Nothing More than Feelings? The Passions and the Spiritual Life
In the modern world of politics the phrase, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” has become a frequent response to an intellectually-dishonest political policy promoted by an appeal to emotion. Such appeals to emotion, while nothing new, are a hallmark of the modern world, which for at least the last several generations has abandoned duty and virtue as the standard by which to judge moral rectitude and focused on subjective effects. Put another way, man’s standard for what is right has shifted away from a standard outside of himself, and turned inwards.
Man has, in this way, reverted not to the simple child-like state demanded by Our Lord for salvation when He said, “unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”1 Rather, he has been regressing into childishness. The reason for this is that men have been led to place far too much importance on their emotions—called also the feelings, or passions. These have their place, and even are an essential aspect of human life, but have a particular limited role as the spiritual master, Fr. Antonio Royo-Marín, O.P., writes:
[w]hen placed at the service of the good, [the passions] can be of incalculable assistance, even to the point that one could say that it is morally impossible for a soul to arrive at great sanctity without possessing a great energy or passion which is directed to God. But when placed at the service of evil, the passions are converted into a destructive force which is truly terrifying.2
It cannot be doubted that even the most well-catechized and balanced Catholics are touched by the world’s subjectivity in focusing on the passions. When one is at a campfire, even if he stays a distance away and avoids the ribaldry that may occur, he comes away smelling of smoke. Even if modern Catholics are trying to avoid worldliness, they still become tainted by it and need to wash out the stink from time-to-time. Said another way, it is imperative, if we will have a proper Catholic spiritual life, to view the passions in their right place, use them properly, mortify them as necessary, and when they are misused, to get out some spiritual detergent.
What Are the Passions
St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defines three-levels of natural life, and three kinds of souls that experience each of these lives in a hierarchy of being.
At the lowest level there is vegetative life (and the vegetative soul), which has three powers or faculties: growth, nutrition, and reproduction; a life we find in simple creatures such as fungus and plants. Indeed, plants (plants and animals and anything which is living) have a soul, but a kind of soul called a material soul, in that it is drawn out of the matter from which the being is formed. When the matter is suitable for life, the soul comes into being. When the matter becomes indisposed (e.g. the tree is severed from its roots), the soul is annihilated and turned into nothing. Such a soul is finite and does not continue beyond the life of the individual creature.
In the middle one finds sensitive or animal life (and the sensitive or animal soul). Beyond the three vegetative powers, this kind of life and soul possesses upwards of nine more faculties, though not all creatures who have such a soul possess all of these nine additional faculties. Among the external faculties are the five senses of which we are familiar: sight, taste, smell, hearing, and touch. Four additional internal faculties are named, being a sensitive memory, estimative sense (or instinct), the imagination, and the common sense (which collates the data from the external senses). Because of these internal faculties some of the higher animals show emotional reactions, can remember things and people, and can appear to think, though they do not have thought in the proper sense. Despite these higher faculties, animal souls are also material, and exist only as long as the creature is alive, thus, contrary to the titles of children’s movies, all dogs do not go to heaven.
Finally comes the rational or immaterial soul, where, added to the twelve faculties of the vegetative and sensitive souls, one finds the two spiritual faculties men and angels share with God, namely the intellect and the will. They allow men and angels to truly apprehend the reality of things as they are, to think or reason, make judgments, and to freely seek the good and avoid evil.
As noted above, the passions enter into the scene at the level of the sensitive or animal soul. That can easily be seen when the higher animals—our pets, for instance—have emotional reactions. Fido shows great excitement and gets “the zoomies” when you come back home, or a mother bear becomes angry when one steps between her and the cubs. These are true emotions or passions, and since shared with animals, must be at the animal level.
St. Thomas Aquinas argues that the passions find a home at the animal level because to them belongs some bodily change.3 The conclusion is that since men have bodies, just like animals, human beings will have emotions or passions. These are natural, and since they are part of our nature, they are not evil in themselves.
The Taxonomy of the Passions
There seem to be an endless variety of “feelings” or “emotions,” but when St. Thomas Aquinas identifies the passions, these are all reduced to versions of a limited set. It is worthwhile, when studying these passions, to look at these categories, and reduce things like “anxiety” or “fear” to a single category, or at least better describe them.
To simplify things, Aristotle and St. Thomas will identify two overarching appetites: the concupiscible and the irascible.4 The concupiscible appetite (and the passions that are part of it) refer to some perceived good or evil in a general way. This appetite and the associated passions seek out easy or common pleasures, and try to avoid what seems painful or unpleasant. The passions which are concupiscible are six, but in three opposing pairs depending on whether they refer to a perceived good or evil:
- Love & Hate: an inclination toward a good or away from an evil
- Desire & Avoidance: movement towards a possible future good or away from a possible future evil
- Joy & Sadness: possession of some good or the presence of some evil
The irascible appetite refers to perceived good or evil, not simply, but insofar as an object is difficult to attain (if good) or difficult to avoid (if evil). There are five passions which are tied to the irascible appetite, two opposed pairs and one (anger) which has no opposite:
- Hope & Despair: an inclination towards a future perceived good but where it is thought to be possible or impossible to attain
- Fear & Daring: an inclination away from a future perceived evil but where it is thought to be impossible or possible to avoid or overcome
- Anger: the reaction to a present or past evil as something to overcome or avenged
From here various “feelings” can be categorized and better described. One may, for example, “feel” that he has offended God by some action. Dealing with this “feeling” requires understanding why he “feels” this way. Perhaps one is sad in seeing one’s sins, or experiencing a dryness in one’s prayer life. And so dealing with this “feeling” means identifying if there are actual sins, or whether one’s expectations of consolation from God is reasonable.
One may “feel” called to the priesthood. This could be an example of the passion called “love” seeing the goodness of the priesthood, or “hope,” perceiving this good thing but seeing there is some difficult path to it in conforming one’s life. That said, some individuals may not have a proper motive, for example, if the passion involved in this “feeling” is actually “fear” of difficulties of life in the world, “despair” for one’s salvation unless one “has a vocation,” or perhaps even “anger” at the evils of the world and that somehow by becoming a priest, one can fight them. The process of discernment (both before and in the seminary) involves identifying one’s motives, virtues, strengths, weaknesses, as well as properly regulating of the passions. As a result, this is why it is said that “feeling” one “has a vocation” is not sufficient, nor is a simple “attraction” or “love” of the priesthood.
The Role of the Passions
The fact that they are on the animal level is precisely why the passions play an important but limited role in man’s spiritual life. They can be of great utility to man, even necessary for him, but they cannot be, in themselves, that by which we are saved or damned, because they have no moral value, in themselves.5
Man is united to God by what in him is like unto God—what is spiritual. This “likeness” to God is in his rational faculties—his intellect and will. Using these brings merit or demerit through a man’s willful consent to good acts, and willful avoidance of evil. What he “feels” about these things or even the lack of some “feeling” has little to do with whether these acts are morally good or evil.
Many people “feel” nothing when they properly confess their sins, but make a good confession because they intellectually recognize their sins as offenses to God, and willfully confess and repent. In fact, many penitents end up doubting the goodness of their confessions, and can even become highly scrupulous when they do not “feel” a great sorrow, or are not worked up to tears. Similarly, some penitents, worked up to tears, can fail to intellectually recognize the offense to God, and can lack any supernatural motive for their confessions. “Feelings” have very little to do with a good confession, even if they can help to give an impetus to acts of religion and penance.
That “feelings” must be regulated and directed towards the duty that God has set out for us, can be seen in the life of Our Blessed Lord. During His Passion, we see a man who suffered through emotions, feelings, and passions far beyond what any other human being has ever suffered. Nevertheless, it was not this great emotion that achieved our redemption. It was Christ’s obedience to His Father’s will, prophesied by Caiphas, that, “it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.”6
Christ Jesus was exceedingly joyful to be able to celebrate the Passover feast with His Apostles, saying, “With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you, before I suffer.”7 The English literal translation betrays the Hebrew idiom. The Hebraic repetition of “desire” indicates a great desire for this moment. Obviously, He would have had great joy in ordaining the Apostles as priests and bishops, and to pass on the Holy Eucharist and power to offer the Mass and continue His sacrifice, but it was in the doing of God’s Will, not in the feeling of joy, that our salvation was wrought.
Christ Jesus would soon say, “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.”8 And His sorrow would see Him sweat blood, and feel a great fear such that he could beg His Father, “if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me.”9 His trepidation serves to indicate the degree of His suffering, but certainly does not suggest that the Man-God desired something other than what was ordained from eternity. Nor in one’s own life does some great suffering or fear suggest that God does not want the task abandoned.
Despite all of these passions, and the emotional roller coaster on which Our Lord was led, He showed the proper role of the Passions in man’s life, when despite these, He never was swayed from his duty. The joy was not an indication that what He was doing was correct any more than the fear of the suffering was a suggestion of God’s displeasure with His only-begotten Son. Thus, no matter what He suffered, Christ focused on His mission, engaged His will, and declared, “not as I will, but as thou wilt,” and “if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done.”10
While it would be true to say that the spiritual life and our salvation are not a feelings-based science, it is more nuanced. One’s feelings, emotions, or, if you will, passions, do factor into a healthy spiritual life, but not as impulses to be followed willy-nilly, but rather urges to be mortified when they lead us away from virtue and duty, and employed with caution where useful to give energy to virtuous action and duty.
In short, it would be correct to say that our feelings, emotions, and passions, in themselves, do not condemn us, nor are they a sign of God’s favor or wrath. They simply do not enter into the spiritual life as such, except to the degree the body—in which they reside—does. Of course, since man is a composite creature, the spiritual life is affected by, and must take stock of the body, even if it also must mortify it. Failing to get proper healthy sleep, for instance, may cause one to be easily given to sinful anger, but so too indulging the body in sleep can lead to acedia. In the spiritual life the body cannot lead us but to ignore the body’s needs, and to fail to mortify its untoward urges, is folly. So too for the passions, since they are part of the body. While our feelings do not condemn us, neither can they save us. Ignorance of them is folly, but so too, indulgence.
The use of our spiritual faculties, namely the intellect and the will, this is what will save us or condemn us. Used rightly to know the Truth (both about God and nature), and to seek and love the Good (both Goodness Itself—that is, God—and lesser goods), these rational powers will be the means by which we are saved or condemned.
Understanding the practical difference between these is one of the fundamental works of asceticism, a ten-dollar word for a good spiritual life.
The Importance of the Passions
While the passions or “feelings” do not factor directly into the moral life, and do need to be controlled and mortified, they are, as Fr. Royo-Marín says above, morally necessary for man’s life. Man is called to be virtuous, and balanced, but not Vulcan, thinking he can feel no emotions, or operate as a pure Stoic.
Fr. Royo-Marín continues by writing that without the passions, man would “scarcely one step in our physical life, since the stimulation of the passions is what enables us to expend an extraordinary activity for good or for evil.”11
Even in our intellectual life, he explains that, “[i]t is impossible to overestimate the influence of the passions upon our ideals” because, for example, “[t]he greater part of betrayals and apostasies have their most profound root in the disorder of one’s passions.”12
Finally, in our moral life, the passions can modify the goodness or evil of our actions, bringing greater merit or condemnation.
The Use and Mortification of the Passions
This simple principle, presented by St. Thomas Aquinas, should serve as a rule for the passions: “The passions of the soul, insofar as they are opposed to the order of reason, incline us to sin, but insofar as they are controlled by reason, they pertain to virtue.”13
Against the Stoics, the Angelic Doctor will argue that the passions are not diseases, “except when they are not controlled by reason,” and so can be employed towards virtue when so controlled.14 When not controlled, “[t]he passions disturb our spirit, impede reflection, make it impossible to formulate a serene and balanced judgment, weaken the will, arouse the imagination, cause a change in the bodily organs, and threaten to destroy one’s peace of spirit and tranquility of conscience.”15 The proper use of these passions and their mortification is essential, so the real question is: How must I train my passions? Unlike in Original Justice, man does not, and cannot, recover a despotic control of his passions. He will not be able to avoid “feeling” anger or fear, and should not seek to command these passions to cease from disturbing him and know their place. Seeking to do so would be as effective as commanding an untrained dog to “sit,” save that the passions do not stare back, seemingly confused.
Nevertheless, two millennia of conversions, and in particular the radical conversion of a St. Mary Magdalene, or a St. Dismas, present to us proof that one can change, even quickly, from a life where the passions are indulged at every turn to a life where these passions are placed at the service of the soul and the moral law. Perfect control, while difficult, is possible.
Fr. Royo-Marín presents three principles to understanding how to govern the passions and train them:16
1. “Every idea tends to produce its corresponding act.”
What Fr. Royo-Marín explains here is that, especially when emotion or passion is tied to one’s ideas and thoughts, man is led to act according to these ideas. To train the passions, then, one should willfully work to avoid ideas that tend towards evil actions, and instead stir up ideas and thoughts which tend towards the good.
Thus, for example, when wronged, turning towards thoughts of exacting vengeance tends to indulge the passion of anger and thoughts of violence (physical, psychological, or reputational) rather than mortify anger and make it serve virtue. Instead, by thinking of the conversion of the offending person, the good example that could be given as an antidote to the evil done, or contemplating the Word of God (“Mihi vindicta, Ego retribuam, dicit Dominus”)17, the passion of anger can be more easily used as a kind of natural “fortitude” in prayer, sacrifices, and generosity, with assurance that while perfect Justice is impossible in this world, all will be meted out at the Last Judgment, not by man, but by God, Who is perfectly Just and Merciful and knows all hearts.
2. “Every act arouses the sentiment of which it is a normal expression.”
Our author here means that there is a feed-back loop to the passions. When a man acts in a certain way, he tends to arouse the passion that naturally is tied to his action. This is particularly useful when one “does not feel” like doing a particular good action or avoiding some evil. By simply engaging in the action, willfully, despite the lack of passion, the passion can be aroused to continue the action. In this case, the virtuous habit of acting produces a kind of ease by which the passions are brought into line to follow the virtue and not run ahead of it.
Here, for example, when one finds himself not feeling very motivated to pray, simply engaging in some act of prayer in spite of one’s feelings draws the passions out to assist in continuing the work with a greater ease than the initial effort needed to overcome the lack of passion. Like in a chemical reaction, where some activation energy is required, by adding this energy, the reaction then becomes spontaneous. While passions serve as a natural catalyst for good action or evil, willfully forcing one’s good reactions forward can train the passions to follow. This is nothing other than the famous Agere Contra of St. Ignatius.18 This practice of acting against one’s dispositions was practiced so well by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, towards a fellow Carmelite she found annoying, that her kindness and generosity not only made the Little Flower more well-disposed, but made this Carmelite think Thérèse had a special liking for her.19
3. “Passion augments and intensifies the psychological forces of the individual until it raises them to their greatest intensity and uses them to attain that which one seeks.”
Fr. Royo-Marìn here explains that we must carefully choose our ideas and actions because passions tend to turn passionate feed-back into a supercritical reaction, going to the extreme of that passion. While dwelling on anger and vengeance, a man will tend to feed-back not merely to a point where reason kicks in and limits him, but much further. This is how one who tolerates small annoyances, but allows anger to fester, saying nothing, can be led not to a mild rebuke when things exceed his limit, but to a murderous rage over what seems a trivial evil.
This is what makes the work of carefully regulating what ideas and actions one allows oneself so important, as well as the work of providing new (and virtuous) objects for the passions when they tend to lead us to disorder or sin. For example, when we tend to love what is disordered, and seek out illicit pleasure, we must instead actively think about and act in a loving manner towards family, friends, neighbors, country, or even artistic and noble endeavors. Directing our love towards loving acts worthy of God, the Church, or the Saints also helps remove from our passions their illicit or disordered objects.
Similarly, when sadness grips us, directing that sadness towards a union with the sadness of Christ in His Passion can provide us a noble object for it rather than cause us to slip into self-indulgence.
Fear, instead of being directed toward missing out on opportunities for selfish gain, or indulging one’s laziness, should be directed towards a healthy distrust of self, and fear of sin, the loss of heaven, and the meriting of hell, if not the offense of God.
Each of the passions can be so trained and mortified in many other ways that can transform the passions into an impetus towards virtue and man’s ultimate goal, which is God. Such is not an easy task, but the work of a lifetime, with which work a confessor or spiritual director can be an invaluable help. It is a work that begins with identifying where one typically indulges his passions and starting the effort of mortification and redirection there.
In this way, the first stage in the Spiritual Life, the Purgative Way, becomes more than just wishful thinking. Rather, by certain practical works, one follows the practice of St. Paul, who wrote that, “I chastise my body,” which, of course includes the passions, “and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.”20
Endnotes
1 Mt. 18:3.
2 Antonio Royo-Marín, The Theology of Christian Perfection (Priory Press, 1961), p. 249.
3 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. I:II, q. 22, a. 3.
4 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. I:II, q. 23, a. 1.
5 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. I:II, q. 24, a. 1.
6 Jn. 11:50.
7 Lk. 22:15.
8 Mt. 26:38.
9 Mt. 26:39.
10 Mt. 26:39, 42.
11 Royo-Marín, The Theology of Christian Perfection, p. 251.
12 Ibid.
13 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. I:II, q. 24, a. 2. ad 3.
14 Ibid. I:II, q. 24, a. 2, Resp.
15 Royo-Marín, The Theology of Christian Perfection, p. 253.
16 The list that follows is taken as a paraphrase and quotations from Royo-Marín, The Theology of Christian Perfection, p. 252. For clarity, multiple footnotes are intentionally omitted in this section, so quotes not referenced are from this work.
17 Rom. 12:19 “Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, saith the Lord.”
18 Cf. St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Annotations 12, 13, & 16.
19 St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Autobiography, ch. 19.
20 I Cor. 9:27
TITLE IMAGE: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Alexander Louis Leloir ca. 1865.
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