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A Look at Becoming More Self-Aware
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July 12, 2022Over the years I have become quite open-minded. I never use to be that way. Years ago I’d be considered a fundamentalist Christion but life has a way of smoothing out our rough edges.
I am a lifelong learner and I’ve found that being challenged intellectually helps me to see God in exciting and new ways. I read books that give me new ideas and I love discussions that make me think.
I am not threatened with another’s viewpoint which does not correspond to my own. I consider it an opportunity to learn something. I ponder discussions and weigh them out against scripture and Church teaching using sound discernment.
A recent discussion with a niece who is Pro-choice yielded a harvest I never considered. If I claim to be pro-life I must also be pro-woman in ways that support women. I should be advocating for free healthcare, very affordable housing, foster and adoption support and some kind of educational assistance for those mothers. I should also support the elder community.
To say I am pro-life by voting and being involved in that one aspect of the pro-life mission without supporting young women is a bit hypocritical for me now. I thank my niece for that discussion.
Being open minded is a lost art today but if we want to be followers of Jesus we must be prepared to have our views challenged. It’s how we learn and grow. The day you stop listening to divergent ideas is the day you stop growing spiritually.
Resist the temptation to shut down discussions that contradict your own thoughts on a matter. That is a sure sign of pride in your life.
The limits of man’s creative powers
In his attempt to get us to see God more clearly the great protestant Pastor Aw Tozer wrote about the limits of human intellect.
Tozer wrote that all of our inventions and ideas are simply built off someone else’s ideas, that in fact there is nothing new under the sun. This sentiment is echoed from the Book of Ecclesiastes. Tozer was trying to remind us that we are finite beings. I have read quite a bit about Aquinas, and Tozer certainly thinks along those lines.
Nothing new under the sun?? You might be saying to yourself that man creates. Aren’t there a myriad of new inventions and ideas all around us?
Tozer and Aquinas would say slow down and listen. A man looks at a tree and devises a way to climb that tree and invents a ladder. Another sees a cheetah in a field and dreams of travel and a cart is born which leads another to invent a motor and still another an automobile. One sees the eagle soar and the dream of flight becomes reality and a plane is created. Movie producers create an unworldly landscape on camera but the ideas they have are limited and based on what they already understand.
The point Tozer is making is we can only create and build upon what we know but we cannot build from nothing. This is something that only God can do.
For example, I could not explain a blue sky to a blind person and likewise Christ could not explain the Kingdom of God without using “Like” statements in his explanations. Whenever Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of Heaven he used the word “like” as a conjunction by saying the kingdom of God is “like” this or that thing which you already understand. He would say “It’s like a seed” or “It’s like a pearl”, but Jesus could not accurately tell us just what the Kingdom of God was because we humans have no point of reference.
We are indeed very finite.
Our skewed version of God
The point of our dialog here is to shape our ideas in a way that makes us more self-aware. Just as our creative powers are limited our ideas and understanding of God is woefully shortsighted.
The human mind can only define and create based on what it already knows. This goes for our understanding of God also. We use experience, relationships, things we’ve read and then formulate an idea of who God is as a person, but what we’ve created is a misrepresentation of God. In biblical terms we’ve created an idol.
The scriptures and our mentors within Catholicism can help to guide us. It is imperative for our spiritual progress to first rely on scripture and the great minds within Catholicism and not go about willy-nilly listening to every spiritual idea as if it were God speaking to us. We must use sound discernment. Moving along the lines of thinking proposed by Aquinas and Tozer we can learn about the different traits of God, things like His mercy and forgiveness and righteousness for example. But His character, who He is, we cannot grasp, even partially, because we do not have the mental resources of “experience” to define the unknown. We can only define the known.
At the end of his life Aquinas said all is work was rubbish. He spent his life trying to tell us who God was but in the end could only tell us who God was not. Aquinas finally understood that the only thing we could do is look to the heavens in awe at our enigmatic God in silent admiration. That’s why contemplation is so important. It leads us to a kind of emptying of ourselves to simply relax and Let God Be God. It’s a way to cast aside our notion of who we think He is and just sit idle in His presence.
God is not in a category we can define but we try to do it anyway and God will not allow man to place him in any category. Religious individuals are adamant in defining theology but they’ve simply put God in a box and consign him there. If we are open to being challenged by God, we discover that when we try to categorize or define God we are stunned when God moves in perplexing and odd ways. This can be applied to theology also. As humans we have a difficult enough time defining our day to day existence let alone the path to eternity and what will occur once we die. We need not understand everything. Instead we need to trust.
One of the great dangers for us is to stop listening to others. When we do, we miss the opportunity to grow. Even if those ideas are contrary to our own we will still learn discipline and humility by being gentle and open minded, and we just might learn something along the way. If we cannot listen to others without forcing our own viewpoints we set a pattern which causes us to not hear God when He speaks. The path that belongs to followers of jesus is the path of gentleness. We only correct others if we can do it with a meek and sincere attitude. If you correct with a judgmental spirit, even if you are theologically correct, you have become prideful and perhaps have done more harm than good.
Of this I am certain there is not a single, spot-on way to God. Nor is there one right religious path. God found me outside of any religious establishment. God can “find” one in any strata of society. My daughter who sits in a very good Congregational church has just as good an opportunity to hear God as I do when I submit my life to Catholicism. Her path leads to the same place as my own. When we make the claim that our place of worship is the only way, that it is the one true religion we have lost our way because we have limited the eternal God.
I am not advocating for some kind of ecumenical merging of all religions. I understand quite clearly that Jesus is the only way. I say that emphatically because Jesus himself made that clear. I do not believe it would be God’s plan for my life to submit to a non-christian religion.
I have traveled the roads of numerous denominational traditions. I returned to the Catholic church years ago and love its traditions and history. I feel like the prodigal sometimes. A lifetime journey. I do not disagree with much of church teaching. The way I see it there are a lot of really smart and holy people that built Catholicism. Who am I to disagree. There are many things, however, I simply do not understand so I yield to the fact that perhaps I am wrong on the matter or maybe the church is. In the end God will sort it out anyway. I tend to shy away from religious arguments.
As Catholics we need to understand that we do not have a monopoly on God, nor do our denominational counterparts. God is not a Catholic nor is God an American. He is not a Baptist nor a Pentecostal. God is with our enemies and with our friends. He is not a respecter of any person or nation. As a follower of Jesus I do not have a monopoly on God either. I can suffer pain and hardship just like my unbelieving friends. The sunshine and rain fall on all of us alike.
My personal observation over 45 years is that religion will always make you religious which leads to self-righteousness. You can always tell when someone has spent too much time in religion and not enough time with Jesus. They become narrow minded and zealously defend their religious point. They lose their gentleness and become rigid. Resist the tendency to grasp but instead, seek to be grasped. Don’t ascend but seek to be drawn.
Spirituality on the other hand will make you sensitive, self-aware, and attentive to God which leads to a holy life. God always leads us to an expansive openness and not narrowmindedness, into singularity and not plurality. The joy of not understanding but instead to humbly admire is liberating. Knowing I don’t know is ok. I love a God that tells me I’ve got it all wrong because, well, I often am.
In closing
Be open to a new freshness with God and ask Him to challenge your ideas of who He is. Rest within the confines of scripture and the rich traditions of Catholicism and be open to newness. God is not like us at all and our ideas of Him are too limiting.
Talk, ask questions, and use sound discernment in your spiritual journey and don’t be threatened by ideas that might challenge your own. Be diligent in acknowledging that you could be entirely wrong on a matter or then again you might be right!
Blessings