There is a phrase, "If you have a problem, the problem is probably you." Or some variation of that. It captures the problem that a lack of self-awareness can create. Examples are easy—you always seem to get fired, you're always assigned with lazy teammates, things always go wrong around you, everyone treats you badly. Naturally the question arises, "Could it possibly be that everything always goes wrong with me, or is there something about me that attracts and causes problems in my life?" That question can arise only when a person is self-reflective.
But the issue can be a false dichotomy, and those in charge can use that trope to justify their own incompetence. The issue goes both ways. If China is polluting the environment, and the US criticizes China for it, ultimately the criticism is true even if the US is polluting the environment as well. China can't turn to the US and say, "The problem is you." The problem is both: there are people who lack self-awareness and reflectivity, and there are people who run from taking responsibility for their behaviors and blame the character flaws of others in order to do so.
And as Seth Godin says, "The problem you can't talk about... is now two problems" (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/05/the-problem-you-cant-talk-about.html).
In other words, if there's a problem, the better strategy is to take the problem seriously and explore its full extent so that both sides can learn and grow. Certainly there are exceptions where blame is clearly on one side. But wouldn't it help if instead of immediately resorting to cliches, we stopped to take each other seriously and face the possibility that everyone can help each other to grow?
Showing posts with label self-knowledge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-knowledge. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The True Self
Here's an excellent essay: https://www.academia.edu/12250379/_Kierkegaardian_Deconstruction_and_the_Paradoxes_of_Faith
I had a realization: when one realizes that "just be yourself" doesn't mean anything, and even if there were some static "true self," most people lack the self-reflection and sensitivity to even know what that true self entails. Why else do we have to "find our passion," as though passions are pre-packaged dimensions of our selves and not reactions to experience? If I already have a set of passions, shouldn't I already know what those are?
From where does the static notion of the self arise? Why do we speak of the majority of social or intellectual traits as being genetic, inborn, innate, "natural" rather than learned, studied, trained, practiced? Why do we possess down to the dot a complete package that is unalterable and to which we must be true? Do we?
It will further be interesting to consider Kierkegaard's definition of the self as a relation relating itself to itself in light of semiotics.
I had a realization: when one realizes that "just be yourself" doesn't mean anything, and even if there were some static "true self," most people lack the self-reflection and sensitivity to even know what that true self entails. Why else do we have to "find our passion," as though passions are pre-packaged dimensions of our selves and not reactions to experience? If I already have a set of passions, shouldn't I already know what those are?
From where does the static notion of the self arise? Why do we speak of the majority of social or intellectual traits as being genetic, inborn, innate, "natural" rather than learned, studied, trained, practiced? Why do we possess down to the dot a complete package that is unalterable and to which we must be true? Do we?
It will further be interesting to consider Kierkegaard's definition of the self as a relation relating itself to itself in light of semiotics.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
The Being of Identity
What is identity? It is not substance. Is it a quality? Is it a relation?
I propose that identity is the accumulation of actions, passions, qualities, and relations by and in which one not only tends to characterize oneself but is characterized by others. The relations that arise from these changes remain accessible in the memory and are re-asserted when relevant.
Hence identity is not identical with a full understanding of my being and its history, an understanding possible only when every transcendental relation arising from the subjective modifications of inherent accidents are taken into account objectively. In fact, identity may go contrary to transcendental relations that arise regarding my subjectivity; e.g. I identify myself as a certain gender or sex when this assertion has no correspondence to the transcendental relation that exists suprasubjectively, i.e. independently of my thoughts, beliefs, or feelings regarding my identity. Thus, identity is further characterized by what I assert or say of myself and what others say of me.
But identity isn't merely what others say of me, which is reputation and perception. Identity is principally self-perception and the expression of that self-perception with an accompanying acceptance from others regarding this self assertion. Secondarily, since how others perceive me and my assertions is not entirely within my control, identity must also encompass something of these uncontrollable variables.
Identity as self-perception and expression of that self-perception carries with it the implicit desire that others accept this self-perception. Hence this desire of acceptance is constitutive of identity. A person who describes herself with a certain label is upset when people deliberately mischaracterize that identity characteristic.
Because identity exists in the order of ens rationis, that is, the objective, cognitive constructions natural to the species-specifically human form of semiosis, identity will for all concrete purposes be inextricably tied up with the influence of cultural symbols. A person's identity is always expressed with language, with labels, words created and agreed upon by a larger society to mean certain things, and hence, even if identity is primarily self-perception, expression of self-perception, and desire for acceptance, its sources are always outside the cognitive activity of the subject forming the identity.
The strange paradox arises, then, that identity is what a person asserts is most personal and yet is formed exclusively of cognitive constructs originating outside of the person and which constructs the person simply determines will be his own identity, his own uniqueness.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, our uniqueness is not and should not simply be a matter of what I say I am. My inherent accidents are unique to me not only in principle (that is, metaphysically) but in concrete; further, the transcendental relations that arise from my intersubjective activities are unique to me, that is to say, no one else in history has or ever will have the same personal history of events and behaviors. It is impossible to reproduce in principle and in concrete even if it can be imagined.
Finally, identity must be appropriated in the Christian life. St. Paul states it simply: "Now I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). Through grace and progressive union with God, we come to identify ourselves as Christ and an extension of His mystical body. But this isn't simply self-determination; it is above all cooperation, perfect cooperation through perfect docility to the interior promptings of the Holy Ghost. The transformation that occurs in our psyche must be so thorough that everything is through God, with God, and in God, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. As Aquinas so profoundly put it, grace is the beginning of eternal life.
What can we learn from this paradox of identity then, namely, that that which is most personal to me is inevitably external to me? And further, what can we learn from the fact that our ultimate identity in Christ must be founded in the self-determination, through grace, to cooperate with God's grace in progressive transforming union? We can learn that self-determination is inevitably linked with cooperation, and these two dynamics of independence and interdependence must co-exist for the proper flourishing of any living organism. This balance must be a corrective to the overemphasis in today's society on atomistic independence, the mutual apathy that follows naturally from mindless consumerism, especially of relentless social media. It is also a corrective to a lack of proper boundaries insofar as interdependence does not mean a dissolving of individuals into an incongruous whole but rather their optimal coordination with each other for their mutual and collective benefit.
The Trinity is the perfect model of this balance between independence and interdependence, where substance and relation coincide perfectly and infinitely, where self-determination and cooperation achieve a total co-incidence.
I propose that identity is the accumulation of actions, passions, qualities, and relations by and in which one not only tends to characterize oneself but is characterized by others. The relations that arise from these changes remain accessible in the memory and are re-asserted when relevant.
Hence identity is not identical with a full understanding of my being and its history, an understanding possible only when every transcendental relation arising from the subjective modifications of inherent accidents are taken into account objectively. In fact, identity may go contrary to transcendental relations that arise regarding my subjectivity; e.g. I identify myself as a certain gender or sex when this assertion has no correspondence to the transcendental relation that exists suprasubjectively, i.e. independently of my thoughts, beliefs, or feelings regarding my identity. Thus, identity is further characterized by what I assert or say of myself and what others say of me.
But identity isn't merely what others say of me, which is reputation and perception. Identity is principally self-perception and the expression of that self-perception with an accompanying acceptance from others regarding this self assertion. Secondarily, since how others perceive me and my assertions is not entirely within my control, identity must also encompass something of these uncontrollable variables.
Identity as self-perception and expression of that self-perception carries with it the implicit desire that others accept this self-perception. Hence this desire of acceptance is constitutive of identity. A person who describes herself with a certain label is upset when people deliberately mischaracterize that identity characteristic.
Because identity exists in the order of ens rationis, that is, the objective, cognitive constructions natural to the species-specifically human form of semiosis, identity will for all concrete purposes be inextricably tied up with the influence of cultural symbols. A person's identity is always expressed with language, with labels, words created and agreed upon by a larger society to mean certain things, and hence, even if identity is primarily self-perception, expression of self-perception, and desire for acceptance, its sources are always outside the cognitive activity of the subject forming the identity.
The strange paradox arises, then, that identity is what a person asserts is most personal and yet is formed exclusively of cognitive constructs originating outside of the person and which constructs the person simply determines will be his own identity, his own uniqueness.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, our uniqueness is not and should not simply be a matter of what I say I am. My inherent accidents are unique to me not only in principle (that is, metaphysically) but in concrete; further, the transcendental relations that arise from my intersubjective activities are unique to me, that is to say, no one else in history has or ever will have the same personal history of events and behaviors. It is impossible to reproduce in principle and in concrete even if it can be imagined.
Finally, identity must be appropriated in the Christian life. St. Paul states it simply: "Now I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). Through grace and progressive union with God, we come to identify ourselves as Christ and an extension of His mystical body. But this isn't simply self-determination; it is above all cooperation, perfect cooperation through perfect docility to the interior promptings of the Holy Ghost. The transformation that occurs in our psyche must be so thorough that everything is through God, with God, and in God, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. As Aquinas so profoundly put it, grace is the beginning of eternal life.
What can we learn from this paradox of identity then, namely, that that which is most personal to me is inevitably external to me? And further, what can we learn from the fact that our ultimate identity in Christ must be founded in the self-determination, through grace, to cooperate with God's grace in progressive transforming union? We can learn that self-determination is inevitably linked with cooperation, and these two dynamics of independence and interdependence must co-exist for the proper flourishing of any living organism. This balance must be a corrective to the overemphasis in today's society on atomistic independence, the mutual apathy that follows naturally from mindless consumerism, especially of relentless social media. It is also a corrective to a lack of proper boundaries insofar as interdependence does not mean a dissolving of individuals into an incongruous whole but rather their optimal coordination with each other for their mutual and collective benefit.
The Trinity is the perfect model of this balance between independence and interdependence, where substance and relation coincide perfectly and infinitely, where self-determination and cooperation achieve a total co-incidence.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Internal Semiosis, Resonance, and the Interior Life
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange compared the interior life to the internal conversation that occurs in a man. If this interior life is natural, the conversation occurs simply with oneself, making oneself the ultimate referent of all experience: "As soon as a man ceases to be outwardly occupied, to talk with his fellow men, as soon as he is alone, even in the noisy streets of a great city, he begins to carry on a conversation with himself [....] If a man is fundamentally egotistical, his intimate conversation with himself is inspired by sensuality or pride." (Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle, ch. 2, http://christianperfection.info/tta6.php).
At the moment that a man seeks the good in honesty, the nature of this conversation changes: "He converses with himself, for example, about what is necessary to live becomingly and to support his family. This at times preoccupies him greatly; he feels his weakness and the need of placing his confidence no longer in himself alone, but in God" (ibid.). Even in the state of grace, egoism confuses and mangles this interior conversation, pushing God out as much as possible despite the soul's clearer vision of its inadequacy and dependence on God. In fact, Garrigou-Lagrange suggests that this interior conversation cannot end and implicitly points to man's need for God as well as man's final fulfillment in God, who alone can finally satisfy this interior dialogue: "The soul must converse with someone other than itself. Why? Because it is not its own last end; because its end is the living God, and it cannot rest entirely except in Him" (ibid.).
Modern psychology at its best provides scientific precision to analytical explanations of the interior, psychological processes of the intellect and soul. Often, however, where psychology gets something correct, we find such points already explicated in the writings and experiences of the Saints, at least in nascent or unscientific form. St. Paul famously experienced the interior struggle between what he saw was good and what he hated as evil:
Perhaps a semiotic analysis of human psychology would provide some helpful insights for spiritual growth. We know from experience that when a man works on growing in self-knowledge and discernment, the unconscious aspects of his moral actions eventually come to light. We also know from the experience of the Saints that where sinful tendencies reside in these unconscious dimensions, grace and asceticism eventually purify and heal the psyche of these tendencies. Here is a simple refutation of the omnipotence of the unconscious. Transformation in Christ is where the Saint may say truly, "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
This internal dialogue, often the source of many self-destructive tendencies, especially to despair in various forms, is nothing other than a process of "private semiosis," the internal activity of signs in the human mind as it processes its environment and itself in some unified way. Conversation is speech, and speech consists of signs; human language is nothing other than that form of sign use unique to humans: anthroposemiosis. This semiosis is private insofar as it occurs immanently in the mind, seen in its immediate, raw form only by the individual and God although it may be expressed in a mediated way to others—mediated because only we can experience the fullness of what we experience.
But sign activity, or semiosis, for humans occurs in multiple dimensions since the human alone of all animals can distinguish between signs as such and all other forms of reality, between subject and object, between actual and ideal. Much of the activity that informs our conscious semiosis is subconscious. For example, when we read a novel, we subconsciously take on the role of a reader who understands that we are entering into a fictional world. Did we make the conscious, private semiosic choice to take on this interpretive stance? No (although we could if we so chose). We switch between interpretive modes for all genres of text, and we do something similar when we enter different social settings and engage with different people. Even where there is the conscious awareness of making certain switches, for example, "I must not use vulgarity when I'm around grandma," we might tell ourselves privately, there are other aspects of this switch that we often are not aware of; for example, what is the prior condition that prompts us to tell ourselves that we ought not to use vulgarity around our elders? This prompting is a semiosic process that we might become aware of, just like we might become aware of our breathing at any moment if we so chose to pay attention and knew what to look for, but just like our breathing, these processes often remain on the subconscious level.
Perhaps we can see the distinction between conscious and subconscious precisely in terms of relation, a relation to intentional awareness or the lack thereof. Following a Lacanian line of thinking regarding the unconscious, the unconscious is precisely everything other than the conscious remaining in human experience, encompassing the aspects of the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic; this residue or overflow occurs because conscious processing of our experience always leaves something to be desired, something missing; language is often insufficient—we find ourselves at a loss for words as the saying goes. Hence analogously, just as God is precisely everything other than created, finite beings (and by extension, the concept of God is precisely a concept consisting of an amalgamation of relations by which we conceive that God is not this, nor that, nor that), so too our unconscious is everything other than consciously filtered experience through our private semiosis.
Hence the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious all converge simultaneously to create the presently processed experience of our environments. Deepening our self-knowledge allows us to identify these different strands and how they are functioning at any given moment. Perhaps this lack of self-knowledge or despair of possibly attaining to it in atheistic psychologies has led to the idea that the unconscious inescapably dominates all our behavior. There is truth to the experience that often we seem to lose control of ourselves, that our emotions seem to be out of our control, our thoughts run on endlessly, often laboriously (even St. Teresa of Avila complained about this on multiple occasions). Much of this lack of control for the average person certainly stems from a lack of self-knowledge and the tools to deal with and integrate the different dimensions of our experience. (We might also postulate that this lack of control may be the result of a sensitive temperament that is more attuned to the multiple effects of one's surrounding and/or the result of a sensitivity that comes from ascetic and mystical purification by which one is keenly aware of the different spirits affecting our behaviors, thoughts, etc.; maybe some combination of the above was the case with St. Teresa, whose almost constant contemplation bombarded her soul with new infusions of grace, overwhelming her and overflowing into the bodily dimension of her being, sometimes painfully.) With self-knowledge and discipline, these different dimension can be identified, organized, and trained even on the natural plane.
But first, we need to understand why the process of the constant bombardment of shifting emotions and internal dialogue occurs. To begin metaphysically, all being contains positive and negative dimensions, positive perfections and negative lacks due to its finite structure and the circumstances that may have vitiated its due development towards its final end. Being is simultaneously communicative and receptive, sharing its proper perfections around it and receiving the perfections of other beings, hopefully in ways complementary to its own teleological needs—e.g. rain is necessary for plant growth, but too much rain may drown the plant. Hence we may say there is complementary communication and non-complementary communication (where complementary is understood in relation to aiding a being's fulfillment of its final end).
Our relation to reality encompasses these perfections in an intentional form, and our semiosis communicates these intentional realities and perfections, which in turn constantly are those elements that bombard us. So much of this communication is occurring all the time that it seems impossible for any individual to process all of it, and we know from neuroscience just how much processing our brain does behind the scenes in order to maintain our practical functionality at any given moment. Within this bombardment is the opportunity for help or hurt. It is a common experience that we find ourselves in pain or ambient anxiety, and it seemingly arises from nowhere. Demonic influence and psychological disorder momentarily set aside for theoretical reasons in this analysis, it may very well be that a steady bombardment of non-complementary being has slowly accumulated within our souls, leading to affective experiences of pain, anxiety, etc. It may also be that this accumulation resonates in a certain way with already present stores of past accumulations of pain, going back even into early childhood or gestation. Psychology has been able to show just how influential these formative years are and how devastating they may be if a child is not given a properly nurturing upbringing.
The old children's rhyme about sticks, stones, and words never hurting us is simply a child's denial of a very painful reality, its attempt to gain control over what feels beyond its control, the overwhelming overflow of communicated being (or perhaps non-being in the sense of moral evil) leading to pain. The rhyme then seeks to contain the pain through the use of words, but this misses the point because the child clearly does not have the experience or psychological maturity or discernment in order to properly face such pain.
As different webs and spirals of semiosis accumulate in the soul by forming qualities in the manner of habits—and here I am being more speculative than before—perhaps it is precisely in this way that the soul informs the body in a secondary manner—the primary manner being that the soul provides the basic constitutive framework of this kind of living animal—, in the manner of how quality is respect to form as quantity is respect to matter. Habits, while being qualities in the soul, clearly have physical effects in the body; neural networks are formed in habits, for example. As the soul is informed by semiosic processes, so too the body responds accordingly. And perhaps the movement is reciprocal: as the body is affected by external forces beyond the soul's control, the soul is affected, or at least its full and proper expression through the body. Hence, physical and mental disabilities that impede the proper development and expression of normative human intellectual activity.
Regardless of how the above process works, the accumulations of semiotic webs within the soul, both conscious and unconscious, then lead to qualities that affect bodily development and render certain patterns of behavior easier, swifter, and accompanied by a certain spiritual and bodily delight. The quality of a soul informed by a habit and its subsequent informing of the body renders a person apt for the actualization of these habits, creating what we might call a "resonance."
Just as in acoustics, room resonance depends on the wall matter, sound, and location all interacting simultaneously to create a booming effect, or just as pitch resonances may create sympathetic vibrations when certain conditions are met, when certain semiosic processes converge in a human informed with this habitual quality, a resonance may occur, rendering the actualization of the habit immediate, facile, and delightful, perhaps even overwhelming in a certain sense.
Thus the pain of a person trapped in vice—the convergence of these semiosic processes is nothing other than what is called a temptation. At the moment of this convergence, the communication of intentional non-complementary being creates a certain resonance, striving to activate the soul, whose vicious quality renders it apt for reacting in this vicious way. Thus the psychological experience of the temptation may feel overwhelming.
Similarly, for a person formed in a virtuous habit, when the proper semiosic conditions converge, the virtue is activated, the morally good action executed with delight, sometimes with a deep relish at having accomplished the good, even simple goods.
And just as conditions may create resonance based on the qualitative predisposition of a soul formed in this habit, so too opposite conditions may resonate very poorly if at all in people with the opposite qualities respectively. Hence what used to be a temptation to a soul now is hardly a blip in its habitual, qualitative orientation towards the good; likewise, a stimulus to good may be experienced for a soul trapped in sin as painful, dissonant, and hardly moving. The semiosic communication is jarring with the quality of the soul; the being that is being communicated is not converging properly with the soul informed or disformed by these qualities. We see analogous clashes in the realm of physical organisms all the time, where external conditions and the subjective constitution of an organism or seed do not converge to lead to the flourishing of the organism.
But lest this process seem to be another form of omnipotence, shifting from the unconscious to these semiosic processes, it must be remembered that conscious semiosis in the human is the discursive reason, guiding and directing the will, creating the conditions for freedom. Clearly the freedom of a soul trapped in sin is encumbered but can never be totally destroyed without destroying discursive reason itself. Hence these semiosic processes are both the condition for freedom as well as the possibility for either its hindrance or development, just as water is a necessary condition for the growth of plant life, but too little, too much, or contaminated water will kill the plant. The will must still choose, and the will can direct the intentionality of these semiosic processes, guiding them in certain limited ways, depending on the various conditions, both external and internal. Qualities are supposed to aid the soul in the proper guidance of these processes, in the proper flourishing of the rational aspect of human nature.
Grace enters. We say that grace perfects nature. Grace is a communication in the divine life, a participation, or in other words, a relation. This is precisely semiosis on the divine level, entering through an analogous, accidental, created, physical mode into the soul. Without grace, the private semiosis of an individual would begin at conception and crash into oblivion at death. Grace thus creates a relation between the soul and God and creates an elevation of those dimensions that exist in the soul, giving them an orientation to the divine or at least the conditions that make possible the development of this orientation. Hence the accumulated semioses remain, but grace now offers and provides a "defrag" program for the soul. There is certainly an extent to which the soul may do this itself—the active purifications and ascetical stages of the spiritual life constitute this extent. But the end for which God has made man goes beyond man's natural, immanent capacities, and besides which, the wounds of sin that remain render the accumulation of harmful semioses sometimes overwhelming, something experienced sometimes as loss of total control, addiction.
The conversation, the private semiosis, may now turn to God. God's semiosis enters into the soul; the Trinity makes its dwelling in the heart. The Logos communicates the fullness of the divinity. The Holy Ghost consumes and transforms. The Father guides the soul lovingly, teaching, listening, aiding, assuring.
We also believe there is a Communion of Saints. Communion involves communication, reception, relation, a sharing, a participation. The semiosis of grace extends not only to the Deity but to those who are linked by grace to God.
These are the helps that the soul needs. Nevertheless, those resonances remain, the resonances of already formed habits. The struggle is arduous, but the soul is assured of divine assistance, a true omnipotence, the omnipotence of God and the shared, participated omnipotence of the Blessed Mother, who obtains for us all that we need. The theological virtues create wellsprings, new qualities in the soul, by which the old resonances may be combatted not only on the natural plane but also the supernatural.
Here it must be remarked one particular difficulty people have in allowing grace to establish a new, supernatural quality. Faith is the virtue by which we attain to God as revealed and revealing Truth. St. John of the Cross interestingly argues that living faith alone is the proximate and proportionate means of union with God. What does this mean semiotically? Simply that the semiosis of faith is experienced psychologically as pure emptiness, darkness, nothing except the will's constant clinging to God despite all other competing strands of semiosis in the psyche.
Here we can see why so many people get lost in secondary matters of faith and, although they intellectually adhere or profess to the matters of faith and their extensions to different aspects of the Church and Christian life, this faith doesn't seem to transform them as it ought. For example, focusing on issues, such as the pro-life movement, personal devotions, political topics, like women priests, sexual morality, marriage, or issues of liturgy, tradition, and doctrine—these are all secondary to faith. Faith primarily attains to God and secondarily applies to all else insofar as it stands in relation to God revealing. Hence faith is meant to unite us perfectly to God and not to these secondary matters. St. John of the Cross insists that a person who places importance on these secondary issues is, despite these issues being related to faith, hindering their union with God through faith. The following quotation focuses only on devotions and the Mass, for example:
To repeat: meditation is not a clinging to human semiosis, but an efficient tool to redirect human semiosis to free the soul of its accumulated vicious qualities so that these accumulations don't completely stifle and freeze the flowering of faith in the soul. Meditation should be leading us to become more and more humble and detached from our private conceptions and semiosis and becoming more and more attached to God, conversing with Him, remaining recollected in Him, not ourselves, going out of ourselves as St. John of the Cross would say, forgetting ourselves.
Someday, by God's grace, we shall attain to that state where our private semiosis is directed by the Holy Ghost perfectly, so that although we experience reality with our accumulated past and individuality, it is filtered and subsumed harmoniously and without resistance by the divine semiosis of Christ: "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
At the moment that a man seeks the good in honesty, the nature of this conversation changes: "He converses with himself, for example, about what is necessary to live becomingly and to support his family. This at times preoccupies him greatly; he feels his weakness and the need of placing his confidence no longer in himself alone, but in God" (ibid.). Even in the state of grace, egoism confuses and mangles this interior conversation, pushing God out as much as possible despite the soul's clearer vision of its inadequacy and dependence on God. In fact, Garrigou-Lagrange suggests that this interior conversation cannot end and implicitly points to man's need for God as well as man's final fulfillment in God, who alone can finally satisfy this interior dialogue: "The soul must converse with someone other than itself. Why? Because it is not its own last end; because its end is the living God, and it cannot rest entirely except in Him" (ibid.).
Modern psychology at its best provides scientific precision to analytical explanations of the interior, psychological processes of the intellect and soul. Often, however, where psychology gets something correct, we find such points already explicated in the writings and experiences of the Saints, at least in nascent or unscientific form. St. Paul famously experienced the interior struggle between what he saw was good and what he hated as evil:
For that which I work, I understand not. For I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I will not, I consent to the law, that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do. Now if I do that which I will not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin. (Romans 7:15–25; DR trans.)And Psalm 19 says, "Who can understand sins? from my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord" (v. 12). These verses posit that there exists a dimension of the broken personality, caught up in sin, in conflict with the conscious striving towards virtue. There is a contrast in Paul between flesh and mind yet almost as if the flesh had a mind and will of its own. Modern psychology would distinguish these dimensions as the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious. The exact nature of these different aspects can lead to serious error in a philosophy of human nature, and it's clear that much of modern psychology has tended towards a mechanistic reductionism of the human psyche, where the unconscious takes on some kind of overwhelming force. Without going to these extremes, it seems reasonable that we often act out of a plurality of motives, some of which we do not discern until we reflect later on our actions with deeper insight. The increase of self-knowledge is not merely quantitative—I know more and more truths about my personality—but also qualitative—I know my personality more deeply than before, its patterns, tendencies, weaknesses, and also very importantly, its strengths, some of which due to my God-given temperament.
Perhaps a semiotic analysis of human psychology would provide some helpful insights for spiritual growth. We know from experience that when a man works on growing in self-knowledge and discernment, the unconscious aspects of his moral actions eventually come to light. We also know from the experience of the Saints that where sinful tendencies reside in these unconscious dimensions, grace and asceticism eventually purify and heal the psyche of these tendencies. Here is a simple refutation of the omnipotence of the unconscious. Transformation in Christ is where the Saint may say truly, "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
This internal dialogue, often the source of many self-destructive tendencies, especially to despair in various forms, is nothing other than a process of "private semiosis," the internal activity of signs in the human mind as it processes its environment and itself in some unified way. Conversation is speech, and speech consists of signs; human language is nothing other than that form of sign use unique to humans: anthroposemiosis. This semiosis is private insofar as it occurs immanently in the mind, seen in its immediate, raw form only by the individual and God although it may be expressed in a mediated way to others—mediated because only we can experience the fullness of what we experience.
But sign activity, or semiosis, for humans occurs in multiple dimensions since the human alone of all animals can distinguish between signs as such and all other forms of reality, between subject and object, between actual and ideal. Much of the activity that informs our conscious semiosis is subconscious. For example, when we read a novel, we subconsciously take on the role of a reader who understands that we are entering into a fictional world. Did we make the conscious, private semiosic choice to take on this interpretive stance? No (although we could if we so chose). We switch between interpretive modes for all genres of text, and we do something similar when we enter different social settings and engage with different people. Even where there is the conscious awareness of making certain switches, for example, "I must not use vulgarity when I'm around grandma," we might tell ourselves privately, there are other aspects of this switch that we often are not aware of; for example, what is the prior condition that prompts us to tell ourselves that we ought not to use vulgarity around our elders? This prompting is a semiosic process that we might become aware of, just like we might become aware of our breathing at any moment if we so chose to pay attention and knew what to look for, but just like our breathing, these processes often remain on the subconscious level.
Perhaps we can see the distinction between conscious and subconscious precisely in terms of relation, a relation to intentional awareness or the lack thereof. Following a Lacanian line of thinking regarding the unconscious, the unconscious is precisely everything other than the conscious remaining in human experience, encompassing the aspects of the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic; this residue or overflow occurs because conscious processing of our experience always leaves something to be desired, something missing; language is often insufficient—we find ourselves at a loss for words as the saying goes. Hence analogously, just as God is precisely everything other than created, finite beings (and by extension, the concept of God is precisely a concept consisting of an amalgamation of relations by which we conceive that God is not this, nor that, nor that), so too our unconscious is everything other than consciously filtered experience through our private semiosis.
Hence the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious all converge simultaneously to create the presently processed experience of our environments. Deepening our self-knowledge allows us to identify these different strands and how they are functioning at any given moment. Perhaps this lack of self-knowledge or despair of possibly attaining to it in atheistic psychologies has led to the idea that the unconscious inescapably dominates all our behavior. There is truth to the experience that often we seem to lose control of ourselves, that our emotions seem to be out of our control, our thoughts run on endlessly, often laboriously (even St. Teresa of Avila complained about this on multiple occasions). Much of this lack of control for the average person certainly stems from a lack of self-knowledge and the tools to deal with and integrate the different dimensions of our experience. (We might also postulate that this lack of control may be the result of a sensitive temperament that is more attuned to the multiple effects of one's surrounding and/or the result of a sensitivity that comes from ascetic and mystical purification by which one is keenly aware of the different spirits affecting our behaviors, thoughts, etc.; maybe some combination of the above was the case with St. Teresa, whose almost constant contemplation bombarded her soul with new infusions of grace, overwhelming her and overflowing into the bodily dimension of her being, sometimes painfully.) With self-knowledge and discipline, these different dimension can be identified, organized, and trained even on the natural plane.
But first, we need to understand why the process of the constant bombardment of shifting emotions and internal dialogue occurs. To begin metaphysically, all being contains positive and negative dimensions, positive perfections and negative lacks due to its finite structure and the circumstances that may have vitiated its due development towards its final end. Being is simultaneously communicative and receptive, sharing its proper perfections around it and receiving the perfections of other beings, hopefully in ways complementary to its own teleological needs—e.g. rain is necessary for plant growth, but too much rain may drown the plant. Hence we may say there is complementary communication and non-complementary communication (where complementary is understood in relation to aiding a being's fulfillment of its final end).
Our relation to reality encompasses these perfections in an intentional form, and our semiosis communicates these intentional realities and perfections, which in turn constantly are those elements that bombard us. So much of this communication is occurring all the time that it seems impossible for any individual to process all of it, and we know from neuroscience just how much processing our brain does behind the scenes in order to maintain our practical functionality at any given moment. Within this bombardment is the opportunity for help or hurt. It is a common experience that we find ourselves in pain or ambient anxiety, and it seemingly arises from nowhere. Demonic influence and psychological disorder momentarily set aside for theoretical reasons in this analysis, it may very well be that a steady bombardment of non-complementary being has slowly accumulated within our souls, leading to affective experiences of pain, anxiety, etc. It may also be that this accumulation resonates in a certain way with already present stores of past accumulations of pain, going back even into early childhood or gestation. Psychology has been able to show just how influential these formative years are and how devastating they may be if a child is not given a properly nurturing upbringing.
The old children's rhyme about sticks, stones, and words never hurting us is simply a child's denial of a very painful reality, its attempt to gain control over what feels beyond its control, the overwhelming overflow of communicated being (or perhaps non-being in the sense of moral evil) leading to pain. The rhyme then seeks to contain the pain through the use of words, but this misses the point because the child clearly does not have the experience or psychological maturity or discernment in order to properly face such pain.
As different webs and spirals of semiosis accumulate in the soul by forming qualities in the manner of habits—and here I am being more speculative than before—perhaps it is precisely in this way that the soul informs the body in a secondary manner—the primary manner being that the soul provides the basic constitutive framework of this kind of living animal—, in the manner of how quality is respect to form as quantity is respect to matter. Habits, while being qualities in the soul, clearly have physical effects in the body; neural networks are formed in habits, for example. As the soul is informed by semiosic processes, so too the body responds accordingly. And perhaps the movement is reciprocal: as the body is affected by external forces beyond the soul's control, the soul is affected, or at least its full and proper expression through the body. Hence, physical and mental disabilities that impede the proper development and expression of normative human intellectual activity.
Regardless of how the above process works, the accumulations of semiotic webs within the soul, both conscious and unconscious, then lead to qualities that affect bodily development and render certain patterns of behavior easier, swifter, and accompanied by a certain spiritual and bodily delight. The quality of a soul informed by a habit and its subsequent informing of the body renders a person apt for the actualization of these habits, creating what we might call a "resonance."
Just as in acoustics, room resonance depends on the wall matter, sound, and location all interacting simultaneously to create a booming effect, or just as pitch resonances may create sympathetic vibrations when certain conditions are met, when certain semiosic processes converge in a human informed with this habitual quality, a resonance may occur, rendering the actualization of the habit immediate, facile, and delightful, perhaps even overwhelming in a certain sense.
Thus the pain of a person trapped in vice—the convergence of these semiosic processes is nothing other than what is called a temptation. At the moment of this convergence, the communication of intentional non-complementary being creates a certain resonance, striving to activate the soul, whose vicious quality renders it apt for reacting in this vicious way. Thus the psychological experience of the temptation may feel overwhelming.
Similarly, for a person formed in a virtuous habit, when the proper semiosic conditions converge, the virtue is activated, the morally good action executed with delight, sometimes with a deep relish at having accomplished the good, even simple goods.
And just as conditions may create resonance based on the qualitative predisposition of a soul formed in this habit, so too opposite conditions may resonate very poorly if at all in people with the opposite qualities respectively. Hence what used to be a temptation to a soul now is hardly a blip in its habitual, qualitative orientation towards the good; likewise, a stimulus to good may be experienced for a soul trapped in sin as painful, dissonant, and hardly moving. The semiosic communication is jarring with the quality of the soul; the being that is being communicated is not converging properly with the soul informed or disformed by these qualities. We see analogous clashes in the realm of physical organisms all the time, where external conditions and the subjective constitution of an organism or seed do not converge to lead to the flourishing of the organism.
But lest this process seem to be another form of omnipotence, shifting from the unconscious to these semiosic processes, it must be remembered that conscious semiosis in the human is the discursive reason, guiding and directing the will, creating the conditions for freedom. Clearly the freedom of a soul trapped in sin is encumbered but can never be totally destroyed without destroying discursive reason itself. Hence these semiosic processes are both the condition for freedom as well as the possibility for either its hindrance or development, just as water is a necessary condition for the growth of plant life, but too little, too much, or contaminated water will kill the plant. The will must still choose, and the will can direct the intentionality of these semiosic processes, guiding them in certain limited ways, depending on the various conditions, both external and internal. Qualities are supposed to aid the soul in the proper guidance of these processes, in the proper flourishing of the rational aspect of human nature.
Grace enters. We say that grace perfects nature. Grace is a communication in the divine life, a participation, or in other words, a relation. This is precisely semiosis on the divine level, entering through an analogous, accidental, created, physical mode into the soul. Without grace, the private semiosis of an individual would begin at conception and crash into oblivion at death. Grace thus creates a relation between the soul and God and creates an elevation of those dimensions that exist in the soul, giving them an orientation to the divine or at least the conditions that make possible the development of this orientation. Hence the accumulated semioses remain, but grace now offers and provides a "defrag" program for the soul. There is certainly an extent to which the soul may do this itself—the active purifications and ascetical stages of the spiritual life constitute this extent. But the end for which God has made man goes beyond man's natural, immanent capacities, and besides which, the wounds of sin that remain render the accumulation of harmful semioses sometimes overwhelming, something experienced sometimes as loss of total control, addiction.
The conversation, the private semiosis, may now turn to God. God's semiosis enters into the soul; the Trinity makes its dwelling in the heart. The Logos communicates the fullness of the divinity. The Holy Ghost consumes and transforms. The Father guides the soul lovingly, teaching, listening, aiding, assuring.
We also believe there is a Communion of Saints. Communion involves communication, reception, relation, a sharing, a participation. The semiosis of grace extends not only to the Deity but to those who are linked by grace to God.
These are the helps that the soul needs. Nevertheless, those resonances remain, the resonances of already formed habits. The struggle is arduous, but the soul is assured of divine assistance, a true omnipotence, the omnipotence of God and the shared, participated omnipotence of the Blessed Mother, who obtains for us all that we need. The theological virtues create wellsprings, new qualities in the soul, by which the old resonances may be combatted not only on the natural plane but also the supernatural.
Here it must be remarked one particular difficulty people have in allowing grace to establish a new, supernatural quality. Faith is the virtue by which we attain to God as revealed and revealing Truth. St. John of the Cross interestingly argues that living faith alone is the proximate and proportionate means of union with God. What does this mean semiotically? Simply that the semiosis of faith is experienced psychologically as pure emptiness, darkness, nothing except the will's constant clinging to God despite all other competing strands of semiosis in the psyche.
Here we can see why so many people get lost in secondary matters of faith and, although they intellectually adhere or profess to the matters of faith and their extensions to different aspects of the Church and Christian life, this faith doesn't seem to transform them as it ought. For example, focusing on issues, such as the pro-life movement, personal devotions, political topics, like women priests, sexual morality, marriage, or issues of liturgy, tradition, and doctrine—these are all secondary to faith. Faith primarily attains to God and secondarily applies to all else insofar as it stands in relation to God revealing. Hence faith is meant to unite us perfectly to God and not to these secondary matters. St. John of the Cross insists that a person who places importance on these secondary issues is, despite these issues being related to faith, hindering their union with God through faith. The following quotation focuses only on devotions and the Mass, for example:
These people attribute so much efficacy to methods of carrying out their devotions and prayers [....] They put more trust in these methods than they do in the living prayer [....] For example, they demand that the Mass be said with a certain number of candles, no more nor less; or that it be celebrated at a particular hour, no sooner nor later; or that it be said after a certain day, not before; [...] And regarding other ceremonies in vocal prayers and other devotions, one should not become attached to any ceremonies or modes of prayer other than those Christ taught us." (Ascent of Mount Carmel, 3.43.2, 44.4)St. John of the Cross says the way to the top of the mountain is: nada, the emptiness of pure faith, a total clinging to God in absolute darkness of intellectual and finite semioses. The divine semiosis of faith stands in absolute difference (but not indifference) to all human semioses, and to inject human semiosis into the divine semiosis of faith is to kill faith. Meditation, as St. John of the Cross teaches, is a heuristic process, temporary, by which the soul is actively weaning itself of previous vicious habits and working towards developing virtuous qualities. Think of St. Teresa of Avila's comparison of meditation to drawing water out of a well with a bucket. Meditation simply frees up the soul to a sufficient degree so that its accumulated semioses may not get in the way of the divine semiosis of faith because it often is the case that our accumulations stifle and mute faith without our even intending it to. Perhaps more precisely we should say our accumulations stifle and mute the expression and development of faith but not faith itself; otherwise, it would be impossible to remain in a state of grace unless we were already perfect! No, God, seeing our weakness, accepts the conscious intention of our will to adhere to the faith, and this is sufficient for faith to remain in the soul. Nevertheless, this state is only the beginning, and it's easy for the individual, so accustomed to created, finite semiosic processes, to confuse the divine semiosis of faith with these other finite processes, which extend to our conceptions of the Mass, of the Pope, of what the Church really should look like, and even what our spiritual life should look like. As long as we cling to human semiosis, we hinder faith.
To repeat: meditation is not a clinging to human semiosis, but an efficient tool to redirect human semiosis to free the soul of its accumulated vicious qualities so that these accumulations don't completely stifle and freeze the flowering of faith in the soul. Meditation should be leading us to become more and more humble and detached from our private conceptions and semiosis and becoming more and more attached to God, conversing with Him, remaining recollected in Him, not ourselves, going out of ourselves as St. John of the Cross would say, forgetting ourselves.
Someday, by God's grace, we shall attain to that state where our private semiosis is directed by the Holy Ghost perfectly, so that although we experience reality with our accumulated past and individuality, it is filtered and subsumed harmoniously and without resistance by the divine semiosis of Christ: "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Why Self-Knowledge Is Difficult
Notes from Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 41–44.
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Aside from the distorting effects of our fallen nature, there are two fundamental reasons for the difficulty of attaining self-knowledge: 1) "the natural bent of our attention"; 2) "the complexity and mobility of our psychic experience" (41).
1. Our attention wanders seemingly aimlessly, drawn by present sensibles, current feelings and their relations to their causes (beliefs, worries, anticipations, regrets, etc.). The flux of consciousness is so fast and fluid that it's hard to identify single factors and motions, unless they are especially pronounced or prolonged. Sometimes we dismiss what is important, thinking it is unimportant, and sometimes we exaggerate what is less important or an aftereffect.
2. The inner motions of our experience are so interrelated and numerous that often it is hard to begin somewhere, and once we have begun, it is hard to isolate one motion. Hence motions that God may introduce into us for spiritual purposes may end up being passed over as said above; they are "never brought to the scrutiny of faith-enlightened intelligence and integrated into our Christian life of free choice and love" (42). And on the other hand, due to ignorance and lack of self awareness, evil motions can hold a sway over us.
It must be remembered that awareness is difficult but possible, even necessary, to advance in the spiritual life. Repeated effort will increase the capacity for self-reflection and understanding.
Those who think that they are an open book to themselves should be warned. "They are probably reading their hearts very superficially, finding what they want to find or what they have been led to expect to find. Their easy confidence may be a barrier to real self-knowledge, which is not easily achieved" (43).
There is a great need for prayer, especially to the Holy Spirit, a prayer of trust and openness. The Holy Spirit can give us a superabundance of helps to come to understand ourselves and develop self-reflection. He alone can protect us from deceptions.
Finally, we need help from others, help from, say, St. Ignatius' rules and experienced guides. These are the human helps, or natural guides, through which Providence works and perfects in order to bring us to supernatural guidance.
Ignatius notes in his rules that these are "some rules," implying that they are neither exhaustive nor univocal. Their application must be adapted to circumstances, guided by an experienced, learned, and holy director. This application falls under the realm of prudence and discretion (44)
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Aside from the distorting effects of our fallen nature, there are two fundamental reasons for the difficulty of attaining self-knowledge: 1) "the natural bent of our attention"; 2) "the complexity and mobility of our psychic experience" (41).
1. Our attention wanders seemingly aimlessly, drawn by present sensibles, current feelings and their relations to their causes (beliefs, worries, anticipations, regrets, etc.). The flux of consciousness is so fast and fluid that it's hard to identify single factors and motions, unless they are especially pronounced or prolonged. Sometimes we dismiss what is important, thinking it is unimportant, and sometimes we exaggerate what is less important or an aftereffect.
2. The inner motions of our experience are so interrelated and numerous that often it is hard to begin somewhere, and once we have begun, it is hard to isolate one motion. Hence motions that God may introduce into us for spiritual purposes may end up being passed over as said above; they are "never brought to the scrutiny of faith-enlightened intelligence and integrated into our Christian life of free choice and love" (42). And on the other hand, due to ignorance and lack of self awareness, evil motions can hold a sway over us.
It must be remembered that awareness is difficult but possible, even necessary, to advance in the spiritual life. Repeated effort will increase the capacity for self-reflection and understanding.
Those who think that they are an open book to themselves should be warned. "They are probably reading their hearts very superficially, finding what they want to find or what they have been led to expect to find. Their easy confidence may be a barrier to real self-knowledge, which is not easily achieved" (43).
There is a great need for prayer, especially to the Holy Spirit, a prayer of trust and openness. The Holy Spirit can give us a superabundance of helps to come to understand ourselves and develop self-reflection. He alone can protect us from deceptions.
Finally, we need help from others, help from, say, St. Ignatius' rules and experienced guides. These are the human helps, or natural guides, through which Providence works and perfects in order to bring us to supernatural guidance.
Ignatius notes in his rules that these are "some rules," implying that they are neither exhaustive nor univocal. Their application must be adapted to circumstances, guided by an experienced, learned, and holy director. This application falls under the realm of prudence and discretion (44)
The Purpose of St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises & Discernment of Spirits
[39] The overall goal is the removal of obstacles in us to the one certain expression of love for God, our seeking sincerely to find and do his will (Spiritual Exercises, no. 1), and so enabling us to grow toward the ideal of hearts so pure as to experience God's revelation of himself in all things, and to live lives in Christ totally dedicated to thanksgiving, praise, and service, or, in other words, to doing always what is for the greater glory of God (Spiritual Exercises, no. 230). The way to such purity of heart is mainly contemplation of God's love revealed in Jesus as he is seen in the Gospels—contemplating in such a way as to experience his personal love "for me" and so to enter into intimate personal relationship with him, taking on his mind and heart.
Growth into such purity of heart is God's work in us, impossible to achieve merely by our own efforts, but not to be effected by God without our free response and effort. So it is of essential importance to be able to recognize when God is acting on our consciousness and to know when it is not God, but our own selves, or the prodding of the world, or of Satan. Only so, can we by our free choice open ourselves to God's influence and close out anything opposed to it.
The Threefold Purpose of the Rules: to Notice, to Understand, to Accept or Reject
Accordingly, when he comes to write his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, Ignatius states that they are "to help persons get in touch with and understand in some manner the diverse motions which are prompted in them, in order to receive the good ones and expel the evil ones." If we analyze this statement, we can see that [40] it proposes three aims in an ordered series: (1) to help us get in touch with—that is, to become reflectively and discriminatingly aware of—the spiritually significant motions among all those in the whole mass of motions swarming in our consciousness; (2) to help us to a practical "understanding" of these perceived motions; and (3) to enable us intelligently to receive or expel these spiritually significant motions. The first purpose is for the sake of the second and makes it possible; the second in turn is for the sake of the third and makes it possible. The first two are so closely bound together that they can be discussed as one combined purpose. [...]
Ignatius assumes that those who study these rules will truly desire their third and ultimate purpose; they will want to open themselves wide to the movements from God and allow them to influence their lives in whatever way God intends by giving them; they will respond with decision and action when this is called for. On the other hand, he assumes that such persons will be ready to resist the movements from Satan and thrust them out. [...]
[41] An obvious condition for the possibility of understanding the spiritually significant motions within our minds and affectivities is our becoming aware of them. This is, therefore, the first purpose of the rules, to help us become perceptively aware of what is going on within us. This purpose involves more than mere consciousness of the motions; it involves reflective and discriminating attention. All the motions of which Ignatius speaks are conscious acts or feelings, but generally most of them are not attended to reflectively. In fact, when we make the effort to attend to them we find it very difficult to do so.
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 39–41
Growth into such purity of heart is God's work in us, impossible to achieve merely by our own efforts, but not to be effected by God without our free response and effort. So it is of essential importance to be able to recognize when God is acting on our consciousness and to know when it is not God, but our own selves, or the prodding of the world, or of Satan. Only so, can we by our free choice open ourselves to God's influence and close out anything opposed to it.
The Threefold Purpose of the Rules: to Notice, to Understand, to Accept or Reject
Accordingly, when he comes to write his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, Ignatius states that they are "to help persons get in touch with and understand in some manner the diverse motions which are prompted in them, in order to receive the good ones and expel the evil ones." If we analyze this statement, we can see that [40] it proposes three aims in an ordered series: (1) to help us get in touch with—that is, to become reflectively and discriminatingly aware of—the spiritually significant motions among all those in the whole mass of motions swarming in our consciousness; (2) to help us to a practical "understanding" of these perceived motions; and (3) to enable us intelligently to receive or expel these spiritually significant motions. The first purpose is for the sake of the second and makes it possible; the second in turn is for the sake of the third and makes it possible. The first two are so closely bound together that they can be discussed as one combined purpose. [...]
Ignatius assumes that those who study these rules will truly desire their third and ultimate purpose; they will want to open themselves wide to the movements from God and allow them to influence their lives in whatever way God intends by giving them; they will respond with decision and action when this is called for. On the other hand, he assumes that such persons will be ready to resist the movements from Satan and thrust them out. [...]
[41] An obvious condition for the possibility of understanding the spiritually significant motions within our minds and affectivities is our becoming aware of them. This is, therefore, the first purpose of the rules, to help us become perceptively aware of what is going on within us. This purpose involves more than mere consciousness of the motions; it involves reflective and discriminating attention. All the motions of which Ignatius speaks are conscious acts or feelings, but generally most of them are not attended to reflectively. In fact, when we make the effort to attend to them we find it very difficult to do so.
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 39–41
St. Ignatius' Meaning of Interior Motions
[37] What Ignatius refers to by motions in the soul is the flux of thoughts (such as judgments about God, self, the world, plans, lines of reasoning, lines of association, or imaginings), and of affective acts (such as love, hate, desire, or fear), and of affective feelings (such as peace, warmth, coldness, sweetness, bitterness, buoyancy, or depression). Among all these motions Ignatius sees some to be of special interest for anyone who is trying to open himself to the Holy Spirit and to resist the influence of the evil spirit. These are motions which of themselves, and therefore in every instance, tend to build up or to tear down the Christ-life in us. Their unvarying thrust is toward having a beneficial or harmful influence on faith, hope, charity, prayer, personal relationships, apostolic work, decisions that give direction to our life as Christians, and the like. [...]
[38] [These motions] are such that, if they are accepted and allowed to work or are cooperated with, they will inevitably have such effects; but they do not necessarily, of themselves, have an actual constructive or destructive effect. Those which of themselves tend to a destructive effect can be resisted and become the occasion of actual spiritual growth. Those which of themselves tend to have a constructive effect can be ignored, resisted, or even misused, and so be the occasion for sin and regression in Christian life. What effect they actually have depends on what we do with them. No person who experiences them is worthy of praise or condemnation only for having had one or other of them. "I am not going to be saved," Ignatius writes elsewhere in reference to these motions, "because of the good works of the good angels"—that is, because of the good motions they prompt in me—"and I am not going to be condemned because of the evil thoughts and the weaknesses the bad angels, the flesh, and the world bring before my mind" (Letter of Sept. 11, 1536 to Sister Teresa Rejadell). [...]
[40] Understanding a motion comprises [41] at least three things. First, we recognize the characteristic features by which it is distinguished from other motions. Second, we see the direction in which it of itself points or leads us, its likely or actually effected consequences. Third, we know its origin. In a spiritual understanding, we recognize those features which distinguish spiritually significant motions from others; and among the former, we distinguish one sort from another. We see the good or evil consequences for a Christian life to which the motion of itself tends; and from these two elements of spiritual understanding, we infer the good or evil origin.
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 37–38, 40–41.
[38] [These motions] are such that, if they are accepted and allowed to work or are cooperated with, they will inevitably have such effects; but they do not necessarily, of themselves, have an actual constructive or destructive effect. Those which of themselves tend to a destructive effect can be resisted and become the occasion of actual spiritual growth. Those which of themselves tend to have a constructive effect can be ignored, resisted, or even misused, and so be the occasion for sin and regression in Christian life. What effect they actually have depends on what we do with them. No person who experiences them is worthy of praise or condemnation only for having had one or other of them. "I am not going to be saved," Ignatius writes elsewhere in reference to these motions, "because of the good works of the good angels"—that is, because of the good motions they prompt in me—"and I am not going to be condemned because of the evil thoughts and the weaknesses the bad angels, the flesh, and the world bring before my mind" (Letter of Sept. 11, 1536 to Sister Teresa Rejadell). [...]
[40] Understanding a motion comprises [41] at least three things. First, we recognize the characteristic features by which it is distinguished from other motions. Second, we see the direction in which it of itself points or leads us, its likely or actually effected consequences. Third, we know its origin. In a spiritual understanding, we recognize those features which distinguish spiritually significant motions from others; and among the former, we distinguish one sort from another. We see the good or evil consequences for a Christian life to which the motion of itself tends; and from these two elements of spiritual understanding, we infer the good or evil origin.
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 37–38, 40–41.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Distinction: "Lifelong Catholic" vs. Living Catholic
There is really only one use for describing oneself as a "lifelong Catholic": a statement of chronological fact regarding one's self conception. In other words, it describes a fact of time—that the lifelong Catholic was baptized soon after birth, confirmed, received First Communion, etc., continued attending Mass throughout life, receiving sacraments, perhaps praying.
But what good is a label in itself? I can call attention to any other "chronological fact" regarding myself—I'm a lifelong brown-haired male. Or I can state a fact regarding how I view myself (self-conception), a view that may change with time; e.g. in high school I believed I was ugly because I had acne.
The label and the self-conception are morally neutral, psychological qualities. These qualities may be harmful or beneficial to our flourishing and striving for happiness. There is, however, no intrinsic point in any of these labels. The labels are spoken so as to be used, to set oneself in relation to something else. Hence labels, while neutral qualities in themselves, are always concretely employed in relation to something else; hence enters their political dimension.
However, I want to draw attention to how a person will call himself a "lifelong Catholic." Usually this label is spoken in order to give moral or political weight and authority to what is said; it serves as a sometimes-very-subtle power play, a badge of honor or pride, saying, "Look at me. I've lived this all my life. My opinion therefore is worth something."
But the problem is that being a "lifelong" anything doesn't guarantee mastery. One could be a lifelong entrepreneur, manager, woodworker, painter, etc. Length of experience certainly exposes one to more possibilities, but it in itself does not guarantee mastery. Mastery requires deliberation and intentionality, usually growing through a slow, heuristic process; sometimes, however, such deliberation draws out an intrinsic genius and leads to spontaneous leaps (punctuated growth rather than gradual).
Hence, the label "lifelong x" is an expression of unconscious pride. The label of the Saint is "I am a sinner; don't listen to me but to Christ, to the doctors, to the Church" (paradoxically in so doing, the Saints then become listened to themselves precisely because they submit their experience and knowledge to the greater tradition and judgment of the Church). The self-styled expert, or "lifelong Catholic," reveals himself to be a novice. If the "lifelong Catholic" would only realize that salvation and sanctification can be lost in a single moment, a single moral act, that salvation is not guaranteed, that the grace of perseverance must always be begged for, that the mystical life, just as with any art and virtue, must be advanced upon by calm and persevering deliberation that is oblivious to time and the growth of which is not set in proportion to the length of time that has passed, then perhaps that lifelong Catholic may actually become a living Catholic, which is the only kind of Catholic that is worth anything for glorifying God, working for the salvation of souls, and being saved.
But what good is a label in itself? I can call attention to any other "chronological fact" regarding myself—I'm a lifelong brown-haired male. Or I can state a fact regarding how I view myself (self-conception), a view that may change with time; e.g. in high school I believed I was ugly because I had acne.
The label and the self-conception are morally neutral, psychological qualities. These qualities may be harmful or beneficial to our flourishing and striving for happiness. There is, however, no intrinsic point in any of these labels. The labels are spoken so as to be used, to set oneself in relation to something else. Hence labels, while neutral qualities in themselves, are always concretely employed in relation to something else; hence enters their political dimension.
However, I want to draw attention to how a person will call himself a "lifelong Catholic." Usually this label is spoken in order to give moral or political weight and authority to what is said; it serves as a sometimes-very-subtle power play, a badge of honor or pride, saying, "Look at me. I've lived this all my life. My opinion therefore is worth something."
But the problem is that being a "lifelong" anything doesn't guarantee mastery. One could be a lifelong entrepreneur, manager, woodworker, painter, etc. Length of experience certainly exposes one to more possibilities, but it in itself does not guarantee mastery. Mastery requires deliberation and intentionality, usually growing through a slow, heuristic process; sometimes, however, such deliberation draws out an intrinsic genius and leads to spontaneous leaps (punctuated growth rather than gradual).
Hence, the label "lifelong x" is an expression of unconscious pride. The label of the Saint is "I am a sinner; don't listen to me but to Christ, to the doctors, to the Church" (paradoxically in so doing, the Saints then become listened to themselves precisely because they submit their experience and knowledge to the greater tradition and judgment of the Church). The self-styled expert, or "lifelong Catholic," reveals himself to be a novice. If the "lifelong Catholic" would only realize that salvation and sanctification can be lost in a single moment, a single moral act, that salvation is not guaranteed, that the grace of perseverance must always be begged for, that the mystical life, just as with any art and virtue, must be advanced upon by calm and persevering deliberation that is oblivious to time and the growth of which is not set in proportion to the length of time that has passed, then perhaps that lifelong Catholic may actually become a living Catholic, which is the only kind of Catholic that is worth anything for glorifying God, working for the salvation of souls, and being saved.
Mastery Requires Awareness
It seems that higher levels of mastery require deeper levels of awareness, fine tuned to details that are otherwise completely unnoticed by lay folk. What is simply a wood chair to one is a Nakashima masterpiece by another who has the eyes to see. What is simply the same wall of choral sound to one is a vastly different sound "palette" to an experienced choir director. What is simply a nice book to one is a sign of profound dedication to the craft of typesetting to another. It could be said, then, that the refinement and growth of awareness forms one of the most necessary foundations for mastery.
Appreciation is a form of awareness—awareness of goodness in another or in a deed done. Gratitude is awareness. Joy is awareness of the presence of goodness and its possession. Humility is awareness of truth.
Appreciation is a form of awareness—awareness of goodness in another or in a deed done. Gratitude is awareness. Joy is awareness of the presence of goodness and its possession. Humility is awareness of truth.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
We Must Surrender Our Plans for Ourselves
[372] Handsome constructions whose irremediable vice is to have been made by the hand of man and outside the divine plan! To consecrate one's energies to such realizations is usually to depart from the will of God.
Meanwhile, God's real designs in our regard declare themselves, upsetting our own preconceived ones. The result, at least momentarily, is discouragement and disillusionment, unless we begin to reconstruct at once in our own fashion. And perhaps God will permit us to work things out as we foresaw, and to enjoy a success which might even appear brilliant, but which is always only mediocre because superficial and human under a supernatural veneer. Our generosity was spent for ourself and our own projects; it missed the plan of God because it did not make an undetermined gift.
It is truly in the dark that one must look for the design of God; for His thoughts are above human thoughts as heaven, earth. Our God dwells in darkness; the transcendent light of [373] His Wisdom blinds our poor eyes. What is our part, what is our place in His divine plan? He alone knows. The part that we must do, the place that we are to fill, in these is our perfection. The gift of self—which is meant to be made in view of the part and place reserved to us in the divine work and edifice—must seek them in mystery and surrender to that mystery which hides and guards them jealously, awaiting the hour for realization. Thus the gift of self must be indeterminate in order not to go astray in purely human projects, but to be at one with the divine reality and truth. [...]
The holy indifference which is its fruit frees the soul from those bitter disappointments that paralyze it for a moment and sometimes break one's spirit definitely.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 372–373.
Meanwhile, God's real designs in our regard declare themselves, upsetting our own preconceived ones. The result, at least momentarily, is discouragement and disillusionment, unless we begin to reconstruct at once in our own fashion. And perhaps God will permit us to work things out as we foresaw, and to enjoy a success which might even appear brilliant, but which is always only mediocre because superficial and human under a supernatural veneer. Our generosity was spent for ourself and our own projects; it missed the plan of God because it did not make an undetermined gift.
It is truly in the dark that one must look for the design of God; for His thoughts are above human thoughts as heaven, earth. Our God dwells in darkness; the transcendent light of [373] His Wisdom blinds our poor eyes. What is our part, what is our place in His divine plan? He alone knows. The part that we must do, the place that we are to fill, in these is our perfection. The gift of self—which is meant to be made in view of the part and place reserved to us in the divine work and edifice—must seek them in mystery and surrender to that mystery which hides and guards them jealously, awaiting the hour for realization. Thus the gift of self must be indeterminate in order not to go astray in purely human projects, but to be at one with the divine reality and truth. [...]
The holy indifference which is its fruit frees the soul from those bitter disappointments that paralyze it for a moment and sometimes break one's spirit definitely.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 372–373.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Repost: Lonergan and the Desire to Know
According to Lonergan, Aristotle expressed something fundamental in the opening lines of the Metaphysics: “All men by nature desire to know.” When the animal has its physiological needs met, it sleeps, but when the human has met its needs, we do math or theology or go exploring, for our intelligence is essentially dynamic love; so long as we want to know, so long as we care and direct our intelligence towards knowing, our consciousness continues to operate in a cumulative, self-correcting, and indefinite process of accumulating data and acquiring new insights. This dynamism is for some unknown, and we seek this unknown spontaneously, by some innate tendency, although it “is a conscious tendency . . . we do so intelligently.” Children ask incessant questions, without prompting, according to some inner impetus, although the dull child, the one who does not care to know, can rarely be coaxed or coerced into knowing if he lacks the desire, for knowledge does not just happen because the external data is present but because of the interior condition of inquiry and the interior operations by which we arrive at knowing. The interior condition manifests itself in questions, for we would not ask unless there was an unknown, and we could not ask unless we sought something. Something: what we seek exists as an ideal, but not clearly or explicitly or we would already have what we were seeking.
The transcendental condition of our questions is the dynamic desire to know, and to know what is unknown, an x, and this unknown x functions as a heuristic, as an intended ideal that as yet is not appropriated or known. It is whatever is intended by the question. But what is intended by questions is not empty or abstract. The condition of questioning is transcendental—the “pure question”—but “no one just wonders. We wonder about something.” Of course, we can wonder about many things, in many different ways, and there are different heuristics at different times, in different communities, and so on. The pursuit is intelligent and conscious, but it is not conceptually explicit, and it differs and develops as questions differ and develop, so “how do you proceed methodically . . . to the attainment of something that you do not know, something which, if known, would not have to be pursued?” According to Lonergan, the solution is precisely that metatheory by which we try to catch ourselves in the act of knowing which Budziszewski judged distracting:
Source: R.J. Snell, "The Meaning(s) of Natural Law," Intercollegiate Review, June 16, 2014, accessed July 1, 2014, http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2014/06/16/the-meanings-of-natural-law/.
The transcendental condition of our questions is the dynamic desire to know, and to know what is unknown, an x, and this unknown x functions as a heuristic, as an intended ideal that as yet is not appropriated or known. It is whatever is intended by the question. But what is intended by questions is not empty or abstract. The condition of questioning is transcendental—the “pure question”—but “no one just wonders. We wonder about something.” Of course, we can wonder about many things, in many different ways, and there are different heuristics at different times, in different communities, and so on. The pursuit is intelligent and conscious, but it is not conceptually explicit, and it differs and develops as questions differ and develop, so “how do you proceed methodically . . . to the attainment of something that you do not know, something which, if known, would not have to be pursued?” According to Lonergan, the solution is precisely that metatheory by which we try to catch ourselves in the act of knowing which Budziszewski judged distracting:
The solution . . . to this problem is self-appropriation. . . . The ideal we seek in seeking the unknown, in trying to know, is conceptually implicit. There does not exist naturally, spontaneously, through the whole of history, a set of propositions, conceptions, and definitions that define the ideal of knowledge. But to say that conceptually it is implicit . . . that these statements differ in different places and at different times—they are historically conditioned—is not to say that it is nonexistent. While the conception of the ideal is not by nature, still there is something by nature. The ideal of knowledge is myself as intelligent, as asking questions, as requiring intelligible answers . . . and if we can turn in upon these fundamental tendencies, then we are on the way to getting hold. . . .---
Source: R.J. Snell, "The Meaning(s) of Natural Law," Intercollegiate Review, June 16, 2014, accessed July 1, 2014, http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2014/06/16/the-meanings-of-natural-law/.
Friday, May 30, 2014
The Signs of True Contrition
[...] Self-knowledge develops with the knowledge of God. It is united with humility and, whether it explores the structure of the soul, or reveals to man his smallness before the infinitude of divine grandeurs, or his sinful misery, it aspires only to make light reign and to make truth triumph. When self-knowledge arouses in a soul sorrowful contrition at the same time as ardent love, profound adoration and the most elevated aspirations, the feeling of its own powerlessness along with most generous resolutions, one can declare it authentic: it bears the divine mark of its origin, which is peace, spiritual balance, freedom, and fecundity.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 48.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 48.
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