TO: “cappytan”
“What are your thoughts on the matter?”
The “fruits of the spirit” are really metaphors for basic sociological principles which help mitigate people’s fundamental defects of character. Religious “faith” is simply an exercise in one’s own reliance on, and harmony with, a power which is greater than himself. That power, which many refer to as “God,” is in my opinion simply whatever processes which happen to unfold in the natural, logical, mathematical order of the universe. “God,” as I see it, is not any sort of anthropomorphic being or “deity” but, rather, an emergent property of whatever processes that be in the natural order of things. Therefore, those positive, pro-social qualities of highly-evolved creatures such as ourselves – or “fruits of the spirit,” as such – are just the positive aspects of our human makeup which, as a collective societal phenomenon, exert an existential power – or “force for good” – over people as individuals which transcends their own capabilities for promoting self- and social efficacy.
Case in point: I myself actually am an alcoholic, and I would never have the fortitude as an individual to keep abstinent from drinking. However, a power greater than myself, in the form of fellow sufferers in kind, is in fact able to help effect my recovery, beyond whatever success I could have just by myself. It’s as the expression goes, “The total is greater than the sum of its parts.” I have faith in the fundamental tenets of the program of recovery (metaphorically embodying the essence of those general “fruits of the spirit”) as they may be expressed by the group of fellow sufferers as a whole. (I probably shouldn’t divulge the actual name of that group recovery program, if you know what I mean.)
So, the “fruits of the spirit” are really just another general metaphor, or analogy, for the antithesis of the common defects of human character, which defects are apparently based on the more basic, primal, intrinsic functioning of our mammalian brains which drive us on a subconscious level, namely fear, greed, lust, etc. – things which do in fact serve an evolutionary purpose for survival but which can also have the propensity to grossly exceed their natural purpose to the extent of becoming self-defeating.
That is what the “fruits of the spirit” are in my opinion.
