Ernest Kurtz, Shame and Guilt. Hazelden, 1981.
Kurtz deals in psychological categories. The theological observations are mine and are so indicated by red typeface.
Guilt results from a violation, a transgression, a fault of doing, the exercise of power, of control.
Guilt results in a feeling of wrongdoing, sense of wickedness: “My action was not good.”
How could I have done that?
The opposite, guiltless, is positive.
Guilt is objective.
Shame results from a failure, a falling short, a fault of being, the lack of power, of control.
Shame results in a feeling of inadequacy, sense of worthlessness: “I am no good.”
How could I have done that?
The opposite, shameless, is negative.
Shame is subjective.
Paying attention to shame can lead to an acceptance of the human condition as essentially limited. Healthy humans learn to live with the fact that they are limited in what they can control and be. This realization is the reason that Alcoholics Anonymous split off from the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group taught people to strive for Christian perfectionism. Bill Wilson saw this as a problem; if alcoholics bought into perfection as a goal, then failure to be perfect would cause them so much pain that they would have to drink to kill the pain. AA promises that “working the steps” produces “progress rather than perfection.” A healthy human being lives with the tension between human aspiration and human finitude---human hope subverted by human limitation.
Limitation (finitude) is characteristic of all creatures, including human beings. Only God is unlimited (infinite). The refusal to accept finitude is the original sin. The downfall of Adam and Eve is the attempt to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5). But this refusal is characteristic of all human beings (thus the category “original” sin). Each person relies on something (often religion) to mask the shame of essential limitation. E.g.: I can’t be perfect, but at least I can believe correct doctrine, and be better than everyone whose doctrine is wrong. I can’t protect my children from every hurt, but at least I can control where they go, with whom they associate, what they eat, and how they behave. I may not be rich, but I have a newer, faster car, bigger TV screen, better neighborhood than my peers. I may not know everything, but I know more than most people about most things and can demonstrate that in conversation. Anything on which we rely to avoid accepting our limitations becomes addicting and most of us have multiple addictions.
Addiction often arises from and usually is connected with the effort to conceal weakness, to prevent its exposure to oneself. The addict uses the [substance or achievement] in order to hide, and especially to hide from himself. The endeavor to hide reveals that the critical problem underlying such behavior is shame. For AA, recovery requires community. Whereas the active addict avoids letting others know about her/his dependence on the object of addiction, AA requires admitting in the presence of others, “I am an alcoholic.” Since the others in the meeting are themselves honestly admitting the same addiction, the humiliation of this admission, although painful, is ameliorated by the context of anonymity and confidentiality. Usually those outside AA regard it condescendingly and deprecatingly. It is interpreted away as “the substitution of a social dependence for a drug dependence,” or as “accepting the emotional immaturity of alcoholics and supplying a crutch for it.” Inside AA this substitution of dependence on the addict’s “higher power” and on the community of recovering addicts is understood as a necessary means to sobriety.
In Romans 6:15-23, Paul explains the need for the exchange of dependencies, which he unblinkingly calls “slavery.” Those who have “died to Sin” with Christ are no longer “slaves to Sin, which leads to death” Instead they are now “slaves to right living,” which Paul calls “life.” Note that “Sin” in this passage is singular and refers, not to bad behavior or rule-breaking, but to the slave master whom the addressees have been “obeying.” So in 6:23 “Sin” is put in negative parallelism with “God:”
“The wages [paid by] Sin is death
The gift [given by] God is life.”
Note that Paul, who has an excellent command of Greek vocabulary, does not write, “The punishment for sins is death.” He writes: “The wages of Sin is death.” He contrasts wages, for which the slave must work [ancient slavery sometimes involved this possibility] with the free gift from God.
The other thing that requires attention is that for Paul, “death,” does not refer exclusively to physical death or exclusively to a spiritual death after physical death. We know this because in both Colossians and Ephesians (written by students of Paul’s theology) the recipients are told that before they became Christians, they were “dead” and now they are “alive.” If living people can be told that they used to be dead, it is obvious that “death” refers to a state of unwholesomeness (addiction) that has been replaced by wholeness (the explicit meaning of the Greek word soteria, often translated “salvation” in English). Life after physical death is included, but the “eternal life” in Romans 6:23 begins with the surrender of the person from slavery to Sin and the acceptance of slavery to God. So we may translate:
The wages paid by Sin is deadness now and forever.
The gift given by God is life now and forever.
God is what AAs call their “higher power.” But are the critics correct to disparage dependence on the “social addiction” to the community of addicts? Not according to Paul, who regards Christian community as so essential that he calls it a “body” in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. In this “body,” each part is needed by every other part; no one is dispensable and no one is more important than another. The fact that the churches have long abandoned this anti-hierarchical understanding of Christian community is one reason that Twelve-step groups have become necessary and a major reason that recovering addicts find it difficult to become involved in the activities of the church that allows them to meet in its basement.
Addicts/sinners/all humans live in wholeness when they learn to live with the fact that they are both limited and free, both dependent and independent, both compelled to hide in addiction and free to be vulnerable and seek help in community with other addicts/sinners/humans.
Further thoughts
Guilt is appropriate when one’s actions have hurt another or others. Guilt is dealt with by admitting the harmful action, apologizing and making amends if possible. Twelve-step groups emphasize that amends can be made only if to do so does not harm oneself or others.
Shame is inherent in the human condition (see above). Shame is dealt with by recognizing it and its source(s) and with vulnerability in the context of a trusted community. Ultimately, prayer and Christian community can help a person accept herself/himself as a beloved child of God who does not need to be ashamed of who he/she is.
Responsibility for situations that one did not participate in creating is resisted by many people, particularity in highly individualistic Western cultures. This resistance manifests itself as pushback against ministers who dare to write corporate confessions of responsibility for social injustice. But this pushback is a failure to distinguish between guilt and responsibility. Guilt applies to actions done by an individual or group or actions that an individual induced or paid another to do. But we all have responsibility to work for a society and a world that is more just and to help to alleviate the suffering of people who experience discrimination, poverty, hunger and preventable illnesses. When we shrug off or deny our responsibility, then it is appropriate to confess.
Kurtz deals in psychological categories. The theological observations are mine and are so indicated by red typeface.
Guilt results from a violation, a transgression, a fault of doing, the exercise of power, of control.
Guilt results in a feeling of wrongdoing, sense of wickedness: “My action was not good.”
How could I have done that?
The opposite, guiltless, is positive.
Guilt is objective.
Shame results from a failure, a falling short, a fault of being, the lack of power, of control.
Shame results in a feeling of inadequacy, sense of worthlessness: “I am no good.”
How could I have done that?
The opposite, shameless, is negative.
Shame is subjective.
Paying attention to shame can lead to an acceptance of the human condition as essentially limited. Healthy humans learn to live with the fact that they are limited in what they can control and be. This realization is the reason that Alcoholics Anonymous split off from the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group taught people to strive for Christian perfectionism. Bill Wilson saw this as a problem; if alcoholics bought into perfection as a goal, then failure to be perfect would cause them so much pain that they would have to drink to kill the pain. AA promises that “working the steps” produces “progress rather than perfection.” A healthy human being lives with the tension between human aspiration and human finitude---human hope subverted by human limitation.
Limitation (finitude) is characteristic of all creatures, including human beings. Only God is unlimited (infinite). The refusal to accept finitude is the original sin. The downfall of Adam and Eve is the attempt to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5). But this refusal is characteristic of all human beings (thus the category “original” sin). Each person relies on something (often religion) to mask the shame of essential limitation. E.g.: I can’t be perfect, but at least I can believe correct doctrine, and be better than everyone whose doctrine is wrong. I can’t protect my children from every hurt, but at least I can control where they go, with whom they associate, what they eat, and how they behave. I may not be rich, but I have a newer, faster car, bigger TV screen, better neighborhood than my peers. I may not know everything, but I know more than most people about most things and can demonstrate that in conversation. Anything on which we rely to avoid accepting our limitations becomes addicting and most of us have multiple addictions.
Addiction often arises from and usually is connected with the effort to conceal weakness, to prevent its exposure to oneself. The addict uses the [substance or achievement] in order to hide, and especially to hide from himself. The endeavor to hide reveals that the critical problem underlying such behavior is shame. For AA, recovery requires community. Whereas the active addict avoids letting others know about her/his dependence on the object of addiction, AA requires admitting in the presence of others, “I am an alcoholic.” Since the others in the meeting are themselves honestly admitting the same addiction, the humiliation of this admission, although painful, is ameliorated by the context of anonymity and confidentiality. Usually those outside AA regard it condescendingly and deprecatingly. It is interpreted away as “the substitution of a social dependence for a drug dependence,” or as “accepting the emotional immaturity of alcoholics and supplying a crutch for it.” Inside AA this substitution of dependence on the addict’s “higher power” and on the community of recovering addicts is understood as a necessary means to sobriety.
In Romans 6:15-23, Paul explains the need for the exchange of dependencies, which he unblinkingly calls “slavery.” Those who have “died to Sin” with Christ are no longer “slaves to Sin, which leads to death” Instead they are now “slaves to right living,” which Paul calls “life.” Note that “Sin” in this passage is singular and refers, not to bad behavior or rule-breaking, but to the slave master whom the addressees have been “obeying.” So in 6:23 “Sin” is put in negative parallelism with “God:”
“The wages [paid by] Sin is death
The gift [given by] God is life.”
Note that Paul, who has an excellent command of Greek vocabulary, does not write, “The punishment for sins is death.” He writes: “The wages of Sin is death.” He contrasts wages, for which the slave must work [ancient slavery sometimes involved this possibility] with the free gift from God.
The other thing that requires attention is that for Paul, “death,” does not refer exclusively to physical death or exclusively to a spiritual death after physical death. We know this because in both Colossians and Ephesians (written by students of Paul’s theology) the recipients are told that before they became Christians, they were “dead” and now they are “alive.” If living people can be told that they used to be dead, it is obvious that “death” refers to a state of unwholesomeness (addiction) that has been replaced by wholeness (the explicit meaning of the Greek word soteria, often translated “salvation” in English). Life after physical death is included, but the “eternal life” in Romans 6:23 begins with the surrender of the person from slavery to Sin and the acceptance of slavery to God. So we may translate:
The wages paid by Sin is deadness now and forever.
The gift given by God is life now and forever.
God is what AAs call their “higher power.” But are the critics correct to disparage dependence on the “social addiction” to the community of addicts? Not according to Paul, who regards Christian community as so essential that he calls it a “body” in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. In this “body,” each part is needed by every other part; no one is dispensable and no one is more important than another. The fact that the churches have long abandoned this anti-hierarchical understanding of Christian community is one reason that Twelve-step groups have become necessary and a major reason that recovering addicts find it difficult to become involved in the activities of the church that allows them to meet in its basement.
Addicts/sinners/all humans live in wholeness when they learn to live with the fact that they are both limited and free, both dependent and independent, both compelled to hide in addiction and free to be vulnerable and seek help in community with other addicts/sinners/humans.
Further thoughts
Guilt is appropriate when one’s actions have hurt another or others. Guilt is dealt with by admitting the harmful action, apologizing and making amends if possible. Twelve-step groups emphasize that amends can be made only if to do so does not harm oneself or others.
Shame is inherent in the human condition (see above). Shame is dealt with by recognizing it and its source(s) and with vulnerability in the context of a trusted community. Ultimately, prayer and Christian community can help a person accept herself/himself as a beloved child of God who does not need to be ashamed of who he/she is.
Responsibility for situations that one did not participate in creating is resisted by many people, particularity in highly individualistic Western cultures. This resistance manifests itself as pushback against ministers who dare to write corporate confessions of responsibility for social injustice. But this pushback is a failure to distinguish between guilt and responsibility. Guilt applies to actions done by an individual or group or actions that an individual induced or paid another to do. But we all have responsibility to work for a society and a world that is more just and to help to alleviate the suffering of people who experience discrimination, poverty, hunger and preventable illnesses. When we shrug off or deny our responsibility, then it is appropriate to confess.