The denial of guilt or the effort to reduce ethics to psychiatry is as unsound and unscientific as the error of denying that there are genuinely mental troubles or the reduction of psychiatry to ethics and moral theology. In actual fact, no moral theologian denies the validity and necessity of psychiatry; but since many analysts do deny the realms of the moral, the Divine, and the supernatural, it is important to continue stressing the difference between the two.

Even when a client has his or her psychoanalyst's encouragement to laugh off the possibility of moral evil or a sense of guilt as the cause of his or her worries, his or her rejection of ethical standards is still a form of escapism. In such cases, it is vain for the frustrated soul to say that he or she will work the problem out "for himself or herself." For the soul that relics upon itself is unrealistic. Cure is conditioned upon the realization of two basic facts: There is some evil in the soul; and the perfection and cure are not to be sought in the person. Just as medicine must come from outside of the body, so moral healing must come from outside of the soul. Yet many modern men and women run to the ends of the earth to escape the one source of health or recovery.

Escapists refuse to face the fact that their own lives are disordered; or else they try an "easy" way out of their misery that lands them into worse confusion. Some of the "easy" ways out are the escapism of scandal-mongering which seeks to find others who are worse than the self and thus make the self seem good by comparison; the escapism of ridicule, which makes fun of the virtuous and religious to avoid the reproach of their goodness; the escapism of noise, of drowning oneself in excitement, crowds, collective trances, so that the sweet, low voice of conscience, through which God speaks, is never heard; the escapism of atheism, an anarchical revolution by which one covers up one's own need of personal, inner, spiritual regeneration by revolutionizing everyone else.

For by pointing out the wrongs of others, the atheist avoids the need of righting himself or herself; by spreading the ideology of class conflict, he or she creates the illusion that the evil he or she hates is not within himself or herself, but in the social system. The social conscience thus dispenses many people today from any compulsion to set right their individual consciences. There is also the escapism of calling religion "escapism." This atheistic at riposte is the most wrongheaded of them all - to throw it at a distraught friend, is like telling a person whose house is on fire that he is an "escapist" if he or she calls the fire department.

The real escapists follow many different routes, but none of them are humble enough to admit that there is some evil in them; all of them are too proud to admit that they need outside help to cure their misery. By denying guilt, they show that they are cowards; by denying any perfection outside themselves, they become snobs. The last, desperate stage of escapism is religious persecution; hatred of religion is projected self-hatred. It is not easy for normal persons to understand how goodness and truth can be hated, but they are.

Truth can be hated because it implies responsibility. Goodness is hated because it is a reproach. If the Lord Jesus Christ had been tolerant and broad minded, He would never have been crucified; it was the perfection of His virtue that constituted a judgment of the wicked. But since those who persecute religion as a form of escapism must constantly think about God and His universal Church, it follows that they are often closer to conversion than the indifferent person of a Liberal Civilization, who does not trouble making up his or her mind on any ultimate question.

Escapism never succeeds. In every sinner whose frustrations and neuroses are due to a burdened conscience, there is a latent contradiction. The person is pulled in two directions. He or she is not so much at ease with sin as to be able to make it his or her definite vocation, nor, on the other hand, is he or she so much in love with God as to disavow his or her faults. The dualism arises from a desire of God, on the other hand, and a turning from God on the other. Such people have insufficient moral energy to be bad or to be good; they have not enough religion to find peace of soul, yet quite enough of it to intensify their sense of frustration after they have sinned.

Those who live.......
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Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
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Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -