Caféchurch 10/9/13

passage

Faith Developmen

t

1 of 3 (or so)

God and the Superego

Introduction

This is the first in a series of sessions about faith development – becoming adults. This week, we will think about the images of God we have as adolescents. The aim is to become adults in general and in our faith specifically.

Adulthood

“The truth is.. That for any number of reasons it may be very difficult for us to become mature adults and have a mature religion. We have to be nurtured and often we have to struggle heroically to reach adulthood, and the same is true if we are to become adult in our religion.”

“Adolescence” in this sense can carry on through a whole life, because becoming an adult is hard

Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman

Luke 13:10-17

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.

And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.

When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment."

When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day."

But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?

And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?"

When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Question

• Why was the leader of the synagogue angry?

Summary

• Jesus is someone who reaches beyond the boundaries of us and them, and incarnates God’s love to outsiders, outcasts, and skeptics.• Jesus has a truly adult faith, and an “unfettered” image of God

The soul is one’s true spirit and, like God, it is a spirit too slippery to capture. The uniqueness of the soul shows itself most whenever someone seriously elects a path of psychospiritual growth for the remainder of his or her lifetime. It is as if psychopathology of the ego is like mud, and the more it gets cleared away, the more the soul underneath will shine forth in glory, in a distinct pattern of glorious colour that can be found nowhere else on earth.14 And while I am certain that God creates a human soul differently each and every time, this doesn’t mean there are no unanswerable questions. Nonetheless, however mysterious, the process of soul creation is individualized. The uniqueness of individual persons is undeniable (except at peril to your own soul) and cannot be explained by mere psychology or biology.

Peck, M. Scott (2011-10-31). The Road Less Travelled And Beyond

Caveat

It would be easy to see the following ideas as “wrong” ways of being. But they are not “wrong” any more than they are “right” – they are a developmental stage, which is completely appropriate to a certain stage in life. But they are part of the journey towards adulthood, not the final word.

The Superego

According to Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the superego is the component of personality composed of our internalized ideals that we have acquired from our parents and from society. The superego works to suppress the urges of the id and tries to make the ego behave morally, rather than realistically.

Limitations of Superego

• Can be moralizing, rather than loving

• Letter of the law, rather than spirit

• Inherited & imposed, rather than authentic

• In-group vs out-group, not all of us together

Main Resource for Tonight

• Finding God Again, John J Shea

You may also want to read:• The Road Less Travelled And Beyond Peck, M S• Stages of Faith, Fowler, J

Imaging of God

•One way of talking about faith is by our image of God.•The adequacy of our image relates to the adultness of our faith• Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” Colossians 1:15

Definition

• “Adolescing” – Shea sees being an adolescent as a dynamic process which one undertakes in order to become an adult. It can take a long, long time.

The Superego God

“In our early development, superego images of God –as a parent-like, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving deity who is also controlling, rule-issuing, judgemental, guilt-evoking, and at times terrifying, are hard to avoid.… There comes a time when… this God becomes too narrow, or too rigid, or too unreal, or too inadequate to continue holding our trust.”

Characteristics of the Superego God

The superego God is a:• Supreme Being• God of Law• God of Belief• God of Dependency and Control • God of the Group

Trying To Make It Real

As we go through the stages, see if you can relate them to the story of Jesus healing the woman on the Sabbath. What aspects of the superego God is Jesus offending here?

Supreme Being

• “This God… is a ‘God who is simply “a being” among other beings, part of a series of beings, an “object” which can be discovered and demonstrated’”• “Throughout the whole time of its tenure… this Supreme Being promises security from harm and evil – on condition that we can stand in proper relation to it and respect its authority”

God of Law

• “Morality and religion go together. The God of Law is a God of Obedience because the essence of morality consists of carrying out all the commands the God of Law imposes…. The promise of security of the God of Law is often enormously reassuring to us.”• “An implacable judge who has impossible and rigid standards”

God of Belief

• “The God of Belief becomes the God of Orthodoxy. The right beliefs easily become the essence of religion and, therefore, the adolescing self possesses the Superego God by holding the right beliefs…. The task of the believer involves, at most, the mastery of objective doctrine and teaching.”• Along with the doctrines, a strong emotional component

God of Dependency and Control

• “the God of Dependency and Control provides all the things that the adolescing self needs for its growth and development, while… [it] seems to leave little room to the adolescing self for any use of its own power and authority”• “…promises to protect us from the pain of inner struggle and from having to make responsible life choices, on condition, of course, that we surrender any serious striving toward real freedom or autonomy.”

God of the Group

• “The place where the Superego God lives, moves, and has its being is the in the group… the authority of the God of the Group lies with certain individuals who apparently are directly appointed for this task by the Supreme Being. Only those who have this authority can speak, and only those who have this authority can be heard.”