Conversions Needed; Differentiations optional

As we grow from the immediate world of infancy into the world mediated by meaning, we either find that world centrally charged by religion or not. The call is to conversion; it is not to be a theologian. It is to love the Lord our God with all our mind, our heart, our strength and our neighbour as ourselves. In other religions the demand may be differently put, but the result may be much the same. The Far East has a deep sense of prayer and spirituality, but the Zen Buddhist might describe God as “nothing”. What may be meant by this is that He is not something you can see, like a rabbit or an apple. For quite a few in the West though, the world of meaning might include scientific heroes, military heroes; and a set of theories to be mastered, physical, chemical, biological, psychological, sociological, economic; and a set of histories to be mastered; and perhaps a set of religions which once were thought important and which now are out of date.

The operative world around us is technological, and medicine is a sort of technology of the body and perhaps psychology a sort of technology of consciousness. Parents want their children to get on and get paid and so they conspire with the theoretical world represented incipiently by schools and more thoroughly by universities. The children accept the guidance of their parents and the parents are surprised to find that the children have lost their faith. At the same time we need modern technology to sustain our six thousand million people, and without people who are trained and understand this and that the system will break down.

I don’t think that mastering a technology with its theoretical component constitutes a differentiation which allows one to earn a living. Still it is a great achievement which enables one to keep systems going and be a good mechanic or doctor or whatever. The effort involved may cause one to forget about the call to conversion. I recall a mother who was much worried that her children were not working for their exams. She had not expressed any anxiety that they were not coming to church, even though she was.

What I am claiming though is that our scientifically and technologically differentiated culture places a very great demand and challenge upon young people so that it may seem to them the only thing that matters, so that they do not heed the call to love the Lord their God with all their heart.

The call to love God involves a call to love what He has created and so alongside religious conversion one may recognise a distinct moral conversion. We find precepts in religious tradition which are quite different from those normally abroad, for example, “do good to those who hate you”. The importance of human life is central here, but the surrounding ecology which supports human life is radically involved. If one poisons a lake to get rid of waste and humans thereby perish, this is a sort of murder. Human death is not directly intended but it is directly caused. I recall some chaps in Slough whose job it was to get id of several pounds of mercury. They did so by putting it into the Thames. They did their job but wondered at what mammoth destruction they had caused. Moral conversion was perhaps operative in their intellect - they understood – but not in their conduct.

The maxims of diplomacy may be quite different: “If you want peace, prepare for war”. At the same time history does indicate that withdrawing defences can be a signal of weakness to the enemy as witnessed by the decline of the Roman Empire, or the invasion of the Falkland Islands by the Argentineans.

Moral conversion involves a shift from egotism with the pleasure/pain rule of conduct to a question what is worthwhile, what is the good within our reach? Historically there can be moral progress or moral decline.

I would see Jeremy Bentham’s “Utilitarianism” as combining a point of moral progress with a principle of decline. The point of progress is that it cares for all: “The greatest good of the greatest number”. Each one counts as one. The more impoverished they are the greater the benefit, the greater the marginal utility. If the State is seen as the promoter of maximum utility, the rich must be impoverished till they are at the level of the poor unless a trickle down theory shows that the welfare of the rich overflows and trickles down to the poor. There is here a form of State absolution, I think. One recalls Lord Acton’s remark, “All power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

For Benthamism though there seem no absolute beyond pleasure. “Pushpin is as good as poetry, if it please as much”. We find here a ground of the moral relationism where it is perfectly acceptable for say, Members of Parliament to live with partners rather than spouses. Who is to judge? The economist, Alfred Marshall, by contrast sees family life as the main motive a man has to work, and in his time that work was often very unpleasant, down the mines for example. With Marshall’s view you get a sense of a particular good, the family, inspiring people to work for a wider good in return for an income, a sort of “trickle up” theory. On the basis of Marshall I found myself writing to Blair when he was PM arguing that policies which undermined the family would lead to greater poverty in the future.

Religious conversion typically expresses itself in practicing one’s religion. Moral conversion one might argue typically shows itself in the achievement of family life. Lonergan though, has a third conversion which typically grows from religious conversion and moral conversion, namely intellectual conversion.

As a matter of practice, intellectual conversion is a matter of realising that one can know things without seeing them. The very fact of worshipping an invisible God means something can be real and can matter without being seen. The very fact of being faithful to one’s spouse means recognising a value which cannot be seen. That one can talk about such matters shows that de facto one is using one’s intellect. In baptism but also the last rites, the Church does not ask do you love God, but do you believe? Are you using your mind so that you are living – and dying – in the world as it really is? Is your hope an illusion or is it founded on something real?

Fr Robert Doran SJ adds to the need for religious, moral and intellectual conversion the need for psychic conversion. I associate this with Lonergan’s “dramatic bias” which censors out needed images and feelings and perhaps censors in, or obsesses one with, unhelpful images and feelings. Since one’s understanding needs images such censorship can impede one’s understanding. An example of things being “censored out” would be racialism where one does not think people of a certain background are really human. An example of inappropriate “censoring in” would be a sexual imagery completely inappropriate and unhelpful to one’s actual sexual development.

The purpose of this paper is to say that everyone needs conversion, religious, moral, intellectual and psychic. Such conversion is ongoing and never complete in this life. By such conversion one becomes holy, good, truthful and open in an increasing measure, with a growing intensity and so becomes faultless and worthy to pass through the pearly gates.

Quite distinct are the differentiations of consciousness whereby one becomes a theologian, a scientist, an historian, an artist or a philosopher. Such expertises are in development and the community can and should develop from such advances. One can insist – according to the situation and culture – that everyone should know a bit about their religion, for example, for Christmas that they should know about Christmas, Easter, the Trinity, the Sacraments, but one cannot insist that they should all become theologians. There are different sorts of theologians and they are trained up in Research or Communications or – well there are six other specialisations. Admirable as it maybe, one is not a theologian by getting up on one’s hind legs and talking about God. Similarly, one is not obliged to be a scholar and learn Hebrew and become expert in Isaiah to be saved, but such scholars may help the preacher to convince the multitude. Again, one does not have to be a scientist to be a mechanic and mend the car, or to understand that modern science and technology are vital for modern man. Science is to do with the methodology which makes the unknown known. Again, one does not have to be an artist to be moved by a religious work of art, or to take part in a beautiful liturgy. One does not have to be a philosopher to realise that in one’s commonsense world, probably much preoccupied with making a living, one learns from scholars, one benefits from scientists, one is inspired by artists and one can learn from philosophers how the whole world in which we live can be comprehended as a unity in development.

But this positive passivity vis a vis the experts, whereby we allow them to inform us, delight us, stir us, does not mean we do not face our personal task which belongs to no one else of religious conversion whereby we love the Lord our God, moral conversion whereby we creatively and intelligently seek the limited good that is in our power, of intellectual conversion whereby what we have understood is in our lips and psychic conversion whereby we can recognise what is …….. going forward and so be new wineskins for new wine.