A Soul on Guard

We've been talking about how to deal effectively with negative emotions. This will be the last post for a while on the subject. In it, we will tie up loose ends. We have shown in the last few posts that the soul wrestles against negative emotions. We placed emotions at the level of math, and imagination. We can similarly place them at the level of morality, especially because negative emotions are the direct concern of the soul, where evil spirits are often times above its purview. Jesus said in this regard that the imaginations and feelings that dispose us toward sin are the proximate concerns of the soul on guard (Matt. 5:17-48). And so, we perennially position ourselves in battle against negative emotions; always vigilant, always circumspect of them. We know that, in dealing with them, we flee the evil spirits that occasion them, and we avoid the unethical behaviors that they suggest to us, behaviors that do not perfect us as human beings. 

By the power of God, our souls remain on guard, circumspect; our souls remain positioned to hack down the enemies that compass us about like bees and blaze like thorn fires (Psalm 118:12). We realize that, with God on our side, and only because he is on our side, we can vanquish the negative emotions that try us. "I can do all things through Christ that makes me strong" (Phil. 4:13). And "cut off from me, you can do nothing," says the Lord (John 15:5). We proceed on life's journey therefore with faith, in hope, and through Love. We remain vigilant all our days with regard to the onslaught of negative emotions. "God is our shelter and our strength, ever ready to help in time of trouble; and so we shall not fear" (Psalm 46:1-2a). Indeed, without God to inspire and sustain us, we are truly nothing. Nothing at all.

With epistemology and ethics, we attain happiness; we have repeatedly said this. By way of epistemology, we have advanced the concepts of sacrifice, and Descartes' three-step method for effectively dealing with negative emotions. These epistemological methods do help us in our fight against negative emotions. Descartes' method to begin with exhorts us to, when we are confronted with negative emotions, first become conscious of them; second, analyze them with thought, and finally choose to act through reason rather than feelings. The concept of sacrifices in turn encourages us to believe that "all things work together for the good of those that love God and are called to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28), and to accept that the otherwise bad things that happen to us happen for a greater purpose which God knows, even if we don't. Viewed against this backdrop, we are supposed to sacrifice all desire that things go our way, and thus participate in God's all-knowing providence; the God who sees all things, past, present and future, as if they were happening at the same time, according to Boethius; the God whose intellect is perfectly adequated to all things, even when ours isn't, according to the saint, Thomas Aquinas.

Above all, in the practical daily living with negative emotions, we should be careful to avoid the epistemological pitfalls of infinite regress and solipsism in the application of the methods we have hitherto described. We cannot apply the methods with impure motives, or faulty premises. With the help of God and the right intentions only can they even begin to work for us. We cannot go about creating physical situations that inspire negative feelings in us, only because we have at the back of our minds the desire to apply either or both of the methods we have proposed in dealing with negative emotions. It would for example be like going to Confession with the manifest intent of sinning again right afterwards. We should therefore always keep our ethics at pace with our epistemology. 

Let us all now bless the Lord, and praise him all our days. Amen.