Dark Night of the Soul: A Term Paper

Introduction

For my current followers: This is a little different.

For people visiting for the first time: You're going to be really confused if you look at my other stories on Wattpad after this.

XD

Although I am a romantic suspense author, I am also a Christian Philosophy major. As I write this, I am in my second semester of my master's degree program. My goal with my major is to deepen my writing - yep, even my romance writing - with philosophy. You'll see this influence in one of my Wattpad stories, GODS OF THE SEA. 

For me, it makes perfectly logical sense to mix the two. After all, nothing jacks you up worse than philosophy and romance, right?

Why wouldn't they go together?

This particular piece, however, is a term paper I did for my Spiritual Theology class. This class is an introduction to something called the Dark Night of the Soul, which is a term used to describe a spiritual crisis. (Although it is colloquially used to talk about a time of great suffering.) 

Christians use this term because of the poem, "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross. I'm going to let Wiki summarize the poem, because it does it well:

"There are several steps in [the dark night of the soul], which are related in successive stanzas of the poem. The thesis of the poem is the joyful experience of being guided to God, in which the only light in this dark night is that which burns in the soul, which St. John describes as a guide more certain than the mid-day sun..."

This term paper is a summary of my class with Dr. John Coe about the Christian dark night of the soul. It will cover the following topics:

 

Why do we want to do good, but still do evil?

Why does it take so long for a heart to change?

How does God actually transform people?

Why do we experience times of spiritual desolation?

How can a soul be trained?

NOTE: There is not a bibliography of resources because it wasn't required for the paper. This was assigned as a summary of the teachings of Dr. John Coe, as well as my own reflections on his teachings. 

As with all papers, teachings, and general gossip, I recommend you challenge it. I don't want you to believe anything you read, hear, or see blindly. 

If you disagree with me, research for evidence why.

If you agree with me, research for evidence why. 

But I hope you get something useful out of it anyways. 

You can find Dr. John Coe's teachings on YouTube if you're interested.

With that being said, let's continue. 

The first question I will be answering: Why do we want to do good, but still do evil?