Pope John Paul II in 1993
Emotional sympathy and moral reason, despite their essential contributions, do not solve every moral problem. We can be well attuned emotionally and well informed, but sometimes our best thinking does not find the answer, and we spontaneously reach out for higher wisdom. Or we know what we should do, but the beautiful way how to do it is beyond us. These situations call for the golden rule on a spiritual level of interpretation.
On a spiritual level, the golden rule may be regarded as the principle of the practice of the family of God: Treat others as brothers and sisters, as sons and daughters of God, as you want others to treat you. Or we can imagine treating others as God would treat them; we can participate in the goodness of God, the highest possible interpretation of the rule. Imagine how others need to see you: brimming with God, balanced, and shining in the mystery of your unique personality.
The spiritual interpretation of the golden rule opens new vistas. The golden rule means living the truth beautifully in love.
What difference do you find it make to add spirituality to psychological empathy? To moral reason?
And how can a beginner learn the way of love without it becoming just another moral demand?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/JohannesPaul2-portrait.jpg
The very act of adding spirituality to psychological empathy transforms it from a purely human level to a spiritual level that is akin to the Divine. This transformation allows us to view empathy from God’s point of view, to spiritual imagine, if you will how God views a particular moral problem that has evoked the empathy in the first place.
When this spirituality becomes the framework in which moral reasoning takes place, we have a whole new set of assumptions, admittedly faith assumptions, among which is the following: God is the father of every morally conscious individual. This being the case, we become expressions of the potentials that God has put in us. Even the earthly child is an expressions of the potentials of his earthly parents in varied combinations. So then if we exist spiritually to express the potentials concealed in us by God, our heavenly Father, our moral reasoning takes on a whole new dimension.
We are now sons and daughters of Gods, and therefore express a transcended morality. And this transcended morality is divine love. Divine love includes all of the moral elements of being purely human but also contains the more satisfying elements of service. Moral obligations compel us to do certain acts because we recognize them as our duty, but divine love induces us to act because of the sheer pleasure and joy of loving service. It is the recognition that in serving our spiritual brothers and sisters we are serving our spiritual Father.
In viewing each other as spiritual brothers and sisters, we discover those higher insights that allow us to transcend the limitations of purely moral reasoning. Love contains the understanding, the patience, the wisdom, the forecast of what an individual can be as well as his present status. And the beautiful thing about all of this is there is no limit to this reservoir of good will. It just keeps on giving and giving, with proportionate increases in the joy of giving and in the spiritual consciousness of God as our heavenly Father. God is love.
Everything has a beginning. To transcend the purely moral level to the way of love requires a sincere supreme desire, and the faith that it can be done. If those two qualities are in place, the heavenly Father will begin the teaching and training of sonship and daughtership with him. And as we look back over our experiences, we can clearly tell which acts were purely moral and which were acts of love. Further we will notice that as our experience continues, there will be more and more acts done out of love and fewer and fewer acts done out of duty. Thus will experience validate our faith in the teaching and training of our heavenly Father. We will gradually move from the purely moral consciousness to the spiritual consciousness, the consciousness of love. After all our faith instructs us that the way of love is God’s will.
Dr. Perry
The very act of adding spirituality to psychological empathy transforms it from a purely human level to a spiritual level that is akin to the Divine. This transformation allows us to view empathy from God’s point of view, to spiritual imagine, if you will how God views a particular moral problem that has evoked the empathy in the first place.
When this spirituality becomes the framework in which moral reasoning takes place, we have a whole new set of assumptions, admittedly faith assumptions, among which is the following: God is the father of every morally conscious individual. This being the case, we become expressions of the potentials that God has put in us. Even the earthly child is an expressions of the potentials of his earthly parents in varied combinations. So then if we exist spiritually to express the potentials concealed in us by God, our heavenly Father, our moral reasoning takes on a whole new dimension.
We are now sons and daughters of Gods, and therefore express a transcended morality. And this transcended morality is divine love. Divine love includes all of the moral elements of being purely human but also contains the more satisfying elements of service. Moral obligations compel us to do certain acts because we recognize them as our duty, but divine love induces us to act because of the sheer pleasure and joy of loving service. It is the recognition that in serving our spiritual brothers and sisters we are serving our spiritual Father.
In viewing each other as spiritual brothers and sisters, we discover those higher insights that allow us to transcend the limitations of purely moral reasoning. Love contains the understanding, the patience, the wisdom, the forecast of what an individual can be as well as his present status. And the beautiful thing about all of this is there is no limit to this reservoir of good will. It just keeps on giving and giving, with proportionate increases in the joy of giving and in the spiritual consciousness of God as our heavenly Father. God is love.
Everything has a beginning. To transcend the purely moral level to the way of love requires a sincere supreme desire, and the faith that it can be done. If those two qualities are in place, the heavenly Father will begin the teaching and training of sonship and daughtership with him. And as we look back over our experiences, we can clearly tell which acts were purely moral and which were acts of love. Further we will notice that as our experience continues, there will be more and more acts done out of love and fewer and fewer acts done out of duty. Thus will experience validate our faith in the teaching and training of our heavenly Father. We will gradually move from the purely moral consciousness to the spiritual consciousness, the consciousness of love. After all our faith instructs us that the way of love is God’s will.
Dr. Perry