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Based on feedback and conversations from my post about “Ultimate Cheesecake,” I realize far too many people haven’t read my book: “Getting Better When You Can’t” and the subject of embodiment and contemplation confused some of you. If you thought it was a license to sin, then religion may have trapped you in its small wine skin which conflates behaviors with sins. When this happens, we go about life trying not to not do some things, except when those sins are behaviors we want to do, or seem advantageous at the time. We question if such behaviors are even sinful, and we do them anyway, then we return to our rituals which we believe will cleanse us or make us feel better about ourself…until next time.

For this reason, I will explain this unseen process working within the architecture of our humanity, how nothing is actually broken, and the world’s futile remedies. I’m advocating for an embodied spirituality of faith and Christ following. If this is the first time you’ve heard this, put on your floaties…

NOTE: the Bible tells us we are “image bearers”, while also being sinners. These are two aspects of our nature. To learn more about why I use this language, check out my post: Shadow and Image .

Our case study:

This person knows they have a problem in this particular area but find themselves going back to this sinful behavior again and again. The problem compounds often when they are online. Certain websites trigger a cascade of thoughts, affections, and behaviors. This person tries to avoid these sites, but eventually go back them, then the dopamine begins to flow. They begin “death scrolling” through image after image until they find the one that hits. They click, they dive deeper, there are more images and even videos to consume. Their affections grow and their “wanter” inflames until they ignore their best judgement and overrule their own safeguards, they reject the wisdom they have possessed, and they take action which will bring them satisfaction.

We might assume this is an example of someone looking at nude people online, but it could just as easily be someone doing online shopping, or examining recipes for their next indulgence, or a traveler picking another destination. Each of these behaviors in and of themselves is not sinful, but depending upon the affections in the heart, and the context of each individual, could be equally sinful and destructive. Didn’t see that coming, did you? If you cannot see these as potentially equal sins of the shadow self, then you don’t yet have a biblical understanding of sin…and most people don’t. The subject matter of the internet is not what is sinful, it is the heart of the consumer. This is what makes Jesus’ teaching so powerful:

“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him…” (Mark 7:15)

The Process:

Sin is not necessarily a behavior, but certainly can be. Using our case study, there are contexts when nudity is clinical, celebrated, and to be enjoyed as God designed. Online shopping is convenient, and necessary. Recipes are fun, creative and bring joy to gatherings. Religion has told us what behaviors are acceptable, and thus our judging, Platonic, shadow mind judges behaviors as good or bad, naughty or nice, and we define others by their behaviors. The Bible is more nuanced than that, and in order to understand it, we must not focus on the behavior, but on the internal workings which lead to behaviors.

1. Ground zero: Truth

All genuine sin is a truth problem not a behavior problem. It’s a problem of either apprehension (we don’t know something is a sin) or of application (we know it’s a sin but we do it anyway). These are the conscious (rebellion) and unconscious (deception) “Too Far” I spoke of in my Cheesecake post. We all presuppose the truth and derive our worldview from it. We don’t continually seek Truth, nor are we trained what to do with Truth once we discover it. Most people locate the seat of truth within our affections and therefore determine if something is true based upon whether we are favorable to it. The seat of truth is the intellect, the mind or conscious understanding of how all things integrate. Truth is not siloed, but converges all things, thus people with less truth have more dis-integrated lives. Sin germinates when we conclude something is true when it’s actually not true or only partially true. In our case study, sin is conceived (James 1:15) when the person’s desire for something becomes an “over-desire” (epithumia) for something. We know this has happened when “that thing” is believed to be more satisfying than fidelity to the truth of connection, a budget, or health. This is deception or a loss of Truth.

2. The Intellect:

Our intellect is the seat of Truth, the warehouse of wisdom or our skill and will to use the knowledge we possess. Information and knowledge are helpful, but not if we don’t employ them with skill (wisdom). Deception is behind all sins of our shadow self, since we cannot comprehend or will not apply the truth we possess. All deception is a self that does not know its true self, namely to know itself as the Beloved of God. Instead, a deceived intellect believes itself to be something or someone else, and reasons accordingly. From this ontological deception we construct our grasp of reality conferring with others who also suffer from self deception. By not knowing or believing who we truly are, we find satisfaction or distraction in things of world rather than finding satisfaction in God. Kierkegaard’s definition of sin is spot on: The refusal to be oneself before God. Paul similarly defines sin as the opposite of faith or non-faith.

“…whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23)

In our case study, the sin occurs in the intellect when this person concluded they are someone other than who they truly are (commonly emerging as self-pity), and begins to reason from that self delusion (self-pity) reasons and justifies why “in this moment” they need not be oneself before God or that they are not before God.

3. The Affections:

Most people live within their affections. We’re captive to our “wanters.” We desire one thing, then the next and so on, in a chain of unconscious creaturely existence. A person whose existence stems from affections is constantly in a state of self delusion and reacts to every stimuli of the environment… and not very well. Some adapt to trying to feel good, while others can’t get out of feeling bad. This is true confusion and becoming free from this requires profound change in worldview (Truth). Every addiction is a self who has mistakenly concluded that their desire or appetite is a good gauge of reality. Truth that is external and objective can and does override the affections, but a person in self delusion believes truth is internal and subjective. In our case study, our person has rejected objective truth and scrolls to satisfy the appetite for the next dopamine rush. They are slaves to their neurotransmitters, not realizing that objective truth can rewire that dependence. Once our affections define reality, life becomes chaotic and unsettled. This is to be pregnant with sin.

4. The Will:

People give will power too much credit. The will actually has no power of its own. The purpose of the will is not to have power, but instead to transduce the non-physical world into the physical world. The affections of our “wanter” enlist the will to take an action (doesn’t matter what) that will satisfy the affections. Nothing more, nothing less. Once the affections are inflamed with over-desire, the will is continually activated to seek out a means of satisfaction. Then the process starts over. When a person says they “can’t stop” what they mean is, “my affections are contrary to stopping.” This is proven by supposing this person in our case study has a loved one who would be disappointed if they found them “doing it again” online. Now if this person online hears their loved one open the garage door and then they quickly close out the webpage and delete browser history, then we know their claim that “they can’t stop” is a lie because they can stop as soon as the affection for not being caught became stronger than the affection to death scroll.

5. The Actions:

The actions are the behaviors where our loss of Truth and self ends up in the world. Actions are externally measured behaviors which we judge as good or bad, right or wrong. Religion and all law lives here in the exacting and precise definition of things. The letter of the law is punitive, lacks nuance, and as you can see, tells very little of the subterranean story. This is why the biblical revelation has done away with the law and its moral requirements (end of religion-Colossians 2:20) and replaced it with a faith in knowing who we are in God as we follow Christ in His human example, which is a physical life, governed by the Spirit of God in Truth. The action was that thing that promised satisfaction, or idolatry.

Now that we know how this all works, we can see our need for Truth to be graciously revealed to us in God’s Word. Only God, our Maker gets to say who we are. The world spends time, dollars, and calories trying to focus on behavior modification strategies, drugs, and therapies for our emotions that inevitably fail us. Since our world is convinced that “we are what we do,” it’s cure is to either to redefine wrongdoing as “not wrong” or to force change from the outside in. Hopefully now you can see how foolish this is and why it never really works.

God’s cure is inside out, by first learning who we truly are…hidden in Christ (hidden in our embodied humanity) and found in God. WE ARE THE BELOVED. We are also sinners prone to sin. Said another way, we are physical, prone to not see the spiritual very well…but we do all see it. What starts out blurry, becomes clearer as we allow this Truth to reconstruct our worldview. This ontological center informs a new intellect which uses the same architecture to embody not our shade, but the Image of God. This truth of who we are emerges increasingly over time in how we live and produces fruit of renewal. This makes our “wanter” gain a hunger or thirst for more of His Word and Truth and Instruction. Line by line and precept upon precept, this changes our affections, and our will activates a set of new behaviors. It never fails because you are not broken.

If your shadow self is winning. If you can’t seem to break free…please know that everything is working perfectly, and that is our hope. God has consigned all of us to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on us all.” (Romans 11:32) We need only ask for help, and God is gracious to provide us with precisely what we need for the next moment, nothing more…no life-long fixes…only manna for each day. His light within us casts a necessary shadow, who will highjack our “seeing” the moment we lose consciousness of who we are before God.

This is why contemplative prayer is of utmost importance. Silly Sunday school prayers asking God to take away our desires for being bad will always bounce of the ceiling. But silence and stillness before our Maker yields a humility within our struggle, not despite it, that pleases God as He graces us with enough love and desire to seek another moment of divine union. As these moments string together, a renewed life emerges, and from that…a renewed family, community, and world. This is not a one and done fix. Give yourself and others grace and time to learn who we are and how we work. Once we do, love of others becomes easy.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” (Romans 12:2)