Thank you for this, Julian. I think most of us deal with some level of shame and guilt in our lifetime, and it may be evolutionarily hardwired, as Mullet says in his response below, for a reason. For it is moving through shame and guilt, and coming to terms with our own aching humanity, that we can arrive at a place of grace. Grace is a hard-earned reward for soul searching and internalizing a better belief system that reminds of the divine within and without. We are indeed forged by fire.
I would tend to agree with that. God intends for us to be free of all that would get in the way of a more loving relationship with God. There is a cost, as Bonhoeffer says, to true discipleship, and moving through pain, guilt, shame, suffering, is part of the cost. On another note, while guilt and shame do not overwhelm me anymore, it is there in some of the deeper recesses of my being. This, I think, is important, as it is the one of the bases of compassion and empathy.
I agree with everything you said, with one caveat: following the definitions I laid out in my post (and I'll cop that theologians and social scientists often have different terms for things), I think what you're describing is what I would call guilt.
Guilt: "I did (or am doing) something bad."
Shame: "I am a bad (flawed, defective, etc) person."
I think free riders of the types you describe *should* feel guilty, and this guilt can also be imposed on them from outside of themselves (i.e. by moralizing punishers). The guilt should motivate them to make changes in how they behave. AND, once they've made those necessary changes and become the kind of person who doesn't free ride, they should let go of their guilt so it doesn't keep eating away at them.
Thank you for this, Julian. I think most of us deal with some level of shame and guilt in our lifetime, and it may be evolutionarily hardwired, as Mullet says in his response below, for a reason. For it is moving through shame and guilt, and coming to terms with our own aching humanity, that we can arrive at a place of grace. Grace is a hard-earned reward for soul searching and internalizing a better belief system that reminds of the divine within and without. We are indeed forged by fire.
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I agree with this. AND, I think a key part of grace is letting go of our guilt and shame; because God doesn't want us to live stuck in those mindsets.
What do you think?
I would tend to agree with that. God intends for us to be free of all that would get in the way of a more loving relationship with God. There is a cost, as Bonhoeffer says, to true discipleship, and moving through pain, guilt, shame, suffering, is part of the cost. On another note, while guilt and shame do not overwhelm me anymore, it is there in some of the deeper recesses of my being. This, I think, is important, as it is the one of the bases of compassion and empathy.
Thanks for commenting!
I agree with everything you said, with one caveat: following the definitions I laid out in my post (and I'll cop that theologians and social scientists often have different terms for things), I think what you're describing is what I would call guilt.
Guilt: "I did (or am doing) something bad."
Shame: "I am a bad (flawed, defective, etc) person."
I think free riders of the types you describe *should* feel guilty, and this guilt can also be imposed on them from outside of themselves (i.e. by moralizing punishers). The guilt should motivate them to make changes in how they behave. AND, once they've made those necessary changes and become the kind of person who doesn't free ride, they should let go of their guilt so it doesn't keep eating away at them.
What do you think?