Discussing
Quick Thought: Faith and Feelings

We are whole people, indivisible. Can you imagine being married to someone for 20 years and saying I appreciate my partner and don’t need feelings for them, or I do have feelings but I don’t let them guide me? I find that the longer I know the lord (40 years) the stronger my feelings grow. I cry easily during worship songs, I laugh at great testimonies and find my self getting more emotional in my private devotional prayer life. I also feel more sensitive to His feelings. Jesus was moved by compassion, He was motivated by a feeling, He leaped for joy, He wept publicly. Faith and emotions are not polar opposites or alternatives to live our Christian life by, they are partners.

Feelings and word are complementary --- Lord I want to be a Christian in my heart--- but grounded in the word, received through my intellect. Is faith experienced through the emotions, or are emotions in response to events, recognitions, which affirm faith? Would we recognize "God-moments" if not instructed in the word to discern them?

Great thoughts, rick. And like being in a relationship with someone, feelings can be deceiving when it comes to one's Christian walk. We need to *temper* them with our other forms of knowing; can you imagine being married to someone for 20 years and not knowing what they think/believe (NOT "feel") about inerrancy of the Bible?

Still, to deprecate feelings as "no longer useful" down the road is silly in any relationship, including our relationship with Christ and our fellow believers. You say "indivisible", I prefer "holistic", but we agree that we should not to create a false internal division between feelings and thoughts and actions.

Yes our feelings are part of us, who we are, who God made us to be. And having emotions in a worship service is fine. But there are many times when our feelings can/may/do contradict the Word. Now for the rhetorical questions: Can we easily distinguish between these feelings? How do we know when to act or not act on feelings? Do our feelings ever prevent us from doing God's will as stated in the Word? Do our feelings ever prevent us from sharing God's Word with another? And, do our feelings ever lead us astray? There are, after all, good and bad feelings. Jesus also denied/rejected all the feelings that could have led Him astray, because we know He did not sin.

Our faith is very connected to our feelings and vice versa.I agree and like Vijay's comments about training our feelings to parallel our faith. I think it is an advanced state or stage of our Christian development and that connection will serve to 'replace' the 'spiritual highs'

Having emotions in a worship service is fine? Its a lot more than fine. How about normal or highly desired? I don’t turn off my brain when I come to church. Neither do I turn off my heart. Do our feelings ever prevent us from doing God's will as stated in the Word? Yes. So do our thoughts. Do our feelings ever prevent us from sharing God's Word with another? Yes. So do our thoughts. And, do our feelings ever lead us astray? Yes. So do our thoughts. In fact, I would guess more evil has been foisted on the world by wrong thoughts. Think Mein Kampf, the Communist Manifesto, the Little Red Book. Did you come to the Lord because you thought it was a logical idea or because you felt convicted or lonely? Of course, the revelatory word of God has primacy in all things. It changes our heart and renews our minds. Feelings can betray us, so can thoughts. Is faith a habit of the mind or a habit of the heart. Both. Jesus also rejected all the thoughts that could have led Him astray as we see in the desert encounters with satan. Jesus’ first command is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Feelings are not your enemy. From an INTJ guy.

I recently read a post at another blog that some here are probably familiar with. The author was talking about how his faith has diminished with age, and was asking if that same experience was common among his readers. There was a mixed response, despite the author being known for doubt and therefore attracting doubters who commonly comment.

As I read the comments though, I made this association with feeling. In evangelicalism (where almost all of his commenters were brought up), emotions are critical. You have the worship "experience" at a worship "event." Thus, youth/college ministers are forced to constantly talk about "staying on the spiritual mountaintop." Therefore, whenever they start to grow up and face the text in light of critical concerns or modern science, they are sent into a faith crisis. What's really happening is that they are actually having to "think" about God's Word for the first time and have never really done that...the "event" coordinators always took care of that in the past. Furthermore, standard evangelicalism (some churches excepted) hasn't prepared them to do that either outside of a one-weekend apologetics conference or similar during high school.

Thus, I think Mary B. above is spot on. "When the [feelings] fade, and all is stripped away and I simply come..." I am forced to deal with the real God of the text, who has revealed Himself in various, interesting and often uncomfortable ways. Am I still willing to bend the knee, no longer to the God who makes me feel emotionally satisfied, but to the wild and strange God who chose Israel, inspired her for battle, spoke to Job from the whirlwind, calmed the sea, gave the apostles tongues of fire and overturned the tables in the temple with leather whip? If you say, "Yes, I'm willing," and let the narrative rearrange your life, then you will grow in faith (as many of the commenters at the other site had). If you say, "No, this God is too strange" for your modern sensibilities or whatever else, then its not surprising, but your faith will wane.

LOL - I am an INTP woman.

Good question, as someone who is rather on the stoic side of religious experience. I think the best thing I've read recently was in Francis Chan's "Forgotton God." He says that we wake up with various negative feelings - fatigue, stress, frustration, anxiety. But an indwelling of the Holy Spirit causes us to not be defined by those feelings. So spiritual experience is less about producing good feelings as it is neutralizing bad feelings (which in turn makes us feel better.)

I also think this needs to be filtered in light of James K.A. Smith's recent book "Desiring the Kingdom." Modern culture claims that people are merely "thinking things," yet consumer culture shapes them through liturgical acts. The modern is split between the two worlds of consumerism and modernistic thought and a Christianity that succumbs to these two perspectives (i.e. much of Evangelicalism), will ultimately fail. If apologetics never moves beyond, "That's what so and so skeptic says and this is what so and so evangelical says," with a mass-marketed debate or two to prove our intellectual superiority (or something like that...), then we will fail in our task to shape people according to the gospel.

The gospel teaches that we are holistic, embodied, liturgical, imaginative animals and if we only engage our intellects, while letting the other aspects of spiritual formation whither, then we will not be true to God's image that we bear. On the other hand, if we cut out the intellectual and make faith a feeling thing, then we lose out on the full-bodied spiritual formation imagined by the Christian faith and will crumple when intellectual challenges arise. Thus, I agree with Smith (and James Hunter), that we need to rethink Christian education and make the whole enterprise much more liturgical from childhood to adulthood.

It should not be either or. We are created as emotional creatures and should not see emotions as negative. But, emotions alone should not direct our faith. We need also intellect, will and imagination. Intellect devoid of emotion is boring and cold. Emotion devoid of intellect is superficial and supercillious. Read Psalm and Revelation- our worship and praise of God involves the whole person. Lovethe Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength.

Faith in a transcendent creator of all that is, seen and unseen, cannot be reduced to a purely intellectual choice. I can tie myself up in questions about whether God makes sense, but I still have a sense which is beyond thought or logic that when Moses heard a voice say "I AM" that voice was not lying, nor illusion. Sometimes I perceive that through the interceding actions of others who appear, superficially, to be more "emotional" than I am. Feeling good is not much basis for faith, but thinking about it isn't satisfactory either. Remember, those who had something akin to direct contact were quite frightened, and messengers who appeared on behalf of God always had to begin with "Be not afraid." Its not all fear either, there is some joy, but it is, in part emotive.

Here are my feelings on this subject, or... my thoughts rather... the very "thoughts" that made me "feel" like sharing here with all of you...
First of all, Thank God for our intellect and emotions! The two work wonderfully together, and who would want one without the other?
There is no doubt that we are able to get caught up in the feelings of those around us, or experience an emotional high without that experience being borne out of reason or our intellect. This can be alright, but it could also be bad... when you reason on the level of "mob mentality".. when you could easily do things you would normally know better than to do.
I don't think it's possible to get caught up intellectually without any emotion, or in a "reduced emotional state". Rather, I believe that intellect spurs emotion, and the more intellect, or thought you give to something, or the harder you try to understand or know something better, the more you will feel, or the greater an emotional response you will achieve.
A correct emotional response, or genuine good feeling about something (like Jesus, and your relationship with Him) is preceded by intellect or reason. I know that emotional/spiritual highs are an experience that Christians at any level of maturity can have, but it is relative to the amount of intellect a Christian dedicates to their Christianity to achieve understanding of the Truth, and in developing and growing a relationship with God and the church . As a more mature Christian, I may not experience "those emotional/spiritual 'highs'", as Mary put it, if "those" emotional experiences or "highs" are different in some way to the emotional "highs" I experience as a Christian.
I can experience a real emotional/spiritual high when I see others come to Christ. Sometimes, as I reflect, I will feel an overwhelming gratitude for my blessings. God had to force me to accept some of the best blessings He had for me. I had my own agenda I was following, but by painful grace, He forced me to realize and experience the family I already had, and move into the roles waiting for me to fill. Now, through the close, meaningful relationships I have with my family, I often reflect and feel a true sense of joy.
I get excited when I read articles and books, and better understand things like the complexities of a cell, and DNA. I become so in awe at how amazing God's creation is, and almost relish in the witness it bears to my God.
There are times when I get an emotional "high" as I am granted more insight or a better understanding of God's Truth through Bible study and prayer... when the light seems to be shining much brighter! I get way excited when one of my kids exhibit some genuine understanding of a Biblical truth or show signs of developing a relationship with God, or choose right from wrong at times when it is particularly hard to do so.
Of course, life can be much more trying and perhaps seem overwhelming at times in ways that a non-Christian may sense very little struggle, and I guess that struggle is also part of the reason that when we see the fruit of those struggles, or when we can kind of escape from those struggles momentarily, and congregate with brothers and sisters in Christ, and worship the God you are trying to get closer to every day, a Christian could experience a bit of a spiritual "high"!