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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Crutches and the Christian faith

Every once in a while I come across someone who says that Christianity is only an emotional crutch for needy people.

On an academic level, the roots of that concept finds itself in the teachings and thinking of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control most of our human behavior.

He taught that God is a creation of the human mind, a creation that comes from some kind of human need and desire rather than some kind of objective reality. 

Instead of you and I being made in God's image, so the theory goes, God is made in our image.

Yet, let me suggest something to you:

A desire for God and for the meeting of our needs exists precisely because we have been designed and created by God to desire them. 

Here's an analogy.  A person floating on a raft in the ocean is thirsty beyond human imagination, but he doesn't get a drink of water just because he is thirsty.  The very existence of the fact that he is thirsty shows that the way for his desire to have his thirst quenched exists - by drinking fresh water.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists." 

What am I saying?  Leaning upon God during difficult times does not mean that he is a crutch and does not exist.  It is a logical, reasonable response if God himself is real - and He is.

How do I know?  I am leaning upon him.

Just a thought for a Tuesday.

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