Searching for God # 36

The word dichotomy is defined (from Oxford dictionaries) in this manner:

A division or contrast between two things that are, or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.  (Botany): repeated branching into two equal parts.

In these spaces, the word ‘separation’ has appeared multiple times: God from man, God from nature, man from nature, man from woman, reason from imagination, black from white, east from west, commerce from social programs, education from training, working from unemployed, medicine from theology, psychology from sociology, psychology from theology, philosophy from theology, psychology from philosophy, Roman Catholic from Muslim, Muslim from Protestant, Jewish from Muslim, Jewish from Roman Catholic, the list is effectively endless.

Does it feel somewhat akin to the descent down a rabbit hole? The comparisons, the differences, irrespective of how wide or narrow, how substantive or superficial, as a pattern or template, seem to comprise a lens through which we approximate what we call reality.

From brizomagazine.com, in a piece entitled, Thinking Beyond Dichotomies-The toxic Nature of Limitation, by Paola Cordovs Zelinski, February 2, 2020,  we read:

Ontological dualism…..is the belief that everything can be evenly and easily split into two categories. There is a way of doing things correctly, and there is also a way to approach them incorrectly. Certain things fit into the category of ‘good’; others fit into ‘bad’.

It was not until I came across Michel Foucault* that I ever thought about why these limits might be erroneous in the least. How can we really think ‘outside the box’ and grow as a society if we do not think outside of the limits we place on our ways of knowing? If everything exists on a spectrum, knowledge can hardly be growing and innovative but rather exists as a reiteration of the establishment of dichotomies that in turn create paradigms that hardly attempt to capture the complexities of the world around us…..Foucault, in his work, shows himself critical of the amount of control that can be exerted on individuals through this so called regime of truth, something which dichotomies form a large part of. The Cartesian approach, for example, fits into the Enlightenment paradigm (that arguably continues to exist today) and claims there to be dualism between the rational mind and the irrational body. The first thing to notice in this case is the blatant prioritizing of rationality and reason as ways of knowing, which in turn has largely undermined most other in the name of ‘progress.’….In turn this form of reasons has largely been used to back colonial paradigms that seek to support the concept of Western superiority and hegemony. Avid adherence to these has, as a result, constructed a highly unequal world that follow the power structures that have kept the Global North wealthy and the Global South submissive for centuries, and more importantly, keeping everyone accepting the status quo as something ‘normal.’…..Most of the dichotomous Enlightenment thought we follow in mainstream academia (that mainly comes from the Global North), exemplified in Descartes mind body problem is the creation of an ‘outside’ and an ‘inside’. Though during the 17^th century context this managed to demythologize the Christian orthodox conception of the body and allowed the study of anatomy to advance, its implications for the comprehensive study of mental health were not exactly at their prime. This oversimplified separation between the two has led to non-comprehensive  attitudes towards the significance of the mental health of varying individuals. Instead of comprehending the experience and make up of humans as interrelated, overtime, this approach has mislaid its subject matter and to an extent given up a sense of ‘moral responsibility toward the real health concerns of human beings…..

A key idea Foucault debates in the work of Descartes comes from the exclusion of the concept of madness in defining sanity or more specifically, reason. The idea of isolating those with mental illnesses by incarcerating them in places of confinement, for instance, creates the concept of the ‘other’ to those who are considered to not stray form the norm, and legitimizes certain false dichotomies that allows rejecting the people who do….

As we continue to function in the framework of the Enlightenment, we perpetuate a dichotomous mindset that is not only relevant but in many ways harmful as well. The incomprehensible outside remains a terror to people around the globe today, but as the world becomes increasingly globalized and the way in which we define dichotomies changes at a much higher frequency than they (The Enlightenment) ever did before, it becomes clear how much expanding our limitations is essential now more than ever.

 *From Stanford.edu:

(In) Foucault’s History of Madness in the Classical Age (1961)…formed from both Foucault’s extensive archival work and his critique of what he saw as the moral hypocrisy of modern psychiatry. (In it) he argued that what was presented as an objective, incontrovertible scientific discovery (that madness is mental illness) was in fact the product of eminently questionable social and ethical commitments.

And from the Foucault reader:

If you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal, then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing.

And this:

Schools serve the same social functions as prisons, and mental institutions-to define, classify, control, and regulate people.

And from his Discipline and Punish, The Birth of the Prison:

The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social-worker-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it in his body, his gestures, his behavior, his aptitudes, his achievements.

And from his History of Madness:

The language of psychiatry is a monologue of reason about madness.

If there is any truth and credibility, relevance and authenticity to this last statement, then, the church, having also succumbed to the definition of madness, through reason, as an integral part of its path ‘to conform’ with the secular, and  scientific and literal culture, manifestly qualifies.

People in church pews, at least in the dozen-plus in which I served as deacon and priest, could and would read and sing hymns replete with metaphors, similes, as well as some of the same kind and level of language in scripture, especially in the Psalms and in Revelation. Rarely, if ever, however, was there an acknowledgement of the purpose and meaning of the authors depending on the nature of the language being deployed. Literal truth, literal words spoken by Jesus from the Gospels, were considered, both implicitly and explicitly as ‘truth’ and their meaning also was literal, empirical and especially when they detailed a ‘directive’ (thou shalt) or a ‘prohibitive’ (thou shalt not).

Having been enmeshed in a western culture awash with dichotomies, for centuries, it is little wonder that the lingering dichotomous perception and punishments, both in law and in morality as sanctioned and enforced by the church, continue to plague our conventional ‘sense’ and attribution of ‘normality’ and by inference, as well as by overt authoritarian judgement, of madness.

What springs to mind is the current dichotomy of ‘voluntary’ patient in a psychiatric ward and ‘involuntary’ patient in that same ward. In the instance of the first designation, ‘voluntary,’ the patient retains his or her right to accept or deny any proposed prescriptions for treatment. In the latter category, the patient has given up that ‘right to refuse’ any prescribed treatment. And in the process of such a dynamic of oscillating ‘diagnosis’ (because, once it is inscribed on one’s medical record, it becomes a life-long diagnostic ‘sentence’ from which one never emerges), ‘ danger to him/herself or others’ becomes one of if not the prime criterion for the designation.

What does all of this have to do with the search for God?

Seeking to incarnate, emulate and model unconditional love, of God, as the church’s teaching aspires to inspire in its parishioners, one has to be so close to the conscious and unconscious of each person, including, especially as a shared obligation of all those making decisions within the ecclesial organization, of him or herself, in order to discern if and when one is making an abusive, illegitimate and unjust observation of another. The simple application of a black-and-white, thou shalt or thou shalt not, without a full investigation of the context, and the deep and shared reflection of those sharing responsibility, only through which a discernment of the most ‘charitable’ option might be made available, renders the church little more compassionate, more empathic, and more creative than all of those judges of which Foucault wrote.

Proclaiming signs on cathedral lawns ‘All are welcome” is analogous to the local athletic bar claiming the same ‘welcome’….and, ironically, the bar really does want the cash flow from as many patrons as it can ‘fit’ into its premises, under fire regulations. As for the church, however, test it out and you will quickly realize that, in far to many situations, ‘all’ effectively and truthfully and collectively refers to those the church ‘deems’ both tolerable and appropriate. And those in power who have either been given responsibility or have self-declare and assumed that ‘duty’ are very quick to ask questions about ‘your’ background, your professional status, your matrimonial and family relationships and without a word, will have inspected your attire and hygiene, whether consciously or unconsciously or both.

The church, all churches, have a unique ‘power’ over the people who have crossed the threshold of the front narthex, that porch that often greets one upon entry, before entering the sanctuary. And that power, carries liturgical and financial expectations, as well as conformity with the tenets of the ‘Creeds,’ repeated frequently in some churches, without the slightest nod to their intent and meaning, and whether or not ‘YOU’ can agree with even a portion of them. The other immeasurable social ‘norm’ is that, after a few weeks of attendance, some people will ‘warm’ up and begin to ask more detailed questions about background, and why you chose this congregation or this faith community.

And therein lies another of the significant and counter-intuitive traps in which churches invariably and perhaps also inevitably, become ensnared….recruitment…or as the churches like to name it, evangelizing, proselytizing, under the directive from Mark 16:15, (ESV) And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

The power to intimidate, to shame, to rescue, to promise an eternal life following repentance, forgiveness and salvation, and to ‘sell’ the virtues of any given faith community carry risks of abuse so prevalent and also so hidden, that, from my experience, refraining from the whole ‘selling’ thing seems to undercut the mega-churches especially those propagating the prosperity gospel, (God wants you to be rich!). Implicitly, also, the larger the size of the congregation, the greater the power of that ‘parish’ to attract new-comers. The Jews discourage evangelism, if not disclaim it, as a method of attractive new converts, even though they authentically welcome all who are interested in investigating the faith and its practices and expectations.

Our many dichotomies, based on a rational and literal, empirical perspective of both truth and the world, including our relationship with God, say more about our proclivity and or need for control….if we can name a notion, and define iigt as different from another concept, we appear to have some measure of both understanding and control of both notions….when, in fact, we might ask ourselves if we are thereby deluding, deceiving, and disabling ourselves.

The alchemist truly experiments with the co-mingling of elements, in a process beyond reason, and often even beyond imagination….especially as to the outcome. The retention and elevation of the ineffable, ephemeral mysterious and the wonder accompanying the mystery, including all of the questions, puzzles, conundrums and conflicts into which we are all so likely to become enmeshed, while not rejecting outright the rational or the scientific, the literal and the empirical, also need not, perhaps must not, relegate or negate the imagination and the beyond ‘reason’ from our search for and our unlimited horizon of hope for which God serves as symbol.

The church can be an institution that operates on a different premise and wave-length than those in hospitals, in courtrooms, classrooms, laboratories and banks. It is the difference in the premises and perceptions of what comprises both the reality in which we breathe the air, and drink the water and walk on the land, and look up into both the literal and the metaphoric ‘heavens’ that the search for God is based on and for which that search is still a singular and appropriate and challenging non-template to investigate. God’s truth may or may not align with the ‘truth’ of the objective scientist; and that is not a misalignment of either.

It is long past time for us to recognize that our ‘dichotomies’ and definitions are adequate in so far as they attempt to capture our sensate and cognate perceptions and reality. God stretches beyond all of our senses, and all of our cognitions, our perceptions and apperceptions….and serves as a limitless, boundless horizon for our finite existence.