Searching for God #4

So, is it reasonable, and contestable, even, to posit that our inner psychic life, as mysterious, ephemeral, uncontained, unconstricted and unconstrained by logic, science, the human senses and reason as it continues to be, is linked with, associated with, even expressions of whatever we might call ‘divine’?

And, by divine, we do not mean holy, perfect, pure, on any level, including morality, ethics, and any guaranteed ticket to an afterlife in heaven. Beyond our senses, our reason, and even beyond our imagination might come closer to a workable set of inferences of ‘divine’. More to come……

The foundational notion of God being separate from humans, so critical to early Christian thought, conception and belief, became embodied in a political theory, the ‘divine right of kings’….

The doctrine that monarchy is God’s chosen form of government, and that rebellion against the monarch is always sin. Where active obedience to an evil ruler is morally impossible, it is held that passive obedience (i.e. the willing acceptance of any penalty imposed for non-compliance) is demanded….

Perhaps under the influence of Neoplatonism, Greek theories of divine kindship became Christianized: the emperor was the earthly image of God’s ruling wisdom. Divine attributes were used to describe kings, and in particular, imperial vocabulary used to describe Christ’s Kingship. Jewish precedents also served: monarchs were to emulate rulership of Moses and David. (From The Oxford Dictionary or the Christian Church, (ed. F.L. Cross, and E.A. Livingstone), p. 491.

In archaic thinking, there is no concept of the supernatural, no huge gulf separating human and divine. If a priest donned the sacred regalia of an animal pelt to impersonate the Animal Master, he became a temporary manifestation of that divine power. These rituals were not the expression of a ‘belief’ that had to be accepted in blind faith….Homo religiousus is pragmatic in this sense only: if a ritual no longer evokes a profound conviction of life’s ultimate value, he simply abandons it…..Religion was not something tacked on to the human condition,, an optional extra imposed on people by unscrupulous priests. The desire to cultivate a sense of the transcendent may be the defining human characteristic. (Karen Armstrong, The Case for God, p. 9)

Like Plato, Aristotle believed that human intelligence was divine and immortal. It linked human beings to the gods and gave them the ability to grasp ultimate truth. Unlike sensual pleasure or purely practical activity, the pleasures of theoria (the contemplation of truth for its own sake) did not wax and wane but were a continuous joy, giving the thinker that self-sufficiency that characterized the highest life of all. ‘We must, therefore, in so far as we can, strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us,’ Aristotle insisted. Theoria was a divine activity, so a man could practice it only ‘in so far as something divine is present to him.’ (Armstrong, op. cit. p. 71)

Origen (c.185-c.253), a Platonist, believed that he could get to know God by contemplating the universe and had seen the Christian life as a Platonic ascent that would continue after death until the soul was fully assimilated to the divine. The Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus (c.205-70) believed that the universe emanated from God eternally, like rays from the sun so that the material world was a kind of overflowing of God’s very being; when you meditated on the universe, you, were, therefore, meditating upon God. But by the early fourth century, people felt that the cosmos was separated from God by a vast, almost unbridgeable chasm. The universe was now experienced as so fragile, moribund, and contingent that it could have nothing in common with the God that was being itself. (Armstrong, op. cit. p. 104)

The concept of the universe being created ‘ex nihilo’ emerged from this development of separation. And, from this notion of creation ex nihilo came what is known as the Arius/Athanasian controversy. While both accepted the ‘theory’ they differed significantly in what they saw as its implications.

Arius did not deny that Jesus was God, but suggested that he had merely been promoted to divine status. God had foreseen that when the Logos became a man, he would behave with perfect obedience, and as a reward had raised him to divine status in advance of his mission. The Logos thus became the prototype of the perfected human being; if Christians imitated his wholehearted kenosis*, they too could become ‘sons of God’: they too could become divine. (Armstrong, op. cit. p. 106)

*kenosis: the self-emptying of Jesus Christ in his incarnation. While fully divine, Jesus humbled himself by taking on human form, without diminishing his divine nature.

(For Athanasius) Creation ex nihilo had revealed an utter incompatibility between itself and creatures that came from nothing. The only things that we could know by our natural unaided reason were the objects of our material world, which told us nothing about God. Our brains were equipped to recognize only finite realities created ex nihilo, so we had no idea what the substance (ousia) of the uncreated God was like. God was not like any immense thing in our experience, and Arius ‘should not think of him in (such) terms. (Ibid p. 107)

It was only because we did not regard God as an immense being (as Arius did) that we could say that God could remain the all-powerful God at the same time as assuming the frailty of human flesh, because any mere being of our experience would not be two incompatible things at once. It was only because we did not know what God was that we could say that human beings could in some way share the divine nature. (Ibid. p. 109)

Whatever we consider to be God, with respect to divinity, as well as Jesus, in the Christian heritage, and his divinity/humanity, whether we are conscious of our own perceptions or not, is part of this pursuit for, of and to God. Perceptions too are not necessarily identical with, or even congruent with ‘belief’ and that distinction is not incidental or extraneous to our pilgrimage. It may well be the intersection, interaction, infusing and interweaving of our perceptions (psychological?) and our ‘beliefs’ (religious?) that might help to discern some clarity, even though the differences may be very near to imperceptible.

Contemplating God, along with Christ, however, has continued to be a running stream of tension, as are all words spilled in the process of attempting to discern and to relate to the divine. Similarly, the ‘separation of humans from God’ is rooted in the myth of the Garden of Eden, and its exegesis, while many applications of those views of that story continue to float throughout religious conversations, both formal and academic as well as informal among laity.

Notwithstanding the volumes of debate, creedal design and repetition, the tidal waves of various epistemological perceptions and disciplines about human identity, and the Shakespearean ‘character is destiny’ cornerstone of Western thought, followed much later by the dissection of society, and its impact on both character and faith in the divine, we live in a period of history under the umbrella of scientific, literal, empirical and denotative depictions and conceptions of reality. It is essentially left to artists, poets, playwrights and the creative imaginations of our time to imagine bridges between temporal, finite, literal ‘things’ and a reality that supersedes time, space, and human rationality and sense perception. Even connotation, except for the guttural, has slipped from public discourse, leaving the field of both language and perception to the denotative, as well as from much dialogue about ‘the divine’ and ‘faith’ and a prospective relationship between humans and God. And when any of us attempt to put God into the box of our literal, empirical, scientific vocabulary and perception and cognition, we already know ‘it’ (the concept of God) wont fit any of our boxes. And yet, paradoxically, the image of God cannot be excluded, excised and eliminated from those ‘boxes’.

In the 1960’s with the discovery of the DNA molecule, there was heated debate over whether, for example, Darwin’s evolution eclipsed creation. Much academic work has focused on whether science itself is compatible with religion, and with faith and with the divine. While for many that ‘divide’ is no longer one worthy of contention, neuroscience continues to probe, through scientific process of research leading to theory and more research, and the public consciousness has been virtually stripped of words, sentences, thoughts and perceptions of the infinite, the ephemeral, the ineffable.

It is, however, a conventional, secular convergence of anything about God and divinity with morality, and also with psychological abnormality that raises a spectre of considerable tension, for this scribe, and for others. A wise, if somewhat unorthodox, supervisor of a Clinical Pastoral Education unit in Chaplaincy, way back in 1988, asked his small class of student interns, “Does God have a Shadow?”

At that time, he was referring to the Jungian concept of a human Shadow. And while each student nodded in the affirmative, no further discussion took place on the subject.

In his Man and His Symbols, Conceived and edited by Carl Jung, we read:

Dr. Jung has pointed out that the shadow cast by the conscious mind of the individual contains the hidden, repressed, and unfavorable (or nefarious) aspects of the personality. But this darkness is not just the simple converse of the conscious ego. Just as the ego contains unfavorable and destructive attitudes, so the shadow has good qualities—normal instincts and creative impulses. Ego and shadow, indeed, although separate, are inextricably linked together in much the same way that thought and feeling are related to each other. The ego, nevertheless, is in conflict with the shadow, in what Dr. Jung called ‘the battle for deliverance’. In the struggle of primitive man to achieve consciousness, this conflict is expressed by the contest between the archetypal hero and the cosmic powers of evil, personified by dragons and monsters. In the developing consciousness of the individual the hero figure is the symbolic means by which the emerging ego overcomes the inertia of the unconscious mind, and liberates the mature man from a regressive longing to return to the blissful state of infancy in a world dominated by his mother. (p.110-111)

And from page 174:

When an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in other people—such things as egoism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions- in short, all the little sins about which he might previously have told himself: ‘That doesn’t matter; nobody will notice it, and in any case other people do it too.’

We are, individually and collectively, so immersed in our daily chores, responsibilities, encounters, projects and careers, whatever our adult roles have turned out to be, that any thought of, acknowledgement of, and discernment of meaning and intent of our unconscious, (as noted in other parts of this space) is effectively orphaned into oblivion. Any overt attempt to retrieve that aspect of our psyche, too, suffers from a public bias under words of judgement such as: inconsequential, unimportant, irrelevant, scary, fantasy, dreams, traumas buried and forgotten forever, ‘leave it to the poets and artists’….

Take an example of a tragedy, a clerical suicide, for a moment. Any congregation subjected to such a reality, finds itself facing an internal tension: Do I want to remember, relive and re-connect with those moments when I discovered the tragedy? Or, would I prefer to encase such thoughts in a kind of vault of forgetfulness, leaving the pain and the ensuing emotions, thoughts, and impacts on my belief in God, outside any energies I might have for reflection? And while wandering back and forth between such contesting energies and provocations, I find the ‘vault’ more comfortable, more detached and detaching, as a place to park my ‘mind’ and hence more ‘emotionally freeing and releasing than ‘clinging’ to those dreadful memories, thoughts, emotions and the gaping hole of questions about God, my belief in God and the meaning of life. Doubtless, the differing responses to these questions, or ones similar in their intent, will animate conversation among those in the pews for a considerable time. Grief, as we all know is neither simple nor brief. And the loss of a clergy, someone previously trusted, ‘known’ in a way unique to the role and relationship of parishioner and priest, qualifies as a loss which inevitably and inescapably prompts personal as well as collective grief.

The divide between ‘re-living’ the memories and the death or sealing them in some mental safety-deposit box, represents the kind of tension that attends many different other kinds of personal, organizational professional tragedies. Divorce, separation, serious accidents, fires, draughts, famines, wars, private home invasions, bankruptcies, job loss, serious illness, these and many more comprise any list of human crises which James Hillman dubs ‘in extremis’ moments.

None of us can or will deny that such events, given a date and time and place, will indelibly imprint themselves on our psyches forever, whether we ‘like’ it or not. Their historic, literal, empirical reality cannot be denied. What the impact on our psyche of those ‘in extremis’ moments might be tends to vary depending on many factors, only some of which we are able to access and articulate. And, those varying impacts themselves will also morph over time, sometimes shifting from deep and unforgiving anger and vengeance, to a more moderate and releasing “letting-go”, perhaps even forgiveness and empathy. Popular psychology advises against holding tight to a single, dark and immutable anger, disappointment and revenge-motive.

In the midst of such crises, few of us are ready to dig into questions of meaning, purpose and background, unless our relationship or our professional role brings expectations of such ‘digging’. However, memory, especially memory of significant events has a way of either implanting deep seeds and images, or erasing our conscious memory, so that the trauma does not overtake our mind. And the public consciousness and vocabulary of such ‘in extremis’ moments have shifted, historically, from a rigid stoicism and burying of emotions displayed in public to a more open, shared and conventional, even if minimal, display of emotions. (Men and women continue to differ in their respective degree of comfort in sharing emotions with others, stereotypically, women are more comfortable, while men are more restrained.)

These peripheral observations are neither foreign nor abstruse for most. Indeed, they are a central component of living in the 21^st century in the West, and likely elsewhere as well. The experiences of ‘in extremis’ moments, indeed, are also core to each and every individual person’s biography, both physically and empirically, as well as psychically and emotionally. Medical case histories, for example, seek out, document, curate and analyse the moments when the person has interacted with the medical profession. Numerical detailing of the body’s pulse, blood pressure, oxygen levels, blood sugar levels, weight and height, all contribute to a beginning grasp, orientation and eventually hopefully a comprehension of the ‘‘presenting problem’ that can and will evoke the appropriate intervention, a treatment plan.

Whether fortunately or not, depending on your perception, attitude and orientation to the universe, the ‘other side’ of our ‘soul history’ is not as easily measured, quantified, and documented, curated and analyzed, in order to determine a specific ‘problem’. It essentially seeks out those ‘in extremis’ moments, and attempts to integrate them, much as we have done, and continue to do, whether that work is conscious and deliberate or unconscious and random or both. There may well be a noted time-line, helping to discern the probable impact on a young child, or adolescent, or adult of these personal crisis moments. Developmental psychology swims in these waters. So too does sociology and social work, as well as criminology and professional athletics. And along with the ‘psychological stability’ and ‘intellectual aptitude’ and physical attributes, there is often something called ‘character’ that is implicit in any investigation, for the purposes of letters of reference, job postings, promotions. And that aspect is often conflated with ‘moral turpitude or a clean record, as well as ‘extra’ notations of altruism, kindness and community attentiveness.

The literal, empirical, scientific perception  and value of all of these ‘attributes’ is considered as given, normal, acceptable and ethical. Adherence to the law, the local traditions and customs, the social expectations of being a ‘team-player’ all constellate into an image, which, itself is then ranked by those ranking, from highly favourable to highly unfavourable. And that process, depending on the literal, empirical perceptions and the accompanying attitudes and values of those data pieces, pwill impact other decisions through employment, marriage, as well as community engagement. It is in and through all of these data-points individually and collectively assimilated, accessed and interpreted that we gather a personal and public reputation. Indeed, for many, these data points comprise what we consider to be our identity.

So, our relationship with the outside world, increasingly finds itself imprinted on some soft-ware program, often for the purposes of marketing products or services, or for those designing public policy or academic research. And, in many cases, we all reckon with the public impressions that we believe others have of us.

And then, as might be expected, we also deploy the same ‘template’ in our private assessment of our relationship to God. As Hélene, a thirty-eight year old breast cancer patient asked, ‘Why is God doing this to me, after I have lived a good life?’

Whether we go to church, or not, whether we consider ourselves members of a religious organization or not, something within continues to prompt such questions as Hélene asked. When tragedy strikes, irrespective of its nature, causes, and impact, we are wont to wonder, “Where is God in all this mess?”

To be continued……