The foregoing case histories were offered in response to a question: Is belief in God a form of psychopathology? If we are to rise out of the mire(泥潭) of childhood teaching, local tradition and superstition, it is a question that must be asked. But these are case histories indicate that the answer is not a simple one. The answer sometimes is yes. Kathy’s unquestioning belief in the God her church and mother taught clearly retarded(阻碍) her growth and poisoned her spirit. Only by questioning and discarding her belief was she able to venture forth into a wider, more satisfying, more productive life. Only then was she free to grow. But the answer also is sometimes no. As Marcia grew out of the cold microcosm of her childhood into a larger, warmer world, a belief in God also grew within her, quietly and naturally. And Ted’s forsaken belief in God had to be resurrected(使复活) as an essential part of the liberation and resurrection of his spirit.
What are we to do with this yes-and-no answer? Scientists are dedicated(致力于) to asking questions in the search for truth. But they too are human, and like all humans, they would like their answers to be clean and dear and easy. In their desire for simple solutions, scientists are prone(有做……倾向的) to fall into two traps as they question the reality of God. The first is to throw the baby out with the bath water. And the second is tunnel vision.
There is clearly a lot of dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God. Holy wars. Inquisitions(宗教法庭). Animal sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Superstition. Stultification(愚弄). Dogmatism. Ignorance(愚昧). Hypocrisy(伪善). Self-righteousness(自以为是). Rigidity. Cruelty. Book-burning. Witch-burning. Inhibition(禁令). Fear. Conformity(Morbid ). Morbid guilt(病态的内疚). Insanity(精神失常). The list is almost endless. But is all this what God has done to humans or what humans have done to God? It is abundantly(大量地) evident that belief in God is often destructively dogmatic. Is the problem, then, that humans tend to believe in God, or is the problem that humans tend to be dogmatic? Anyone who has known a died-in-the-wool(彻底的) atheist will know that such an individual can be as dogmatic about unbelief as any believer can be about belief. Is it belief in God we need to get rid of, or is it dogmatism?
Another reason that scientists are so prone to throw the baby out with the bath water is that science itself, as I have suggested, is a religion. The neophyte(新手) scientist, recently come or converted to the world view of science, can be every bit as fanatical(狂热的) as a Christian crusader(十字军战士) or a soldier of Allah(阿拉). This is particularly the case when we have come to science from a culture and home in which belief in God is firmly associated with ignorance, superstition, rigidity and hypocrisy. Then we have emotional as well as intellectual motives to smash(打碎) the idols of primitive faith. A mark of maturity in scientists, however, is their awareness that science may be as subject to dogmatism as any other religion.
I have firmly stated that it is essential to our spiritual growth for us to become scientists who are skeptical of what we have been taught-that is, the common notions and assumptions of our culture. But the notions of science themselves ofter become cultural idols(偶像), and it is necessary that we become skeptical of these as well. It is indeed possible for us to mature out of a belief in God. What I would now like to suggest is that it is also possible to mature into a belief in God. A skeptical atheism or agnosticism is not necessarily the highest state of understanding at which human begins can arrive. To the contrary, there is reason to believe that behind spurious(谬误的) notions and false concepts of God there lies a reality that is God. This is what Paul Tillich meant when he referred to the “god beyond God” and why some sophisticated Christians used to proclaim joyfully, “God is dead. Long live God.” Is is possible that the path of spiritual growth leads first out of superstition into agnosticism and then out of agnosticism toward an accurate knowledge of God? It was of this path that the Sufi Aba Said ibn Abi-I-Khair was speaking more than nine hundred years ago when he said:
Until college and minaret(尖塔) have crumbled(破碎)
This holy work of our will not be done.
Until faith becomes rejection, and rejection becomes belief
There will be no true Muslim(穆斯林).
Whether or not the path of spiritual growth necessarily leads from a skeptical atheism or agnosticism toward and accurate belief in God, the fact of the matter is that some intellectually sophisticated and skeptical people, such as Marcia and Ted, do seem to grow in the direction of belief. And it should be noted that this belief into which they grew was not at all like that out of which Kathy evolved. The God that comes before skepticism may bear little resemblance(相似点) to the God that comes after. As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, there is no single, monolithic(完全统一的) religion. There are many religions, and perhaps many levels to belief. Some religions may be unhealthy for some people; others may be healthy.
All this is of particular import for those scientists who are psychiatrists or psychotherapists. Dealing so directly with the growth process, they more than anyone else are called upon to make judgments as to the healthiness of an individual’s belief system. Because psychotherapists generally belong to a skeptical if not strictly Freudian tradition, there is a tendency for the to consider any passionate belief in God to be pathological(病态的). Upon occasion this tendency may go over the line into frank bias and prejudice. Not long ago I met a college senior who was giving serious consideration to be possibility of entering a monastery(修道院) a few years hence. He had been in psychotherapy for the preceding year and was continuing. “But I have not been able to tell my therapist about the monastery or the depth of my religious belief,” he confided(倾诉). “I don’t think he would understand.” I did not begin to know this young man well enough to assess the meaning that the monastery held for him or whether his desire to join it was neurotically determined. I very much would have liked to say to him: “You really ought to tell you therapist about it. It is essential for your therapy that you be open about everything, particularly a serious matter such as this. You should trust your therapist to be objective.” But I did not. For I was not at all sure that his therapist would be objective, that he would understand, in the true meaning of the word.
Psychiatrists and psychotherapists who have simplistic attitudes toward religion are likely to do a disservice(帮倒忙的行为) to some of their patients. This will be true if they regard all religion as good or healthy. It will also be true if they throw out the baby with the bath water and regard all religion as sickness or the Enemy. And, finally, it will be true if in the face of complexity of the matter they withdraw themselves from dealing at all with the religious issues of their patients, hiding behind a cloak(斗篷) of such total objectivity that they do not consider it to be their role to be, themselves, in any way spiritually or religiously involved. For their patients often need their involvement. I do not mean to imply that they should forsake their objectivity, or that balancing their objectivity with their own spirituality is an easy matter. It is not. To the contrary, my plea would be that psychotherapists of all kinds should push themselves to become not less involved but rather more sophisticated in religious matters than they frequently are.