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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