealing, and other people find it alien and gross and stupid and pointless.

00:54:58.032 --> 00:55:00.672
Even if they agree with us, they don't want to hear us talking about things.

00:55:01.232 --> 00:55:05.992
That makes sense from the perspective of those different personality types.

00:55:05.992 --> 00:55:09.292
To understand that there are different types of people.

00:55:09.292 --> 00:55:13.192
We've talked in the past about there are different races of people that do things differently.

00:55:13.192 --> 00:55:18.832
I am very English with a strong dose of German, even though it's minority in my part.

00:55:18.832 --> 00:55:20.952
Italians are alien to me.

00:55:20.952 --> 00:55:22.252
Greeks are alien.

00:55:22.252 --> 00:55:23.592
Russians are alien.

00:55:23.592 --> 00:55:27.252
And Russians and Italians are alien in a very different way from each other.

00:55:27.252 --> 00:55:28.052
That's genetic.

00:55:28.052 --> 00:55:29.112
It's not just cultural.

00:55:29.952 --> 00:55:31.232
It doesn't mean they're bad.

00:55:31.232 --> 00:55:34.732
I don't think Italians are terrible, or Russians are monsters.

00:55:34.732 --> 00:55:36.892
I think they're different than me.

00:55:36.892 --> 00:55:42.232
And I think it's important for us to all acknowledge that there are different types of people.

00:55:42.232 --> 00:55:45.952
The worst thing that we could do to the world is try to make everyone the same.

00:55:45.952 --> 00:56:06.492
I guess one of the worst things about the outcome of mass media is that because America has been in the lead for the last century of exporting our culture to the world, it's created a monoculture everywhere else, where everyone eats the same things, drinks the same things, talks and thinks in the same way, even in their own languages.

00:56:06.492 --> 00:56:09.352
Listen to the same music, same TV shows.

00:56:09.352 --> 00:56:20.352
I think that's a terrible outcome for humanity because it's destroying the distinctions that made all these other races and cultures and places so interesting on their own.

00:56:21.452 --> 00:56:26.392
I find it very fascinating the approach that, for example, the Russian mind takes to things.

00:56:27.072 --> 00:56:31.492
I think it's fascinating that Russians think we're retarded for smiling.

00:56:31.492 --> 00:56:35.772
They think you must be either insane or retarded to smile.

00:56:35.772 --> 00:56:37.972
That's how Russians view other people.

00:56:37.972 --> 00:56:40.492
Whereas as an American, I'm fine with smiling.

00:56:40.492 --> 00:56:43.232
It's my nature not to be grumpy or dour.

00:56:43.232 --> 00:56:46.432
It is unreasonable as that may seem to some people.

00:56:46.432 --> 00:56:47.832
It's a very different distinction.

00:56:47.832 --> 00:56:54.332
So I find it fascinating that a Russian would process everything he takes in completely differently than me.

00:56:54.332 --> 00:56:57.452
This isn't necessarily about sin, but it can become about sin.

00:56:57.452 --> 00:57:03.072
If I decide, well, these Russians are acting weird, they're sketchy, they never smile, I don't like them, I want to hurt them.

00:57:03.072 --> 00:57:04.832
Like, okay, we've caused a problem.

00:57:04.832 --> 00:57:07.932
You can acknowledge that they're different without hating them.

00:57:07.932 --> 00:57:11.212
And frankly, it's a big part of the race question.

00:57:11.212 --> 00:57:20.712
For every race, for the races that we think have serious problems, I'm not going to hold those races to standards that they can't meet.

00:57:20.712 --> 00:57:24.392
There are things that they can do that I can't do, there are things that I can do that they can't do.

00:57:25.132 --> 00:57:31.172
For me to hold them to my standards, when we're not talking about morality, just doesn't make any sense.

00:57:31.172 --> 00:57:49.912
There are things that I take as an approach, intellectually and emotionally, as an INTJ, that someone who's different than that, substantially, is going to find it off-putting and strange and think I'm cruel, you know, artlessly analytical, like as a mastermind is the name that it's given.

00:57:49.912 --> 00:57:51.352
All the names are aggrandizing.

00:57:51.352 --> 00:57:53.612
I'm not saying anything nice about myself.

00:57:53.692 --> 00:58:00.352
Like, some people think that MBTI is effectively horoscopes for men, and to some degree, maybe it is.

00:58:00.352 --> 00:58:05.992
I would think that if not for the fact that it was so, so embarrassingly accurate about me.

00:58:05.992 --> 00:58:07.832
Like, I'm not at all unique.

00:58:07.832 --> 00:58:11.972
That was also part of the relief of discovering, now like, okay, well, I'm not alone.

00:58:11.972 --> 00:58:13.892
There are other guys who think the way I think.

00:58:13.892 --> 00:58:18.172
That was actually nice to discover and to understand sort of the mechanisms.

00:58:19.272 --> 00:58:40.232
I think that the reason that I do find a certain appeal to psychology as a science, as a discipline, is it has this sort of explanatory power, both when you're talking about mechanisms of addiction, which lead to sin, and just mechanisms of habit, mechanisms of intellectual and emotional processing of whatever's coming in.

00:58:40.232 --> 00:58:42.392
And it's important to have different types of people.

00:58:42.392 --> 00:58:46.912
I would hate a world where everyone was like me in terms of being an INTJ or anything else.

00:58:46.952 --> 00:58:50.352
Like I said before, one of me is plenty.

00:58:50.352 --> 00:58:54.992
People who are different are going to register differently, and that's often enjoyable.

00:58:54.992 --> 00:59:00.072
I like talking to people who are different in a lot of ways, because I can learn something.

00:59:00.072 --> 00:59:05.412
There's not a lot to learn from people who are exactly like you, who agree with everything you think.

00:59:05.412 --> 00:59:15.132
You can enjoy their company, and you can have a familiarity and a camaraderie with them, that you're deprived in situations where people are very different, but you're not necessarily going to learn a lot.

00:59:15.532 --> 00:59:19.512
You can learn a lot from people who are very similar, but it can be in very minute ways.

00:59:19.512 --> 00:59:26.292
The things you're going to learn from people who are very different are going to be broad strokes, things you never even imagined were possible.

00:59:26.292 --> 00:59:32.832
And then you discover that someone with the polar opposite personality of you can exist and be a nice guy.

00:59:32.832 --> 00:59:36.092
Like, okay, I had no idea that was possible.

00:59:36.092 --> 00:59:40.532
And so, in a way, some of this is kind of a celebration of diversity.

00:59:40.532 --> 00:59:48.772
There are so many things that are left-coded today, things that we consider to be just the libtard stuff.

00:59:48.772 --> 00:59:51.172
It's stuff that we're dismissive of from the right.

00:59:51.172 --> 00:59:55.792
We think that it's wishy-washy and dumb, because a lot of it has been really poisoned.

00:59:55.792 --> 01:00:14.352
Like, we're talking about psychology, and we're talking about addiction, and the way that the post-God world, when these atheists thought that they killed God and then replaced him with these new mechanistic approaches to things, they're left with a horrifying world where people don't really have agency.

01:00:14.352 --> 01:00:19.912
We're robots producing programmatically output based on our type.

01:00:19.912 --> 01:00:21.392
And I don't think that at all.

01:00:21.392 --> 01:00:24.992
I think that the diversity that we've been given is a gift from God.

01:00:24.992 --> 01:00:33.052
The fact that we're created in different ways, the fact that the English are created different from the Germans, are created different from the Russians is a blessing.

01:00:33.052 --> 01:00:35.612
And it's good to have all of those people.

01:00:35.612 --> 01:00:40.492
But when they come together, they're probably going to butt heads because it's alien to a degree.

01:00:41.252 --> 01:00:51.992
And not everyone is going to be able to be sufficiently sympathetic to sort of tease out, okay, well, I understand why this guy is different because, you know, this backstory.

01:00:51.992 --> 01:00:55.872
At most, sometimes all we can do is just acknowledge there's a different kind of guy.

01:00:55.872 --> 01:00:58.792
I'm not going to be too hard on him because I just don't get it.

01:00:58.792 --> 01:01:00.772
I don't know where he's coming from.

01:01:00.772 --> 01:01:03.212
That's another important aspect of this.

01:01:03.212 --> 01:01:16.892
Simply acknowledging that there are different kinds of people and that you don't have to be a radical leftist liberal to sympathize with that, to cut people slack.

01:01:16.892 --> 01:01:33.892
There are cases that come up for me fairly often where someone I've known for a while, for whom I have a great deal of respect, if they're going through a hard time, the things that I would normally say to them to maybe correct errors or misstatements or whatever, I try to shut it down as much as possible.

01:01:34.512 --> 01:01:35.372
Give them room.

01:01:35.372 --> 01:01:38.652
I'm not going to step on their toes because I know that they're having a hard time.

01:01:38.652 --> 01:01:43.432
And for me to say the things I would usually say, would just make their life worse.

01:01:43.432 --> 01:02:01.252
One of the valuable aspects of treating psychological evaluation of others properly, is to have that sort of sympathy, to actually identify, here's this other guy who is feeling and thinking something different than me right now.

01:02:01.252 --> 01:02:02.432
Do I go at him?

01:02:02.432 --> 01:02:03.212
Do I correct him?

01:02:03.312 --> 01:02:07.572
Do I, whatever I would normally do, do I do my usual thing?

01:02:07.572 --> 01:02:11.552
As a Christian, that's valuable to know, especially for friends or really for anyone.

01:02:11.552 --> 01:02:14.752
If you know someone, you know they're having a hard time.

01:02:14.752 --> 01:02:19.872
Back off, don't double down on the thing that's going to give them grief.

01:02:19.872 --> 01:02:22.832
Maybe the only thing you can do right now is just listen to them and let them vent.

01:02:22.832 --> 01:02:28.512
And, you know, if they said something dumb, next month they can come up and you can talk about it when they're not hurting.

01:02:29.672 --> 01:02:34.132
It's interesting, there was an empathy test that was going around last week on X.

01:02:34.132 --> 01:02:49.272
And Corey and I both got a couple of the highest scores of anyone that I saw, which is hilarious because we seem like some of the least empathetic guys possible, where we could actually feel what other people feel as they feel those things.

01:02:49.272 --> 01:02:52.232
That's really what empathy is.

01:02:52.232 --> 01:02:55.692
To put yourself in someone's shoes is to hurt with them.

01:02:56.312 --> 01:03:02.852
Not to simply say, yeah, that I see you're in trouble, I'm going to leave you alone, but to actually feel pain with them.

01:03:02.852 --> 01:03:10.592
It's both a psychological term and it's a spiritual gift, or it's a blessing and a curse, depending.

01:03:10.592 --> 01:03:21.272
But I just found it very conspicuous that of all the guys who would think that we're totally unempathetic on a neutral evaluation, we actually scored pretty high.

01:03:22.332 --> 01:03:25.992
And that's in part because of introspection.

01:03:25.992 --> 01:03:29.912
To actually want to understand other people is going to hurt.

01:03:29.912 --> 01:03:34.732
If you're willing to put yourself in their shoes, you're going to feel their pain.

01:03:34.732 --> 01:03:37.192
It's a liberal thing to say, but it's not wrong.

01:03:37.192 --> 01:03:40.872
I mean, I feel your pain is literally expressing empathy.

01:03:40.872 --> 01:03:42.812
I hurt with you.

01:03:42.812 --> 01:03:47.732
To weep when someone is weeping because they've lost someone, it's not a weakness.

01:03:47.732 --> 01:03:53.272
There are degrees and like, you know, some of that's like a Russian's not going to weep when an Italian would.

01:03:53.272 --> 01:04:05.932
So there are those distinctions, but it's not a complete flaw as a man to respond in pain with someone for no reason other than that you're there and you care for them.

01:04:05.932 --> 01:04:12.592
As Christians, we can't just write all of this stuff off as either completely liberal or that's all psychology or psychiatry.

01:04:12.592 --> 01:04:14.312
I want nothing to do with it.

01:04:14.312 --> 01:04:22.292
There's Christian stuff here, and it's unfortunate that it's been originated by and then ruined by some of the worst people in the world.

01:04:22.292 --> 01:04:35.752
Because when you look objectively at the descriptive power that has, it makes us better Christians to actually understand there are guys who process things completely different than me, so I'm going to cut them some slack.

01:04:35.752 --> 01:04:37.332
That made me a better Christian.

01:04:37.332 --> 01:04:43.672
I'm not going to get angry or annoyed or dismissive of someone when I understand that's why they're doing that.

01:04:44.452 --> 01:04:52.252
Now, there are plenty of other reasons why I still think someone's retarded, but just because they're processing things differently isn't going to be one of them.

01:04:52.252 --> 01:05:04.252
And I think it's delightful to actually discover someone like that who's processing the same things as me in a very different way, because when they get different answers, I can look at that and learn something.

01:05:04.252 --> 01:05:08.952
They're going to see something that I didn't see because there's that widely divergent parallax.

01:05:09.092 --> 01:05:10.592
I have perspective here.

01:05:10.592 --> 01:05:13.132
They have a perspective half a mile down the road.

01:05:13.132 --> 01:05:15.272
We're going to see the thing very differently.

01:05:15.272 --> 01:05:20.712
And so when I hear what they think, I've learned about the same thing that we're both looking at.

01:05:20.712 --> 01:05:24.212
As someone who's curious, I think that's a great thing.

01:05:24.212 --> 01:05:36.152
And to realize that those differences are in some cases pretty intrinsic, makes it possible for me to step back, not name call and not dismiss and say, okay, from your perspective, what do you see?

01:05:36.152 --> 01:05:37.212
This isn't stupid.

01:05:37.212 --> 01:05:38.172
This isn't leftist.

01:05:38.232 --> 01:05:40.932
This is, it's intelligent as Christian.

01:05:40.932 --> 01:05:45.432
And I'm thankful to find that there are places where we can be both at the same time.

01:05:46.672 --> 01:06:02.252
An aspect of this that we've sort of danced around in this episode, but not stated explicitly thus far, is that as Christians, we are commanded, you can think of Colossians 3, to bear with one another.

01:06:03.572 --> 01:06:16.712
And part of that is recognizing that these differences do exist, and that sometimes these differences are going to play out in terms of different proclivities with regard to sin.

01:06:16.712 --> 01:06:20.832
Different men are going to be tempted in different ways.

01:06:20.832 --> 01:06:25.412
And indeed, men and women are going to be tempted in different ways.

01:06:25.412 --> 01:06:30.712
Perhaps so it doesn't feel like we're just beating up on men with the pornography issue.

01:06:30.712 --> 01:06:37.252
Women are going to be tempted to engage in behavior that elicits attention.

01:06:37.252 --> 01:06:39.832
And men generally are not.

01:06:39.832 --> 01:06:52.472
Now, of course, that's not universally true with regard to either sex, because there are going to be men who engage in attention-seeking behavior, and there are going to be some women who do not want attention.

01:06:52.472 --> 01:07:02.392
But by and large, seeking attention, and in this case it is attention that you should not be seeking, is something that is particular to the female sex.

01:07:03.332 --> 01:07:08.432
Just as pornography is particular to the male sex.

01:07:08.432 --> 01:07:12.252
There are women who look at pornography, there are men who are attention-seeking.

01:07:12.252 --> 01:07:18.412
But by and large, there is a skew in one direction or the other with regard to those sins.

01:07:20.752 --> 01:07:26.132
Some men are going to be tempted to over-indulge with alcohol.

01:07:26.132 --> 01:07:29.872
Some men are going to be tempted to over-indulge with nicotine.

01:07:29.872 --> 01:07:34.732
If you are smoking multiple packs a day, you have gone overboard.

01:07:34.732 --> 01:07:40.212
I'm not going to say that all smoking is necessarily morally impermissible.

01:07:40.212 --> 01:07:42.892
Neither of us is going to go that far.

01:07:42.892 --> 01:07:48.312
But there is a certain level where once you cross it, it has become an addiction.

01:07:48.312 --> 01:07:54.732
And there is a psychological aspect to that, and there is a biological aspect to that, and there is a spiritual aspect to that.

01:07:54.732 --> 01:07:59.372
Part of bearing with one another is recognizing that these differences exist.

01:08:00.372 --> 01:08:10.612
And part of the Christian life is not just avoiding sin for ourselves, it is also helping our brothers and sisters to avoid sin as well.

01:08:11.812 --> 01:08:18.452
Scripture says that temptations will come, but woe to the one by whom they come.

01:08:18.452 --> 01:08:23.552
It is sin to cause others to fall into temptation.

01:08:23.592 --> 01:08:32.292
And so, for instance, one of the most common instances of this that we see in the modern world is women dressing inappropriately.

01:08:32.292 --> 01:08:41.612
If you are a woman, and you are going out and wearing revealing clothing, causing your brothers to fall into sin, you are sinning yourself.

01:08:43.472 --> 01:08:50.452
It is a very real thing that causing temptation is itself sin.

01:08:50.452 --> 01:09:02.132
That doesn't mean that every behavior that could potentially serve as temptation for another is sin, because of course we can't avoid all possibility of temptation.

01:09:02.132 --> 01:09:08.952
There are going to be some men somewhere in the world who are still sexually tempted when they see a woman in a burqa.

01:09:08.952 --> 01:09:12.872
That doesn't mean that all women have to dress like a trash bag.

01:09:12.872 --> 01:09:15.372
We're not going to ever go that far, obviously.

01:09:15.372 --> 01:09:17.932
We would never argue for that.

01:09:17.932 --> 01:09:19.812
But there's a line.

01:09:19.812 --> 01:09:20.812
It's a wisdom call.

01:09:21.312 --> 01:09:24.712
There's a reasonableness assessment here.

01:09:24.712 --> 01:09:34.332
Part of bearing with one another is doing what we can do, within the bounds of reason, not to cause others to fall into sin.

01:09:34.332 --> 01:09:37.932
Because that's part of avoiding sin ourselves.

01:09:37.932 --> 01:09:42.212
And it's also part of just living a Christian life.

01:09:42.212 --> 01:09:46.852
Because yes, part of your goal, obviously, is to avoid sin yourself.

01:09:46.852 --> 01:09:57.112
And so if you have problems with addiction, you need to recognize that there are biological aspects and psychological aspects and spiritual aspects, and address all of those.

01:09:57.112 --> 01:10:05.652
I know that we haven't necessarily given some exhaustive list of concrete steps to take, as if that were even possible.

01:10:05.652 --> 01:10:07.092
But that's not the point of the episode.

01:10:07.092 --> 01:10:20.892
The point is to give the contours of this, to give the outline of the subject, to help give you at least some tools and some pointers where to find other tools, in dealing with these matters.

01:10:20.892 --> 01:10:26.692
And so recognize that if you have an addiction to something, there may be a biological aspect to it.

01:10:26.692 --> 01:10:29.332
That needs to be investigated.

01:10:29.332 --> 01:10:33.292
It may be that you need to seek medical attention.

01:10:33.292 --> 01:10:42.492
If you are addicted to opiates, you are probably going to need some drug to help you get off of that addiction, because there is a biological aspect.

01:10:42.492 --> 01:10:55.832
You are probably going to need to employ some of the psychological measures we've mentioned, and there are others as well, because there is a psychological aspect to that addiction, and you are going to need to address it spiritually as well.

01:10:55.832 --> 01:10:57.592
It is something you need to confess.

01:10:57.592 --> 01:11:01.372
It is something you need to hear the words that you are forgiven.

01:11:01.372 --> 01:11:08.292
I know that there are some in the audience who hate the idea of someone else pronouncing forgiveness.

01:11:08.292 --> 01:11:15.612
They hate the idea of a pastor standing up and saying, I forgive you in the name of Christ.

01:11:15.612 --> 01:11:21.052
Incidentally, you can announce forgiveness to any other Christian just as a Christian.

01:11:21.052 --> 01:11:24.452
But that is a very real part of the Christian faith.

01:11:24.452 --> 01:11:28.272
It has been a part of the Christian faith from the beginning.

01:11:28.272 --> 01:11:32.652
And it is vitally important to hear those words.

01:11:32.652 --> 01:11:37.952
There are many times where you need to hear specifically the words that you are forgiven for your sin.

01:11:38.432 --> 01:11:43.152
Maybe it's a particular sin, because it is going to take that weight off your conscience.

01:11:43.152 --> 01:11:47.172
It is going to be part of what helps you to deal with that addiction.

01:11:47.172 --> 01:11:50.632
That is how you address the spiritual aspect of it.

01:11:50.632 --> 01:11:59.432
If you are part of a tradition that does not have that, then at least go to a Christian brother and ask him to tell you you're forgiven.

01:11:59.432 --> 01:12:18.512
If you're uncomfortable with a pastor saying, I forgive you, then just go to a Christian brother who will tell you, you are forgiven, because any Christian can, of course, announce that forgiveness, because it's true, because it was accomplished at the cross, because all sins were forgiven in Christ's once and for all time sacrifice.

01:12:20.592 --> 01:12:23.212
But you need to be reminded of that.

01:12:23.212 --> 01:12:30.472
It's not enough to know intellectually that all sins for all time were forgiven at the cross.

01:12:30.472 --> 01:12:36.192
That's the reason that we have absolution, confession and absolution.

01:12:36.192 --> 01:12:39.032
That's the reason that we have the sacrament.

01:12:39.032 --> 01:12:41.912
That's the reason that we have baptism.

01:12:41.912 --> 01:12:45.912
All of these things are to serve as reminders.

01:12:45.912 --> 01:12:57.152
In the case of baptism, of course, it also gives you face, so it does forgive your sins, but they also have a reminder aspect to them of reminding you of the fact that you have this forgiveness of sins.

01:12:57.152 --> 01:13:08.592
Even if we don't get into all of the differences that various groups have with regard to how we conceive of the sacraments, and of course, as Lutherans, we conceive of them in a particular way, and we've gone over that in previous episodes.

01:13:08.592 --> 01:13:10.332
That's not the point.

01:13:10.332 --> 01:13:19.232
The point is that God has given us many different ways in which he announces to us and reminds us that our sins are forgiven.

01:13:19.232 --> 01:13:23.272
That spiritual aspect cannot be ignored.

01:13:23.272 --> 01:13:31.972
It needs to be addressed with regard to addiction and these various other problems, but it cannot be done at the expense.

01:13:31.972 --> 01:13:35.792
It cannot be done while ignoring the other aspects.

01:13:37.032 --> 01:13:45.992
And so if you have problems with addiction, if you struggle with these issues, you need to make sure that all three of these things are being addressed.

01:13:45.992 --> 01:13:51.772
And part of that is having other Christians in your life who can help you along with these things.

01:13:54.932 --> 01:14:01.292
One of the most common ways of describing the Christian life is as a marathon.

01:14:01.292 --> 01:14:03.332
It's a long-distance run.

01:14:03.332 --> 01:14:05.092
And I'm saying this as someone who hates running.

01:14:05.092 --> 01:14:08.892
It's one of the forms of cardio I do not enjoy whatsoever.

01:14:10.112 --> 01:14:14.732
But the Christian life is most often described as a marathon.

01:14:14.732 --> 01:14:16.712
It is not something that is done in one day.

01:14:17.352 --> 01:14:23.652
It is not something that is done even in a week or a year, a decade.

01:14:23.652 --> 01:14:26.832
It's a very long marathon, incidentally.

01:14:26.832 --> 01:14:37.852
Part of being able to run that race successfully is having others along with you, is having others who are also running that race, who can encourage you.

01:14:37.852 --> 01:14:43.052
It is much more difficult to deal with these things when you are alone.

01:14:43.052 --> 01:14:45.592
That is one of the fundamental realities of life.

01:14:46.612 --> 01:14:48.352
Scripture speaks to it.

01:14:48.352 --> 01:14:52.792
You can think of Adam in the Garden, and God says that it is not good for man to be alone.

01:14:52.792 --> 01:14:54.092
Psychology speaks to it.

01:14:54.092 --> 01:15:01.412
Isolation is something that is extensively studied in the psychological research, atomization as well.

01:15:01.412 --> 01:15:03.212
And spiritually, it's true.

01:15:03.212 --> 01:15:07.092
We are not to forsake the gathering together of the saints.

01:15:07.092 --> 01:15:14.052
You don't want to run the Christian race alone, and you should not let your brothers and sisters run it alone.

01:15:14.652 --> 01:15:27.632
When you can come alongside them and help them, whether it is with doubts that they have, or struggles with addiction, whatever it happens to be, when you can offer that aid, you should be doing so.

01:15:27.632 --> 01:15:31.312
Because that is part of what it means to be a Christian.

01:15:31.312 --> 01:15:40.892
On the one hand, we do what we can to avoid serving as an opportunity or a cause of temptation for others.

01:15:40.892 --> 01:15:49.392
And on the other hand, we help those who have fallen into these things by lifting them up again and serving as encouragement.

01:15:49.392 --> 01:15:54.592
The Christian life is meant to be lived in community, not in isolation.

01:15:54.592 --> 01:16:00.792
And so, that is one of the things that is absolutely necessary for dealing with issues like addiction.

01:16:00.792 --> 01:16:04.012
Do not deal with it alone.

01:16:04.012 --> 01:16:08.232
You are not going to get over it on your own.

01:16:08.232 --> 01:16:10.292
That is simply the reality of how God made us.

01:16:11.192 --> 01:16:13.732
He made us to be social creatures.

01:16:13.732 --> 01:16:21.712
Now, sure, there are some cases in which a man, simply through sheer force of will, gets rid of a particular addiction.

01:16:21.712 --> 01:16:25.752
There are undoubtedly many men in history who have done that with alcoholism.

01:16:25.752 --> 01:16:33.172
But by and large, most men, most women, are going to need help from someone.

01:16:33.172 --> 01:16:39.852
If it's a drug addiction, you probably need help from a doctor, particularly if it's one of the more nasty drugs out there.

01:16:42.112 --> 01:16:50.692
If it is something that is psychological, you are probably going to need help from some of the tools developed by psychology, and yes, some of them are useful.

01:16:50.692 --> 01:16:54.672
You may need the help of someone who is trained in psychology.

01:16:54.672 --> 01:17:14.652
There are Christians who specialize in psychology and do so without discounting the reality of the spiritual, without trying to psychologize everything, simply recognizing that there are tools in the psychology handbag, in the tool box that can be used to treat certain things.

01:17:14.652 --> 01:17:17.712
Again, I mentioned cognitive behavioral therapy.

01:17:17.712 --> 01:17:23.952
It has shown great utility in many cases, including with addiction.

01:17:23.952 --> 01:17:28.332
And then, again, there is that third part, the spiritual aspect.

01:17:28.332 --> 01:17:31.732
You need to live with and among other Christians.

01:17:31.732 --> 01:17:47.852
You need to have other Christians with whom you talk, other Christians with whom you discuss your struggles and your problems, and in many cases, particularly with regard to the things about which we have been speaking in this episode, you need other Christians who will hold you accountable.

01:17:49.712 --> 01:17:54.732
And you probably need to make sure that if you're a man, they're male.

01:17:54.732 --> 01:17:57.612
And if you're a woman, they're female.

01:17:57.612 --> 01:18:01.032
Men and women do not interact in the same way.

01:18:01.032 --> 01:18:04.072
Men and women do not think in the same way.

01:18:04.072 --> 01:18:07.072
There are very real differences between men and women.

01:18:08.212 --> 01:18:15.532
And men are going to do a better job holding other men accountable, and women are going to do a better job holding other women accountable.

01:18:15.532 --> 01:18:17.772
Now, for women, it comes with the caveat.

01:18:17.772 --> 01:18:19.852
Don't let it turn into gossip.

01:18:19.852 --> 01:18:23.092
That is one of the sins that is particular to women.

01:18:23.092 --> 01:18:27.992
And with men, there's going to be the challenge of actually discussing the issues whatsoever.

01:18:27.992 --> 01:18:34.092
Because by and large, male friendship is something that has just fallen away in the modern world.

01:18:34.092 --> 01:18:35.572
Now, there are a number of reasons for that.

01:18:35.572 --> 01:18:36.752
I don't want to get into them.

01:18:37.372 --> 01:18:39.332
In this episode, at this point.

01:18:40.392 --> 01:18:42.952
But it is a problem that needs to be surmounted.

01:18:42.952 --> 01:18:48.072
You need to actually have male friends with whom you discuss these things.

01:18:48.072 --> 01:18:52.552
And you need to have male friends who are willing to hold you accountable for various things.

01:18:53.592 --> 01:19:01.452
This is one of those cases where perhaps the men who frequent the gym are going to be more prepared for this, in some ways.

01:19:01.452 --> 01:19:04.652
Because you probably have a gym buddy who holds you accountable.

01:19:04.652 --> 01:19:15.912
Or at least someone who is a friend, perhaps from childhood or high school, whatever it happens to be, who asks you when you went to the gym last, what weight you're doing on a particular exercise, something like that.

01:19:15.912 --> 01:19:21.832
He is holding you accountable so that you keep doing the thing you know you need to do.

01:19:21.832 --> 01:19:24.492
The same thing is true of the Christian life.

01:19:24.492 --> 01:19:32.972
You need to have other Christians who can hold you accountable, who can help you to run the race, who can pick you back up when you fall.

01:19:33.992 --> 01:19:36.152
It's not just the case with addiction.

01:19:36.152 --> 01:19:42.112
Addiction is sort of the worst case scenario, because that's the thing where you absolutely need the help.

01:19:42.112 --> 01:19:50.752
You probably can't get yourself out of the pit without someone throwing you a rope, or a ladder, or just something to help you.

01:19:50.752 --> 01:20:01.472
But just living the Christian life, even without the worst case scenario, just running the Christian race, you need others alongside you.

01:20:01.472 --> 01:20:08.592
Really what we're doing, what we're attempting to do, and what other Christians need to do, because this is not something that anyone can do on his own.

01:20:09.852 --> 01:20:23.192
We need to rebuild Christian communities, because even with regard to those who attend a church, who have been attending it perhaps for many years, know everyone in the church, you're probably still relatively atomized.

01:20:23.912 --> 01:20:29.612
How often do you talk to those at your church outside of church?

01:20:29.612 --> 01:20:37.852
When is the last time you had dinner with someone from your church, or played cards, or went golfing, whatever it happens to be that you enjoy doing?

01:20:39.192 --> 01:20:45.492
You need to have a Christian community, or else it doesn't really mean that much.

01:20:45.492 --> 01:20:49.432
Yes, attending church is obviously important, and we are not to forsake that.

01:20:49.432 --> 01:21:03.552
That is a vitally important part of the Christian life, but there is more to the Christian life than an hour on Sunday, or two hours, or three hours, however long your service in your Bible study, whatever else happens to be.

01:21:04.672 --> 01:21:10.032
This is very similar to one of the things that we mentioned in so many episodes.

01:21:10.032 --> 01:21:15.352
We are talking about the and then what of the Christian life.

01:21:15.372 --> 01:21:22.512
Usually, we are talking about that with regard to justification, because you are justified, you are saved, you have faith.

01:21:22.512 --> 01:21:23.232
Now what?

01:21:23.232 --> 01:21:24.392
What do you do?

01:21:24.392 --> 01:21:26.472
How do you live the Christian life?

01:21:27.612 --> 01:21:31.412
This is similar in that we are talking about Christian community.

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You attend church.

01:21:33.932 --> 01:21:35.412
Great.

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And then what?

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Do you talk to those people outside of church?

01:21:40.212 --> 01:21:43.152
Do you break bread with those people outside of church?

01:21:43.152 --> 01:21:44.832
Do you help those people when they need help?

01:21:44.832 --> 01:21:47.872
Do they help you when you need help?

01:21:47.872 --> 01:21:51.972
If those things don't happen, you don't really have a Christian community.

01:21:51.972 --> 01:21:57.892
You just have a bunch of strangers who happen to sit near each other for an hour every Sunday morning.

01:21:57.892 --> 01:21:59.732
That is not a Christian life.

01:21:59.732 --> 01:22:04.032
That is not a Christian community, and it isn't a real church.

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We need to get away from this view of Christianity as being an hour here or an hour there, a Wednesday service here Sunday morning.

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That is not the Christian life, and it is insufficient.

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It is not the sort of life, it is not the sort of community that is going to be able to address these very real problems.

01:22:25.612 --> 01:22:41.632
And the way that we start addressing this is simply by rebuilding those Christian friendships, having someone who will hold you accountable, having someone with whom you can discuss your sins, and someone who can help you to overcome those sins.

01:22:42.812 --> 01:22:45.592
It is not enough to listen to a podcast.

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It is not enough to attend Sunday morning service.

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There is more to the Christian life.

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There is more that needs to be done by Christians for each other.

01:22:57.772 --> 01:23:03.632
Most of these things have fallen away in the last 50 to 100 years.

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They've all collapsed because they have not been maintained by previous generations.

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We are rebuilding these things that should never have been allowed to become moribund, or just completely absent.

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It is going to be hard work.

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It will not be easy.

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That is simply the reality of it.

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But it is necessary.

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It is our Christian duty to rebuild these things.

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It is our Christian duty to take care of other Christians.

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And that includes not just helping them by not serving as a cause for temptation, not serving as an occasion for temptation, but also by helping them to overcome those temptations when they fall into them, whether or not it becomes a full-blown addiction.

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The Christian life is a life lived in community, because it is a life lived for others.

01:23:58.112 --> 01:24:01.012
We went over this in the episodes on love.

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What is agape?

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It is a self-sacrificing love.

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It is a love that seeks the good of others.

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And as Christians, we do that by seeking the good of our neighbor.

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One of the ways we can do that is by helping our neighbors who have fallen into these sorts of problems, who have fallen into addiction.

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There are many ways we can do that, and they are going to be unique.

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At least they are going to be different.

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They are going to differ from one man to the next, from one addiction to the next.

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These are issues of wisdom.

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They're issues of reason.

01:24:34.492 --> 01:24:36.372
We can't just give you an outline.

01:24:36.372 --> 01:24:38.592
We can't give you a flow chart, if this, then that.

01:24:39.532 --> 01:24:46.832
But we can recommend, by pointing you to certain tools, we can say there are things that are useful in psychology.

01:24:46.832 --> 01:24:51.832
We can recommend that you read scripture, as we always do, because scripture contains wisdom.

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It is going to guide you in many of these problems.

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But we definitely and staunchly recommend that you do not make the mistake that so many Christians make these days, by asking for a verse for every single thing that anyone ever says.

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You are not going to find cognitive behavioral therapy in scripture.

01:25:15.112 --> 01:25:20.412
You are not going to find dopaminergic neurons in scripture.

01:25:20.412 --> 01:25:23.972
You are not going to find serotonin in scripture.

01:25:23.972 --> 01:25:25.852
But these things are very real.

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They have utility.

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They are part of the reality of creation that God created.

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And so we can use them, insofar as they are true, insofar as they are useful, to serve godly ends.

01:25:40.932 --> 01:25:46.652
Just because there are atheists involved in the field of psychology, does not mean the field itself is atheist.

01:25:48.132 --> 01:25:51.352
Many evolutionists are involved in the field of biology.

01:25:51.352 --> 01:25:53.092
It doesn't change for a second.

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It doesn't change one iota that God is the author of biology.

01:25:59.132 --> 01:26:02.152
He spoke all of that into reality.

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And so studying those systems is still useful.

01:26:05.792 --> 01:26:13.052
The results of those systems, even when studied by atheists, can still be useful, particularly when used by Christians.

01:26:14.932 --> 01:26:24.512
And so remember that man is these three parts, and recognize that all of them are part of the Christian life.

01:26:24.512 --> 01:26:26.712
The Christian life is not just the spiritual.

01:26:27.052 --> 01:26:29.612
The Christian life is not just the psychological.

01:26:29.612 --> 01:26:32.292
The Christian life is not just the biological.

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And that is in terms of both the good and the bad, whether it is things that are good for us that God has created, that we rightly enjoy, or things where we have fallen into sin and temptation, where those systems have been hijacked by Satan to cause harm.

01:26:49.172 --> 01:27:03.252
We must approach these issues recognizing the reality of the systems that are in play, and recognizing the reality of what we need to do, using the wisdom and the reason that God has given us.

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That is an actual Christian life.

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That is how Christians should actually live.

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And that is how we start to address all of these problems that previous generations have allowed to fester, and that Satan has exploited so effectively.