Fred Martinez's Monitor

The “Unconscious” Forces were a Moral Conscience and God’s Love Seeking a Beloved Son

Mr. Younos,

Below are my responses to your questions.

Mr. Martinez,

Of course the basic therapeutic assumption leads to certain results in the real world -- as does the basic Christian assumption. Any assumption of world-view is going to have those results. Do you think that the Christian world-view hasn't been responsible for certain undesireable results?

I disagree. Each world view has consequences. For example, if one believes there is no objective good and evil, that one is beyond good and evil, then wider sexually abusing is a consequence. For the Christian this is undesirable, but for Alderian psychology this is desirable.

Christians who sex abuse are betraying their ideal, whereas Alderians are fulfilling their ideal.

For the record, both the apostle Paul and St. Augustine spoke of overcoming personal unconscious forces. Both believed that such forces can only be overcome by God's grace. If a man doesn't believe in God, however, some other way must be theorized as to how the unconscious should be reckoned with.

Yes, but the “unconscious” forces were a moral conscience and God’s love seeking a beloved son. Read below.

Too late, O Ancient beauty, have I loved Thee." [8]

By Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

J.M.J.

If there was ever a man who could be said to have adored sex, it was Augustine. He said that he never could distinguish between 'serene affection and black lasciviousness." His youth he described as "the hellish voluptuousness of adolescence."

An unfaithful father did not give him a good example, although a saintly mother, Monica, did.

In the face of the conflict between flesh and spirit, Augustine surrendered completely to the flesh. In the year 371, he took unto himself as a common-law wife. She remains an unnamed woman who bore him a son, called Adeodatus, which means "given by God."

Augustine was a famous student in the great University of Carthage, where he combined abandonment to vice with such intellectual brilliance that he was the leader of his class.

Most people justify the way they live; that is to say, instead of fitting their lives to a philosophy, they invent a philosophy to fit their lives. Augustine was not faithful to the woman with whom he was living, and inasmuch as he had to justify his vice, he accepted the philosophy of the Manicheans, which propounded a dual principle of good and evil.

The conflict between flesh and spirit in him was resolved by the heresy of Manichæanism because it enabled him to pursue a voluptuous life without ever being held accountable for it. He could say that the evil principle within him was so strong, so deep, and intense that the good principle could not operate.

All the while his mother, Monica, wept night and day for the mental and moral errors of her son. She went to Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, who told her: "It is not possible that a son of so many tears should perish."

Monica prayed that her son would never go to Italy because she feared that there would be more evil companionship there than in Northern Africa. Her prayers seemed to go unanswered, but at the same time, they were answered in a mysterious way.

In the year 384, Augustine told his mother to go to visit the Church of St. Cyprian the Martyr while he went to visit friends. He slipped away from Africa that night and went to Rome, against his mother's wishes. His reputation as an orator and rhetorician preceded him and he was recognized as one of the most learned men of his time.

When Augustine went to Milan, to plead for the restoration of paganism to the City, he heard of the scholarship and the oratorical powers of Ambrose, the Bishop. Many days he would sit under the pulpit in veneration of Ambrose. Later, he spent many hours in his company, discussing philosophy and he took manuscripts from Ambrose's library to read.

All the while, the chains of habit were strong in Augustine and his carnal nature was resisting his spiritual birth. In August, 386, he met Pontitianus who told Augustine the story of St. Anthony of the Desert. St. Anthony spent more than seventy years in the desert.

After hearing the story, Augustine said: "Manes is an impostor. The Almighty calls me. Christ is the only way and Paul is my guide."

If Anthony has conquered the libido and sex, why could not he, Augustine asked himself.

Augustine eager to be alone went into the garden. There he underwent a conflict between the old ego and the new one that was being born. Casting himself at the foot of a spreading fig tree, he cried hot and bitter tears, which overflowed and bathed his spirit. He cried aloud:

"When shall I achieve salvation, when shall I cast off my fetters? Tomorrow perhaps, or the day after? Why not this very hour?"
Suddenly he became aware of the voice of a child, a boy or girl, he knew not, speaking in a neighboring house. "Take up and read," said the sweet voice.

He hurried back into the room. He found a copy of the epistles of St. Paul, which Pontitianus had been fingering. Seizing it, and opening it at random, his eyes fell upon the words of St. Paul to the Romans 13:13:

"Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh."

In that one moment, the carnal passions, which had for sixteen years appeared invincible, were annihilated.

Augustine cries out in deep regret:

"Too late, O Ancient Beauty, have I loved Thee."

On Holy Thursday, which fell on April 22, 387 AD, he recited the Credo aloud in the presence of an assembled congregation. He fasted until Holy Saturday and in the evening he went to the Basilica, where Bishop Ambrose pronounced the last exorcisms over him, made the sign of the Cross upon his forehead and breast, and poured the baptismal waters.

Then, in accordance with the custom used only in the church in Milan, Ambrose got on his knees and washed the feet of Augustine. The two saints were united for perhaps the last time on earth. The elder humbled himself before the younger, the more famous before the more obscure.

Adeodatus, the carnal son of his sinning, received Baptism at the same time. The nameless woman whom Augustine lived with, and mother of Adeodatus, returned to Carthage and spent her remaining days in penance.

One of the effects of Augustine's conversion was a return to joviality, and a deep sense of inner peace. There was also a great increase of literary productiveness. Between the years 380 and 386, before his conversion, he had not written a single page. Now, in a short space of time, he composed four brief books in succession.

In 397, or twelve years after his conversion, Augustine wrote his Confessions, the greatest spiritual autobiography ever written. It is the work of a teacher who explains, a philosopher who thinks, and a theologian who instructs. It is the work of a poet who achieves chaste beauty in the writing, and a mystic who pours out thanks for having found himself in peace.

"Too late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved You. You have called to me, and have cried out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light and have put my blindness to flight! You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after You. I have taste You, and I hunger and thirst after You. You have touched me, and I have burned for Your peace" (Confessions 10,27).

None of the Freuds or Jungs or Adlers of our 20th century has ever pierced the conscious and the unconscious mind with a rapier as keen as Augustine's. No man can say he has ever understood himself if he has not read the 'Confessions' of Augustine. [9]

What I meant by "solid discipline" was that psychology is now an academic field of study, a "science" if you will. btw I hope that we can keep this dialog on a level of mutual respect; I contacted you because I was interested in the subject matter, and not because I wanted to attack your beliefs.

Agreed. I apologize if I was disrespectful.

I should clarify my statement about Kierkegaard. Yes, he believed in a "soul", but unlike thinkers before him he didn't identify the soul with the self. This was what I was trying to say. My bad for being unclear. Anyway, Kierkegaard did indeed believe that the self comes into being through the choices we make. His existential philosophy depends on this premise (Sartre borrowed heavily from Kierkegaard here). I think the fundamental difference between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche is that for Kierkegaard the "fullness of self" can be achieved by realizing one's freedom of will through active decisions, whereas for Nietzsche it involved a good deal more than that. Come to think of it, in the end the two may not even be so different with regard to ethics: Kierkegaard argued that the pinacle of realizing one's existence is reached with what he called a "teleological suspension of the ethical." In other words, Kierkegaard seemed to believe that true faith places a person beyond good and evil.

You’re right about Kierkegaard’s "teleological suspension of the ethical." He is wrong. Here are some reasons:

So how does all this fit into the teleological suspension of the ethical? It must be seen in a number of factors that the account of Genesis had no intention of any type of ethical suspension for the teleological end. First, the Divine telos was accomplished when the knife was raised rather than when the knife fell. There was no intention that God wanted to sacrifice his chosen offspring. If that intention had gone through, the true promise of the redeeming seed would not have been accomplished as the divine plan has previously ordained and determined. Second, even though Abraham had thought God would raise Isaac from the dead, this firstborn right was only to be accomplished in the redeeming Son of God; he is the first fruits of creation from the dead. Thirdly, to suspend the ethical in a way in which there leaves leeway to allow for this passage to remain in scripture is nothing more than cheating and ultimately robbing God of his attributes making him less than he truly is. God cannot change his being, nor can he change decisions which are part of his being. God's nature remains the same and thus, if the ethical is "lifted" to allow for the assumption that God wants Abraham to kill Isaac, then the holy nature of God is violated because he would have gone against what his perfection could not allow. Fourthly, God cannot deceive men, but only test them. As Scripture explicitly states in a variety of texts, God tests and does not “tempt”. He did not deceive Abraham in telling him to sacrifice Isaac. The deception would have occurred if he would have allowed Abraham to kill Isaac making his former promise of covenant blessing a deception. Kierkegaard has overlooked these important points and has not considered them but has fragrantly violated hermenuetical principles to write off Abraham as the knight of faith. [http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:pLW7Md-xraEJ:www.apuritansmind.com/Apologetics/TeleologicalSuspension.htm+Kierkegaard+%22teleological+suspension+of+the+ethical.%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&ie=UTF-8]



Ok, I've digressed...My original point was that Christians, too, have contributed to modern psychology as we have it today. Kierkegaard -- if I may mention him one more time -- is actually called "the father of modern psychology" by some. Scholars have pointed out the striking similarities between St. Augustine's psychological insights and those of Freud's, stating that the only thing missing in St. Augustine's psychoanalysis is the jargon. I've already mentioned Dostoevksy's influence on Nietzsche -- and on Adler, too.

Perhaps things are not so black and white where modern psychology is concerned?

I disagree with Kierkegaard’s "teleological suspension of the ethical." . I have a feeling those were from his earlier writings before he moved toward orthodoxy. I know that Dostoevksy's influence on Nietzsche was after his Zarathustra, which might be why he went insane. His moral conscience and his immoral ideals might have been in conflict.

If you’re looking for truth, you won’t find it with liberal theorists.

English professor Louis Markos in his book Lewis Agonistes thinks that liberal theorists and radical Islam are at war with analogy in the arts and literature as well as with “transcendent truths in material images.”

Markos says liberals of the Enlightenment mind set believed only in materially observable “facts” and denied the existence of “transcendent truths in material images” be it art, literature or God.

Postmodernist took it a step forward by proclaiming that not only is God dead, but language is dead. They believe that words have no meaning even materially observable “facts.”

Radical liberal theorists of the postmodernist and Enlightenment mind set showed that this thought lead to violence against human life. Lenin and Stalin were Enlightenment men and Hitler was a follower of the postmodernist Nietzsche. Pro-choicer of the kind that kill unborn babies and homosexual identity gender changers are also followers of Nietzsche’s will to power.

As G. K. Chesterton said when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing - they believe in anything.
Radical Islam showed it association with liberal theorists when they firebombed and shoot bullet holes through Christian churches in West Bank, killed an Italian nun and threatened to bomb the Vatican with a suicide attack when Pope Benedict XVI gave the September 12 called FAITH, REASON AND THE UNIVERSITY. MEMORIES AND REFLECTIONS. In that talk he said:
“The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”

“Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.”

The pope in the lecture countered this anti-analogy theories which ultimately deny transcendent truth by saying:

“As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language (cf. Lateran IV).

God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as “logos” and, as “logos,” has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is “logos.”

Consequently, Christian worship is “spiritual” worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).”

Hopefully, Benedict began a dialogue with Islam. He hoped, according to George Weigel in God’s Choice, that Muslim reformers can find from their “authoritative text . . . that it is God’s will that we be tolerant of those who have different understandings of God’s will.”

We need to pray that Islam accept reason and liberals accept the existence of “transcendent truths in material images” be it art, literature or God.

Radical Islam will continue violent conversion and killing in the name of an unknowable God. And liberal theorists will continue killing in the name of the unknowable gods of Feminism, Marxism as well as Nazism.

Malcolm Muggeridge said it best:

"When mortal men try to live without God, they infallibly succumb to megalomania or eratomania or both. The raised fist or the raised phallus; Nietzsche or D. H. Lawrence"

Although I would add when mortal men try to live without reason or a knowable God, they infallibly succumb to Homosexualism and/or the will to power of Feminism, Marxism,Nazism as well as radical Islam.
Respectfully,
Ken Younos

Best,

Fred

posted by Fred Martinez @ 11:14 PM