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Sunday, 21 November 2021

Morality and Psychoanalysis by C.S. Lewis Doodle (BBC Talk 13, Mere Chri...

In this doodle, C.S. Lewis considers what the Christian idea of a good man is – the Christian specification for the human machine. Additionally, since Christian morality claims to be a technique for putting the human machine right, how is it related to another technique which seems to make a similar claim—namely, psychoanalysis. An abridged YouTube version of the broadcast. You can find the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christiani... (1:44) Carl Jung's work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals. Unlike Freud's materialist worldview, Jung's pantheism led him to believe that spiritual experience was essential to our well-being. Sorry about the spelling in the illustration, I did know the German name started with a "J", but must have been thinking with my English mind. (2:13) For more detail from C.S. Lewis on Freud (and Jung) on language and literature, see the essay ‘Psycho-Analysis And Literary Criticism’ and also ‘Bluspels And Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare’. Sometimes, Lewis noted, that psychology can be a poor humanistic substitute for theology, the depths of the mind replace the depths of God for the atheist. “For the general effect of materialism [atheism] is to give you, where you expected an indefinite depth of reality, a flat wall only a few inches away. Psycho-analysis offers you some kind of depth back again - lots of things hidden behind the wall. Hence those who have once tasted it feel that they are being robbed of something if we try to take it from them” (Psycho-Analysis And Literary Criticism). An interesting story from the day that Freud introduced psychoanalysis for the first time to America. Sailing into New York Harbor, Sigmund Freud stood on the deck with Carl Jung and gazed out at the Statue of Liberty illuminating the world. Freud turned to his disciple and whispered, “They don’t realise we’re bringing them the plague.” (4:23) Interestingly, in the Old Testament scared soldiers were used on the front lines, but could opt out of war lest they destroy the army's morale by fleeing in battle: https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/20-8... . See also Judges 7:3 ( https://biblehub.com/judges/7-3.htm ). "Shell shock" was a traumatic stress disorder first discovered in WWI. (6:45) The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded to members of the British Armed Forces for valour "in the presence of the enemy". Ever since the first awards were presented by Queen Victoria in 1857, two-thirds of all awards have been personally presented by the British monarch (= Medal of Honour in the USA). (8:45) Revelation 22.14 https://biblehub.com/revelation/22-14... (8:53) See Matthew 25.21 ( https://biblehub.com/matthew/25-21.htm ) and Malachi 3.2 ( https://biblehub.com/malachi/3-2.htm ). (13:09) The closing scene is from 'The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe', and is an enlightening recounting of the psychology of bitter Edmund as he walks to the White Witch’s castle in a snow storm. A brilliant piece of writing, where one relives the previous chapter, and gains a completely different perspective of the positive events when seen through corrupted eyes. The original broadcast had the following words italicised to add to understanding (shown in CAPS): “which are the RAW MATERIAL of his choice”, “To be the one kind of creature IS heaven”, “Good people know about good AND evil”.