Liberating the Will of Australia. Geoffrey Burn
into the dynamics underlying the Nazi-led holocaust? Clearly, the holocaust could not have happened without the will and desire of the Nazi leaders. This, however, was not free willing, but it was shaped by the historical foundations of the German nation. As stated earlier, these included the historic relationship between the church and Jewish people, the nature of the ending of the First World War, social Darwinism, eugenics, and perceived threats from other powers at the time. Further, the willing was shaped by the changing circumstances of the war, leading to genocide being seen as the only feasible solution to what they perceived was a problem. Each successive measure further conditioned the will in an incremental way so that it became unclear at which point certain actions became willed; the final outcome was far from the initial intended action. People in Germany were compelled to submission of their wills to an objective reality which required the holocaust. Willing was not disabled, but displaced towards “objective” and “rational” ends which were beyond dispute. “Everything except open rebellion led to practical participation in constructing a racial order, which had the further effect of normalizing and radicalizing both the practices and the construction of reality required and engendered through racially ordering dynamics.” 41 Many did rebel and suffered the consequences of doing so, as they were crushed by the dominating will of the nation. Participation, or the failure of resistance, resulted in further hardening of people’s wills. Willing had become bound to choosing ways to implement an end rather than having a free choice between competing ends. For participants in the genocide, it may have felt that they were not personally accountable for their actions, that it was a passive acceptance of reality. This is not a true understanding, however, for participation was aligning one’s energies with the dominant will of the nation and becoming part of what was happening. That willing was not able to discuss the meaning of things but only whether that which was required was being done in the most efficient way. McFadyen writes:
What we observe here, then, is not the exclusion of either morality or willing, but their sequestration, colonisation and co-option, their total orientation towards fulfilling the allotted task, and do so well—beyond what is merely demanded. So willing, virtue and the moral are not functioning here as portents and agents of transcendence. They are entirely bent towards and thereby “redouble” the dynamics into which they are—even unwittingly—incorporated.42
The study of two concrete pathologies, the sexual abuse of children and the Nazi holocaust, has shown that complex situations cannot be simply described as resulting from the choices of the free wills of individuals. It should be clear that the range of possible choices that can be seen in any situation is radically circumscribed by the history of those involved. Willing is not just a personal dynamic but it is shaped by incorporation into pathological dynamics which are both within and also outside the person. In some cases, like that of being sexually abused or being caught up in the Nazi holocaust, the ability of the individual’s will to make choices may be overcome by a superior force. “Here willing is not so much disempowered as ‘bent’ by a superior attractive force, pulled into the vortex of a pathological dynamic and oriented towards its service. The effect which this may have in restricting the number of possible objects of immediate choice is far less significant than its capacity to appropriate the means and criteria by and direction in which choices are made (by defining ‘reality’, ‘normality’, ‘the good’ or ‘rationality’) as all immediate objects of possible choosing are incorporated into the dynamic of this pathological orientation.”43
The sexual abuse of children and the Nazi holocaust have been called pathologies, but that means that there must be some notion of good against which deviations from the good can be measured. It is critical to have a deep enough understanding of what the good is, otherwise we will not be able to comprehend the full depth of the pathology, nor will we be able to see the full possibilities for recovery. The discussion of bound willing reminds us that our idea of good is distorted and so there needs to be an external reference to help us comprehend and reach towards that which is good. Moreover, the pathologies have been shown to be dynamic and relational and so any definition of good must also be dynamic and relational.
Christians understand God as Trinity. This means that relationship is at the heart of the nature of God, and not just any relationship, but a dynamic of being for each other, of seeking the welfare of each other, of a continual process of filling and the overflowing of life. This love cannot be contained in itself, but overflows in creative plenitude. The whole of creation is invited to be caught up in this joyful dynamic movement towards fulfillment. Joy and faith in worship are the answering dynamic of the creation, as it is caught up in God’s own being in and towards the whole of creation. McFadyen writes:
This carries at least four immediate implications. First, the integral order of the world is dynamic and relational. Second, this relationality is an immediate consequence of the movement of God in and through the world as well as towards the world; which is to say, third, that the integrity of the world does not separate it from God. Rather, the world’s very integrity as a dynamic system and order includes and is indeed founded on relation to and the presence of the dynamics of God. Finally, the relational and dynamic order of the world is directed and called towards its own perfection through this relationship with God.44
This is a dynamic image, so fullness is not a static condition to be attained, but a continual process of filling to overflowing as a result of the dynamic abundance of God. Sin, then, “is that which counters the dynamics of God in creation and salvation.”45 But sin is only known in the context of God’s active countering of it: it is only in the perspective of this salvific orientation of God’s movement towards us that we are aware of the depths and nature of sin. “We know sin only in the context of God’s resistance to our resistance to God.”46
A change in life comes when a person responds to God’s overwhelming life and turns to God in faith, to receive change in her deepest being, gradually being released from the bondage of the will that blocks communion with God. Faith is the work of the Spirit of God in a person. In the words of McFadyen, faith
excites willing into a new orientation upon God . . . In faith, one internalises the dynamics of a God who is radically and genuinely for us. The spirit of faith is the excited and redirected energy (desire) through which a person answers by orienting herself in an excess of joy, which repeats and redoubles as it internalises God’s excessive movement towards her. In faith, one commits personal energy in consensual response to the dynamic in which God is for us, and finds oneself simultaneously filled with joy in God and oneself and others. Through the commitment of such personal energy, that dynamic is internalised and redoubled. In the dynamic joy of faith, letting “God be God” enables one to stretch towards being genuinely and fully oneself.47
Human beings are made for worship; all human beings give their lives in worship. To worship is to orient and order one’s life around a reality as primary to and constitutive of what one considers to be of worth and to be true; it is what one gives personal energy to as the ground and criterion of active life-intentionality. Worship of God is the active and attentive response to the dynamic order of God, directing and stretching our energies towards God; worship intensifies being as communion. Bound willing, therefore, directs our worship towards things which are not God and which take our life away. Turning towards the overflowing love of God sets us free from the things which have bound our wills and the love of God enhances and energizes that choice.
Critically, the gift of God is not restoring what was lost, but bringing something new out the present reality. This is seen fundamentally in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection narratives show that the resurrection was awkward and confusing precisely because it did not deny or disregard what had happened. Moreover, something entirely new was present in the resurrected Jesus, whose bodily life was now different and who could no longer die. The implication is that nothing which has been done need be the final word, that God can bring good out of that which was damaging, but not by returning to some, possibly imagined, pristine past, but by working with what is there to bring something that cannot be imagined.48
It can be seen now how both child sexual abuse and the Nazi holocaust are truly pathologies: both block the dynamic flourishing that arises from being turned towards God by directing energy towards something that closes down the possibilities of life. In child sexual abuse, the abuser blocks the dynamic