Errors of the Spiritual Dimension

This episode concludes our examination of the spiritual dimension by analyzing common errors.   

Error #1: Mistaking the social for the spiritual.  We think the religious service with its liturgy and building or obedience to social norms are the spiritual dimension.  Religious service attendance and doing the good and avoiding the evil should be encouraged.  However, to be complete, it needs to work towards the transcendent good, true, and beautiful along with a relationship with God in the spiritual dimension.  We need to live multi-dimensionally. 

Error #2: An incomplete understanding of the spiritual.  Focusing inordinately on transcendent truths can ruin relationships and promote pride if it is not closely wedded to the virtues especially love and a relationship with God.  Intellectual humility is needed. Remember only God completely knows the truth.  Likewise, focusing on the good without the truth or a relationship with God can lead to either harsh judgmentalism (justice focused) or sappy sentimentalism (focused on a poorly defined and emotionally driven understanding of love).  Love is desiring the good for someone while doing it in a manner consistent with 1st Corinthians 13. 

Error #3: Self-transcendence is the vital means to escape our psychologic dimension and embrace another dimension.  Self-transcendence is the metaphorical vehicle that takes you to another dimension but should not be confused with the destination.  Self-transcendence into the biologic includes yoga, chanting mantras, and breathing-focused techniques while acts into the social include being absorbed by nature, feeling another person’s pain or joy, or an activity where you enter a state of flow (aka engagement).  Being totally focused on the transcendent (the good, the true, the beautiful, and God Himself) is the definition of being in the spiritual dimension. 

References

A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Spirit Filled Life by Pastor Sean Azzaro

Spirituality, religiousness, and mental health: A review of the current scientific evidence by Lucchetti, Koenig, and Granero Lucchetti

How and How Not to be Happy by Professor J. Budziszewski

Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization by Professor Brad Wilcox

E-mail for comments and questions at:  Rootsofflourishing@gmail.com

Transcript

Episode 23: Errors of the Spiritual Dimension

Have you ever wondered why there is so much trouble, depression, worry, anxiety, anger, frustration, and hopelessness in the church?  For people that proclaim and sing of God’s love, mercy, and strength, many do not seem to be living joyfully.  In today’s episode, we will discuss why many do not live joy-filled lives by looking at the three most common errors regarding the spiritual dimension.  The first error we’ll discuss is when we mistake the social dimension for the spiritual.   The second error is when we have an incomplete understanding of the spiritual dimension, and the last is when we mistake self-transcendence into the biologic or social dimensions for the spiritual dimension.  Those who go to church are prone to the first error while the third error is frequent in those who don’t.  The middle error occurs in either group.  So, whether you are a regular church goer or stay at home on Sunday mornings, this podcast is for you.  

First, mistaking the social for the spiritual.  This is a problem for those who go to some sort of religious service be it a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple.  There are two interrelated problems in this area.  The first part is when people mistake the social apparatus of the external religious ceremony and its building as the spiritual.  Communion, the mass, candles, stained glass windows, the liturgy of standing, sitting, kneeling, singing, etc. are all good in themselves if they point the person to the good, the true, and the beautiful, and a relationship with God.  However, people in this error don’t see the religious service as predominantly pointing to these areas; rather, they see it as something that can help them feel good psychologically or help them socially.  

This approach can be summed up in the question “what can I get out of church?” This can take a variety of forms.  Does this church have music I enjoy?  Does the music have a good beat or a catchy tune?  Are there opportunities for me to perform?  Does the preaching help me practically at home in my marriage, with my children, or at my job? People in this way of thinking minimize the importance of transcendent truths usually through relativizing truth.  They usually think that no one can know truth absolutely so we’ll just merely give up on it and make our own truth and in turn hope that you can find your truth.  Truth ends up being what works practically for us.  What is lost is the correct definition of truth and this attitude flies in the face of the reality that two truths that contradict each other cannot both be true.  

Additionally, virtues are not a major focus unless they can help practically.  A relationship with God is good again only if it helps in the day-to-day living solving all the problems around me.   If this is your attitude towards a religious service, then you may have succumbed to what has been termed “moral therapeutic deism.”  The bottom line here is you only seek the spiritual and/or God if it makes you feel better about yourself.  

When you look around the church, sometimes it’s difficult to sort out which camp people might be in since we all tend to fall into this error or one of the subsequent ones.  Augustine, the famous bishop of Hippo in north Africa at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th centuries, talked about the tares or chaff and wheat within the external or visible church.  The chaff being unbelievers while the wheat represents believers.  Now it’s reassuring to know that ultimately, it’s not our job to distinguish the wheat from the chaff since that’s God’s job.  On the other hand, our job is to encourage everyone to become more like Christ.

This leads to the issue of the mission of a Christian church.  It is a community of believers who not only hold fast to a list of truth claims (orthodoxy) and encourage the performance of right actions (orthopraxy) but also have a vital and dynamic relationship with God.  We need to constantly encourage one another, remind each other of the truths and support one another in loving God and loving our neighbors.

This leads to another and frequently overlapping error within the social dimension where we can overly focus on “right actions” or orthopraxy as a substitute for the spiritual dimension.  We can fall into this problem when we focus too heavily on doing the do’s and not doing the don’ts.  Now doing the good and avoiding the evil should always be encouraged, but we can easily succumb to our culture’s, group’s or church’s version of the good and the evil.  This was seen in Jesus’ time with the Pharisees who not only followed the Ten Commandments, but then came up with multiple other legal traditions that they held to a high and exacting standard.  Doing these things were not in themselves a problem, but the issue came when these so-called right actions became the overwhelming emphasis.  Jesus addresses this error when He says, “For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.”  Jesus did not malign their efforts to tithe even from a small amount of spice, but he criticized them for neglecting the weightier issues of the law that point directly to the good such as the virtues of justice, mercy and faith.  This is like people today who think that Christians are those who don’t smoke, don’t drink, and don’t go with girls who do.  This emphasis on external social conformance can be helpful but only if we live multi-dimensionally by incorporating these external acts of righteousness in the social dimension with the entirety of the spiritual dimension.  My pastor Sean Azzaro wrote in his book “A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Spirit Filled Life” that “our discipline should be focused on getting us into the presence of the Lord and letting the spirit fill us.”  Pastor Sean reminds us that the disciplines or external acts performed in the social dimension must be connected to the spiritual dimension and particularly our relationship with God to be complete.  This transformational relationship with the Spirit of God will then empower us to be virtuous, to recognize the true, and live beautiful lives amongst other humans and with God. 

Since as the Bible says in 1 Corinthians “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind” we will end our discussion of each of the common errors with some reflection questions to help us examine our lives and see where we may be veering off the narrow path.  We should be humble knowing that we can easily fall into any of these errors.  Our first question is do you see the extent of your spiritual path to just sit in church for a couple of hours each week and then go about my life and do as you please?  Do you primarily compare yourself with other people or with Christ?  Do you primarily look to church to satisfy your needs and desires or view it as a place to serve others and glorify God?  Do you incorporate the vital spiritual dimension when you are doing the do’s and not doing the don’ts?  

The next error is one common to both those going to religious services and those that do not.  This error is an incomplete understanding of the spiritual dimension.  As we have said before, we need to incorporate all aspects of the spiritual dimension since they work in harmony with each other and keep us from harming ourselves or others, or dishonoring God.  This error more specifically sees people embracing some notion of either the good or the true and then relegating the other to minimal status.  Likewise, a vital relationship with God is usually lacking as well.

First, we’ll address those who prioritize the true.  These people believe strongly in transcendent truths, but either downplay or egregiously lack the good or virtues.  Again, a relationship with God which would serve to keep the good and the true in balance and avoid errors is largely lacking.  You have probably met these people.  They’re totally zealous for their version of the truth which in some cases overlaps substantially with transcendent truths accepted through millennia, but then they seem to have a profound lack of the virtues most notably love.  They can easily succumb to the problem of pride regarding their knowledge forgetting the Apostle Paul’s warning when he says, “knowledge puffs up while love builds up.”  Again, our relationship with God grounds us in the fact that we don’t know it all and fills us with love for others and God.

A variant of the problem of overprioritizing the truth is an incomplete understanding of transcendent truth.  People may know some transcendent truths but then downplay or ignore several other vital truths that can then lead to psychologic and social problems while casting God in a wrong light.  Remember Dr. Newberg when he says“Sometimes, religion can have a negative impact on overall well-being. For example, religion is sometimes viewed negatively; some people view the God they worship as a punishing God.”  

This problem of an incomplete understanding of God is echoed in a 2021 review article entitled “Spirituality, religiousness, and mental health: A review of the current scientific evidence” where the authors state “In this context, positive religious spiritual coping (e.g., benevolent religious appraisals, religious forgiveness) often results in better outcomes, while negative religious spiritual coping (e.g., feeling abandoned or punished by God) appears to have the opposite effects on mental health.”  Thus, viewing the truth about God only partially is harmful while on the other hand viewing the fullness of truth that God is love in addition to justice is vital for our human flourishing.  

The Bible and the testimony of saints throughout the ages beautifully illustrate the truth of God’s abiding love.  Hebrews 13:5 recounts God’s emphatic statement when he says, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”  God’s faithful and steadfast love towards us is echoed in Romans when Paul says, “ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  All these truths about God’s nature are essential for our human flourishing.

Now we will move from the true to the good.  We’ve certainly met folks who are all about justice and are quick to be judge, jury and executioner, but I think another error that is common in our culture is to focus entirely on love.  This then leads to the obvious question of what is love?  This fundamental question is frequently confused with emotions and/or sexual desires.  I think a great definition for love is by J. Budziszewski (Boo-Jeesh-Ev-Skee) a professor government and philosophy at University of Texas in his book “How and How Not to be Happy” when he says, “I should always love myself in the sense of desiring for myself what is good and avoiding what is evil.” “I will my friends good. I will my friend's good for my friend. I will it not as something alien to me, but as my own good. The name of this commitment is love.”  This understanding of love is echoed by Brad Wilcox professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and author of the excellent book entitled “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.”  Dr. Wilcox says, “Marital love is not about always being ‘in love’; rather, love is a decision to will the good of the others in your family.” Thus, according both Professor Budziszewski and Wilcox, love is the desire for a person’s good.  These goods should consist of our basic goods of life, health, work, play, knowledge, esthetic experience, marriage, friendship, personal integrity, and harmony with the Divine.

A comment is now in order regarding First Corinthians 13 also known as the love chapter in the Bible.  The Apostle Paul states “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  Paul is talking about the manner of love that love goes about doing things not necessarily the direction.  The Bible also talks about the actions of love famously when it says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” and in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God certainly loves in the manner of 1 Corinthians 13 but he did it most famously through the good action of giving his Son to restore the good of our relationship with God.  

True love then is oriented to the goods while doing it in a loving or virtuous manner.  Love is the ultimate virtue, but not a virtue that stands by itself; rather it is supported and informed by the other virtues and truth.   However, truth now has a very relativistic understanding where we end up saying everyone has their own truth and thus minimizing the importance of truth.  Thus, love is reinterpreted from being a holistic and informed will for another person’s good to merely sappy sentimentalism.

Truth of creation, truth of our humanity and truth of God will allow us to better love each other by having prudence or wisdom to do the right thing at the right time while orienting ourselves and others towards the basic goods and ultimately towards fulfilling the two greatest commandments.  The Scriptures state “speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”  Love informed by truth is the essential combination for maturity and fullness in this life.  

Now it’s time for self-reflection. If you are not living a joy-filled life, then what aspect of the good, the true, and/or a dynamic relationship with God are you missing?  Are you afraid of God?  If so, then what part of God’s character do you not see?  You think you love people by accepting them, but they seem to be stuck in their same harmful habits.  What truth may you be withholding that could set them free?

The last of our common errors tends to be made by those who do not attend a religious service.  These folks mistake self-transcendence to either the biologic or social dimension for the spiritual dimension.  As we have noted before, self-transcendence is the key mechanism for achieving balance amongst the four dimensions since it breaks us out of our psychologic prison. However, self-transcendence merely gets us out of the psychologic, but does not necessarily move us to the spiritual dimension.  Self-transcendence is the means or the vehicle towards another dimension, but not necessarily the destination.  It’s like getting in a car to go somewhere.  You can go to Dallas, New Orleans, or Philadelphia in your car.  The car is like self-transcendence, it’s the vehicle to get you to another destination, but the other three dimensions are like the three cities—they’re all different destinations.  You can’t say that you arrived in Dallas when you see the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.  Similarly, self-transcendence towards the biologic is not the spiritual dimension.  Self-transcendence took you to an entirely different destination.  A good destination, but not the spiritual destination.

Examples of acts of self-transcendence into the biologic include yoga, chanting mantras, and breathing-focused techniques while acts into the social include being totally absorbed by nature, feeling another person’s pain or joy or any activity where you enter a state of flow otherwise known as engagement.  Flow is a state of deep effortless involvement that involves total concentration of the task at hand that correlates well with our strengths and abilities.  We get a challenging task at hand that is equal to our strengths and abilities and that results in flow or engagement.  You frequently say “wow, time just flew” when you were totally engaged in some activity.   All these are examples of self-transcendence but not into the spiritual dimension.  

Psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin have gained attention recently and we need to discuss it.  These drugs in high does can bring about drug-induced ego dissolution which is a form of self-transcendence brought about by drugs.  These drugs have a strong effect on the brain of suppressing the self-awareness centers thus allowing the person to have a greatly enhanced sense of oneness with the social dimension.  However, scientists have compared those on psychedelic drugs with those who were experienced in meditation and prayer and found their brains scans to be similar and both very different from usual people.  Thus, there appears to be some commonality in the neurologic state for self-transcendence whether into the social or spiritual dimensions and likely also to a lesser degree in the biologic dimension.  

Regardless of whether you achieve self-transcendence the old-fashioned way or short circuit it by taking psychedelic drugs, it is vital to know that without a relationship with God and a grounding in transcendent truths, self-transcendence towards either the biologic or social dimensions can devolve into either pride or sappy sentimentalism.  As a doctor, I highly recommend the old-fashioned way since it is readily available, free of cost or side effects, and totally legal.  Self-transcendence can be harmful if not combined with all the elements of the spiritual dimension. You can take pride in your novel experience since many others may not have experienced.  In the book “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence,” the author Michael Pollan recounts episodes of people having drug-induced self-transcendent experiences that to dissolution of marriages or friendships.  Many others did not have these problems, but some did, and it was attributed to pride of an experience that others did not have.  Once again, this underlines the vital importance of being grounded in the good and the true along with a relationship with God.  

Now for a few reflection questions.  Are you put off by the search after transcendent truths?  If so, why?  Are your spiritual experiences bringing forth the good, the true and the beautiful?  If not, why not?  Psychedelics efface the self and transcend it, but why rely on drugs when through patience and practice, you can transcend the self at any time and embrace God just like the saints of old?

We’ve gone over the errors, but we should describe a bit more what the pathway to the spiritual dimension looks like.  We should seek the good, the true, the beautiful, and a relationship with God for its own sake or end.  We need to pursue these because they are worthy in themselves and not necessarily because we will stand to benefit psychologically because of them.  The good or the virtues should be embraced because it is the right thing.  This is summarized by the old saying “virtue is its own reward.”  Additionally, the transcendent truths about the nature of creation, humanity and God should be sought after because they are truly worthy in themselves.  Technology can come from the science of creation, but the scientists of old such as the famous chemist and physicist Robert Boyle had it correct when he said that science was “to discover the true Nature of the Works of God.” Knowledge of humanity becomes not only practical but an amazing understanding of our own complexity.  The Psalmist says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  Knowing the truth of God leads us to greater worship and gratitude of Him who is truly worthy.  The Psalmist further says “his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Do we truly delight in the law of the Lord?  We also spoke of the beautiful and awe, and how these can point us again towards the majesty of the Creator.  Lastly, we need to have a relationship with God which goes so far beyond the moral therapeutic deism of our day or merely presenting God a list of our wants, needs, and desires, but instead to truly behold His majesty, enjoy His presence, and thank Him for His amazing provision and Providence in all aspects of our lives.  Years ago, Mother Theresa was interviewed by the famous journalist Dan Rather who asked her “When you pray, what do you say to God?” “I don’t say anything” Mother Theresa replied, “I listen.” Dan Rather then followed up with another question “Okay, when God speaks to you, what does He say?” Mother Theresa answered, “He doesn’t say anything, He listens.” Can we sit in His presence, be quiet and just listen to His voice?  Is our goal as the Apostle Paul says in 1st Corinthians to have the mind of Christ?  

Before we end, we need to address why Christ is so important.  You may be thinking “can’t I just believe in God or a higher power without this Jesus stuff?”  First off, Jesus Christ is the key to the entire spiritual dimension and our real-life model for humanity as the most complete or whole person to have lived since the fall.  Secondly, Christ beautifully and completely answers all humanity’s essential questions and brings all the notions of the good, the true and the beautiful into one.  No one else and no other teaching does it like this.  Third, He ultimately reconciles imperfect humans with a perfect God through His self-sacrificial and loving act of dying on a cross for the world.  The bottom line is that Christianity is a holistic and coherent view of reality that best reflects the transcendent truths of the nature of creation, of man, and of God.

In summary, a solid knowledge of the spiritual dimension is essential for our human flourishing.  Everyone is susceptible to several common but major errors regarding the spiritual dimension, and we need to constantly be mindful of whether we are veering off into one of these problems.  One can mistake religious service attendance or conformance to social practices for the spiritual.  This leads to a deficiency of the virtues and truth, and an absent relationship with God.  Secondly, we may have an incomplete understanding of the spiritual.  We talked about when we focus inordinately on the true without a proper balancing with the good.  We also spoke about having an incomplete understanding of the true thus viewing ourselves, others, or most importantly God incompletely resulting in poor relationships and psychologic distress.  We also discussed the problems associated with selecting a single virtue such as love without a clear definition or a grounding in truths.  We clearly defined love as willing the good for another which needs to be grounded in transcendent truths lest it spiral down into sappy sentimentalism.  Lastly, mistaking self-transcendence towards the biologic or social as the spiritual will lack the fullness of the good, the true, and the beautiful grounded in a relationship in God and subsequently can result in harms to the other dimensions of our humanity.  We need all the components of the spiritual dimension to flourish as humans.

The spiritual or religious aspect of our humanity is a source of strong identity claims for many but not all people.  Next episode we will discuss the various sources of identity claims amongst the four dimensions and why one identity claim is superior to the rest.