In 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 and as GOP. They dismiss separation of church and state as a “false doctrine.” They do not dismiss the First Amendment, which begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Thus, they are not identifying the 10 Commandment as religious. Rather, the U.S. Pharisees are identifying the 10 Commandments as the “tradition of the elders.” They argue the 10 Commandments are “tethered to the history and traditions of America.” For proponents, “The Ten Commandments in the Bible teach… us to do what is right and avoid any wrongdoing.” Learning what is right and wrong, especially as it is linked to the formation of our conscience, is vitally important. It is the concern of moral development theories. Lawrence Kohlberg, for example, theorized human moral development had six stages. It begins with early childhood adherence to laws as fixed and absolute. But people develop beyond adherence to the law and toward recognition of goodness in that which is sometimes denied by the law. For example, Civil Rights activists and conscientious persons such as Rosa Parks broke with the tradition of the elders who legalized sexism and racism. She disobeyed the law and was incarcerated for it. Abraham Maslow theorized human development in relation to a hierarchy of human needs; physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualisation. Maslow was convinced in the inherent goodness or conscientiousness of people and identified badness or evil as uncommon. He became more and more convinced of an additional realm to his hierarchy of human needs, 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. Freud’s psychology matches Moses’ theology. Both tend to focus on humans as inherently evil, sinners who require external direction such as the 10 Commandments. Conscience, well formed and healthy, is rarely addressed nor is conscience nurtured in such a culture. 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 humanity can develop further. There is “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