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By
today’s contemporary ideas in self-help psychology such as making personal
choices and the victimization of women etc., who is responsible for the fall
of “man,” Adam or Eve as it reads in the Bible? How is today’s
psychology the same or different from what the Bible says?
 o answer your question, we must
first make a short digression into a discussion of law, because, as you use
the word responsible in your question, it really has the meaning of
liable, in the legal sense.
Liability and
Tort Law
For example, if two cars collide
in an intersection, the police investigation must determine which driver
is responsible for the crash and will therefore get the citation for a moving
violation. If the damage is serious enough, the responsible driver may also
face criminal charges. Finally, this responsibility also makes the driver
vulnerable to being sued for damages according to tort law.
Christianity
and Lawsuits
Notice, however, that all the
principles of Christianity—turn the other cheek, forgive offenses, and
so on—stand opposed to tort law. Justice according to criminal law is
one thing, but suing for personal damages is another.
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Now indeed it
is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one
another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves
be cheated? Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to
brothers. |
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— 1 Corinthians 6:7-8 |
And if you should ever sue the
Church itself, as in allegations of child molestation, then things can get
even more spiritually dangerous, because not only are you refusing to “put
up with injustice” and refusing to trust in God’s justice, but
you are also demanding that Christ pay you for injuries inflicted
on Him.
If a person who was molested
is freely offered psychotherapy or some other sort of good-will settlement,
then fine. But if that person sues for compensation for what has been
“lost” from life, then all that money will purchase nothing but
a one-way ticket to hell. A lawsuit, after all,
is just a “civilized” form of revenge,
a desire to hurt the other person just as you have been hurt. Do unto
others as they do unto you. That’s the Satanic inversion of the
Golden Rule which says, “Do to others whatever you would have them do
to you” (Matthew 7:12) Revenge, therefore, derives from a refusal to
forgive.
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But if you do
not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your
transgressions. |
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— Matthew 6:15 |
Purification,
not Compensation
Life’s purpose is not measured
by how much one can accumulate in terms of wealth, or status, or education,
and demanding compensation for lost wealth or lost status or lost education
will get you nowhere. Nor will clinging to resentment over your injuries
get you anywhere—except for where that one-way ticket will take you.
Life’s real purpose is measured in terms of
purification of heart, and this purification happens
both because of injuries and
in spite of injuries. If you fail to achieve
a pure heart, no amount of blame or finger pointing will justify your failure.
It’s all on you.
Now, that sounds harsh, doesn’t
it? But it’s all based in love, and training
ourselves to love is the basis of our spiritual purification.
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 O love, powerful and sweet,
happy is he who is possessed by thee, for thou dost strengthen, defend, and
preserve him from all ills of body and soul. Thou gently guidest all things
to their end, and never dost abandon man. Thou art ever faithful, thou givest
light against the deceite of the devil, the malice of the world, and against
ourselves, who are so full of self and so perverse. This love is so illuminative
and efficacious that it draws all imperfections from their secret caverns,
that we may apply the remedy and purge ourselves from them.
This love, which rules and governs our will, in order
that it may grow strong and firm to resist temptation, so occupies the affections
and the intellect that they desire naught beside. The memory is engrossed,
and the powers of the soul are satisfied, so that love remains her sole possessor
and inhabitant, and she allows nothing else to enter there. Love exhales
a continual sweet perfume, by which man suffers himself to be allured, and
so powerful is this fragrance that however great may be the torments through
which he passes to salvation, there is no martyrdom he would not suffer gladly
to attain it. |
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—Saint Catherine of Genoa
Spiritual Dialogue, Third Part, Chapter IV |
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Responsibility
This, then, brings us back to
your question and leads to the psychological meaning of
responsibility. “Take responsibility for your own life”
means precisely to stop blaming others for anything that happens to you.
It means that no matter what happens to you, you have to pay the price
of its remedy. No matter what your parents—or anyone—ever did to
you, you have to work in the present to achieve your healing. Even
self-loathing and self-blame—even to the point of
suicide, believe it or not—are all veiled forms
of blaming others as a way to avoid facing up to the truth of your
unconscious past. In every aspect of it, then,
“playing the
victim” only rejects
love and denies
healing.
Healing
To achieve this healing, you
have to feel the pain of what happened to you, and
you have to come to terms with that pain, in or out of psychotherapy. But
you can’t blame anyone for that pain. Christ, after all, was not
victimized [1]—He
freely sacrificed Himself for us. So no Christian can be victimized. Martyrs
freely accept the abuse of the world, and saints patiently tolerate it, yes.
But they are not “victims.”
And why aren’t they
“victims”?
Victimization
In the ancient sense of the word,
victim means an animal offered in sacrifice. These sacrificial animals,
however, did not offer themselves—they were taken from the flocks—and
so, through the ages, the term victim became unconsciously associated
with the idea of someone who (a) loses something against his will or (b)
is cheated or duped by another. Consequently, in modern secular society at
least, the meaning of a holy victim has been lost to us, and our use
of the term victim carries with it all the unconscious resentment
we feel for being cheated, duped, or unfairly treated. In essence, according
to today’s language, a victim is someone who has been
victimized.
And so, when we call someone
a victim today we imply that the person suffered unwillingly and unfairly;
moreover, according to modern sensibilities, we unconsciously assume that
this injustice deserves some compensation. If the compensation does not come
freely, we demand it. We sue. We protest. We even kill.
This very attitude, this bitterness
and resentment for having been treated unfairly, is the poison that prevents
emotional wounds from healing.
In contrast, those who
entrust their pain to God free themselves from
unconscious resentment and blame; in letting their suffering joyfully flow
through them in imitation of Christ as the true holy victim, they
choose not to feel victimized. No matter what happens to them, they
never lose the mystical peace of healing through divine love.
Blame and
Hiding
Now, the story of Adam and Eve
is actually a story that makes this very point, for it is a story about the
original sin of finger pointing and blame. Look at the story. The serpent
tempts Eve, and she in turn tempts Adam. God finds Adam hiding and asks what
happened. Adam points his finger at Eve and blames her. And he blames God
in the process: “This woman you gave me—she made
me do it.” God turns to Eve. “Is that true?” Eve points to
the serpent: “He made me do it.”
So what is the
sin here? It’s the failure to trust in God and
forgive others after having been hurt or
misled—and the failure to trust in God and seek forgiveness after having
made a mistake. It’s the hiding and the
blaming—out of fear—that turns away from
God’s mercy and points a finger at others
to make them responsible. Adam and Eve victimized each other, and all of
humanity followed. But in His freely choosing to be a holy victim—the
Paschal sacrifice—Christ offers us freedom from the poisoned trap of
victimization.
Notice well: Adam and Eve both
fail. The story is not about whom to blame, it’s about the emptiness
of fear and blame itself. When, because of our pain, we fear the world, we
end up blaming the world. But, when we fear God—that is, when we stand
in awe of his majesty and mercy—we are then
led to the pure and healing fragrance of his divine
love.
And so, having lectured you enough,
I will give a blessing:
May your trials
be of such intensity
And may they be received under such guidance
That you are brought to that holy place
where you can say,
“What sweet and perfect joy! Now I know how Christ
felt!” |
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1. Christ was, and is, a victim
in the ancient sense of the term, which referred to an animal offered in
sacrifice: as the Paschal Lamb, Christ willingly offered Himself in sacrifice
on the cross for our salvation. Keep in mind,
though, that in His sacrifice, Christ neither lost anything nor was He cheated
or duped. He did, however, “cheat” death of its power over us,
and, in that sense, death itself was made a “victim” of His
sacrifice.
  
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