Theological Musings

by C. Grey Austin, Ph.D.

Installment VII -- September 1992


Writing my own theology is part of my healing journey. It is, in 12 step terms, the process of defining my own higher power. I assert that all of us identify a higher power, either consciously or by implication as we act in terms of that which is, for us, "supremely significant and ultimately real." I have chosen to work on the issue consciously in an effort to get my head and my heart on the same wave length.

As I share my thoughts with a variety of folks, most of them in some measure of 12 step recovery, I find verification for my own observation that 12 step groups give very little attention to the problem of who and/or what a higher power is. "God as I understand God" is a formulation that identifies that process as totally private. The 12 step movement does not take sides on any controversial issue, as the definition of God certainly can be, and in its respect for the privacy of each person's definition of deity, it offers no help beyond the sharing that may take place among individuals. Rightly so.

I have no quarrel with that. but it does leave a void which I am about to leap into. Only within the last few weeks have I realized that I have begun to create a recovery book for those who would like help with the higher power issue. The book will not be an attempt to persuade anyone to believe what I am coming to believe; rather it will be an effort to frame some of the questions, to point to some of the resources, and to model a process that may encourage others to make the effort. Neither will it be an effort in systematic theology; it will be my story. For starters, I have three and a half years of a Sunday-go-to-meetin' journal, three sermons in which I tried to consolidate my thinking about God, several drafts of theological musings with responses from friendly readers, notes on numerous books, the experience of helping to edit a book of 12-step sermons, bits of poetry and meditative thoughts, interpretations of a few relevant dreams, and some insights not yet recorded.

Here are some of the issues that point to the need for such a book:

1. For one who grew up in a dysfunctional family, where father or mother or both were addicted and/or co-dependent, abusive, etc., an image of God as parent has very little to recommend it. Can you picture one about to do a third step: "Turn my will and my life over to That? NO WAY!"

2. The image of God as Judge, keeping the records in God's Big Book and consigning us to Heaven or Hell, is a childhood picture that often remains with us. It offers no hope for the perfectionist who despairs of ever doing things right.

3. A variation that has God looking over our shoulder and nudging us in the right direction or punishing us for a wrong turn is likely to be too shallow to sustain us. Crediting God with curing our ills must prompt the question of what role God played in giving us those ills.

4. Any anthropomorphic image of God is likely not to satisfy a person whose view of reality is based on scientific knowledge. One hopes to find a certain correspondence or continuity in the relation of reality with Reality.

5. One would hope that the church might help with the process of defining a higher power, but many of us left the church as early as possible in order to escape its "shoulds" and "oughts," and many churches continue to teach a shame- based religion. The concept of humankind as sinners, alienated from a transcendent God, contributes its share to shame and low self-esteem.

6. Churches, in my experience, are not particularly helpful in differentiating between literal and metaphoric references to God. Clergy whose personal beliefs may have been informed by modern physics and Jungian psychology find themselves preaching to parishioners whose faith is stuck at the "pray for a puppy" stage. Consequently, in order to minister to all, clergy are careful not to alienate or confuse those who have the most naive concept of God. But those we always have among us, and so persons who seek to formulate more sophisticated beliefs may conclude that the church has no message for them. Those who are persistent enough will, perhaps, find help in individual conferences with pastors or shop around until they find a church that speaks to them.

7. Finally, New Age and self-help materials abound, but references to mystical and spiritual experiences offer little help toward finding the substance of higher power.


* * * * *


Here, then, is a first, tentative outline of my book.

Introduction. In which I recognize the difficulty of finding an image of a higher power that will serve one well in the process of recovery and in which I introduce myself as the teller of my own story.

Chapter 1. These were my issues: the ACOA support group was my higher power; in a world governed by natural law, what place is there for a God who acts through miracles?; yet what kind of a God would be limited by natural law?; could I be agnostic about those issues and yet turn to a higher power?

Chapter 2. Recovery requires that my religion serve my health and wholeness. If it doesn't, then I should find a new religion. What principles of a belief system and what manifestation of a worshipping community do I need for recovery? I found it necessary to move beyond the usual recovery writers to find authors/guides for spiritual recovery. Recovery resources help me develop the capacity to feel and to balance that with the capacity to think.

Chapter 3. Through a unique church I am introduced to the ideas that religions are parts of great cultural myths and that scripture is metaphor for the human journey. These teachings open doors for new thinking, just as the use of inclusive language free me to think of God is terms other than Father (or Mother). I am helped to focus on Jesus' message and example of unconditional love, omnipresent grace, and God as love/spirit.

Chapter 4. In Carl Jung's writings I meet the concept that God may be understood as my deepest Self, that I am closest to God when I am being the real authentic me. Relate to Christian (and other) mysticism.

Chapter 5. I discover in reading modern physics that my idea of a cause and effect universe, whether applied to matter or to God, is out of date, that the universe is not that mechanistic or linear, but rather more like an organism, a network of interconnectedness, chaos patterned by statistical probability.

Chapter 6. Jung, again, with the Collective Unconscious that contains archetypes of gods, goddesses, spirits, which brought humankind into active touch with a spiritual world until much of that openness to spirit was lost in the age of rationality. Again, shades of mysticism and the need to recover right brain activity in order to participate in spirituality.

Chapter 7. The cosmology of Brian Swimme: When we place ourselves within the process of creative evolution that has brought us into being, we become reverent toward the Earth, and we draw creative energy from it. We learn the lesson that the whole interconnective process is alive and present within us. We are its imagination, its self-awareness. For our own identity and purpose, we need to place ourselves within a cosmology, a creation story.
Chapter 8. The goddess religions, almost lost in antiquity, have much to teach us if we are to counter or find balance for our traditions of patriarchy and hierarchy and exclusivism. I have yet to pursue this strand of thought.

Chapter 9. The Eastern and Native American religious traditions contribute cyclical thought, related to the natural flow of the seasons as well as to longer and shorter cycles; offer a more meditative, contemplative, accepting approach to life; make possible a deeper mysticism; and contain a reverence for the Earth and all its inhabitants that we need if we are to recover ecological wholeness.

Chapter 10. A disturbing synthesis, in which I acknowledge my firm commitment to the life and teachings of Jesus but find myself unable to affirm any image of God that the Judeo-Christian tradition would recognize as valid. I can't believe in God as a being, an entity; I believe that humankind projects God images from its highest and deepest experiences. Does that make me a Christian atheist? (To me, that is not an oxymoron.)

Chapter 11. Matthew Fox, in teaching Creation Spirituality (an alternative to the traditional sin/redemption belief of most of Christianity) helps my search for an acceptable image of God when he talks about Panentheism. He says, "Everything is in God and God is in everything." And I found validation in his statement that "God is the experience of God," by which he seems to mean the experience of awe and wonder, of ecstasy, of joy, of pain, and much more.

Chapter 13. The mystic, in Matthew Fox's view, is also a prophet. That is to say, the mystical experience of awe and wonder leads to action, to justice-making, to transformation of society as well as self. This is equally true for those who make policy and for those who chop wood and carry water.

Chapter 14. My journey has brought me to this point, where I will summarize my hypotheses and affirmations, after which I will note the questions that continue to bother me. These will direct me toward further study, thought and meditation. Spirituality, like other life journeys, is process, not destination. The time when I settle for a firm definition of higher power will be the time when I lose my openness to those surprise experiences of the sacred in everyday life.

References: (The books that I have found most helpful.)

Robert Boissiere. Meditations with the Hopi. Bear and Co. 1986.

Jean Shinoda Bolen. The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self. Harper and Row. 1979.

Joseph Campbell. Books, videos, interviews with Bill Moyers.

Matthew Fox. Meditations with Meister Eckhart. Bear and Co. 1983.

Matthew Fox. Original Blessing. Bear and Co. 1983.

Blanche Gallagher. Meditations with Teilhard de Chardin. Bear and Co. 1988.

Bede Griffiths. A New Vision of Reality. Templegate Publishers. 1989.

Gerald Hausman. Meditations with the Navajo. Bear and Co. 1987.

John Hitchcock. The Web of the Universe: Jung, The "New Physics," and Human Spirituality. Paulist Press. 1991.

Jeffrey Hopper. Understanding Modern Theology, Vols. I and II. Fortress Press. 1987.

Charlotte Davis Kasl. Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps. HarperCollins Publishers. 1992.

Jim McGregor. The Tao of Recovery: A Quiet Path to Wholeness. Bantam Books. 1992.

Michele Matto. The Twelve Steps in the Bible: A Path to Wholeness for Adult Children. Paulist Press. 1991.

Jacquelyn Small. Awakening in Time: The Journey from Codependence to Co-creation. Bantam Books. 1991.

Jacquelyn Small. Transformers: The Therapists of the Future. DeVorss and Company. 1982.

Murray Stein. Jung's Treatment of Christianity: The Psychotherapy of a Religious Tradition. Chiron Publications. 1985.

Brian Swimme. The Universe as a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story. Bear and Co. 1984.

Merlin Stone. When God was a Woman. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1976.

Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Any edition. I prefer the Stephen Mitchell translation.

Gary Zukav. The Seat of the Soul. Simon and Schuster. 1990.




(Copyright 1997 by C. Grey Austin, all rights reserved.)


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