IGIT, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia! (faith alone, grace alone.
Which one is it?
Faith and grace would adds up to (faith 50% and grace 50%)
Jesus versus the Self
by Nathaniel Branden
The essence of morality—if man's life and happiness are the standard and purpose of virtue—is (a) a dedication to awareness; and (b) a policy of acting in accordance with one's awareness. Awareness is the basic good that makes all other goods possible.
It is possible, however, to hold beliefs that actively obstruct or constrict awareness. In the effort to become more conscious, more self-aware, and to reintegrate disowned elements of one's personality, many persons are hampered by an especially formidable notion: the belief that there are such things as "evil thoughts" and "evil emotions"—that is, thoughts and emotions which, simply by virtue of their presence, constitute evidence of one's immorality, sinfulness or depravity.
In the Western World, the single historical force most responsible for the dissemination of this doctrine is Christianity.
Thou shalt not think
One of the cardinal teachings of Jesus, as reported in the most authoritative source available, the synoptic Gospels, is that people must "believe in me"—which evidently means, believe that "Jesus is the anointed," that "he is the son of God," believe in and accept his claims to divinity or semi-divinity. He does not offer any justification for this demand nor for any of his other precepts, beyond announcing that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and that those who "believe" in him and obey his precepts will be rewarded in heaven, while those who disbelieve and disobey will be condemned to suffer, will endure "weeping and gnashing of teeth." What are offered are not rational arguments, but threats and promises.
This approach to morality, so highly subversive of reason, permeates Christian teaching. Holding that disbelief in Jesus and his teachings is a most profound sin, that infidels should be forced to believe, that heresy should not be tolerated, Thomas Aquinas maintained that heretics who revert to the "true doctrine" and relapse again should be received into penitence and then killed (Summa Theologica, 2-2. 1-16).
A legacy of this doctrine, in the present age, is that beliefs can be commanded in and out of existence, by an act of will—which, realistically, can only mean: by a psychological process resembling self-hypnosis, whereby one focuses on certain beliefs until one's brain "accepts" them—and that the presence or absence of certain beliefs are, per se, evidence of one's moral status.
Thoughts as such cannot be immoral; they can only be correct or mistaken. However, to accept a belief without regard for reason, knowledge, evidence, probability, or respect for facts, is immoral. But this is what Christianity demands.
Reason and man's psychological well-being require that a person be free to consider, evaluate and accept or reject any idea, in accordance with his understanding of the facts. But this is what Christianity forbids.
Thou shalt not feel
Closely related to Jesus' pronouncements concerning sinful beliefs are his statements concerning sinful emotions. For example, at one point he says, "Ye have heard it said by men of old time, Thou shalt not kill....But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." Elsewhere he utters his famous statement to the effect that not only is the act of adultery evil, but that adulterous desires are evil.
Desires and emotions as such are involuntary; they are not subject to direct and immediate volitional control; they are the automatic result of subconscious integrations. It is impossible to compute the magnitude of the disaster, the wreckage of human lives, produced by the belief that desires and emotions can be commanded in and out of existence by an act of will.
To those who accept the validity of Jesus' pronouncements, and their wider implications for undesired or "immoral" emotions in general, his teachings are clearly an injunction to practice repression. Whether or not by intention, that is their effect.
It should be mentioned that these two doctrines are not incidental to Christianity, but lie at the heart of Jesus' teachings. (For an excellent discussion and critique, see Richard Robinson, An Atheist's Values, Oxford University Press, 1964, pp. 113-157.) I do not mean to imply that the notion of "evil thoughts" and "evil emotions" was originated by Christianity; doubtless it is as old as the belief that there are supernatural beings who have the power to read men's minds and hearts—and may take offense at what they find there. But in the Western world Christianity has been the chief germ-carrier.
Today, with or without a belief in religion and the supernatural, the notion of "evil thoughts" and "evil emotions" is overpoweringly pervasive in our culture. Its impact on mental health is devastating. On the one hand, it generates guilt; on the other, it sabotages men's efforts at self-awareness. One cannot pursue self-investigation with a gun aimed at one's head.
Self-awareness requires an ability to approach the content of one's inner experience as a noncritical observer, an observer interested in noting and describing facts, not in pronouncing moral judgments. This is not a counsel to abandon morality but to recognize its destructive misuse in this context. To approach an investigation of one's inner experience with the question, "What does it signify about my moral worth if I have such-and-such thoughts or such-and-such emotions?" is to make the censorship of one's perceptions a foregone conclusion.
A moral noose
Further, implicit in this moralistic approach so inhibiting to psychological growth is a view of the self that is dangerously mistaken and must be rejected: the notion that the self is some sort of "essence" within a person that is basically good or bad—and that a moral appraisal of a person's thoughts and feelings will determine into which category his "essence" falls. The origin of this view may lie in religion, but it is by no means confined to those who consider themselves religious; it is widely prevalent in our culture. In the practice of psychotherapy I encounter this attitude constantly among clients who have repudiated religion and proclaim themselves atheists, but who have converted their moral convictions into a noose that strangles the life out of their personalities. They approach self-investigation with a powerful if unstated negative bias, an attitude of anticipatory self-repudiation, expecting to discover that their "essential" self is "bad."
First of all, moral appraisal, realistically understood, applies to a person's volitional choices and actions, not to his thoughts and feelings.
Second, the self is not a static, finished entity, but a continually evolving creation, an unfolding of one's potentialities, expressed in one's thoughts, judgments, choices, decisions, responses and actions. If a person's choices and actions characteristically or typically are consistent with his standards, he tends to feel proud of himself. If his choices and actions are incompatible with his standards (however he may have arrived at those standards), he tends to feel guilt and self-disapproval. But the fact that yesterday's choices and actions conform to his standards does not guarantee that tomorrow's necessarily will. And the fact that yesterday's choices and actions violated his standards does not guarantee that tomorrow's necessarily will. That is up to him. The matter is constantly open to change. In a sense, man is engaged in a continual process of self-creation. To view one's self as basically and unalterably good or bad—independent of one's future manner of functioning—is to avoid the fact of freedom, self-determination and self-responsibility.
It should be added that for some persons, self-condemnation, the characterization of oneself as worthless or evil, can be very tempting: if one is bad by nature, why struggle? Neurotic guilt and self-castigation are often a means of avoiding responsibility.
So long as an individual cannot accept the fact of what he is, cannot permit himself fully to be aware of it, cannot fully admit the truth into his consciousness, he cannot move beyond that point: if he denies the reality of his condition, he cannot proceed to alter it, cannot achieve healthy changes in his personality. This is expressed in Gestalt Therapy as "the paradoxical law of change," which states that a person begins to change only when he accepts what he is.
The attitude of self-acceptance is essential to the achieving of unobstructed self-awareness. |
