The Logic of the Spirit : Human Development in Theological Perspective

Rating:
Summary: Difficult but beautiful
Review: James Loder was one of those people who obviously knew God. I was privileged to be in one of his last classes before his recent death, and it was obvious that this was one of the truly Godly men in this world. This text was the basis of his course on Faith and Human development, a study of the full picture of what it means to be and become human. He develops an understanding of human development from the perspective that the reality of God and his Spirit actually makes an impact in who we are as people. Rather than divorcing the religious from humanity, he develops a study which incorporates this essential aspect of who we are as full human beings. It is not an easy read, but is certainly an essential text for anyone seeking to understand how we become who we are. One of the more important books I've read so far in my seminary career.

Rating:
Summary: Difficult but beautiful
Review: James Loder was one of those people who obviously knew God. I was privileged to be in one of his last classes before his recent death, and it was obvious that this was one of the truly Godly men in this world. This text was the basis of his course on Faith and Human development, a study of the full picture of what it means to be and become human. He develops an understanding of human development from the perspective that the reality of God and his Spirit actually makes an impact in who we are as people. Rather than divorcing the religious from humanity, he develops a study which incorporates this essential aspect of who we are as full human beings. It is not an easy read, but is certainly an essential text for anyone seeking to understand how we become who we are. One of the more important books I've read so far in my seminary career.

Rating:
Summary: Recapturing the spirit
Review: James Loder's book 'The Logic of the Spirit: Human Development in Theological Perspective' is a fascinating text, for it helps to re-integrate the idea of spiritual development (without becoming bogged down by denominationalist views on what that development should be) as an integral part of human psychological development. There has been the trend in the last century to separate out religious and spiritual matter from psychology--often for good cause. However, to negate the importance of this part of the human being when it is so clear throughout human history that it belongs as a centre-piece, has been a failure on the part of modern psychology, and that failure is beginning to be addressed by work such as Loder's.

'It should be recognised that the functionalist, structuralist, and empiricism toward which the human sciences are inclined keep them in a dualistic Newtonian world, where the person of the investigator is bracketed for the sake of objectifying the findings and meeting the canons of an empirical test. However, in contemporary physics, the hardest of sciences, it is recognised that the observer is an irreducible part of what must be accounted for in any scientific investigation. In Neils Bohr's understanding of subatomic phenomena and in Heisenberg's (a student of Bohr) uncertainty principle, to mention only two, it is evident that all observations at this level are observer conditioned.'

Much of the book follows the life cycle stages (a la Freud, Erikson, et alia) and examines underlying psychological theories (not dismissing any major school out of hand, but rather modifying and showing the differing implications each has for spiritual formation). Chapters on infant ego formation are coupled with the idea of infant's confrontation with nothingness as a spiritual challenge. While cognitively not capable of grasping the idea of nothingness (any more than they are capable of realising what an 'ego' is) they nonetheless begin sensing and making pre-linguistic determinations.

The toddler, oedipal and school-age stages likewise are explored from a psychological and spiritual standpoint. As a toddler transitions from 'parallel play' to interactive play, and begins to understand and use concepts and words such as 'I' and 'me', there begins to be a community sense developing, and a need for greater things, even beyond the parental influences, and for more comfortable things, beyond mother or transitional objects. With the oedipal child, Erikson gives as a core conflict in development initiative versus guilt -- and this is decidedly theological. Guilt and shame socially different, and perhaps the word guilt is too heavily loaded here.

'Shameless' is a term of opprobrium--you ought to have some shame; 'guiltless' is an honourific term implying innocence. Psychologically and developmentally, the deeper weakness or wound is shame, not guilt, though when we think theologically, we will see that guilt is still the deeper notion.

Further chapters explore spiritual development and psychological issues in adolescence, young adulthood, middle years, and older age (Loder has a beautiful chapter entitled 'Beyond 65: Dreaming Dreams and Talking with God'), which begins:

'In the book of the prophet Joel, the Lord said he would pour out his "spirit on all flesh". It was this prophecy that was fulfilled at Pentecost, and in Peter's sermon on that occasion "all flesh" meant not only the Jews but all nations (Acts 2:17). In almost the same breath, the prophecy discloses that by the Spirit, "old persons will dream dreams".'

That the old persons will dream dreams doesn't imply faulty thinking or a case of alzheimers or dementia. As people get older, they are getting closer to their own dream fulfillment in an ultimate sense, and this is a very positive affirmation from God.

Throughout this wonderful text, Loder uses personal examples from his case work and that of others in close practice with him, in which the spiritual dimensions of psychological work can be clearly seen and appreciated.