In this Sunday’s first reading Moses links goodness with obedience to the Law, commanding people to “observe the commandments of the Lord.” In the Gospel, followers of Moses, the Pharisees, question the goodness of Jesus and disciples since they disobey the Law, “Why do you not keep the tradition of the elders?”
A law mandating the posting in all schools of Moses’ 10 Commandments, was recently passed in Louisiana by persons who self-title as Christian. GOP representatives dismiss separation of church and state as a “false doctrine.” They are cognizant however of the First Amendment, which begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” They are therefore not identifying the 10 Commandment as religious. As the Bible’s Pharisees promote the “tradition of the elders,” so too U.S. Pharisees promote it arguing the 10 Commandments are “tethered to the history and traditions of America” Proponents also argue, “The Ten Commandments in the Bible teach… us to do what is right and avoid any wrongdoing.” Learning what is right and wrong, forming our conscience more deeply and expansively as we mature, is investigated in theories of moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg, for example, theorized human moral development consisted of six stages beginning with early childhood adherence to laws as fixed and absolute. He theorized people grow beyond adherence to the law toward recognition of goodness in authority and rights which are sometimes denied by the law. For example, the Civil Rights and conscientious persons such as Rosa Parks who broke with the tradition of the elders who legalized sexism and racism and was incarcerated for it. Abraham Maslow’s theory of human development considered motivation and morality in relation to a hierarchy of human needs; physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualisation. Maslow went on to study deliberately conscientious people who were good, well adjusted, and appreciative and remained so amidst others being legalistic. He communicated a belief in the inherent goodness of common people and identified badness or evil as uncommon. Maslow became more and more convinced of an additional realm to the hierarchy, the spiritual, which he called “transpersonal.” It accounted for people’s spiritual or mystical encounters which he called, “Peak Experiences.” People describe feelings of “unitive consciousness,” expressed as Oneness especially with the Divine or Ultimacy or the Cosmos. In Toward a Psychology of Being, Maslow theorized the need to “develop a humanistic and transpersonal psychology of evil, one written out of compassion and love for human nature rather than out of disgust with it or out of hopelessness.” Maslow was critiquing Freudian psychology which did not affirm the goodness of human nature. It tends to focus on humans as inherently aberrant who require external directors such as psychiatrists to help them do what is right and alleviate a guilty conscience. The same critique could be offered about Old Testament Mosaic theology and cultures promoting it as also not affirming the goodness of human nature. A 10 Commandments culture tends to focus on humans as inherently evil, sinners who require external direction such as the 10 Commandments while it rarely addresses nor nurtures conscience. Such a culture, in Jesus’ time and our own, does not mature. When posed deepening questions of moral meaningfulness it can only continue to demand obedience. Conservatives who bemoan our moral decline might consider it is they who hinder our moral development.
As Maslow’s thinking developed and his experiences deepened, he later said, “something else happened that has come into my consciousness which is a very precious thing… a kind of unitive or harmonious consciousness which has certain advantages and certain disadvantages over the peak experiences. We can define this unitive consciousness very simply for me as the simultaneous perception of the sacred and the ordinary. This type of consciousness has certain elements in common with peak experiences—awe, mystery, surprise, and esthetic shock. These elements are present but are constant rather than climactic.” “The words I would use to describe this kind of experience would be “a high plateau.”
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, may we always be a witness to constant awe, mystery, surprise.
Question: If a U.S. culture’s drive to legislate Old Testament laws discourages moral growth or goodness, what can I do to encourage it?
September 1, 2024 Mark 7:1-23 Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time