A Deeper Meaning of Redemption
In my clinical experience as a psychotherapist, it took me a long time to realize that one of the most, if not the most, prominent themes that occur in the psychotherapeutic process is that of redemption. And I don’t think our society understands this well enough. People essentially come to psychotherapy with life problems they’re struggling to figure out and resolve on their own–or perhaps with people who are a little too close to the problem or who are simply not sufficiently equipped to help. The client may generally have an idea of what the problem is yet can’t quite identify the underlying issue with enough precision, if any at all. Typically, clients come to me with the vaguest, although not unhelpful, problem statements: I feel depressed most of the time; I have too much anxiety and worry all the time; I want to be a better husband- or wife; we want to improve our marriage; I want to let go of my trauma; or, I want to stop letting people walk all over me. Yet these problem statements must be refined if the client is to have any real degree of success with them.
Invariably, assuming the client is willing to and does give sufficient effort toward discovering the truth of the matter- or matters at hand, he or she, perhaps even unbeknownst to them, will encroach upon that underlying issue–even if it means stumbling upon it–which, fundamentally, is something that they, or someone, has missed the mark with. In other words, the psychotherapeutic process may reveal something with which the client has failed to act properly and truthfully (missing the mark) and is thus suffering the consequences of it. It could also very well be something with which someone else has failed the client, such as betrayal or a malicious act (still, technically, missing the mark), and thus, the client now suffers as a consequence. In both the former and the latter, it is the case that the missing of the mark has disrupted the client’s life to some degree or another.
What does this mean? To miss the mark is fundamentally the definition of ‘sin.’ Why does this matter? Sin, be it inflicted upon us by others or self-inflicted, is akin to trauma. What is trauma? As Dr. Jordan Peterson puts it, “trauma is the involuntary exposure to something that disrupts your map of the world.” Our map of the world is what we rely on to navigate the world, and with such maps, we expect to navigate the world with maximal success and minimal effort and pain. Trauma, in this metaphor, is unexpectedly and involuntarily experiencing something negative and painful, and that threatens even more of the same–the map has failed us. To clarify, I’m speaking of trauma in the truest sense of the word; that it is anything that disrupts your currently held understanding, or map, of the world to any degree whatsoever. This does not mean that anything that disrupts your map of the world is traumatic in the sense that prolonged suffering and anxiety ensue as a consequence. Though there are times when that is precisely what happens, and sometimes devastatingly so. That is the result of sin–trauma, clinically speaking. In that sense, suffering and tragedy are the consequences of sin, as such.
What does it mean, fundamentally, that suffering and tragedy are the consequence of sin? Suffering and tragedy are the growth-stunting impediments to which sin gives rise. Impediments to what, exactly? To the meaningful aspects of yourself that you were once on your way to developing within yourself whose manifestation was halted by suffering and tragedy caused by sin; the trauma, to whatever degree, that disrupted your map of the world. What map, exactly? The very map you expected to lead you to the treasure, the gold, the promised land. Therefore, sin is not the thing in and of itself that is to be redeemed; rather, it is the thing that signifies redemption must occur and illuminates what it is that must be redeemed. What must be redeemed? That which is held in the purgatory of your psyche; that which you can feel yet cannot quite identify but know, or at least intuit, is good and true; that which must be brought up from the depths of the chaos of your soul and into the light of day so that you may make it part of who you are, and to do so consciously and forthrightly.
Regarding this, however, we see far too many individuals failing to truly redeem themselves. This alludes to a pervasive problem at hand on a broader societal level—one that must be sufficiently addressed if we are to carve wisdom from the suffering and tragedy of sin and construct meaning from the fragmented aspects of ourselves and the world around us. We have to deepen our understanding of redemption. Society tends to view redemption as merely repairing what’s broken by sin and the tragedy that ensues as a consequence. Still worse, people often set out to atone for their sins with the attitude of getting God off my back, as if the aim is to simply not be on God’s bad side. Yet, this view only captures a secondary aspect. While redemption does involve righting wrongs—of either our own or others—its deeper function lies in addressing the impact of sin and tragedy on our psychological and spiritual development. In this view, redemption is not simply about alleviating suffering and shame or restoring order. Instead, it’s about removing the impediments that prevent us from bringing those deeper, more meaningful aspects of ourselves into the light of consciousness.
Redemption is therefore a process of transformation, where the potential that lies within the depths of our unconscious is integrated into consciousness. This is to face, voluntarily, the thing that disrupted our map of the world so that we may continue with our psychological and spiritual development that was once stunted or even halted by sin. Redemption, then, is a painstaking undertaking of searching for and rescuing the meaningful qualities held captive within our unconscious and integrating them into a more wholesome version of ourselves.
In Sum
Sin, then, is the impediment to those meaningful aspects held in the purgatory of our unconscious, waiting to be brought into the light of existence. Therefore, the aim of redemption is not so much about the sin itself but more so about the gold we could discover if we were to confront, forthrightly, what holds us back from living out what’s most true and good about us and then integrating that gold into our consciousness. Redemption would therefore be a process of transformation by retrieving those deeper aspects of ourselves from purgatory, not for the mere sake of correction, but to true our aim in the ever-upward striving toward the deeper calling for spiritual growth. It is about transcending the impediments of sin and tragedy, moving beyond mere peace so that we may rescue our potential from chaos and become who we could be.
