Guilt & Guilt Feelings

Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind with RC Sproul. When we are concerned about guilt and we defined guilt as the violating or breaking of a law, the supreme guilt that we can occur is if we break the law of God.

Problem is that we are professionals and silencing ideals in a culture that believes those feelings are counterproductive, even destructive, they undermine a person's self-esteem. RC put it this way for every sinful action. There is under heaven. Somebody has brought forth a carefully crafted rational defense for it and attempt to justify. That's why we have a problem with this conflict between guilt and guilt feeling we can desensitize our consciences and remember conscience is crucial here Scripture speaks about conscience as that inner voice within us that voice that either accuses us or excuses us for the behavioral things that we do. We welcome you to the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind this week. Dr. still examines the reality of guilt is series guilt and forgiveness.

One of the courses that I teach in my seminary education in various institutions is in the field of Christian apologetics and I think many of you may be familiar, some of you may not be familiar with what that term apologetics means the term apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia which means to make a reply so that apologetics is not simply apologizing for being a Christian is. The term might suggest, but historically it has been a discipline or a science that is concerned with providing a rational, intellectual defense of the truth claims of Christianity.

And to answer objections that people raise about the faith. Now that can become a very abstract philosophical enterprise and is one who is engaged in apologetics all often have the opportunity to have conversations with people who are not Christian believers and some of them may be in different others may be openly hostile, but so often what I encounter in these discussions are myriad questions about this truth claim were that truth claim and I think is Francis Schaeffer used to say it is the Christian responsibility to give honest answers to honest questions as far as we are able to do that but anytime I'm engaged in this kind of personal discussion with people sooner or later, and it usually happens later in the discussion. I will pose this question particularly to skeptics and people who are philosophically at least hostile to Christianity.

I asked this question in a rather pointed way, I'll say to the person. Well, okay, we've had our discussion about the abstractions. The rational arguments for the existence of God and so on. Let's lay those aside this for moment and let me ask you, what do you do with your guilt. Whenever I asked that question. It's almost every time there is a noticeable dramatic shift in the whole tenor of the discussion and I have to say this. It's rare that a person becomes angry at that question because when I asked the question what do you do with your guilt. I'm now asking a question about something that is a visceral matter for many people, something that touches them at an exit stencil level that moves the whole discussion beyond the abstract realm and there are those who will say well I don't have any guilt or guilt is simply a term invented by religious people and so on.

But that kind of a response is extremely rare because every human day knows what guilt is and every human being at some level and at some point in their lives has to deal with it.

And so my question is not an abstract question when I say this reports okay what do you do with your guilt. That is, how do you handle it. What do you do about it now when we ask a question like that. Notice I don't start by trying to argue that there is such a thing as guilt or any of that. I just am assuming that people understand the reality of guilt, but I also experience in these conversations. A common and I think interesting phenomenon and that is that when I'll ask people about their guilt. They will respond to me concerning their guilt feelings and at that point I like to take the time to say wait a minute.

Let's make a careful distinction here between guilt and guilt feelings because though these two are closely related to each other.

They are not precisely the same thing and so today I want to talk a little bit about these categories of guilt and guilt feeling the basic distinction that we make between guilt and guilt feelings is the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity us look at feelings for a moment feelings are something that are experienced by personal beings, that is to say, rocks and stones. To our knowledge do not become overwhelmed with personal feelings. They are cold, lifeless, reified objects, and so if I get hit in the head with a stone or if somebody throws a brick at me and it bounces off my head.

The person who throws the brick may experience guilt and may or may not experience guilt feelings. I seriously doubt that there's a trauma of psychological import that is experienced or suffered by the brick prick is the instrument that is used in this particular assault that it doesn't have feelings because we don't think about Rick as being subject. But people are subjects you are a personal subject.

You have a mind you have a will you have a feeling aspect to your life. And so when were talking about guilt feelings. We're talking about something that is personal and subjective. Just want to lay that aside for a second and come back to the original question. I didn't ask the person what do you do about your guilt feelings. I said what do you do about your guilt. Now we have to face the question what is guilt on the first case we say that guilt is something that is in the first instance not subjective, but objective objective in the sense that it corresponds to some kind of objective standard or reality know the simplest definition that we have of guilt is guilt is that which is incurred when you break a law, we understand how this works in the criminal justice system in our own nation. If somebody breaks the law, a statute that has been enacted by government and that person is apprehended for having broken the law, that person may have to appear in court the person may say I'm not guilty. That may be the plate and then the person is entitled to a trial. In many cases a trial by jury and evidence is produced and at the end of that trial of verdict is reached by the panel that is examining the case and they must make the decision whether in their judgment the person is in fact guilty of breaking the particular law we know all of the subtle nuances of different kinds of trials different kinds of arguments that are used different levels of evidence the whole country went through the trials with O.J. Simpson, one a criminal trial.

The other a civil trial with different laws of evidence and so on, or different rules for reaching a verdict. But again the question that remains in any case of this kind is is the person guilty. Did the person do it.

Did the person transgress the law now all of us live in a world where there are laws. You may disagree with the laws you maybe didn't vote for the laws. But those laws are there. There are the laws imposed by your parents. There are the rules imposed by teachers or by your employer or in the civil sense.

The laws enacted by the state so that all of us are subject to rules and laws and regulations and so when we talk about guilt were talking about the transgression or violating of these rules or regulations or laws not from a Christian perspective, the biblical view is that the supreme lawgiver is God and that God's laws hold every person who was alive accountable for conforming to his mandates.

But God does have rules and regulations. I've had many people say to me on many occasions. Christianity is not about rules and regulations. It's about love.

That's simply not true. Christianity is about love and one of the reasons it's about love is it because love is one of the rules because God commands us to love one another and even that concern for love is rooted and grounded in the divine law.

Now it's not just about rules and regulations, but it certainly is about rules and regulations and has been from the day of creation. So when we are concerned about guilt and we define guilt as the violating or breaking of a law at the supreme guilt that we can incur is if we break the law of God. Obviously, if there is no God.

You don't have to worry about breaking his rules because he couldn't possibly have any rules, but even if you escape God. You still have the rules of the lesser magistrates to deal with and so all of us. I believe all of us a broken the law of God.

But if we haven't. We certainly broken the laws of men.

So all of us have experienced the objective situation of having transgressed a law broken the law and so when were talking about guilt were talking about a state or a status, a state of affairs by which we incur some kind of judgment for having violated a law now suppose at the human level. A person commits murder with malice of forethought willfully plans and executes the plan by taking another human being's life of the vast majority of people in this world would agree that that is a bad thing that murder is wrong even in this age of relativism were people say there are no absolutes though phage on this commitment to relativism when somebody comes at them with a knife about to kill them.

All of a sudden, the protest and say that wrong and if you kill me maliciously, you will incur guilt but here's the tricky part. We have to understand the difference between guilt and guilt feelings are feelings do not always have a perfect correspondence to our state or to our status under the law.

We have an expression for people who have a penchant for parking in no parking places who do it repeatedly. Who get parking tickets and simply throw them in file 13, and ignore the summons to pay or to appear, and these people are called what scofflaws that's the expression we have and they seem to be able to repeat this particular violation of no parking zones without any great sense of personal remorse. Now if we take that to a higher level, we are aware in the study of psychology of category of people who were called sociopaths or psychopaths know the term. This included in both the word sociopath and psychopath is the work path and we get the word pathos from that. Or the word sympathy or the word empathy because this whole concept of pathos comes from a Greek term that is used to describe the human feeling and somebody who can commit heinous crime without any feeling of remorse can be called a psychopath or sociopath.

Sometimes, you've heard the expression so and so is a psychopathic liar. That is, not only does he lie and does he lie habitually and consistently. But he lies without suffering any particular illness of feeling by assaults from his conscience and again a sociopath is a person who doesn't have any care or concern for people that we know that there are people who can commit horrendous crimes without particularly feeling guilty about that is their feelings are not proportionate to the guilt that they have actually incurred so we know that it's possible for people to have guilt without guilt feelings or at least without corresponding proportionate guilt feeling now suppose in our justice system. Somebody is arrested for murder in the 1st�, and the prosecution has tape recordings and videotapes of the person declaring in advance his hostility towards his victim and his firm intent to murder the person and then we have on film. The actual murder added to it. DNA evidence RNA evidence smoking gun. The presence of the body. All the evidence that would lead to the easy conclusion that the person committed the crime of suppose that person came into court and was asked by the judge. How do you plead and he said I plead not guilty and he elects to defend himself rather than use an attorney and proves the adage that he who defends himself as a fool for a client and he stands before the court and his only defense is this.

I am not guilty because I don't feel guilty. Nevermind the objective evidence my subjective testimony is my feelings. I can't be guilty because I don't feel guilty, question the practical level is how far would that go in a secular courtroom that is hardly an exculpatory plea at that point or evidence because the fact that the person doesn't feel guilty says absolutely nothing about whether the person actually broke the law regarding murder. On the other hand, we have people we know who are play with all sorts of feelings of guilt for things they didn't do that is their status or the state. The objective state of their condition may be that they didn't violate the law, but for one mental aberration or another they feel guilty for disobeying the law that they in fact didn't disobey so we know that there can be a disjunction between the objective and the subjective between real guilt and real guilt feelings and that makes the whole question of dealing with the subject exceedingly complex.

Know what we wanted to talk about in the days to come are first of all, what is the solution that we have when we incur real guilt and at the same time we have to ask, how do we deal with guilt feelings because I could've asked that question in my discussion with people not only what you do with your guilt, but what you do with your guilt feelings, I would ask you to think about that now with us as we examine a biblical perspective on guilt and it will be doing that all week here on Renewing Your Mind will hear more from Dr. Sproul in just a moment as he wraps up today's message and I hope you'll stay with us. We may try to ignore it or even denied that were guilty, but deep down we all understand that we have done wrong things in this series. Dr. scroll helps us understand what we should do with those feelings. It's a deeply practical series addressing something we all experience you can request this six part series on two CDs. When you give a donation of any amount to look at her ministries to give your gift just go online to Renewing Your Mind.org or call us at 800-435-4343. In addition, will send you a copy of Dr. scroll's booklet titled what can I do with my guilt in three concise chapters. RC addresses the difference between true and false guilt feelings and helps us distinguish conviction from accusation request the audio series guilt and forgiveness and the booklet or phone number again is 800-435-4343 and her web address is Renewing Your Mind.org now here's Dr. scroll to conclude his message with talk today about guilt and guilt feelings let me finish our time together.

By focusing for a moment on the second part guilt feelings and ask you to ask yourself the locus of the strongest guilt feelings that bother you again.

We've moved out of the speculative philosophical abstract claim to get into the deepest chambers of our lives in the interior dimension of our souls. Where we live.

We all struggle with guilt feelings, I don't think anybody's 100% psychopathic in this. I don't think any of us escape entirely the feelings that often accompany guilt and before we continue in our next session tomorrow, ask you to do some thinking about that today and tried to take a hard look at those places in your life where you feel guilty and will try to address that problem in our next session. So we have some homework to do before the next session. It's a lesson titled what do you do with your guilt, see right back here Tuesday for Renewing Your Mind