Daily Excerpt: A Theology for the Rest of Us (Yavelberg) - "You're Not the Boss of Me"
excerpt from A Theology for the Rest of Us (Yavelberg) -
7 “You’re not the boss of me!” (just about any 7th
grader)
Assuming the existence of
free will, given the stakes involved—both for the individual and, in today’s
highly technological, interconnected world, for all humanity—it is obviously
imperative that people use their freedom to choose wisely. Dostoyevsky’s “Grand
Inquisitor” and Father Zossima are both right. Thousands of years of terrible
suffering, death and destruction are more than ample testimony as to just what
happens when people make the wrong decisions.
But how can one make sure
to choose wisely? Access to information is supposed to be essential to choosing
wisely and there is certainly ample information on any topic imaginable today.
Unfortunately, there is so much information available today that it has
practically become more of an obstacle than an aid. As I understand it, a
typical Sunday edition of The New York Times has more information in it
than the entire body of knowledge available in the Renaissance. Far more
intimidating is the Internet where there is an infinite amount of information
available on an infinite number of topics. How can one ever be able to sift
through all that data to come to good decisions about anything?
Yes, one can consult with
experts. However, the reason why any decision is difficult is because there are
invariably different expert opinions. When it comes to medicine, for example, I
have never understood the popular advice to “Always get a second opinion.”
Suppose one does get a second opinion? On what basis does one choose one
opinion over the other? Every reasonable expert will have comparable
credentials and will present their recommendations with compelling arguments.
To prefer one over the other presumes superior understanding than either of
them—in which case, why bother going to experts to begin with?
Combine too much
information with too many experts and the result is ever-increasing
specialization. The joke is that experts have become so specialized that they
know more and more about less and less—to the point where they know absolutely
everything about absolutely nothing! The problem with the joke is that, when
someone needs to make an important decision that can affect many lives, it just
isn’t very funny.
This dilemma is no
different in theology and religion. If it is next to impossible to make
informed choices about day-to-day life where there is a great deal of
information, how can one trust one’s judgment regarding metaphysical questions,
metaphysics literally meaning above physics? Again, there is a
lot of information and a lot of experts, but one needs to have a way of
differentiating between it all.
Religious authorities,
particularly in Western, monotheistic religions, often have a simple answer to
such questions: you don’t, so you can’t. In other words, like the Grand
Inquisitor, the assumption is that people don’t have any way to sift through
all the available data by themselves, they don’t have any way to differentiate
between all the available experts, and the stakes are way too high to allow for
mistakes. Therefore, the religious authorities need to make those decisions for
their followers. To reject those authorities is to add the sin of hubris to
one’s ignorance. As a result, those individuals who insist on making decisions
for themselves must be punished and must not be allowed to contaminate the rest
of the group.
Unfortunately, the
historical record with Western religions is pretty consistent in this regard.
Words like heresy, blasphemy, and excommunication are much
more common in Judaism, Christianity and Islam than in Taoism, Buddhism, and
Hinduism. The same is true of the term orthodox. Etymologically Greek in
origin orthos meaning correct and doxa meaning belief”
the notion that there is one and only “correct belief” is manifest in the very
first of the Biblical Ten Commandments, “Thou shall have no other gods before
me.” The reason seems obvious: Taoism and Buddhism do not focus on gods and, in
Hinduism, there are so many different gods that particular beliefs do not seem
to matter. As with any organized community, there are common ideas, rituals and
practices that keep religious groups together, but the notion of insisting on
dogma is not nearly as present in the East as in the West.
As a result, leaders in
Western religions, whether out of genuine concern for the welfare of their
followers or to protect their own power, reserve to themselves the authority to
interpret God’s will. These figures do not even allow God to intervene. In
Judaism, the Rabbis of the Talmudic Period, roughly from 70 to 700 CE, declared
that there was no more prophecy and canonized what to include in the Old
Testament and what to exclude as Apocrypha. The Councils of Carthage and Hippo
did the same with the New Testament around the year 400 CE, rejecting any
material like the Gnostic Gospels as inauthentic. Islam recognizes that Allah
has had six prophets—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed—but
Muhammed is the last and the greatest prophet. Followers of earlier prophets
are respected as “People of the Book, ”well, respected more or less, depending
on the time period and geographical location, but followers of declared
prophets like the Baha’i who came later were denounced and persecuted.
This monotheistic mindset
has led to all kinds of wars between and within these religions. Orthodox
Jewish sects excommunicate each other, Protestants battle Catholics, Shia
Muslims constantly war with Sunni Muslims, and each of these has subsets far
too numerous to list. Historically, when monotheistic religions have political
power, there have been instances of forced conversions and persecutions—again,
too many to list. That is not to say there have not been religious wars in the
East. To this day one can visit temples where Hindu and Buddhist images have
been defaced and replaced depending on which religion was in power at any
particular time, but these seem less pronounced in the East and, more
important, this intolerance is not consistent with their religious theologies.
In any event, in the
context of A Theology for the Rest of Us, DI has created a universe in
which people have free will. The ordered teleology of the universe makes it
more plausible that there is only one “DI.” The joke that “A camel is a horse
made by committee” makes a lot of sense. In fact, all these religions East and
West seem to agree there is one Source for all that exists, although there are
significant disagreements as to whether there are intermediaries between that
one Source and humanity. Problems, often with disastrous consequences, arise
not only when one claims to know exactly what that Source is or who the
intermediaries may be, but also when one feels compelled to force that
certitude on others, whether within or outside the group. If DI has created the
universe as a format in which people can have free will, to deprive people of
free will is the most primary of sins. Further, to claim that one needs to
deprive people of their free will out of love for them—otherwise, they and humanity
will face the most dire of consequences—is a claim borne of pretense,
self-interest, or delusion. How can presuming to know what the Lord of all
Creation wants for each and every individual in each and every time period and
location be anything other than the most extreme form of hubris?
Therefore, people have a
divine obligation to think for themselves. However, that does not mean that
people have to be totally alone as they process how to make those decisions.
There are and have been many teachers. They go by different names and appear
differently in different locations so that the message can be understood. In
Hinduism, for example, Krishna can take any form imaginable in order to be able
to relate to the individual as needed. But it is also true that deceivers go by
different names and appear differently in different locations. How can one
distinguish between a truly divine messenger and a false prophet?
As indicated above, the
first clue is whether the individual takes the position that “You must follow
my teachings or else!” The claim to a monopoly when it comes to spiritual
wisdom is perhaps the most important indicator to look elsewhere. On the other
hand, if someone offers teachings as teachings, allowing the student to decide
what to accept and what to reject, then there may be something of value there.
The Buddha’s dictum that we should believe nothing, no matter where we read it, or
who said it, no matter if he himself said it, unless it agrees with our own reason
and our own common sense (Thera, 1994)) is probably the best standard in this
regard. Similarly, not only do Buddhists not believe that the Buddha had a
monopoly on spiritual wisdom. They also believe that everyone has the potential
to become a “Buddha” in the sense of becoming “awakened.” That does not happen
by blindly following anyone, including the Buddha. That happens through genuine
introspection and meditation, a process unique to each individual as each
individual is different.
By the way, whether Jesus falls into this category
is controversial. His statement that “I am the way, the truth and the life.
None may approach my Father except through me” (John 14:6) suggests that Jesus
believed he had just such a monopoly— and those who make a point of quoting
this passage claim that same monopoly, albeit in His name. Historically the
Catholic Church has taken the same position. For example, there is the
pronouncement of St Fulgentius around the year 500, “Not only all pagans, but
also all Jews and all heretics and schismatics, who finish their lives outside
the Catholic Church, will go into eternal fire…” (Most ). There are many other
similar declarations.
However, the Gnostic Gospels, texts about
Jesus’s teachings that were rejected by the Church, project a more
universalistic tone. For example, in The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is reported to
have said: “The kingdom is inside of you and outside of you. When you come to
know who you are, then you will know that you are the children of the living
God” (Gospel of Thomas, Saying 3). In this context, Jesus comes across as a
teacher who is trying to help everyone realize their own divine nature. Everyone
is thus a “Son of God,” if they can just see it.
The position of the Catholic Church has
evolved as well. While still believing that Salvation is only possible through
Jesus, it is possible that those who lived before Jesus never heard of Jesus or
follow other religious paths may still follow Jesus’s path, if unwittingly. Surprising,
the Second Vatican Council in 1962 began formalizing this understanding. The
Council maintained that “all men form but one community” (Mirus, 2010). This is
true as they “all stem from the one stock which God created to people the
entire earth” and they “all share a common destiny, namely God,” whose “providence,
evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all men” (Mirus, 2010)
The issue is also controversial in Islam. There
are verses in the Koran that reject the notion that Jews and/or Christians have
any special standing relative to heaven. “The Jews and the Christians say, ‘We
are Allah’s children and His beloved ones.’ Say, ‘Then why does He
punish you for your sins?’ No, you are humans from among His creatures. He
forgives whomever He wishes and punishes whomever He wishes” (Koran
5:18). But there are also numerous sources like “But those who are faithless
and deny Our signs, they shall be the inmates of the Fire and they shall remain
in it forever” (Koran 2:39).
In any event, a good spiritual guide not only
accepts there is no monopoly of spiritual wisdom. Such a teacher also
recognizes that, since people are so different, the truth is that everyone must
follow a different path. In addition, this kind of teacher is confident that DI
cares about everyone and has the ability to help everyone reach that
mountaintop. If the individual chooses not to follow this particular teacher,
there will be others.
In this context, the question of personal
morality often arises. Does a potential teacher have to be moral in order to be
considered? While this is a popular standard, the historical record is not so
clear. First, no one is perfect, so to demand moral purity from any potential
guide is to dismiss guides altogether. Second, there have been any number of
super-creative geniuses who were not at all moral in their own lives. Albert
Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Nikola Tesla—none of these and many, many more were
not paradigms of virtue, but they nevertheless had much to offer in their areas
of expertise. That Einstein was an adulterer does not negate the value of his
Theory of Relativity.
Having said that, spiritual teachers may be
different. They, too, are human beings and, as such, cannot be expected to be
perfect. In this case, there should be some degree of consistency between what
they teach and what they practice. An easy target in this regard is the
Christian pastor who extols the virtues of Jesus’s teachings and yet lives in a
palace and preaches in an enormous temple that outshines the Biblical Temple in
Jerusalem. However, even this example is not so easy. If this pastor preaches
the value of poverty, often to increase his own wealth, then, yes, this is the
kind of hypocrisy that invalidates a potential spiritual guide. On the other
hand, if this pastor preaches that material wealth is a sign of divine blessing,
the so-called “Gospel of Wealth” then there is no inherent hypocrisy at all.
Alan Watts is another example. A brilliant
writer and philosopher who introduced many in the West to the teachings of the
East, he was also an alcoholic who eventually died of his drinking at 58. To
characterize his behavior as an addiction may be objectively accurate, but he
would argue that that term subtly undermines his life’s work. For Watts, this
life is to be enjoyed. “The problem is that people take too seriously what the
gods intended for play” (Hunt, 2020). To hear Watts tell the story, he drank
because he wanted to drink. To live a life without this pleasure would mean not
truly living at all. One can judge Watts’ behavior as one sees fit, but there
was no inherent hypocrisy there (Steve, 2007).
Ultimately, the sign of a potential spiritual guide
is that something about that guide resonates. It may not be possible to define,
but “something” strikes a chord within us that just feels right and empowering.
Of course, that is easy to say and many have been fooled by charlatans who know
how to manipulate their delusions and fears. Even so, that is ok. If one
selects a spiritual guide and that person turns out to be a false prophet,
hopefully one learns from that experience and moves on. Again, no one is
perfect and if we had perfect judgment, we would not need a spiritual guide to
begin with. Patience is also a virtue. And if the Creator of all the Universe
truly cares about us, DI will make sure that we will learn whatever we need to
learn in order to get where we need to go, however long it takes.
Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher popular in
the mid-20th Century, tells the story of a man who wanted to learn from a
recognized mystical rabbi. He walks miles and miles to this master’s town where
he was known to give talks to anyone who was interested in listening. The
student-to-be volunteers to serve the master, prepare his food, clean his
house, etc. but never attends any of the master’s public lectures. Someone asks
him: “You came all this way to learn from the master, but you never attend his
talks. Why not?” The man looks at him and answers, “I didn’t come here to
listen to the master talk. I came here to watch the master tie his shoes.”
(Sadiv, 2017. P 151).
If we want to know if someone has something of
value to teach us, see what kind of life that person leads. Like children, we
need to focus on what people do much more than what people say. If potential
spiritual guides do not demonstrate some degree of harmony in their own lives,
it is highly unlikely they will be able to help us achieve harmony in our own.
And if that person wants to force that harmony to become ours as well, we had
best run away.
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