I was hit with this question from an inquisitive 8th grade young man. Great question! I had to think about it for a moment, and then lay a little groundwork. I think what the young man wanted to know (the question that really matters) is whether he was responsible for the sins in his dreams?
Both of these questions have inherent flaws about the nature of sin. We often view sin as individual acts, but this is not Biblical. Sin is a condition, a state, or nature rather than things we do/do not do. The individual acts are a result of our nature as either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. (Romans 5 and 6) "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law." (Galatians 5:16-18)
Dreams are a result of our subconscious which many psychologists would say we cannot control. Our culture, on the heals of these psychologists, would be quick to say that we are not "responsible" for our dreams. Of course, in our pluralistic society, there is no ultimate standard and thus nothing or noone to be responsible to anyway. Just the same, this view is not wholistic. Firstly, although our dreams happen in a subconscious state and some of the content, structure, backdrop etc. may be apart of our subconscious (a conglomerate of all that we see and process) - our actions within our dreams still reflect our Will. Although we may not control all the content in our dreams our Will is never stripped from us. We are still the Actor in our dreams. Secondly, as stated previously, the content (setting, etc.) come from our life and thus how we are viewing the world, interpreting, and judging it. We dream on those things we meditate and "stew over." In this sense, when people say they are not responsible for their dreams it is like when people say, "I was so drunk, I don't even remember!" What they really mean of course is that they don't think themselves fully responsible. As if their drunk state acquits them of all guilt. Even if they are not responsible what they do when they are "waisted" (they are) they were responsible for getting drunk in the first place - or that which they brought into themselves. So, even if we are not "responsible" (we are) for the happenings within our dreams, we are responsible for what we meditate on and these are what our dreams consist of. We must take captive every thought for Christ. This, of course, is for those who have a healthy psychological state. The answer becomes much more complex for the mentally ill, the abused,and traumatized.
There is a song by Switchfoot in which Jon Forman tells the story of one of his bad dreams. The song, titled Faust, Midas, and Myself ( http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/switchfoot/faustmidasandmyself.html ) speaks of how his dream woke him up into the beauty of his real life. Though the content of the dream may have been evil, his heart is revealed in his reaction to the dream.
Dreams can be a revealing and warning about where our heart is. I'm not sure if God still speaks to us directly in the same prophetic sense as our brother's Daniel and Joseph (I would like to think so), but the Bible does seem to instruct - "Pay attention to your dreams!"
My students were quick to say that we are not responsible for our dreams. This is of greater concern to me than the sin they may commit in their dreams. Our sinful nature is quick to excuse our guilt. Again, sin is less about individual acts, but more about a nature that reveals itself in a rebellious heart. I want us to say, "Yes, I sin in my dreams, I am responsible and guilty, but thanks be to God for forgiveness in Jesus Christ."
Transform our minds and our dreams are transformed. I often pray over my son's cribe: "Lord, let him dream of your goodness and holiness, let him bask in your love. Like Lucy in Aslan's main, let him swim in your beautiful being."
I think this is a very loaded question. The person asking if they can sin in their dreams has obviously dreamed something in which he/she believes to be sinful. With that said, I believe we have to first look at the function of the dream itself. Why has God given us this ability to dream?
ReplyDeleteIn one since I agree with you Pete, that dreaming is a result of what your mind has been focusing on, but I only believe this to an extent...You said, "So, even if we are not "responsible" (we are) for the happenings within our dreams, we are responsible for what we meditate on and these are what our dreams consist of. We must take captive every thought for Christ." I disagree on the part where our dream only consists of the things in which we meditate on. Dreams are used for many purposes by God some of which you eluded to in your article by Joseph and others. But God even uses dream presently. Dreams are how our brains continually process the hopes and fears that we continue to stress about in our every day life. Are dreams set up by the things we struggle with? Yes. But they are also made up of the things we have been guilty of and the continual fear of repeating that sin, also known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. We continue to try to do go but we continue to fail. The difference between our earned instinct, what we have learned from our continual failings, and out created instinct, which God has created us to be. What does this mean? Quite simply this, When I walk around day by day, I tell myself that I won't fall to this sin anymore...and I do everything within my power not to. When I sleep, my brain refuses to ignore the fear that we have forced to hide in our subconscious which is, What if I fail? Our brain processes this through self-fulfilling prophecy in which you fail to not sin within your dream. The brain also works to deal with certain areas of your life that you continue to avoid, in which you yourself were persecuted in some way, but it tends to do this in the first person. The brain itself is very complex.
Also 1 Cor 10:12-14 talks about how God will always provide a way out when we are tempted. In dreams, one doesn't have control of making a way out especially if your brain is processing the fear of the possibility of you sinning which we refuse to accept at times.
ReplyDeleteI understand your thoughts when you say, "Our sinful nature is quick to excuse our guilt. Again, sin is less about individual acts, but more about a nature that reveals itself in a rebellious heart. I want us to say, "Yes, I sin in my dreams, I am responsible and guilty, but thanks be to God for forgiveness in Jesus Christ." because you are right, we are quick to excuse our guilt. But I believe that this comes from the same pattern of avoidance that refuses to accept the possibility that one that lives in sin could be different than one that struggles with sin. In Romans 7 you see the struggle that Paul himself had with sin. I believe that it is even more important to accept the possibility that yes I will struggle with sin and that I need to continue to lay this before the father. I will struggle with lust, I will struggle with pride, I will struggle with "fill in the blank." The more we refuse to accept the possibility of the struggle, the more our brain has to process this real possibility (aka through dreams).
In the end, I see these dreams in which we have "sinned" as more of a warning. The words of God himself come to mind when He told Cain, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Sin will continue to crouch at our door until we acknowledge its possibility so that we can do what Peter says in 1 Peter 5:8, "Be self controlled and alert..."
Also, I understand the holistic approach in which you are trying to take by saying dream are a part of the whole, but this approach breaks down, or at least it seems to to me whenever we focus just on the specific results of the dream as to whether a sin was committed or not. "Again, sin is less about individual acts, but more about a nature that reveals itself in rebellious heart." What if the dreams in which these sinful acts are happening are warning us to the pssibilities of where our hearts could go but we refuse to deal with in life? This to me seems like it would be a more holistic approach. In order for me and Heather to put safeguards in our marriage to make sure that we never got a divorce, we had to first admit that we could possibly get divorced. This is not something that came easy and I still struggle to admit that yes this is a possibility, but I could not build these safeguards in my marriage until I admitted the possibility. "Be self controlled and alert..." now takes on a whole new meaning.
There's much more that is rolling around in my brain, but I'll end it here. The short of it is this, I don't believe dreams are sin, I do believe they're a function of our brain that God has blessed us with to deal with and process the parts of our lives that we strive to continually avoid.