The Emotions God Gave You

By Art & Laraine Bennett

Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5

Enjoyability: 2 of 5

I suppose I could say "here we go again," but while this book certainly doesn't come close to meeting my expectations, it would be unfair to say that it's quite as bad as the book "God Has Great Plans For You," which I also recently read and reviewed.  After all, that book dressed up "positive thinking" as though it and the Catholic faith were one and the same, and this one, at the very least, treats of emotions a bit more delicately.

However, that doesn't mean there aren't scads of mistakes and problem cases littered throughout.

The book claims to be a Catholic guide to dealing with and using emotions in our faith lives.  I'm afraid it doesn't quite measure up, however.

Firstly, it claims that intuition is a function of emotion, not intellect.  This is the sort of thing I'd expect to hear on Star Trek, but if this claim is being made by any real psychologists, I would expect it to be backed up with some examples, showing why intuition can't be considered a function of the intellect.  Regardless, I agree with the book that both emotions and intellect can be helpful in doing God's will.  I just don't think that using intuition as an example helps to build up that point.

On page 42, the authors cite a specialist, who claims that all humans are hardwired for compassion, meaning, I suppose, that they are naturally predisposed to compassionate behavior.  This is simply balogna, I'm afraid.  Human beings suffer from a fallen nature, which means that they are hardwired for Hell, not compassion, and it is only by the grace of God, as well as great effort, that we escape that hardwiring.

A couple of times in this book, the authors talk about a compulsive "need for perfection" being a bad thing that we need to overcome.  This, I think, may be just badly-phrased, because the need for perfection is what drives the pursuit of genuine holiness.  After all, that's basically what holiness is, right?  Being perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect?

On page 81, they take the tack of saying that people should be capable of unconditional gratitude.  Here, I'm afraid my own lack of experience may be to blame, but I've heard this claim from a number of Christian sources (both Catholic and protestant,) and not once has it ever been sufficiently explained, just how gratitude can have any value, if it can't be measured against its conditions.  Our gratitude towards God should be for clear reasons (like giving us life, Catholicism, a chance for salvation, etc,) not for no reason at all.

Page 83; a false conflict is set up here between the enjoyment of temporal goods and of virtues.  Certainly, there are times when giving up one's goods in order to be virtuous is important and helpful (like giving to the poor,) but the example cited (abstaining from cake) does nothing to prove the point.  It's just giving up one type of self-indulgence (food) for another (vanity,) so I don't see the purpose of this bit.

Page 85; he says that some psychologists think that a well-balanced emotional life may be a prerequisite for virtue.  In other words, he thinks that people with emotional difficulties can't be virtuous.  Needless to say, I simply disagree.

Page 87; the old, tired cliche about virtue being its own reward.  Virtue is a requirement, not a reward.  Also, on page 87, and into page 88, there's a sort of story about a nun named "Sister Lydia," who did good by commanding herself to, rather than feeling like she wanted to, because of some psychological trauma or something.  He seems to think this is a bad thing, but doesn't say why, nor cite any research to back up his claims.  This may be my biggest complaint against the book, because it feels like nothing more than an attack against those who don't have the grace to "feel" virtuous, and have to force themselves to be good.  If so, it's disgusting.  We should be showing these people our love and support in their difficult struggle, not condemning them as psychologically unhealthy.

Page 90; another broadside attack against those who have to struggle to be virtuous, because they don't have the psychological training or natural predisposition needed to deal with an emotional relationship.  The problem here is that when you use the phrase "relationship with Jesus," in this context, you make it sound like a lovey-dovey, let's-all-get-together-and-hold-hands-and-sing kind of relationship, which is a slap across the face of anyone of the masculine gender, whether they realize it or not.  There is no reason whatsoever why a man can't view his relationship with God as more like the "relationship" between a regional lord and the king he serves, or a soldier and his commanding officer.  It's still a relationship, but we need to do just a little, tiny bit more work in describing the breadth of that term these days.  By no means is it incompatable with the so-called "white-knuckling" of virtue.

I'm afraid the authors are a bit careless with their terminology as well, and one clear example of this is when they use phrases like "not to be completely in control of your emotions," or "not really in charge of them."  To the english-speaking ear, this makes it sound like the Catholic should not want the virtue of self-control.  Except, they then go back on that later in the book, saying that Catholics should be in greater control.  I can only guess that they meant these two types of statements to outline a specific distinction, rather than to contradict each other, but if so, that distinction just isn't outlined specifically enough.

Repeatedly, this book uses the phrase "professional help," when talking about unusual cases.  In the modern world, however, in eight cases out of ten, "professional help" means spending lots of money to sit and talk to a non-Catholic about how you feel, and this advice, firstly, is worth very little to the poor, secondly, isn't guaranteed to work anyway, since much "professional help" isn't really that professional, and lastly, admits or seems to admit to a lack of professional experience on the part of the book's authors.  So why read any further?

Numerous times, the book refers to situations like "Bob is upset because his dad wouldn't play ball with him when he was a boy, so he reacts badly, when his boss is just trying to help."  Yeah?  Well, what if Bob's boss is discriminating against him based on race?  Then, isn't his response a teensy bit more appropriate, or is it still inappropriate on the job?  If so, why?  You see, the advice we really need isn't how to deal with being unpleasant people in pleasant situations; at least not for the most part.  When we make a stupid mistake, many of us realize it almost immediately.  The problem is figuring out what kind of behavior is appropriate, and why when faced with mean-spirited people, cruel living/working conditions or shabby treatment by someone you thought you could trust.  To these difficult questions, this book offers no answer.

As some might realize who've read my past reviews, the mentions of Catholic "things," like sacraments, virtues, God, etc, really mean very little to me if the book's message isn't central to Catholicism, and frankly, I just don't think this book has enough to offer, that it could possibly be central to anything.  You might give it a look if you find it laying around in a library or something, but I wouldn't waste money on it.