FEAR AS A MAJOR DISTORTION IN NORMAL BALANCE.
(Rich. N. Ekegbo)
As a psychological concept, fear negatively affects the psychosystem of the victim of fear. In this context, it is necessary to note that fear is a common monster that haunts both man and animals. Hence the Igbo adage says, “Ọ bụ sọ osisi ka a ga-agwa na a ga-egbu ọ kwụrụ ebe ọ kwụ”, (it is only a tree that will continue to remain where it stands when it hears that it will be killed). Instructively, organisms intuitively flee from threatening objects, other animals in general, emotionally and irritably react to threatening objects, while human beings consciously, but emotionally battle with, or flee from threatening objects. It is necessary to note again that psychology has noted that, apart from anger, love and hatred, fear being one of the passions in man, is one of the psychological concepts that can emotionally be repressed. This write up does not as such aim to exhaust all there is to be said about fear, as its only aim is to look into only the moral and spiritual dimension of it.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND MORAL DIMENSION OF FEAR.
As a child, I remember many of us refusing to go to some places at nights with the reason that ‘egwu na-atụ m’, (I am afraid). However, with the promise of some little token, little pesuasion or threat as the case may be, we often faced the monster, and of course, eventually overcame fear. But the degree of this overcoming depended on individuals, and the promised outcome of the reason for facing the object of fear. This means that the degree of repression of not only fear, but the other passions depends on individuals and the promised reward or punishment, and of course some other environmental constraints. The two most simple definitions of fear that I purposely use in this write up are from a standard everyman’s dictionary and from a popular book on ethics. The Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary explains that “Fear means the bad feeling that you have when you are in danger, when something bad might happen, or when a particular thing frightens you”. Further explanation is that, this dictionary customarily explains that some elements in fear included the fear of somebody and the fear of something; the fear for somebody and the fear for something. To work with the elements that this definition has presented to us, means that one must see and understand fear in the context of danger, bad and frightening scenario. Again, understanding fear in the context of the above mentioned unpleasant concepts, or undertanding the above mentioned concepts in the context of fear implies that fear is something unpleasant, a negation as it is. And while on one hand, this unpalatableness in fear, can be brought about by somebody or soemething, on the other hand, it is geared towards somebody or something and to be felt directly by the object towards which it is directed, or indirectly by somebody who feels for the object towards which it is directed. Hence, “I am afraid of that madman”, “She is always afraid of the cliff”, “we are afraid of the outcome of that ugly development” etc.; “Ah my brother I feel for you oo!”, “Well, I am only afraid of the harm the injury will cause the horse later” etc. Thus the best definition of fear in the context of the dictionary in question, means that fear is a dreadable occurence arising from somebody or something, directed towards somebody or something and then felt by somebody.
From what I can call a more Christian definition of fear is that given by Peschke (1996:244). According to him, “fear is the shrinking back of the mind on account of an impending evil”. Peschke also added that “This intellectual fear is to be distinguished from the fear of the senses, which is one of the passions and to which therefore the principles of the passions are applicable”.
From the above definition, one can still as we have seen above, see that fear is the attitude that one emotionally and unconsciouly plunges himself or herself into, as a result of a sudden unpleasant occurence, or possible unpleasant development. And with this, let us look at fear as an emotional negation or spiritual acceptance.

Emotional negation.
As an emotional negatation, one can see fear as an emotional distraction, and if being unchecked for a long time can lead to a permanent psychological paralysis. Thus, if one is always afraid of shouting and if he or she continues to flee from scenes where he will likely hear shouting always, he may not grow used to shouting, and as such, for such a person shouting can become a monster that will continue to haunt him or her. Some psychologists believe that the greatest object of failure of a person, is that person’s inability to overcome himself inspite of himself; that is his inability to know his strenght, that he can do something. The inability to accept challenges with courage, implies the ability to admit shortcomings and flee from them. A person like that cannot say, “I can when and where he can”. He does not know the extent of his strenght and the limits of his limitations. Such a person hardly makes a leap in life. And as one of the passions in man, if his fear continues to go uncheked, time comes when he explodes and manifests his fear abruptly. And he may tend to fight the fear which is by now in his subconscious wrongly.
Fear can be minor or serious depending on whether it is caused by minor or serious evil which one can choose to avoid, ignore or face along with its possible consequences. In this regard, it is necessary to note that fear has two principles.
1. Fear does not destroy the voluntariness (i.e. the willingness) in somebody’s character to do something, but only reduces the guilt of its merit as the case may be.
2. Serious fear excuses from the obligations of every type of law (ecclesiastical, Civil, human, natural and divine positive laws). To put it better, a person who is forced to do something bad is almost always exenorated from the wrong act, while the strong arm of justice falls on the person who forced him or her to do the wrong thing. That is why consent and willingness is a necessary condition for someone to do something. That is why even in contracting marriage, even if all the members of the congregation and the families of the parties involved, with the priest and the sacrament, the marriage is invalid even if it is only one of the party does not consent. Again in (1996:247), Peschke noted that,
It is to be noted that ecclesiastical and civil law often invalidate actions rescindable at the instance of him who was influencedd by fear. Ecclesiastical law invalidates the following acts from the very beginning, if undertaken as a result of grave fear unjustly imposed; matrimony, admission to the novitiate, religious vows, promisory oaths, resignation from office etc.”.
Before I delve into God and fear, or rather fear and God, it is necessary to note that there is what is known as the fear of the unknown and the fear of the known. The fear of the unknown means that any possible, unpleasant occurence can occur any time without any fore knowledge of the victim. What makes it worrisome and indeed fearsome is the fact that the victim has by information or intuition known that such a danger that calls for fear is possible or even inevitable. Thus the fore knowlede of possible danger calls for wary on the part of the victim. In this case, the victim may know before hand that something might happen, but when, where and how, he may not know. What makes the unknown more worrisome is the fact that there is “danger” due to threatening situation, only that the limitation of knowledge does not allow one to know the extent, and in fact all about the possible danger so that he will know how to face it. Therefore, the only remedy is caution against the unknown; he will continue to have the fear for the unknown.
The fear of the known means a situation where one has gained the proper knowledge of the innevitable occurence before hand. “A nacked electrified wire is dangerous”, is just an open statement. However, the person who does not know all about the extent of the danger of necked electrified wire may stop at only knowing that nacked electrfied wire is dangerous. And such a person will only know that nacked electrified wire is dangerous and no more, while the person who knows all about necked electrified wire will have the fear of the known (death), to be brought about by the necked electrified wire. That means that knowledge or ignorance aggravates or mitigates fear, just as the culpability (or blameability) of any action due to it. Where a little more difficulty lies is in the event of the fear of God.

THE FEAR OF GOD
The bible states that “the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom”, (Psalm 111:10). The wisdom in this particular fear is that of giving to God the complete honour due to Him as the all, as oppsosed to the foolishness that made the fool who knows nothing about the fear of God, to say in his heart in Psalm 14, that ‘”there is no God above”. Detailed discussion of this might not be necessary here, since fear is not being treated here as a theological concept. In the treatment of fear as the opposite of love, The Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 1767) states that, “The apprehension of evil causes hatred, awesome and fear of the impending evil; this movement ends in sadness at some present evil, or in the danger that resists it”.
In number 1831, the same book of doctrine listed the fear of the Lord as one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. But the question is, “how does one fear the Lord?”, “ Does one fear the Lord as whom he knows or as what he does not know? (The known or the unknown?). I suppose that the best way to fear the Lord is to fear Him as a known and as the unknown. This type of fear is wrapt up in what theologians call reverential fear. This type of fear implies that one knows much about God. And within that knowledge about God, he knows that he has not known much about God, therefore he should always hold him in fear. Therefore reverential fear of God means that one revers God because one knows God to some extent, and fears God because one lacks the required knowledge of God. Just like the wiil-o-the-wisp, the awareness of what one thinks about God does not make a person claim to have known Him, and even though one could think he knows Him, there are limits to that knowledge, since He is everything, including fear that even limits one’s knowledge about Him.

CONCLUSION.
We can here say that as one of the modifiers of human act, fear necessitates the shaping of individuals and peoples’ lives. However, as in many other things, if one or a group of people are not guided well to make the best out of their fears, fear can turn to be a monster to them. And here is where the role of conscience is very necessary.

Below are some tips to help us further to control our fears.
“Fear is a walking stick to fall with, or to lean on and learn with”
-Rich. N. Ekegbo.
“Fear is the mother of foresight”. -H. Taylor
“We must fear God through love and not love Him through fear”. – J. P. Camus
“Let us fear God; and we shall cease to fear man”. – Mahatma Gandhi
“It is a poor thing for anyone to fear that which is inevitable”. – Tertullian
“Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?”. – M. Freehill.

- Rich. N. Ekegbo
www.igboniile.com
richploughman@yahoo.com
Bibliography
Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary, 6th Edition.
Peschke, H. K., (1996), Christian Ethics, vol. I, India: Theological
Publications.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, (1995) Kenya: Paulines
Publications-Africa.
Maurus, J., (2003), Something to think of; Mumbai: Better Yourself Books.