Have you ever wondered if you’re doing enough? It’s hard to escape this question. Do you ever feel like you haven’t exercised enough, read enough, given enough, spent enough time with people, or spent enough time alone? Thinking about these things is exhausting. It’s no wonder that many find life a worry. In the information age, there is always so much more than we can consume. And because we’re more connected than ever, we constantly compare ourselves to others.
But what if limits aren’t bad? What if we’ve been pushing ourselves towards unachievable goals? What if we’ve misunderstood God’s design for us as finite creatures? In this episode of the podcast, we consider the goodness of our limits as human beings.
Links referred to:
- Books by Kelly Kapic:
- Our next event: Commanding the heart: Deception
- Support the work of the Centre
Runtime: 30:40 min.
Transcript
Please note: This transcript has been edited for readability.
[Music]
Introduction
Chase Kuhn: Have you ever wondered if you’re doing enough in life? I personally find I can’t escape this question. I wonder if I’ve exercised enough, read enough, given enough, spent enough time with people, spent enough time alone. Quite frankly, it’s exhausting! I’ve long battled with anxiety, and it’s no wonder that I, like so many, find life a worry. In the information age, there is more than we can consume. Furthermore, we’re more connected than ever, so we constantly compare ourselves to others.
But what if limits aren’t bad? Maybe we’ve been pushing ourselves towards unachievable goals. Maybe we’ve misunderstood God’s design for us as finite creatures. Today on the podcast, we consider the goodness of our limits as human beings.
[Music]
CK: Hello and welcome to the Centre for Christian Living podcast. My name is Chase Kuhn and I’m coming to you from Sydney, Australia, where I’m joined by my guest, Professor Kelly Kapic. Kelly has written a number of books and in particular today, we’re talking about his most recent book, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News.
Kelly, really glad to have you here with me.
Kelly Kapic: Oh, this is great! It’s been fun to be with you and now I look forward to doing this.
The goodness of finitude
CK: Yeah, it’s great. Many will be aware that Kelly’s been presenting annual lectures for us on the theology of the Christian life. I was quite tempted to talk to you about those things today. But instead, I thought we’d plug your new book, because I think it’s a really rich experience for the Christian to think about the goodness of finitude, something that we struggle with. Tell me what brought this book about and why you got interested in the topic.
KK: Before I tell you what brought it about for me, just to help listeners know, the word “finitude” is a little scary. Actually, “finitude” just means limited space, time, knowledge, power, energy, and so on. It’s a fancy way of what Christians mean by being a creature.
So what brought the book about: probably two streams were leading to this—one personal and one theological. The personal: my wife had cancer in 2008 and then after surgeries, etcetera, was declared cancer-free. But since 2010, she has dealt with pretty serious chronic pain and fatigue. Longer story made short, she ended up diagnosed with several things that we deal with and I ended up writing a book called Embodied Hope, which is on pain and suffering.
My wife and I are both driven people. You might even describe us as Type A, whatever that means. Through cancer and then since chronic pain, we had to trim our life down more and more and more to try and create some margin. Part of the challenge now is feeling guilty all the time—like we should be doing more. But we just can’t.
So this is something I’d been thinking about even before cancer and chronic pain, but it’s since become very important to us as a family. When I put my head on the pillow at night and I feel waves of shame and guilt come over me, so often that shame and guilt, when I explore it, is really just that sense of “I should have done more today”. So I’ve become very interested in exploring this idea, “What does God actually expect from me in a day/in a month/in a year/in a lifetime?”
Then on the flip side, theologically, for a long time, I’ve been concerned that we don’t have a very robust view of creation as evangelicals. We’ve reduced the topic of creation to how old the earth is and how did God make it—debates about origins. It’s not that that’s completely irrelevant, but it’s missed a lot of things. So part of what drives this is exploring the goodness of creation and ultimately, trying to see that it is good that we’re made as creatures, which means it’s good that we’re made limited.
CK: That’s excellent. I really love the thesis that runs through this book. Testifying for a moment personally about how it reaches me, I often feel the same kind of anxiety that you feel. We were talking as we were walking up the road a moment ago that it’s very easy to look sideways and think, “Somebody else can do this and I can’t do that,” and yet, appreciating that we have our own limits and being okay with that is a very tough thing to come to grips with in our lives. I had a back surgery last year that stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to give up a lot of things. Then I realised, actually, how liberating it was—that I am dispensable! [Laughter]
KK: We start to think the world can’t go on without us, and then you realise, “Oh, it actually can!”
CK: Well, it’s funny: it doesn’t take a crisis for everyone necessarily. Sometimes it does take a crisis to wake us up out of these things, as you’ve talked about in your own life. But hopefully it won’t take that for everyone. Hopefully people can actually just get the message that finitude is not necessarily bad. It actually can be part of God’s good design. I think that’s where you start out in the book and I appreciate it.
Finitude is not sin
CK: One of the things you say is that finitude is not sin. Can you unpack that? Why do people think that it’s sin? In what ways? And maybe discuss this guilt that you’re talking about.
KK: Yeah. As you said, one of the main points throughout the book is this idea that finitude is not sin. What I mean by that is being a creature with limits—that you can only know so much, you can only be so many places, you can only do so much, etcetera—those aren’t sinful.
I think that not just in the world, but in the church, we’ve kind of baptised busy-ness and productivity. I think we’ve confused the good of being a creature with sin. So we think if you haven’t done more, whatever that more is—like, when have you ever evangelised enough?
CK: That’s a good question.
KK: If you’re a pastor or a theologian like us, when have you ever read enough? The average Christian: when have you ever prayed enough? When have you ever loved your spouse enough? For parents, until you understand that finitude is not sin, you just feel guilt and shame all the time, because you could always do more for your children.
So is the question, “Are we supposed to constantly feel guilt and shame for not being able to do everything and be at everything?” I think, “No!” Theologically, this is a problem. We’ve really hurt ourselves because we’ve confused those two things. Furthermore, it’s not just that we’ve confused them; I actually think the flipside is being made with limits is part of the good of God’s design. It’s not part of the Fall; it’s part of the goodness of God’s design.
CK: That’s beautiful! The fact that we are creatures and not infinite like God is part of how we were made. It’s a good thing. I think one of the things you draw attention to is actually the reverse—that sometimes when we try to defy our finitude, we actually then end up in sin. Can you explain a bit more of that and how that relates to what happened in the Garden of Eden?
KK: Yeah. Sometimes we call it the “Messianic complex”, where we start to think we need to be the Messiah to everyone. We have all of these limits, and there is this argument that, in the garden, God gave Adam and Eve all of these things, but said, “Don’t have this. Don’t take this fruit.” People say, “Well, why didn’t God give them that too?” God’s not being arbitrary. The best illustration I can think of is kind of like if you have a little child and you tell that child, “Don’t stick your finger or that fork in an electrical socket.” You’re not saying it because you hate your child; you’re not just coming up with arbitrary rules. But also—and this is very important—it’s not that electricity is bad. Electricity is good! But your child is not made to be able to handle it. A good thing will kill your child. I think that’s part of what’s going on there: God says, “Here, you’re creatures. I’m giving you all of this. But not this. You can’t handle it.” There is this sense that sin is often a refusal to live within our creaturely finitude. It is a way in which we’re trying to treat ourselves as God.
Areas of struggle
CK: Yeah. That’s really profound. You work among university students, but you also have close connections with the local church. In what ways do you see in your ministry people struggling with this now? You’ve already named parenting.
KK: Maybe I’ll start with this question: I’m going to say a word: “dependent”. Or “dependence”. What is your gut instinct or feeling when you hear it? Certainly in America—and my guess is it’s the same in Australia as well—if someone says, “You’re dependent on others” or “You’re showing a lot of dependence”, that’s not a compliment; it’s a negative. It betrays just how much this idea of autonomous, individual self-sustaining life is the ideal. But theologically, there is only one being who’s self-sustaining and self-existent, and that’s God.
It’s important to recognise that to be a creature is to be dependent. That’s not part of sin. That’s not part of the Fall. Even before there was a Fall, as humans, we were made to be dependent on God, dependent on others and dependent on the earth. So sin is not what makes us dependent; sin is what distorts those dependencies.
In terms of the pastoral side, I see it when we’re hesitant to receive help from other people and hesitant to admit our vulnerabilities—our weaknesses. It’s even in the idea that the Christian life is a solo sport, rather than a team sport. We really need each other. We need to see the importance of the church.
CK: Absolutely!
Humility and interdependence
CK: I was going to save this for later, but you’ve just raised it now, so we might talk about it for a moment. You have a chapter in your book on humility and the ways we misunderstand humility. You said, “Simply put, pride ignores God as the giver of one’s mind and skills, while humility gratefully employs these gifts as an expression of worship and as a way to help others”.1 That doesn’t make sense unless you recognise the interdependence of humanity and even the interdependence of us and God. In one sense, the independent person, then, stands proud, recognising their own achievements over against others’ at points. In comparison, humility exercises those abilities in service of others just as they can receive those from others too. I think that’s a really profound statement and I just want to say how lovely I think that is. How do you cultivate that kind of interdependence on one another?
KK: Yeah, it’s fascinating. Thanks for bringing that up! In Christian, circles, we all know we’re supposed to be humble. Humility is a good thing. But what’s the foundation for humility? If you ask Christians, “Why should we be humble?”, our instinct is often to say, “Well, because we’re sinners”. I believe we’re sinners and I think the fact that we are sinners should also foster humility in us. But the question is, even if there were no sin or Fall, should humans be humble?
I think the answer is yes, because we were always made to depend on God, neighbour and the earth. So when you hear people, for example, like in America, where we talk about “That person pulled themselves up and they did all this on their own”, that’s not actually true. When we make a meal, even if you make it yourself, you’re dependent on farmers who raised the chickens and the grocery store clerks. We live in this myth that you don’t need anyone else, when, actually, we were always made in this healthy dependence.
So as a Christian, I would say is humility doesn’t just say, “I’m sorry”, although it should say that when we’ve done something wrong. But humility also says, “I don’t know” or “Can you help me?” This is important in the Christian life, because until we get this, when we know we should cultivate humility, the only way we can foster it is through focusing on how bad we are as sinners. I think that’s pretty common in Christian circles: we say, “You should be humble!” and we go, “Okay. I’m a really bad sinner. I’m a really bad sinner.” Ironically, that still puts ourselves in the centre. But you can cultivate biblical, godly humility by focusing on how good God is and on how dependent you are on others, by fostering gratitude, and by delighting in and celebrating others. That is a healthy way to cultivate humility. Rather than viewing each other as threats, start to look for the gifts that God has given, celebrate them, and stop beating yourself up.
CK: That’s really good.
From comparison to joy
CK: I think what you’ve just highlighted there is bringing back some of that tension we mentioned before—that is, as a theologian, have I read enough books? Or as a parent, have I done what I need to for my children? I look at these other parents and see what they’re offering their kids, or these other theologians that have read certain books. How do you cross over from seeing other people as threats—that horizontal comparison—to actually rejoicing in those differences?
KK: Yeah. For me, honestly, I think it’s one of the most important spiritual disciplines in my life over the last decade—and I do think of it as a spiritual discipline. It’s self-consciously fostering the practice of trying to see others the way God sees them. If God really has given everyone gifts and you actually believe that (and I know it’s kind of a cliché, but I do think he’s given everyone gifts, and it’s not about being materially wealthy or having a university degree), then it’s about noticing them. One of the most joyful things is once you stop seeing people as threats or as competition, it’s amazing to watch people flourish under one another’s encouragement.
Encouragement, at its root, means “to give courage to someone else”, and in this broken and dying world, we have enough self-doubt, as well as the voices of the world out there speaking to us. So for someone to say, “I see this beautiful thing in you. You have this voice, and when you sing, it’s amazing” or “You’re so good with numbers”—whatever it is, there is something very powerful that God uses by that. I found it’s hard, at first, and then it becomes really life-giving—not just for them, but for yourself.
CK: There’s something really lovely about that. We often think about being constructive in community through the ways that we critique. I can say to you, “Kelly, you did this, but actually, you would have done better had you done it this way.” There’s a constructive element to that. But we don’t actually realise the way that encouragement is constructive too.
I’ll give you a real compliment right now: I’m not doing this just for the show. [Laughter] I think the way that you, in conversation, invite people into that conversation, and listen and invite opportunity for them to speak so that you can listen again, is a great way of relating. Now, all I’ve done there is tried to offer you a genuine encouragement. But I’ve also tried to positively reinforce something that I think is beneficial, which hopefully continues to build you up, even in those practices. It’s lovely. Again, I hope we can be mutually edified through that.
[Music]
Announcements
CK: As we take a break from our program, I want to tell you about some great resources for your Christian life. The first is Kelly Kapic’s new book, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News, recently published by Bravos Press. If you found today’s content helpful on the podcast, there’s so much more to explore in this volume. I think Kelly has a real gift for relating deep theological, truth in clear ways to our Christian lives, and I want to commend the book to you warmly.
Secondly, we have two more events in our 2022 live topic series on “Commanding the heart”. At our next event, Tony Payne will present on the topic of deception. Integrity seems almost mythical, really, in our current culture. Suspicion seems to run deep, largely because of a history of lying and deception. At some points, our culture celebrates this sort of slight in order to gain the upper hand. The problem isn’t novel. We may use a variety of what we would call “guarantees” to back up our words—for example, “I swear …” or “On my mother’s grave …”, and so on. But often we fail to be people of our word.
Jesus speaks to us here: he says that kingdom living leaves no room for deception. As recipients of the truth, disciples must live a life of truth. I invite you to join us for this event on 24 August from 7:30pm. You can join us live here at Moore College or you can join us online. You might even like to consider joining with your church or church Bible Study group. All the details can be found at ccl.moore.edu.au.
Now let’s get back to our program.
Identity
CK: One of the things that you’ve just been circling around is how we relate to one another, even as we think about our dependence upon God. Identity is crucial in this conversation, and you’ve got a great chapter on identity here. We’ll talk about, in particular, a story with Bonhoeffer that I found quite profound. But before we get there, one of the questions you raise about identity is whether or not identity is self-generated. Why do you think that’s a live conversation for us today, and even just stating the obvious, what ways is it featuring in our society right now?
KK: Yeah. It’s always hard for all of us to step outside of our own cultural and historical moment. For most of us, especially in the western world, we’ve been shaped by this idea that if you want to know who you are, you look inside. We say, “Don’t listen to anyone else. You tell us who you are.”
But there’s all kinds of reasons to see problems with that—both historically and even in psychological studies, including non-Christian studies. But it may surprise people to know that in the history of the world and throughout much of the globe to this day, that’s not the case. If you want to know who you are—if you say, “Who are you?”, historically, someone will answer by telling you about the tribe they’re from, the land they’re from, the vocation they have and the things they do. These are all external things. They’re not just an internal thing.
Now, there are some potential problems with that. Those outside structures and relationships can be used to reinforce oppression and definitely can go sideways. But for our purposes, there is this sense that the self and your identity come from these outside relations.
There is something positive in looking inside a bit. But we now try and figure out the self by purely internal investigation. That is chaotic and unstable because, as many listeners will know, what you think about yourself when you’re 14 years old is different than when you’re 19 is different than when you’re 30. So in these big theological philosophical questions—“From where do you understand the self?”—I want get us a bit more complex in terms of not just looking inside, but actually looking outside, and then ultimately looking to God.
CK: Yeah. You give this great little illustration. I don’t want to cheesy in how I phrase this, but we often talk about people looking internally—sort of navel-gazing. But you talk about the goodness of the belly button: you pick up on Hauerwas and Willimon. The belly button is a reminder that you come from someone else and that you have relations. I think that’s really helpful—that I am, personally, a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a friend, etcetera, because of my relations. So all of these things serve to define me. A belly button reminds you that you come from a heritage. I love that!
One of the quotes that I think is worth saying here is
we are not self-made people, we are not separate islands, we are not merely rugged individuals. Instead, we’re inevitably and necessarily bound together with others: it has been so from the beginning and will always be.2
I really love that! We’re interconnected, interdependent people. We’re dependent on God. I am really grateful for that.
Culture
CK: One thing you challenge, then, is how our culture continues to impact us as we come under Christ. I think you’re really careful to not put aside culture as something that is necessarily problematic, but we bring it under Christ as we find ourselves in Christ. You say, “Our identity in Christ isn’t something apart from our cultures or backgrounds but rather his transformation of them as he brings us to himself.”3 How do we help people think about what is truly them in the midst of thinking about the newness of life that they have in Christ? How do you help people navigate that space?
KK: Yeah, that’s a great question. We’re recording this in Sydney, Australia, so I don’t know the discussions here as well as in the States. But certainly in the States in the last 10 years in particular, for various political reasons … How do I want to say this?
It is true that as Christians, our ultimate identity is in Christ. I believe that. I think that’s biblical. I think that’s true. But what has started to make me nervous in these recent years is often it is in the context of someone who’s saying, “I’m am African American Christian” or “I’m a Chinese American Christian” or something like that, and we’re like, “No, no! Your identity is in Christ.” But so often when that’s said, it’s said by someone who looks like me: a white male. Even though it is true that our ultimate identity is in Christ, part of what makes me nervous about that is that I think that throwaway line can be a way of undermining the doctrine of creation again. The reality is, my heritage matters; my genetics matter; I’m from this family, not that family; I’m from this people group, not that people group. So identity in Christ is our ultimate identity that puts all other identities under that. But the fact that there’s neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, rich nor poor doesn’t mean that you being a Jew or a Gentile, or a male or female, etcetera, is irrelevant. Our identity is ultimately in Christ, but that does not mean these other lesser identities are irrelevant.
Now, we want to then explore to make sure we think through these in terms of sin. We don’t want to glorify sin or make sin an identity.
CK: Yeah. I was just going to say we often think about Ephesians 2 in this context, where we see that the dividing wall of hostility has been brought down (v. 14)—that Jesus has made peace by the blood of his cross (v. 17). I guess we try to smooth over, in one sense, a distinction between Jew and Gentile. But really what’s being said by Paul there is not that we just erase that you’re Jewish or that you’re from some other nation, but the place that you have here in Christ and the peace that you know is not determined by the people you come from, but by Christ who now serves at the new man. Under Christ, we can appreciate these things, as everyone has place in him. I think that makes a great way for us to have that kind of identity there. It’s lovely.
KK: It’s kind of like in the Book of Revelation where you see this eschatological vision of every tribe, tongue and nation. It’s not that everyone is using the same language—it’s not like English becomes the thing! It’s in the midst of the diversity that the beauty of God is glorified. So all of those identities are put in their proper place, but they’re not undermined; there’s something about that in this wholeness.
CK: That’s fantastic.
Known by God
CK: One of the questions about identity that comes up in your book is about Bonhoeffer and the crisis of identity that he feels. I’ll paraphrase roughly: he’s in jail, people seem to be saying what great courage he has, and he feels as though, maybe, he presents externally different than he may feel internally. I suspect that many people listening feel, even on social media, that we present one way even while maybe life at home—or even life in our heads—is quite different. Bonhoeffer says that “We are and remain unknown to ourselves—known only by God”.4 How does this comfort us? How does the fact that God knows me bring comfort to me, even when I’m unsure about who my true self is and I’m feeling the flux of emotions or whatever else?
KK: Yeah, that’s a great question! As you know, Bonhoeffer has these various dialogues, but he wrote this poem in prison called “Who am I?”5 That’s where he says [Paraphrasing], “Who am I? People say I am very strong and composed”, but then in the next stanza, he says, [Paraphrasing]“But inside, I’m a mess and I’m frightened of everything and I’m angry”. He’s going back and forth. This gets to the idea that this is what happens you try and look inside to know who you are. Bonhoeffer wonderfully feels the tension and ends the poem when he says [Paraphrasing], “Who am I? Basically, I don’t know. But you, God, you know.”
That’s what you’re getting at. This is part of a distinctly Christian contribution to the discussion of identity: it’s not ultimately a community or a job that tells you who you are or your internal world. Instead, God knows us in our fullness. Strengths, weaknesses—he knows who we are. That is a supreme comfort!
I remember a psychologist: he’d been a Christian for decades and had undergone various things. I asked him, “What was the most meaningful thing to you as a Christian?” and he said, “That I am fully known.” I thought that was so interesting. This idea really resonated with me. He has a good and healthy marriage, but even in a good, healthy marriage or with children or friends, it is wonderful to be fully known, and then to be fully known and embraced, accepted and loved. That is transformative. That is power. Even though we all know that God knows everything, we often live like we’re trying to protect God from parts of ourselves. But we need to realise this and say to him, “You know who I am and I am still your daughter or your son.” It’s profound.
CK: It’s wonderfully comforting. We often confess our sins and we talk about our thoughts, our words and our deeds. In one sense, there is this way of saying, “There is no realm of my existence that is unknown to you, Lord.” And yet we say that in the full assurance that we’ve been accepted in Christ.
In addition, it’s not just in our sinfulness, of course, that we’ve been accepted. That’s the profound thing. But also in our finitude, like you’ve said. He knows what we’re able to do and what we’re not able to do, and he makes a way for us with him. I think this is a delightful thought.
KK: Yeah. It’s amazing to me that when Paul in Romans bursts out in doxological praise, praying that we’ll see the depth and wonder of God’s mercies and judgements, as I thought about that, I’ve realised that this idea of being fully known can be very scary. He knows our thoughts. He knows things we’ve done that are problematic. I don’t know about you, but for me a pet peeve is when I get in trouble for something and I think, “Oh, if you only knew all the background I can’t tell you, you wouldn’t be mad at me for this. I’ve actually done the best I could in light of these kinds of things.” And then it occurred to me in light of Paul’s doxological praise about the depth and wisdom and unsurpassing knowledge of God and his unsearchable judgements, even when we sin and fall short, God knows everything. Which means he knows your blood sugar level at any given time. He knows your DNA. He knows how your great-great grandmother’s anger got passed down. This isn’t about excuses, but you and I are doing well when we take in a fair amount of background information to make a good judgement. But there’s nothing excluded from God’s judgement. That’s not to say he is indifferent to our sin, but he never makes an improper judgement.
Which also means there’s a compassion in his judgement, and an understanding and a depth that I don’t think we tend to understand. He never judges us unright. So even in the sanctifying work of the Spirit, he’s taking all of those things into account and he is comfortable with process and slowly working in our lives, because he actually knows the depth of the challenges in a way we tend to ignore.
CK: It’s a great testimony to his grace in our lives and his great patience with us that, Peter says, means salvation (2 Pet 3:9). That’s a really wonderful thing.
Well, Kelly, I’m so grateful to you for the time you’ve given to us. I’m grateful for the book you’ve written and how edifying it’s been reading it. I do commend it to our listeners. I hope we’ll get to interact with you again sometime in the future.
KK: Oh yeah, this has been fun! Thanks so much.
CK: Thanks, Kelly!
Conclusion
[Music]
CK: To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast and for you to leave us a review so more people can discover our resources.
On our website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a tax deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre.
We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you’d like to get in touch, you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
As always, I would like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank to my assistant, Karen Beilharz, for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.
[Music]
Endnotes
1 Kelly M Kapic, You’re Only Human (Grand Rapids: Bravos Press, 2022) 105.
2 Ibid, 76.
3 Ibid, 79.
4 Ibid, 81, quoted by Kelly Kapic.
5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Who am I?”, Letters and Papers from Prison, New Greatly Enlarged Edition (New York: Touchstone, 1971) 347-348. You can read the poem online.
