Image and Stability
And the LORD said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole,
and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.
(Num 21:8)
By Stephen W. Hiemstra
In her book, Anne Graham Lotz (2009, 1-2) recalls a story of a conversation that her mother, Ruth Graham, had with the former head of Scotland Yard. She suggested that he must have handled a lot of the counterfeit money over the years. He responded: “On the contrary, Mrs. Graham, I spend all my time studying the genuine thing. That way, when I see a counterfeit, I can immediately detect it.”
Christians focus on joy. This perspective is pragmatic because glass can only be crafted in a limited number of ways, but the ways that it can be shattered a too numerous to number. At the heart of Christian joy, of course, is the divine image.
Image and Salvation
An enigmatic story of the people of Israel wandering in the desert highlights the role of the divine image in salvation:
And the people spoke against God and against Moses, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. (Num 21:5-6)
When the people repented, God instructed Moses to craft a snake image of bronze, put it on a pole, and have the snake-bit people look at it to be cured of their bites. This procedure worked so well that that the bronze snake became an idol of worship and had to be destroyed (2 Kgs 18:4). Jesus later spoke about his own crucifixion using an analogy to this story: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw call people to myself.” (John 12:32)
What happens then to snake-bit people who refuse to look up?
Image and Stability
Earlier I referenced Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem from mathematics. Smith (2001, 89) writes:
“His famous Incompleteness Theorem states that in a formal system satisfying certain precise conditions, there will always be at least one undecidable proposition—that is, a proposition such that neither it nor its negation is provable within the system.”
Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem poses important implications for our conversation about the image of God because if the human psyche is a closed logical system, then it too must meet theorem conditions. The image of God anchors our faith.
In 2011, I worked in a locked-down, psychiatric unit at Providence Hospital and became acquainted with a number of depressed and suicidal patients. The treatment for both problems was to get the patient to focus on mundane things outside themselves—taking walks, establishing routines, visiting with other people to break the “vicious cycle of isolation” (Clinebell 1988, 275). This treatment strategy unwittingly applied the Incompleteness Theorem to unstable personalities. Depressed or suicidal person is essentially someone obsessed with themselves (a closed system) and in need of a ladder to climb out of the pit (an external proposition) that they have fallen into.
In the context of Christian faith, the image of God serves the same function. Spirituality stability requires an external reference point as a logical necessity.
Spiritual Instability
If you remove the external reference point from someone’s informal spirituality, they become spiritually unstable, which leaves them vulnerable to evil, insanity, and/or perversity. Like the glass dropped on a ceramic floor, they can be shattered in an infinite number of ways. If you have ever known an addict, they become an object of pity among relatives who have seen their fallen state and have exhausted their energy attempting to help them out of their predicament. This is not a pleasant thing to observe or experience. May (1988, 54) describes the addicted personality as “manipulative, devious, and self-centered.”
The classic response that many express today is that they have no need of God. Faith is an illusion or evidence of drug use, according to Freud and Marx. This is like the sunny weather sailor that never sails far from land—who needs a compass, a sextant, or, for that matter, a lighthouse? Brags the sunshine sailor. But, when sailing becomes a profession and one must navigate deep waters, this sunshine talk morphs into foolish blathering by silver spooners. The sun does not always shine; seas are not alway smooth; and land is not always an easy reference point.
Spiritual instability is a threat to one’s livelihood, one’s family, and one’s very life precisely when other helps fail. On the night when he was betrayed, Jesus said:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; aI will come to you.” (John 14:15-18)
Here we see the image of a Triune God being employed to comfort us in a period spiritual instability when we are most vulnerable.
References
Clinebell, Jr., Howard J. 1978. Understanding and Counseling the Alcoholic Through Religion and Psychology. Nashville: Abingdon.
Huston Smith. 2001. Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. New York: Harper Collins.
Lotz, Anne Graham. 2009. Just Give Me Jesus. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
May, Gerald G. 1988. Addiction & Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions. New York: HarperOne.
Image and Stability
Also see:
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:
Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com
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