This discussion began many pages back by nothing that love is a mysterious subject and that until now the mystery has been ignored. The questions raised here so far have been answered. But there are other questions, not so easy to answer.
One set of such questions derives rather logically from the material thus far discussed. It has been made clear, for instance, that self-discipline develops from the foundation of love. But this leaves unanswered the question of where love itself comes from. And if we ask that, we must also ask what are the sources of the absence of love. It has been further suggested that the absence of love is the major cause of mental illness and that the presence of love is consequently the essential healing element in psychotherapy. This being so, how is it that certain individuals, born and raised in an environment of nonlove, of unremitting(持续不断的) neglect and casual brutality(残忍), somehow manage to transcend their childhood, sometimes even without the loving assistance of psychotherapy, and become mature, healthy and perhaps even saintly(圣洁的) people? Conversely, how is it that some patients, apparently no more ill than others, fail partially or totally to respond to psychotherapeutic treatment by even the most wise and loving therapist?
An attempt will be made to answer this set of questions in the final section, on grace. The attempt will not meet with anyone’s complete satisfaction, including my own. I hope, however, what I write will bring some enlightenment(启迪). There is another set of questions having to do with matters deliberately(故意地) omitted or glossed(掩盖) over in the discussion of love. When my beloved first stands before me naked, all open to my sight, there is a feeling throughout the whole of me: awe(惊叹). Why? If sex is no more than an instinct, why don’t I just feel “horny(欲火中烧的)” or hungry? Such simple hunger would be quite sufficient to insure(保证) the propagation of the species. Why awe? Why should sex be complicated with reverence(尊敬)? And for that matter, what is it that determines beauty? I have said the object of genuine love must be a person, since only people have spirits capable of growth. But what about the finest creation by a master woodworker(木工)? Or the best sculptures(雕像) of medieval(中世纪的) madonnas(圣母像)? Or the bronze(青铜制的) statue of the Greek charioteer(驾双轮战车者) at Delphi? Were these inanimate objects not loved by their creators and is not their beauty somehow related to their creators’ love? What about the beauty of nature-nature, to which we sometimes give the name “creation”? And why in the presence of beauty or joy do we so often have the strange, paradoxical reaction of sadness or tears? How is it that certain bars of music played or sung in certain ways can move us so? And why do I become wet-eyed when my six-year-old son, still ill on his first night home from the hospital after a tonsillectomy(扁桃腺切除术), suddenly comes over to where I am lying, tired, on the floor and begins to rub my back gently? Clearly there are dimensions of love that have not been discussed and are most difficult to understand. I do not think questions about these aspects(and many more) will be answered by sociobiology(生物社会学). Ordinary psychology with its knowledge of ego boundaries may be of a little help-but only a little. The people who know the most about such things are those among the religious(修士) who are students of Mystery. It is to them and to the subject of religion that we must turn if we are to obtain even glimmerings(微光) of insight into these matters. The remainder of this book will deal with certain facets(方面) of religion. The next section will discuss in a very limited way the relationship between religion and the growth process. The final section will focus on the phenomenon of grace and the role it plays in this process. The concept of grace has been familiar to religion for millennia(千年期), but it is foreign to science, including psychology. Nonetheless, I believe that an understanding of the phenomenon of grace is essential to complete understanding of the process of growth in human beings. What follows will, I hope, represent a contribution to the slowly enlarging interface between religion and the science of psychology.