Showing posts with label Companeros. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Companeros. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

What compels belief


As usual, BG’s question got me going. Watch out. When I wrote that I was having trouble with the god question, I meant that I was stuck, logically, perhaps linguistically, even structurally with the long essay that I’ve been working on for months now, “A Buddhist looks at the proofs for the existence of god.” Setting my personal beliefs aside as much as possible, I have been examining how a Buddhist deals with “the god question” instead of what we might consider the more non-theistic position of more Buddhist philosophers until they are in the shrine room chanting away.  My starting point was what we call the “Unmoved Mover” then extending up, or back, through the Ontological Argument. I look at each argument and see if I was moved to belief or ontologically convinced. Very objective. I am happy to say that I am still a qualified agnostic until you lock me up in the shrine room or hand me some personal crisis I will need help with.


Then BG suggested that I try on the Gaia or Goddess model, and my first reaction was why would I do that? Is there something intellectual, spiritual, or material lacking in my life that “believing” in the goddess, however we define that act, would remedy? But suddenly I was thrown into another world. Of course, beliefs have consequences, and after a lot of self-examination, I realize that there are a lot of beliefs, assumptions about reality, and even prejudices that I carry around that do influence me even though I am not entirely aware of their existence much less influence and inner workings. However I can google the scientific effects of believing on serotonin levels, and it will show that in the long run, I am probably happier if I surrender some of my mad neurotic desire to control, and hand it over to a Higher Power as we say in 12 Step work. I can do that as long as you don’t require that I bet the farm. So I am stuck in a “practicum” belief system: If I believe that the early bird catches the worm, I get up earlier, catch people when they are more alert, probably make more money, and thus be happier. But maybe not.


So yes, beliefs do have real-world consequences. My mother stopped seeing a Doctor who was the father of one of my high school buddies, the only Jew at Fairfield Prep when she found out that he was an atheist. I asked why and she said that she had to know that her doctor believed that his hand was guided by the hand of God before she would go under the knife, So she switched to Doctor Mack who with his wife, also a physician, had nine kids, They were devout Catholics who never mastered the rhythm method, a hot topic in Catholic circles post WW 2. Then she switched over to another Catholic doctor who was not much more than a pill pusher. He nearly killed me with a dose of penicillin without checking if I’d become allergic, dangerously so, after an extreme treatment after an accident during my freshman year at college, but he supplied the valium she thought she required. 


Then when she faced major surgery in the last years of her life, she turned to a team of Indian doctors at Yale New Haven Hospital. I didn’t ask if she had checked their religious credentials but I suspect that it probably fell into the “They believe in something” category--Krishna, Jesus, it all tends to blend into one, especially as we age. (Yes, and among those beliefs are that Indian doctors make a much better living in New Haven than in New Delhi. Perhaps a motivational belief when applying for medical residency in the US, but it turns out to be a fact. (An Indian doctor in the US makes between 125-180,000 USD, whereas in India, he or she would only make about 50,000 USD. A compelling belief).


But still “Something is better than nothing.” Or the philosophical statement: Why is there something rather than nothing?’ I have argued that I consider this a junk statement, but it persists and I have to qualify it. What kind of belief statements does it encompass, and how are these statements changed or strengthened or “made true" by a personal assertion that they are always and everywhere true despite any evidence to the contrary? 


In the Germany of the 1930s, the belief that the Arian race was superior to the rest of humankind was gaining appeal. This belief had such dire consequences that it would probably be best left on the junk heap of intellectual, spiritual, and moral history. But enough people assented and it devolved into a horrific war as well as the attempted extermination of the Jewish race.


Some have argued that when Augustine talked about the Lord giving mankind domination over the earth and its creatures in his comments on Genesis 1, he set the stage for the exploitation of the earth that has led to the climate crisis. The burnt earth thesis probably extends further into the early Fathers, and it is even harder to prove that as a belief it was partially responsible. Adopting some notion of Gaia, or goddess consciousness might be an antidote to this kind of thinking and nudge us to treat the material world with more respect and even reverence. Thank you Gerta Thunburg for capturing our imagination. You show us that belief takes more than just intellectual assent. Imagination and dreams carry some weight.


Most people, at least in the West or among the intellectual elites, believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Again, the statement or definition was not “a given” before the end of the Second World War with Germany and Japan. Most of the male governing class agreed that any statement would include civil and political rights, but it was Eleanor Roosevelt who convinced the United Nations to include social, economic, and cultural rights. Her belief changed the way we think and argue about the structure of human society on earth. 


But I fail to see that assenting to a personal belief in a god being, he/she/it, god or goddess, has any value. In fact, I will argue that it has the opposite effect of mudding the waters and making us “deluded” to borrow a Buddhist virtue. It might be time to go back to Saint Thomas and Anslem to disentangle the mess I got myself into.



Saturday, January 15, 2022

The Dynamism of Desire, A book conversation

Lonergan
Lonergan and The Exercises of Saint Ignatius

The following conversation about The Dynamism of Desire, Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S.J. on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola* was recreated from several emails. The participants are Morgan Zo-Callahan (MZC), Robert Rahl (RRR), Joe Mitchell (JM), John Lounibos (JL), Don Maloney (DM), Gene Bianchi (GB).

All but Mitchell and Maloney are contributors to Intimate Meanderings; personal information is in the first pages of the book. By way of introduction Joe Mitchell is an enthusiastic student and facilitator for Non Violent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg). He was a Jesuit from '62-'71. Don Maloney lives in Okinawa, Japan, where he teaches for the University of Maryland Asian Division. He was a Jesuit from '52-'83.








MZC: I’m encouraged by Lonergan's thesis that we humans “can learn and know well,” and that this learning and knowing leads to loving well, which then governs how we act as responsible human beings, aware of our being interconnected. We’re, so to speak, “maturing” our ability to make decisions from our deepest hearts and well-informed intelligence.


RRR: Yes, for Lonergan Dynamism is the process of realizing potential, moving from experience through understanding to judgment and, in the practical order, taking action based on judgment. Desire is what motivates the process, what kick-starts the dynamism. By nature we all desire to know and we all desire to be fulfilled.


JM: I have a juicy quote from the book: “Bernard Lonergan's analysis is to help one understand the inbuilt dynamic of the human subject and so to reach authenticity and self-transcendence. …Authentic human living, then, consists in self-transcendence. Achieving human authenticity is a matter of following the built-in and self-transcending laws of the human spirit.”


MZC: Robert, you have outlined the steps that are included in the process: experiencing, understanding, judging, choosing, and intending to live those joyful values with the zest of free flowing life. Say more.


RRR: Insight summarizes Lonergan's three-step program for human cognition (knowing): experiencing, understanding, and judging. There is a fourth step when the subject moves from cognition to volition (choosing): being attentive to experience (experiencing), posing questions in pursuit of understanding those experiences (reflecting), evaluating those understandings (judging), and making decisions or taking action (deciding).


MZC: How does Lonergan get from “Insight” to The Spiritual Exercises? I think that I can see that it will not be hard to locate discernment because of the 4th step, volition or choosing.


JM: Another quote: “The primary role of the Exercises is to foster the dynamism of desire, what Lonergan calls "the eros of the human spirit.” Desire is the most powerful dynamic in any aspect of life—human life or divine. The dynamism of desire is at work in God, not just in us. And the most wonderful moment in our connection with God is when we finally realize that the passion and desiring of God is in fact our own deepest most precious desiring for ourselves. That is the ultimate dynamism of desire! 


GB: I like your focus on one of the points in the book: that religious goals, when they are not corrupted, bring out the best in the human; that there’s an innate human spirituality to be cultivated. And you lifted up the ecumenical aspect of all this, that non-Christian spiritualities move in the same direction.


JM: To quote: “Lonergan's ideas can be helpful to other religions besides Christianity. Today whether one is a Christian or not isn't essential as to the possible efficacy of doing the Exercises.” 


DM: Another way of saying that might be that "seeking of God in all things" is the true impetus of Jesuit spirituality, which is none other than Christian spirituality, and which includes Hindu and Buddhist spiritualities, even if they do not "name" what they seek as we do. 


GB: I would like to return to the idea of desire. I wasn't going to comment on the Dynamism of Desire since I haven’t read the book, and maybe the word "desire" is handled nicely in the book. But there is a further and maybe ultimate stage of getting beyond our personal desires, our "me-drama" of fears and wants to be at peace in the moment, in the now (without getting passive about world suffering). Desire, frequently driven by fear, pitches us toward the future and often becomes excessive (this word is important.... I’m not saying that all desire is bad). Let me illustrate this from the Good Samaritan narrative and some eastern stuff. The Samaritan is plunged into the now of the bleeding guy on the road. He was riding along with sweet thoughts about his girlfriend in Jericho, the candle-lit supper of roast lamb and her soft bed. He doesn't even have a cell phone to call and explain. The “now moment” pulls him out of his "me drama." In Christian language, it's beyond his desires to what is called unselfishness, unconditional care.


DM: Many moons ago, I heard Bernard Lonergan speak at Georgetown, or was it at LMU? He seemed stiff and uncomfortable and delivered his wisdom in a monotone. I never did worship at his altar, although I knew many who underwent the epistemological "conversion" experience that Lonergan's thought seemed to trigger. However, when I read that "achieving human authenticity is ...following the in-built and self-transcending laws of the human spirit,” and the "eros of desire," I am reminded of Karl Rahner's view of man, outlined in "Hoerer des Wortes." Of course, Karl had his followers, too, (I am admittedly one of them)--and he, too, delivered his convoluted German in a monotone. But neither Bernard nor Karl could or would claim to be a prophet. 


GB: I agree with you, Don, about the "sanctifying" well, almost, of old texts like the Exercises, and even the Gospels, as if they had to be beyond critique (any nay-saying) and were always adaptable to any century. I don't hear a word of harder criticism about trying to adapt a 16th century mind to today. I had the same feeling during the 500-year honoring of Ignatius, Xavier and Faber. All fine men, to be sure, but we don't entertain any nay-saying about them on virtually anything. It's like an older habit of holding that Aquinas said it all and better than subsequent philosophers.


DM: Of course, and I assume that you can still do the Exercises without having read or been converted to Lonerganism. This new book, according to some, finally gives us the "key" to what Ignatius really meant. I am skeptical, first, about the "deification" of Ignatius and his writings. I doubt he would claim for himself what we are making of him. He was as limited in perspective and theology as any good man in his century and asking "what Ignatius would do today" is as futile as asking what any of us would do if inserted into 16th century life as a 16th century person? 


JL: I suggest Jesuits or former Jesuits may be the worst judges of Ignatius and his exercises due to the duress of circumstances when we made them or the particular retreat director(s) one had. My unforgettable one was an Alaskan missionary of the Oregon province, (I met many remarkable Alaskan missionaries) who compared the call of Christ the King to the lead sled dogs you depended on to survive in the Arctic.


As for Ignatius and the Exercises, I cannot speak to them without mentioning Bill Meissner, S.J. 's work, Ignatius of Loyola, The Psychology of a Saint, on the psychology of Ignatius and the psychology of the Exercises. Consider the times Ignatius lived through. Consider his spiritual exercises as the work of a layperson. Consider how many unique personal leaders followed him. 


DM: Ignatius's exercises are, to me, sometimes lifted to the level of the New Testament, that is, as a special "latter day revelation of God" good for all times and all peoples, if only their true meaning can be plumbed. 


JL: The Christian test of the Exercises should be whether they lead a person to closer and more joyful service of Christ. I still think the four-week structure of the exercises and the contemplation on love to be works of genius for Inigo. For Inigo, after all, the director of the person making the retreat was the Holy Spirit, as little as that may be apparent to the literalist reading of his text or the rationalists who taught us how to meditate. The Dynamism of Desire. That is clearly the point of the discernment of spirits.


MZC: Thank you all. So I think we can conclude that Lonergan’s work is useful to help us examine the Exercises, and I have to say that most of us still look back into the experience itself rather than a theory. And on that note, I am going to give the last word about spiritual experience, at least for the conversation, to Gene who has a quote from an American Zen master.


GB: This is from Toni Packer's The Silent Question: "What unfolds in awareness is a new, subtle listening that may not ever have been experienced before, because most of the time it has been drowned out by all the other noises (desires/fears) taking place in the bodymind.... Can all the rush of wanting, the silent ambition underneath it, the neediness hiding behind it-- can all of that reveal itself in quiet listening and looking...That is why it's so very important to come to a place of silence, stillness and wondering.... where one can enter into an almost motionless not-knowing." Finally, here's how she describes the now experience: "Awareness replaces thinking and fantasizing about myself with simply being here-- computer humming, keyboard clicking, wind rattling, snowmelt dripping, heart beating, back paining, breathing in and out, in and out -- one moment at a time."


*Lonergan, Bernard, The Dynamism of Desire, Bernard J F. Lonergan, SJ on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. (The Institute of Jesuit Sources in St. Louis, 2006)


Robert Doran, SJ, has been at the forefront of publishing Lonergan's Collected Works. You can view his web site, or register and dive into the seas charted by Lonergan at 

http://www.bernardlonergan.com.

Boston College’s Lonergan Institute: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/lonergan/institute/about_institute.html