IS “FALSE GUILT” BIBLICAL?
Due to the heavy influence presently wielded upon Christianity by human wisdom, the idea of “false guilt” has taken hold in many quarters, especially in the area of counseling. It is surmised that man can sense guilt when he is not guilty of personal sin before God, and that this explains the roots and the intensity of many of the human mental disorders. The Bible, however, reveals principles which indicate that, in reality, there is no false guilt, and, consequently, its explanation of the root cause of the mental disorders is entirely different from the approach of human wisdom.
Of course, examples may be given which appear to indicate false guilt, but as they are examined with biblical principles in mind, all guilt will be seen to be true guilt before God, not false guilt (see ahead).
Human Wisdom’s False Guilt
Though not fully agreeing with Freud’s view, Minirth and Meier make this statement,
Freud seemed to think that all guilt is false guilt – that guilt itself is a bad thing. Most of the psychiatrists we have studied under and worked with agreed with the Freudian view that guilt is always an unhealthy thing.328
The ideas that all guilt is false guilt and that guilt is a bad thing make sense for one who believes, as Freud did, that there are no absolute standards of right and wrong for man, that there is no God to whom he is responsible for his life, and that God has not revealed His will for man in His Word. But why do some Christians, who believe in the one true God who judges man by absolute standards, still embrace the concept of false guilt? Simply raising the question implies concern over this issue, but it is not the purpose of the present chapter to speculate on these things. It is the purpose here to establish whether the Bible teaches the concept of false guilt, or if it even allows for such an idea. What, then, is false guilt? False guilt is known in psychological literature by many names. It is called false guilt, functional guilt,329 neurotic guilt, punitive guilt, or guilt feelings.330 And, in the writings of Christians, it is differentiated from true guilt, existential guilt, love-based corrective feelings,331 or value guilt.332 False guilt is defined by Minirth and Meier as “feeling guilty for something that God and His Word in no way condemn.”333 Narramore and Coe concur, but they add that false guilt also results from negative corrective attitudes developed from childhood.334 Those Christians who attempt to combine (integrate) human wisdom and the Word of God, therefore, apparently find two sources for the believer’s false guilt: 1) the non-biblical standards of his conscience and 2) the improper functioning of the conscience (usually since childhood). More specifically, the believer is said to experience false guilt when he has a weak, overgrown, or too restrictive conscience and feels guilty for violating its non-biblical, non-moral standards (1 Cor 8:7-13; 10:23-33). Also, the believer is said to experience false guilt when, after he sins, conscience judges him guilty and urges punitive guilt feelings within him. The reasoning in this second case is that since the Christian is forgiven for all his sins – past, present, and future – at the moment of his salvation, if he feels guilty for his sin when he sins as a believer, his conscience is exhibiting its improper development since childhood, which needs to be corrected.
Five Biblical Reasons Why There Is No False Guilt
Based upon the biblical teachings concerning both the standards of man’s conscience and its instinctive functioning in his heart which have already been extensively addressed in this section and in the previous section, five strong biblical reasons will be given here which indicate that the Scripture neither teaches the concept of false guilt nor allows for it. These reasons will establish how the believer is morally responsible to God for his choices regarding even the non-biblical, non-moral standards he has adopted in his heart. And they will also demonstrate that, though the Christian’s conscience may not be correct when it declares him to be right in what he thinks, says, and does, it is functioning correctly when it judges him guilty, and it is reliably indicating actual family guilt before God,335 both for his failure to maintain a good, unguilty conscience, and for his making personal sinful choices which have resulted in his sense of guilt. The chapter will then conclude by addressing related issues and by specifying a number of instances which may appear to be false guilt but which, upon closer examination, will be seen to be true guilt before God for the personally chosen unloving attitudes in one’s heart.
1. According to the Word of God, there is no false guilt because when the believer violates even the personally acquired (but not biblically revealed) standards of his own weak conscience, he is sinning against God.
False guilt has been defined by its proponents as “feeling guilt for something that God and His Word in no way condemn” (see the previous pages). 1 Cor 8:7-13 is often adduced as an example of such false in the Bible. According to Scripture, however, this is an instance of true family guilt before God. Why? In the first place, the believer who acts against his weak conscience in I Corinthians 8 is “defiled” (v.7) and “ruined” (v.11) when he does so, because he is sinning. In the second place, Rom 14 – another passage which deals with the same weak believer regarding the same issue of eating meat offered to idols – reveals that if a believer violates his own non-biblical, non-moral, legalistic standards, he is sinning against God and is for the moment “condemned” by Him. Rom 14:22-23 states,
The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.
Twice already in this volume the personally acquired, non-biblical standards of conscience have been addressed as one of the four sets of standards by which a believer’s conscience judges him. And twice it has been decisively demonstrated that violation of those personally acquired standards is sin against God, not an example of false guilt (see Chapters 3 and 6). It would be needlessly redundant to repeat those studies here. All that needs to be said is that feeling guilty for violating a standard adopted by one’s conscience but which “God and His Word in no way condemn” is sin. And one’s conscience condemns him for that sin. His guilt is not false guilt. It is true guilt – true family guilt before God. In order to renew his intimacy with his Heavenly Father, the believer is in need of confession of his personal sin against God. He is not in need of human wisdom’s explanations of why he should not feel guilty or of human wisdom’s solutions for dealing with his false guilt.
1 Cor 8 and Rom 14, then, are strong passages which reveal that when a believer violates his own legalistic standards, he does not experience false guilt. He experiences true family guilt before God. In other words, though man’s conscience is not always right when it defends him as being right, it is never wrong when it judges him guilty of being wrong, no matter what are the standards of his conscience.
“It is always wrong to violate conscience, but if it is not instructed in God’s will (1 Cor 8:2, 7; cf. Rom 12:1-2), heeding conscience is not necessarily righteous.”336
“In speaking of this subject we should remember that conscience ‘is not an infallible guide, but requires illumination, and therefore each man needs to pray for light; but it is never right to act against conscience.’”337
As the believer matures, therefore, he should enlighten his heart through God’s Word to better understand and accept his freedom in Christ and should be replacing the non-biblical, legalistic standards of his conscience with biblical ones. But until he can by faith, without doubting, embrace his newly understood Christian freedom, he should abide by the standards which remain in his heart, for “he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith, and whatever is not from faith is sin” (Rom 14:23). Should he violate those standards and feel guilty for it, he should realize that he is truly guilty before God and is experiencing true family guilt, not human wisdom’s false guilt.
2. There is no false guilt because nowhere in Scripture is a sense of guilt338 experienced in the heart of one whose attitudes are at that moment righteous (loving) and who is resting in God’s forgiveness for his personal sin. Instead, a sense of peace is present.
Contrary to the teaching of human wisdom that a sense of false guilt may trouble a person’s heart when he is not wrong, the consistent teaching of God’s Word is that the one whose attitudes are right (loving) according to Scripture, and are understood as right according to one’s own conscience, does not experience a sense of guilt, including human wisdom’s false guilt. The individual whose attitudes are considered right, in fact, experiences a sense of peace in his heart, the opposite of a sense of guilt (see Immaterial Effects of Loving). There is no demonstrable biblical exception to this.339
From Genesis through Revelation, peace is the possession of one whose present attitudes are right in God’s sight. Adam and Eve, in their pristine righteousness, were “not ashamed” before God (Gen 2:25). They were at peace in His presence. When sin entered into the world, God in His grace made provision to revive “the heart of the contrite: and to give him “peace, peace” (Isa 57:15, 19). In Ps 119:165, “Those who love Thy law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble.”
When David was trusting God, he rejoiced, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep” (Ps 4:5, 8). He could say this because, “The steadfast of mind Thou wilt keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in Thee” (Isa 26:3). Indeed, righteousness and peace are so closely tied in Scripture that it can be said they “have kissed each other” (Ps 85:10).
The same is true in the New Testament. Jesus promised to those who trust in Him, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me, you may have peace” (Jn 16:33), and, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not you heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (Jn 14:27).
Stephen reflected this peace of Christ when he appeared before the Sanhedrin with “the face of an angel” and as he went to his death with a prayer of forgiveness for his persecutors (Acts 6:15, 7:60).
When the believer chooses to entrust his cares to God and “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” he lets his “requests be made known to Him,” he experiences “the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension” (Phil 4:6-7). And as he patterns his life after godly principles “the God of peace” is with him (Phil 4:9).
It is the Holy Spirit that grants this same peace as His fruit in the life of the believer who is controlled by Him (Gal 5:22, Eph 5:18). Furthermore, “the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:6), “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17).
To those who walk in godliness the Apostle Paul prayed, “peace and mercy be upon them” (Gal 6:16) and “may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance” (2 Thess 3:16).
Conversely, according to the Word of God, the one who experiences a sense of guilt is not the one whose attitudes are righteous (loving), and he is not the one whose attitudes are neutral (as postulated by human wisdom to be the case in false guilt). On the contrary, a sense of guilt is only experienced by one whose present attitudes are unrighteous (unloving) or by one who is very much aware of his own personal sinfulness in the presence of the holiness of God. Even one with legalistic standards or “overactive” conscience experiences a sense of guilt only after he violates his own conscience, which is itself personal sin before God (Rom 14:22- 23; see also reason #1).
Throughout the Scripture, it is only as unbelievers and believers embrace or are reminded of personal sin that they experience a sense of guilt. Adam and Eve were afraid of God’s judgment because they were “naked” (aware of their sin) before Him (Gen 3:10). Cain anticipated that he would be hunted down because of his sin (Gen 4:14). Joseph’s brothers said to one another, “Truly we are guilty concerning our brother” (Gen 42:21). And Judah later said to Joseph, “God has found out the iniquity of your servants” (Gen 44:16).
In 1 Samuel the people said, “We have sinned against the Lord” (1 Sam 7:6). And when David violated his own conscience by cutting off the edge of Saul’s robe, his conscience smote him (1 Sam 24:5).
This same David – a man after God’s own heart – when he was confronted by Nathan about his grievous sins with Bathsheba and against her husband admitted, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam 12:13, cf. Ps 32:4, 51:3-4). Then when later his heart convicted him of his sin for numbering the people, he blurted out, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done” (2 Sam 24:10).
At the other end of the spectrum, Ahab and Manasseh, two of Israel’s most wicked kings, experienced a sense of guilt strong enough to drive them to repentance before the Lord (1 Kings 21:27, 2 Chr 33:125).
Even the priest Ezra sensed deeply his own guilt before God, as well as Israel’s guilt, when he prayed, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to Thee, My God, for our iniquities have risen above our own heads, and our guilt has grown even to the heavens” (Ezra 9:6).
To these could be added others who experienced a sense of guilt, but always for their own personal sin before God: Job (Job 42:6), Asaph (Ps 79:9), the psalmist (Ps 119:5-6), the wicked who has no peace (Isa 57:21), and even godly men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel when face to face with the holiness of God and reminded of their own past sinfulness (Isa 6:5, Jer 3:25, Dan 9:4-5, 10:19).
The list of those who experienced a sense of guilt solely because of their personal sin is not confined to the Old Testament, for the witness is the same in the New Testament. Judas, of course, bewailed, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Mt 27:5). But Peter also, when confronted with the power and holiness of God in human flesh, exclaimed, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Lk 5:8). And later he wept in conscience sorrow for the sin of denying his Master (Mt 26:75).
Even after Pentecost, New Testament believers experienced a sense of guilt when they sinned. Chief among them were Peter and Paul. As the leader of the fledgling Church, Peter “stood condemned” when Paul exposed his hypocrisy (Gal 2:11). And Paul’s wrestlings with the flesh are indicative of a heart fraught with self-reproach when he said, “Wretched man that I am!” (Rom 7:24)
A sense of guilt for personal sin is, in fact, understood of all true believers, for they are said to be guilty of all of God’s law when they sin in one point (Jas 2:8-10); they are called on to judge themselves for their personal sins lest they be judged by God (1 Cor 11:30-32); they are characterized by confession of personal sins to God as His children (1 Jn 1:9, cf. Ps 32:5, Prov 28:13); they are called on to admonish one another for personal sin and to stand aloof from the brother who will not admit his sin, in hopes that he will become ashamed and will repent (2 Thess 3:14- 15); and as they experience godly sorrow for their personal sin, it leads them to repentance (2 Cor 7:9-10). Indeed, every time believers “put off” wrong thoughts, words, or actions as commanded in the New Testament (see the epistles), they are responding to the instinctive work of their consciences, which have begun by judging them guilty of their sin before God and urging them to do as He commands.
It is, therefore, the unified testimony of Scripture that one whose attitudes before God are presently righteous (loving) and who is resting in God’s forgiveness does not experience a sense of guilt (even human wisdom’s false guilt). When he does experience a sense of guilt in his heart, however, it is solely because he is either embracing personal sin in his heart or because he is being confronted so strongly with God’s holiness that he is very much aware of his past personal sinfulness. It is not because he is experiencing a false guilt which is unrelated to personal sin in his life (see The “Unconscious” or the Conscience?).
3. There is no false guilt because the believer is morally responsible to God for having and maintaining a good, unguilty conscience, and consequently, when he does not have a good conscience but has a guilty one, he is responsible to God for having this as well.
Possession of a good conscience was not only the consistent example of godly believers throughout the Scripture (cf. Acts 23:1, 24:16, 1 Cor 4:4, 2 Cor 1:12, Heb. 13:18), but it is commanded for all Christians both by Peter and by Paul. First Pet 3:15-16 states,
… but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience….
Even in that extremity of life in which the believer is suffering for righteousness’ sake, he is to have (possess, maintain 340) a good conscience.
Whatever may be the accusations of your enemies, so live that you may be at all times conscious of uprightness. Whatever you suffer, see that you do not suffer the pangs inflicted by a guilty conscience, the anguish of remorse.341
Paul’s instruction is the same in 1 Tim 1:19,
… keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.
Indeed, this is such a vital issue in the Christian life that those “who put away good conscience will soon make shipwreck of faith.”342
What, then, is this good conscience that Christians are responsible before God to maintain? As has been explained in the precious chapter, a good conscience is one which “does not accuse me of anything,”343 “not because it is insensitive but because it can detect no fault.”344 It is a conscience “which is functioning properly and does not condemn,”345 is “free from guilt,”346 and is “testifying for us, not against us.”347
A good conscience, therefore, is a conscience that is operating properly and is not judging one guilty but is judging him good, in accordance with the standards that he knows and has adopted for his life. This is the good conscience which God holds the believer responsible to maintain. And if he does not maintain it, he is disobeying God.
Since a believer is morally obligated before God to possess a good, un-guilty conscience, two questions arise. Is it not true that the assessments of one’s conscience are independent of him – that whether or not he agrees with them, the instantaneous, instinctive judgments of his conscience are out of his control? Yes, this is true (see the previous chapters). How, then can God justly hold the believer responsible for the judgments of a conscience which he cannot control?
The answer should be obvious. The believer is morally commanded by God to maintain a good, unguilty conscience – the assessment of a conscience he cannot control – because it is understood by this command that the assessment of his conscience is wholly based upon his making right moral choices that he can control – choices which are in keeping with the standards he has in his heart.
And since a guilty conscience cannot be present when one has a good, unguilty conscience, the Scripture is teaching the converse as well. That is, when the believer has a guilty conscience – in disobedience to God’s command to maintain a good, unguilty conscience – it indicates that his awareness of guilt (an assessment of his conscience which he cannot control) is a direct result of wrong moral choices (personal sin, unloving attitudes in his heart) which he can control – choices that are in violation of the standards he has adopted in his own heart and that are not made by faith and are therefore sin (cf. Rom 14:23, see reason #1).348