Avoidance and Unrequited Feelings in Social Interactions
Avoidance and Unrequited Feelings in Social Interactions
The Christian tradition has long grappled with the complexities of human emotions and social interactions, including avoidance and unrequited feelings. According to John Calvin, humans experience a natural sense of repugnance when faced with adversity, which can conflict with their pious affections [1]. This tension is evident in social interactions, where individuals may struggle with feelings of shame, anxiety, or frustration.
In the context of social relationships, avoidance can be a coping mechanism for those who feel overwhelmed or hurt. Augustine notes that human society is fraught with distresses, and individuals may withdraw from social interactions as a way to protect themselves [7]. However, this avoidance can also be a hindrance to forming meaningful connections with others. As Gregory Thaumaturgus suggests, love is characterized by a willingness to persevere and show kindness even to those who may be unwilling to receive it [9].
Unrequited feelings, in particular, can be a source of pain and discomfort in social interactions. Charles Hodge argues that emotions, including love, are involuntary states of mind that can exist independently of our choices [4]. This raises questions about the nature of responsibility and agency in social relationships. While individuals may not be able to control their emotions, they can still choose how to act on them.
The early Christian fathers offer insights into the complexities of human emotions and social interactions. Tertullian, for example, notes that hostile powers can influence human desires and actions, leading to sinful behavior [2]. In contrast, Augustine emphasizes the importance of cultivating a true and certain sentiment about things, rather than being swayed by fleeting emotions or opinions [3].
In navigating avoidance and unrequited feelings, Christians are called to balance their natural emotions with their spiritual affections. Calvin suggests that this balance is achieved through patience and thanksgiving, which can help to mitigate the negative effects of adversity [8]. Ultimately, the Christian tradition encourages individuals to approach social interactions with empathy, kindness, and a willingness to persevere in the face of challenges [5, 9].
The complexities of human emotions and social interactions are a recurring theme in Christian theology. Aquinas, for instance, notes that virtue and vice can be manifest in outward behaviors, including those related to social interactions [6]. By examining the interplay between emotions, choices, and actions, Christians can gain a deeper understanding of how to navigate the challenges of avoidance and unrequited feelings in a way that is consistent with their faith.
Sources
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 63: they feel bitterly, they are at the same time filled with spiritual joy; though pressed with anxiety, breathe exhilarated by the consolation of God. Still there is a certain degree of repugnance in their hearts, because natural sense shuns and dreads what is adverse to it, while pious affection, even through these difficulties, tries to obey the divine will. This repugnance the Lord expressed when he thus addressed Peter: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldst”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 4: Tertullian IV, Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen — CHAP. II.--ON' THE OPPOSING POWERS. (part 5): occasions and beginnings of sins, which these hostile powers spread far and wide, and, if possible, beyond all limits. Thus, when men at first for a little desire money, covetousness begins to grow as the passion increases, and finally the fall into avarice takes place. And after this, when blindness of mind has succeeded passion, and the hostile powers, by their suggestions, hurry on the mind, money is now no longer desired, but stolen, and acquired by force, or even by shedding human b”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 7: Augustine — Homilies on John — CHAPTER XV. 23. (part 2): our credulity is frequently at fault; for sometimes even history, and still more ordinary report, turns out to be false. Yet, it ought to be our concern, in order not to be misled by an injurious opinion, seeing we cannot search into the consciences of men, to have a true and certain sentiment about things themselves. I mean, that in regard to this or that man, if we know not whether he is immodest or modest, we should at all events hate immodesty and love modesty: and if in regard to some one or other we know not whether he”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 5: bad. “If any outward action or state of the feeling exists, in opposition to the intention or choice of the mind, it cannot by any possibility have moral character. Whatever is beyond the control of a moral agent, he cannot be responsible for.” 23 23 Ibid. p. 164. “Love may, and often does exist, as every one knows, in the form of a mere feeling or emotion. . . . This emotion or feeling, as we are all aware, is purely an involuntary state of mind. Because it is a phenomenon of the sensibility, and of course a passive state of mind, it has ”
- Luke (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on Luke 9:26: ashamed of me, and of my words--The sense of shame is one of the strongest in our nature, one of the social affections founded on our love of reputation, which causes instinctive aversion to what is fitted to lower it, and was given us as a preservative from all that is properly shameful. When one is, in this sense of it, lost to shame, he is nearly past hope (Zac 3:5; Jer 6:15; Jer 3:3). But when Christ and "His words"--Christianity, especially in its more spiritual and uncompromising features--are unpopular, the same instinctive desire to stand well wi”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part (Secunda Secundae), Of Modesty in the Outward Apparel, Art. 1: Article: Whether there can be virtue and vice in connection with outward apparel? I answer that, It is not in the outward things themselves which man uses, that there is vice, but on the part of man who uses them immoderately. This lack of moderation occurs in two ways. First, in comparison with the customs of those among whom one lives; wherefore Augustine says (Confess. iii, 8): "Those offenses which are contrary to the customs of men, are to be avoided according to the cu”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 5.--OF THE SOCIAL LIFE, WHICH, THOUGH MOST DESIRABLE, IS FREQUENTLY DISTURBED BY MANY DISTRESSES. (part 1): We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of the wise man must be social. For how could the city of God (concerning which we are already writing no less than the nineteenth book of this work) 404 either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life of the saints were not a social life? But who can enumerate all the great grievances with which human society abounds in th”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 63: In bearing them patiently we are not submitting to necessity but resting satisfied with our own good. The effect of these thoughts is, that to whatever extent our minds are contracted by the bitterness which we naturally feel under the cross, to the same extent will they be expanded with spiritual joy. Hence arises thanksgiving, which cannot exist unless joy be felt. But if the praise of the Lord 2024 and thanksgiving can emanate only from a cheerful and gladdened breasts and there is nothing which ought to interrupt these feelings”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 6: Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius, Julius Africanus, Methodius, Arnobius — EPISTLE XIV.--FROM HIS FOURTH FESTIVAL EPISTLE.(2): Love is altogether and for ever on the alert, and casts about to do some good even to one who is unwilling to receive it. And many a time the man who shrinks from it under a feeling of shame, and who declines to accept services of kindness on the ground of unwillingness to become troublesome to others, and who chooses rather to bear the burden of his own grievances than cause annoyance and anxiety to any one, is importuned by the man who is full of love to bea”