The Worm Turns

The scriptures referred to are Romans 6:12-23.

I use my Facebook feed at least partly to aggregate and curate news I'm interested in. As a former Psychiatric and then Neurosurgery nurse, I am interested in the latest developments in psychology and neurology. And right now there is a big debate going on in those fields as to whether we have free will. The key point for those against us having free will is that in fMRI studies when people are asked to make decisions the emotional part of the brain reacts a few milliseconds before the rational part of the brain. The conclusion drawn is that we first go with our gut and then afterwards rationalize our foregone conclusion. The study's authors said this shows we don't really make rational decisions but are slaves to our emotions and reactive and thus do not have free will. In the comments, I pointed out that if that were true, the people doing the study had no choice but to say that.

Let's face it, though: we all do that at times. We make a subconscious emotional choice and later come up with a rational-sounding justification for it. And some people seem to do that all the time. But there are times when we go against our emotional impulses. How else do you explain martyrs? Nobody's first impulse is to subject themselves to imprisonment, torture and execution. And we know that when Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire some church members did whatever they had to in order to avoid persecution, including renouncing their faith and making a sacrifice to the deified emperor. As humiliating as that might have been when fellow church members heard about it, surely that would be everyone's first instinct: self-preservation. But some didn't take the easy way out. They went to their death, deciding that eternal life was more essential than their earthly life.

And we see that the same thing happened when plagues hit the Roman empire. Those who could fled to the countryside. But Christians often stayed and took care of the sick and dying, at great risk to their own lives. How was that not a freely made decision?

We see both of those counterintuitive kinds of decisions today. Protesters calmly facing heavily armed police. Doctors, nurses and EMTs deciding to care for COVID-19 patients, despite the fact that more than 600 healthcare workers have died as a result. If people have no free will, then you have to posit that some are just hard-wired to put themselves in harm's way for reasons other than satisfying the basic needs for food, shelter and sex. You also have to wonder why we urge people to change their behavior if they have no ability to do other than what they do. People who want to smoke will smoke. People who want to drink will drink. People who want to do drugs will do drugs. Except that many stop, often due to 12 Step programs, which enlist and bolster the person's decision to stop despite really strong biochemical reasons not to.

The Bible calls this impulse to do things that are selfish and destructive sin. It's not a fashionable word to bandy about these days but how else does one describe it when a person deliberately does something they know is wrong or harmful to others? In the book Explaining Hitler there is a discussion of whether Hitler was just a true believer, who sincerely believed that Jews were a danger to the world and that his destroying them was a good thing. Except that, while he knew about the “Final Solution,” he never verbally endorsed it, which you would think he would if he thought he was doing a good thing. After all, he had taken credit for ordering the killing of the disabled early in his reign. But he got a lot of angry pushback for it. So he made sure he had plausible deniability when it came to his genocide of the Jews. Yet he had announced it in Mein Kampf. Everyone working for him knew he wanted it. He would speak about it vaguely when meeting with his underlings in private but not in ways he could be pinned down on later because he knew his secretaries were preserving his every word for posterity. It was almost like he did want want kudos for this good deed in the future. You even could argue that one of the reasons the Nazis lost the war was the massive diversion of personnel, supplies and transport from the war effort to the concentration camps. Hitler was personally supervising the war and had to know where his resources were going. These are the actions of someone who knows he is doing something wrong and is trying to cover it up in order to get away with it. It was deliberate and it was sin.

What the Nazis did was not only deliberate but entirely unnecessary. It was not their survival that made them decide to wipe out a minority race and religion. But in some cases people who do bad things do not have a totally free will, such as those who do things under the influence of drugs or alcohol or mental illness. Others act in destructive or self-destructive ways due to trauma, physical or psychological. Most people addicted to opioids did not start taking them for fun but to relieve pain. And we know that severe emotional trauma can change the brain's physical structure and one's reactions to situations. Yet some folks struggling with these overwhelming negative influences choose to get treatment, which argues that they still have some ability to make decisions not based on pure impulse.

In today's passage from Romans Paul says, “Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.” The Greek actually says “Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies,” using a verb that also means “to be a king.” Paul may have been thinking of a contrast with the “kingdom of God,” which uses the related noun to describe the state in which God reigns in us. He is saying “Don't let sin rule your lives, making you obey its desires.” Which recalls the first ever use of the word “sin” in the Bible. In Genesis, when God is not pleased with Cain's offering, it says, “Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry and why is your expression downcast? Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.'” (Genesis 4:6-7)

It sounds like “sin” is being personified here. I'm not saying that is literally true but people who have wrestled with bad habits or with addictions know that it's like these things have a mind of their own. In the very next chapter of Romans, Paul speaks the same way about his struggle with covetousness. “For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.' But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.” (Romans 7:7-8) Later he talks of how “sin sprang to life and I died.” In this case, Paul is speaking of a situation where the decision was not only irrational but the rational part of his brain did not justify it. He speaks of the 2 parts of him being at war within him and the worst part wins at times. I think we can all relate.

We all have what are called besetting sins, our specific Achilles' heel when it comes to temptation. It may be arrogance or lust or laziness or greed or rage or envy or gluttony. For instance, gambling may have no allure for a certain person but junk food does. Another person may not be addicted to pills but to buying more unnecessary possessions than they can afford. Some people cannot stay away from pornography while others are addicted to judging people. And some of them are aware of this recurring flawed behavior. But they can't seem to get a handle on it.

Today all of those behaviors are now thought of as addictions. But that doesn't mean they are not spiritually damaging behaviors. The word “addiction” comes from a 16^th century word meaning “devoted to [someone].” Paul uses the metaphor of being a slave to sin, as he says in verse 17. And when you find yourself doing again and again something you know is bad for you or for others, it feels like you are a slave to it. The essence of slavery is being compelled to do things you'd rather not.

Paul presents the solution using the same metaphor in a way we would hesitate to employ today. He says the alternative is to become slaves of righteousness. Paul says he is "speaking in human term because of your natural limitations." All I can say is that in Paul's day, slavery was not racially based nor necessarily lifelong. There were worse and better forms of slavery. Slaves consigned to working in mines or in gladiatorial combat were basically given a death sentence. On the other hand, most doctors then were Greek slaves. Many slaves were educated and household slaves might manage great estates and actually have more power than most free persons. And in the Roman empire slaves could work for and achieve their freedom. Which, by the way, Paul encourages slaves to do. (1 Corinthians 7:21)

My point is that Paul is using something familiar to his society and saying, as Bob Dylan pointed out, you gotta serve somebody. Rather than settle for the kind of slavery whose wages are death, choose the kind of slavery that leads to freedom. Rather than being devoted to a thing that will destroy you, be devoted to the God who is love.

The problem is we can't buy our way out of the slavery into which we've sold ourselves. We need to be redeemed by someone else. “Redeem” comes from the Latin “to buy back.” God, who created us in his image, sent his son to buy us back from our enslavement to sin. He paid a steep price. He gave his life to give us life.

And it is ultimately about life. Life gives freedom, whereas death takes everything away. Living enslaved to sin, to your worst habits and inclinations, narrows one's life, the way any addiction does. It becomes a living death. Life in Christ opens up the possibilities. You can express your devotion to him in so many ways: as a doctor, as an artist, as a teacher, as a police officer, as a builder, as a writer, as a scientist, as a coworker, as a musician, as a veterinarian, as a lawyer, as an ecologist, as a filmmaker, as an inventor, as a performer, as a nurse, as a manager, as a firefighter, as a philanthropist, as a public servant, as a neighbor, as a friend, and even as a clergyperson. You can show God's love and grace in all you do.

What Jesus did for us has freed us from the penalty for sin. What the Spirit is doing in us now is slowly freeing us from the power of sin in our lives. When we go to be with God we will be freed from the very presence of sin. Paul expresses this by saying, “Just as you offered parts of yourselves as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to even greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.” (Romans 6:19, my translation) Slavery to righteousness is like joining a 12 Step group, or a fitness program. If you follow it conscientiously the result will be a new and better you.

So as to the issue of free will we live in a paradox. We don't have totally free wills, because we are all enslaved to habits of thought or speaking or acting that are harmful, to ourselves or to others or to both. Yet the Bible gives us a choice. In fact the whole Bible would be useless if we did not have the capacity to decide to get help, to decide not to just go along with our worst urges and instincts but to try to change. We can respond to the gospel, turn from sin and return to God. That's really all the word “repent” means in the original Hebrew: to turn. We have that much free will.

And science seems to back up the idea that we do have the ability to choose which way to turn. Literally. At Rockefeller University researchers exposed microscopic roundworms to the odor of food while monitoring their brains. Usually they turned and moved toward the odor but some didn't, though they could tell their brains had registered the odor. They actually seemed to think about whether they should go towards the food or just continue exploring. Round worms have only 302 neurons and about 7000 synapses, compared to the human complement of 86 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses. If God lets the roundworm have a certain amount of free will, then surely we humans are not mere puppets of our biology and emotions and environment.

We can decide to follow Jesus rather than our sinful impulses and thoughts. But it is not just a one time deal. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, my emphasis) As the 12 Step programs, which owe a lot to Christianity, say we need to take things “one day at a time” because they recognize that it is a commitment that must be continually renewed. And also, the prospect of making such a drastic change forever frightens people. They think, “I'll never make it that long!” The book of Hebrews says, “But exhort one another each day, as long as it is called 'Today,' that none of you may become hardened by sin's deception.” (Hebrews 3:13) That deception is that you can't change, not really, not for long. That deception is that you will be back where you were, trapped in your bad habits, in your self-destructive thinking, unable to do anything to stop it. That deception is that the future is fixed, immutable, and you are doomed to repeat yourself. That deception leads to despair, to giving up, to giving in to your worst thoughts, words and actions. It says you're hopeless.

But God says that your past, and even your present, need not determine your future. You can decide to turn to God. Every second you are alive is a second chance to choose eternal life. Put your trust in God, pin your hope on him, and he can change you. Someone once summarized the first 3 steps of the 12 Step program as "I can't, God can, and I'm going to let him."

That doesn't mean it will be easy or painless. After my accident, the road to recovery was long, difficult and painful. But eventually I did see progress. Because I believed my therapists that this was possible and worked with them to make it so. And 4 ½ months after I broke both legs, among other things, I walked—using parallel bars and being tightly held by the therapist, gripping my therapy belt. But I walked. And with their help, I got better at it.

Which reflects the paradox of us having free will but not entirely. Or as Paul put it, “...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:12-13) C.S. Lewis pointed out the first half of that verse makes it sound like it's all on us but the second half makes it sound like it all depends on God. Like all paradoxes, it preserves a complex truth. To say we can follow Jesus on our own efforts alone is arrogance. To say we can just sit back and let God do it all is abdication of our responsibility.

It starts with saying “Yes” to God. It means being devoted to him and doing what he says. It means when things get hard, remembering what a father said when he brought his sick boy to Jesus to be healed. Jesus said, “Everything is possible for him who believes.” To which the father said, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24) He could and he couldn't. But that was enough for Jesus to work with and heal the boy. We too can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. (Philippians 4:13) Just ask...and dare!