92. JULIA T. MESZAROS — B
Posted online is a stimulating Trinity College, University of Oxford, Doctor of Philosophy thesis by Julia T. Meszaros. Her title, “Selfless Love and Human Flourishing: A Theological and A Secular Perspective in Dialogue,” got my attention. Her work is now available in a book with that title. This triptych includes selected gleanings from the thesis. The purpose of Meszaros’ thesis was to examine whether selfless love is compatible with the flourishing of the self.
Post #91 introduced Meszaros’ thesis. In this post, instead of summarizing her content, I will extract a few issues that I found to be of special interest. They have led me to think in some different ways. If you read this post, perhaps you will also be led to think in some different ways.
Early in this blog, I introduced the issue of consciousness and included reference to the five orders noted by developmental psychologist Robert Kegan. The orders evolve as we mature. At the first and second levels of consciousness, we are focused on egocentric issues, quite appropriate for our early survival and development. When we evolve to the third order, however, we become more aware of the “us” of which we are a part. With the fourth order, we become more conscious of a worldview that includes all of us.
When we evolve to the fifth order, we seem to be more equipped with critical faculties to make serious judgments and are thereby better able to navigate the complexities of our developing lives. Also, we move from detached observations of others to a connectedness in which the differences among us enable us to become more than we were previously.
In that earlier CLUE about Kegan’s five orders, I asked this question: “Have you experienced a relationship in which you felt open and very close to someone who seemed to feel the same about you, and as a result of that relationship, you felt your life changed for the better?” If so, maybe you experienced a 5th level of consciousness.
Iris Murdoch, one of the two philosophers upon whom Meszaros focused in her thesis, considered consciousness to enable insight into what she called the Good, which she distinguished from the self. A critical analysis is above my pay grade; nevertheless, I venture forth and suggest that maybe as we mature in our consciousness, we connect with a higher realm (Good/God) that empowers the good stuff that Kegan associates with the fifth order.
A related insight from the thesis is the increased freedom of decision-making, achieved in our maturity, can lead to discomforting insecurity, anxiety, and even a threat of meaninglessness. Yet instead of allowing this state to lead us to self-destruction, we can, in the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, learn to be anxious in the right way such that the terrible things of life become weak by comparison with those of possibility. Kierkegaard considered freedom as a means to realize our individuality to be a living, active, self-making, self-choosing, self-renewing energy (cf. the quantum self) set in time to process and become.
Meszaros: “Freedom, they [Tillich and Murdoch] agree, is not simply a mechanism enabling arbitrary decision-making without deeper consequences. Rather, it is a reality the use of which affects us in our very being, and which is thus properly geared towards, dependent on, and enabling of, truthful being. They agree that the individual’s use of his freedom affects his inner life and, with this, the state — indeed, the very being — of his self.”
Freedom is not just a matter of casting off bonds with unrestraint. Freedom does not signify human autonomy. To be truly liberating, truly in alignment with our destiny, it must be grounded in the dimension of the ultimate. And, Tillich and Murdoch consider it to be on account of selfless love of the other that we human beings can fully attain true freedom.
“The perception that human flourishing is somehow dependent on love is at least as old
as Socrates.” With Plato, a form of love pulls the human soul upwards towards its origin and destiny. We are able to reach our highest potential when we move from an individualist to a universal and creative force originating outside of the individual’s life. With Christianity, love is identified with God and is relational — this love includes God, the self, and the neighbor. This love is an overflowing of plentitude that includes all things even sinners. This love, grounded in the ultimate, is dissociated from desirous, acquisitive and self-centered love.
“A truthful life relies on love of the right things. It relies on … refusing to let oneself be dragged down by gravity and allowing oneself, instead, to be elevated by grace. True love of creatures is possible only where it has become ‘associated with the creative love of God’ by having ‘passed through God as through fire’.” With this love, we can love others as they are and in so doing, encourage their freedom to live a life grounded in grace-love.
Our thesis scholar suggests that Tillich and Murdoch attempt to explicate the inter-dependence of selfless love and human flourishing. We will follow Meszaros in the next post as she guides us in her thoughtful journey.
Q: Do you experience a love that lifts you and liberates you to flourish?
