The way I see it, because of the presence in our minds of the spark of divinity, it is no more of a mystery for you to know the mind of God than for you to be sure of the consciousness of knowing any other mind, human or superhuman.
Hi Elrick,
This would depend greatly on one's assumptions and perspective. For instance, my bias is naturalistic and more secular than that of most Jungians. So I wouldn't be working from a foundation of the "divine spark" argument. Not naturalistically . . . metaphorically, I'm OK with it.
Also (naturalistically and psychologically speaking), our ability to "know the mind" of another (human, superhuman,
or non-human), our so-called theory of mind, would be seen as a form of projective intuition. That is, "mind" is not a property we genuinely detect in the other/object, but something we instill or transfer into it. That transference enables us to relate to that other. We relate to the other/object to the degree that we can imagine it is familiar and similar to our own mind. We extrapolate based on our own self-experience.
With other humans, it's a pretty safe assumption that we are all operating with the uniquely human (i.e., hyperactive) theory of mind. But with animals, inanimate objects, and gods and spirits of all stripes, we have no other way to "compare minds".
My own position on knowing the mind of God would hold that we cannot ever honestly and accurately claim to do so. The problem is that we cannot undue our own theory of mind. All we can really know is that we are predisposed to project mind and agency onto others and objects that have "hooks". Where God or soul/spirit is concerned, there is little we can verify about the true agency of the other. Often enough, we can never prove the perception of the divine is anything but the imagining of our own mind.
But there are some instances where the perception of the divine has some more or less verifiable projection hooks for us to hang a mental construction of agency upon. None of these hooks corroborates supernaturalism in my opinion, but they can help us understand what our criteria for constructing the mind of God are.
Chief among these hooks in my opinion is complexity. The conscious human mind doesn't have the capacity to calculate the great complexity that so often appears in nature, in matter, and in any non-intentioned, complex system. Therefore, wherever there is complexity there is something genuinely other to us, something beyond our mind. But complexity has many features that we habitually assume to be characteristic of intelligence or personality. Complex systems are deeply organized (although in a manner entirely unlike the largely static and hierarchical way consciousness organizes information). Complex systems are also commonly dynamic and seem to self-organize around certain principles. This dynamic organization is a hook on which we habitually hang the projection of agency or will (attributes of personality, in our generic assumption). And we assume that agency and will are features of living beings equipped with mind. The more complex that dynamic sense of organization is, the more we tend to see human-like intelligence in the other . . . or, when it is beyond our normal comprehension (as anything truly complex always will be), we will see superhuman intelligence.
My persepctive is very "psychist", and I hold (at least on this point) with thinkers like Hillman and Giegerich (and Jung) who believe we cannot really say anything about the supposedly divine object in itself based on our direct perception. I deviate from these archetypalists in my belief that we can still say valid things about the other/object by employing more-indirect methods of construction. That is, if we understand the inherent biases, tendencies, and limitations of human consciousness, we can construct a kind of perceptual algorithm, a margin of error for conscious perception.
That margin of error is then used to filter out the most likely errors of human perception and mentalism. To restate the example used above, one of our chief and unavoidable errors of perception is the interpretation of anything that exhibits some of the fundamental elemental qualities of agency through our theory of mind or projective consciousness. Just because we can't help ourselves from seeing mind in something with characteristics of agency doesn't mean it doesn't possess mind . . . but without other corroborating evidence, it makes the possession of mind in the other/object extremely unlikely.
We can pursue our margin of error farther in these scenarios by locating those fundamental qualities of the other that strike us as agentic. Usually, where perception of divine mind is concerned, we will notice (applying this margin of error) that the chief fundamental quality we detect is dynamic complexity. And we can compare this to all other forms of dynamic complexity that are more observable and analyzable. In those other instances, we find we cannot attribute true intelligence to any complex system except (arguably) organic, material complex systems like the brain. And even the brain is likely the product of self-organization (via evolution) rather than design. For that matter, even mind/psyche/memory might be the product of unintentioned and essentially "unintelligent" self-organization of a complex system.
Or, to paraphrase Jung: we don not think our thoughts, they think us. And my own icing on that cake would have it that the thoughts that think us are not actually "intelligent" in the sense that we understand intelligence (i.e., as our experience of consciousness). Fundamentally (to the degree we can reconstruct them), these thoughts are other and alien, exhibiting complex dyanmism and adaptive self-organization around a principle that favors efficiency, interconnectedness of parts, fluidity, and reactive/compensatory adaptivity.
That principle, abstract though it may be, can be and has often been represented in psychic imagery, sometimes as agentic or possessing personality and intelligence. And this representation of an inherent psychic ordering principle is what I would call the Self archetype. And Jung tells us (rightfully so, I think) that this Self archetype is basis for the God image. It is all we can "know" of the divine with certainty.
And that's the nutshell argument for my own psychist naturalism.
Religion and social consciousness have this in common: They are predicated on the consciousness of other-mindness. The technique whereby you can accept another's idea as yours is the same whereby you may " let the mind which was in Christ be also in you. ". While each person has their own thoughts and beliefs and feelings, their experiences cannot be completely separate from ourselves. The consciousness of one has a direct impact on that of the other. It is in that shared consciousness, where true empathy and insight can take place.
I don't follow you completely here, but I would suggest that you have psychologized empathy a bit too much. We can't in good conscience do this anymore with the discovery and developing study of
mirror neurons. That is, there is a strong naturalistic argument for the mindfulness we share both with other humans and with seemingly agentic non-humans. Physically, what we perceive happening in others is being constructed in our own brains automatically. This should not serve as a reductive explanation for all dimensions of empathy, but it does suggest that we have a material foundation for our connectedness to others and things.
What is human experience (consciousness)? It is simply any interplay between an active and questioning self and any other active and external reality. The mass of experience is determined by depth of concept plus totality of recognition of the reality of the external. The motion of experience equals the force of expectant imagination plus the keenness of the sensory discovery of the external qualities of contacted reality. The fact of experience is found in self-consciousness plus other-existences—other-thingness, other-mindness, and other-spiritness.
I can't follow you here. Which is why I chose to lay out my own argument and language above. That's the best I can do at this point.
Man very early becomes conscious that he is not alone in the world or the universe. There develops a natural spontaneous self-consciousness of other-mindness in the environment of selfhood. Faith translates this natural experience into religion, the recognition of God as the reality—source, nature, and destiny—of other-mindness. But such a knowledge of God is ever and always a reality of personal experience. If God were not a personality, he could not become a living part of the real religious experience of a human personality.
Your last sentences here especially make sense to me. But (referring to my theory of mind argument above), I'm not willing to take this into the metaphysical realm. Psychologically speaking, we have to be careful to differentiate (as Jung generally did) between the perception, image, or symbol of a psychic phenomenon and the object-in-itself. Jung felt that nothing scientific could be said about the archetype-in-itself. We can only know archetype through its representations. My slight edit on this archetypalist perspective is as above.
The element of error present in human religious experience is directly proportional to the content of materialism which contaminates the spiritual concept of the Universal Reality. Man's prespirit progression in the universe consists in the experience of divesting himself of these erroneous ideas of the nature of God and of the reality of pure and true spirit. Deity is more than spirit, but the spiritual approach is the only one possible to ascending man.
Lost me again, I'm afraid. The terms you prefer are too abstract and intangible for me to know how to interpret them. But it seems (I could be wrong, though) that you are making a number of metaphysical assumptions. One of my (few remaining?) Jungianisms is my inclination to avoid metaphysics and stick to psychological phenomenology. I'm probably even stricter than Jung (who arguable defied his own precept on numerous occasions) on this point.
The problem I have (and Jung had) with metaphysical arguments is that they cannot be compared and debated logically. The assumptions they are based on can be evaluated (on non-metaphysical terms), but metaphysical arguments tend to take these assumptions for granted and do not seek to prove them logically. I can't tell if you are asserting something like this or not . . . and I apologize for my inability to understand.
As you state Matt, institutional religion is now caught in the stalemate of a vicious circle. It cannot reconstruct society without first reconstructing itself; and being so much an integral part of the established order, it cannot reconstruct itself until society has been radically reconstructed.
Hmm, I guess that's a Catch-22, then. I don't think religion has to be the force or institution reconstructing society. Historically, religion has been a reflection of cultural organization rather than some kind of anchor or engine of culture. I've been reading The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. Wright makes a strong argument in the first half of his book for the structuring of a culture's religion primarily by its geopolitical concerns and conditions. God becomes what the society needs god to be in order to "mirror itself". What Wright is less inclined to see is the current of mysticism (or originally, shamanic heroism) that runs through many religions. He's primarily a rationalist and assumes all mysticism is arbitrary and illusory.
I believe religionists must function in society, in industry, and in politics as individuals, not as groups, parties, or institutions. A religious group which presumes to function as such, apart from religious activities, immediately becomes a political party, an economic organization, or a social institution. Religious collectivism must confine its efforts to the furtherance of religious causes.
I'm not sure that community can effectively or should be excised from religion. One potentially good thing about organized religion in my opinion is that it brings people (within the tribe, at least) together, usually to their mutual benefit. Also, it helps signify and value some major life events like birth, marriage, and death (also, the transition out of early/infantile adolescence, but I feel that it terribly bungles this). With these kinds of rites, it is important for us not to be alone. These are communal experiences and need to be recognized communally or tribally. Much of the "meaning" of such rites is social.
Sometimes religious community also enables a group of organized people to effect some kind of ethical or altruistic task that could never have been actualized by the resources of a mere individual. In general, I have no opposition to any "good works" done in the name of religion, so long as these altruistic acts come with no strings attached (e.g., evangelism, cultural or personal disrespect of those aided, etc.).
But I am also generally suspicious of monasticism. I prefer to see religion harnessed to some kind of ethical treatment of others or the world. I am not ready to grant that monasticism is a good in itself (or that "giving oneself to God" instead of community or tribe is an ethically valid act). And I say that as one with strong monastic and introverted inclinations. Temporary periods of reflective monasticism, though, might be good for far more people than partake of such "retreats". Regrettably, many religious "retreats" are really indoctrination events rather than sanctified periods for processing complex existential events and feelings. Therefore, they would serve primarily to promote insular/othering neotribalism, which I find to be at odds with modern humanistic ethics.
There has been a fairly contemporary trend (a few decades or so) of evangelical and fundamentalist politicization in the U.S. This trend is strongly contrary to the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels (which was basically, give up everything in the world, even your kin, and follow Jesus to create heaven within yourself). It is therefore more neotribalist than it is "Christian" (and Christ's teachings were very radically anti-neotribalist). There is certainly potential danger in this, because many of the fundamentalist, neotribalist, quasi-Christian ideas promoted are radically unethical and dangerous to modern humanistic political equality among all peoples. But I think it is important for this kind of neotribalist fundamentalism seeking political influence and power to be challenged as anti-Christian. And that challenge has to come from within the faith.
It is very worrying that so little of this has happened. Relatively modern, humanistically-inclined Christians tend to be under-critical of their fundamentalist cousins. But this seems like a very bad sign to me, because it means that Christian values and ideals are giving way to neotribalism. Neotribalism is the stronger force in the Christianities than morality is. My own inclination is to take this is an indication that Christianity as an ethical institution is either dead or past the point of rebound from the path to extinction. Christianity could become another Nazi Germany in a sense, with the moderates abdicating power to the radical fundamentalists unconsciously only to wake up after it is too late. Let's hope, therefore, that they do not achieve too much political power . . . or we could find ourselves in the next Dark Age.
My biggest gripe with Christianity in general is that it does not meet my personal (nor modern humanistic) standards for ethics. Yes, some good things are still believed and done, but not at the expense of much outdated amorality and the turning of blind eyes to that amorality so long as one's "brethren" are doing it. If Christianity could find a way to live up to the standards Jesus advocates in the Gospels, I would find much less fault with it. In this heart of the faith (the Gospels, that is), ethics are genuinely modern. For the most part. But the institution of Christianity has always been more a tool of neotribalism than of modern humanistic ethics.
Without a functional modern ethics, mysticism (whether Christian, Buddhist, or Jungian), in my opinion, becomes self-indulgent and self-deluding. In other words, I see the mystical process (such as individuation) as a fundamentally and ultimately ethical one.
Best,
Matt
