Case Study: Conditional Existence

Preface
The first case in this series examined an entry written from inside acute scrupulous torment, where the affliction attached itself to doctrine. This entry is different in kind, and the difference is the reason it merits its own study.
Here the subject is not primarily doubting his salvation. He is calculating his worth. The theological anxiety has not disappeared — it runs underneath everything — but it has been displaced by something more concrete and, in its own way, more dangerous: a wager in which continued existence is made contingent on a vocational outcome.
This case is offered because the pattern is common, under-recognized, and easily mistaken for something admirable. In Christian settings especially, the language it uses — resolve, calling, counting the cost, failure is not an option — sounds like devotion. It is worth learning to hear the difference.

Case Study: The Affliction-Assurance Complex

A Journal Entry Examined Hope in Madness — Clinical-Theological Case Series AI is obviously not a MD or a therapist but it has knowledge so I’ll use myself as a case lab rat of the writings that I do. I think it’ll help me understand myself even with the four horsemen coming closer every day […]

Contempt for the poor ®

I can’t forget how when I worked at sprouts there was a homeless man outside w/ mental affliction he would walk in circles and we would talk about our similar struggles. Hearing voices and the torment of it and the meds not helping him

I saw people day in and day out entering that store mock that man and gossip about his condition spending insufferable amounts of dollars on groceries. (Some not all by any means.)

The thought struck me that most of these attend church, the Saturday spent mocking this man the next day lifting hands in praise. I wonder on that day how many that held the poor in contempt will lift their eyes in hell the same people they looked down upon now in glory above them with Jesus.

Now asking them for water when they didn’t give a drop or a morsel to them. Sermon after sermon you heard and Christ didn’t dwell in your hearts and you despised the poor man that was far from any religion you thought you would never make it and wrote off. But now how the tables have turned.

Their condemnation is just.

**Ezekiel 8:18 (ESV)**

“Therefore I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

**Luke 16:24 (ESV)**

“And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.'”

**Matthew 25:42–43 (ESV)**

“For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”

**James 2:3 (ESV)**

“and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet,'”

**Proverbs 17:5 (ESV)**

“Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.”

I wonder on that day if those people will see that man from sprouts and remember.

A terrifying night of a woven fabric of affliction

Around 3AM a year and a half ago alone desolate and forsaken by God in my mind. Had been hard to edit recalling how awful these moments were there are prob spell errors so be it. the promises of God in this night were dead to me just like mice gorging on my imagined lifeless corpse utterly dead and the soul in hell and the body totally rotten.

Where is the debater of this age? God has made foolish the wisdom of this world.

A Strong Word Before We Begin If you have ever walked away from a conversation about God feeling out-argued, embarrassed, or quietly afraid that the “smart people” have figured something out that leaves your faith looking naïve—this piece is for you. The aim here is not to help you win arguments or consign anyone to […]

THE LAW OF EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE

The opening narration of the series, spoken by Alphonse Elric, codifies this in language that has become iconic: “Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy’s first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world’s one, and only truth.”

I hate them with upmost hatred God don’t spare a single one of them.

does not become a soldier out of ambition or duty. He becomes a soldier because he has seen something that should not exist doing something that should not be permitted, and he wants it erased from the earth. “I’ll kill them all,” he says. “Every last one.”

Such is the same when I think of my mother on her last days she will will me devoured by death which comes for us all namely due to sin and Lucifer our fall in

The garden death entered the world and such is the object of my rage and tears at the devil in that day not at God it was never meant to be this way. Whenever I recall these things, my family passing away or possible friends there is no comfort and I’m beside myself

High stakes I’ll use everything.

I heard a very powerful sermon this morning at a funeral, of a distant family friend. Very spirit-filled, old-school Baptist preaching. What I have yearned to hear for a while now. I couldn’t help but start crying with a couple of things he was saying. He said some hard things concerning sin and how we […]

divine madness and creative destruction

A document I requested whenever I was having a religious schizophrenic manic episode

Where were you in the confusion?

Was having a rather great night last night then woke up to something unexpected. I think of Jonah and how he was so angry at the leaf the sprout up and the sun beam down on him often times on over we are under such affliction. The smallest thing will set us off into […]