In modern times, religion is on the decline. We are very skeptical, and often cynical, when considering the topic of religion, and we are quick to reject it entirely. We give plenty of reasons for dismissing religion, and we are quick to explain it away.
Here I would like to demonstrate that religion, and Christianity specifically, is worthy of our careful consideration. I will attempt to do this by giving a glimpse into the psychology of religious faith. However, I am not making the claim that the psychological view of religion gives a complete picture of it; to make such a claim would be to once again explain it away. Nevertheless, the psychological view of religion can be valuable.
It is important to first note that religion is a cultural universal. What this implies is that religion is a part of human nature; it is innate. We cannot get rid of religion. When we try to, something else will always fill the void.
We all worship something; we all have something which we elevate to the position of god. From the standpoint of psychology, our god is whatever is our highest ideal. Put differently, that which we most value and strive for is our god.
In Christianity, Jesus is the perfect person and the ultimate ideal. Christians are called to imitate Christ in order to live as he lived. Christians are supposed to strive to embody the spirit of Christ.
When you establish an ideal, you have something to move towards and something at which to aim. And in establishing an ideal, you establish a relationship with it. Therefore, elevating Jesus as an ideal also establishes a relationship with Him.
What mediates this relationship is your conscience—your inner voice. Your conscience is not God, but rather the pathway of communication with God.
The word “sin” means “to miss the mark.” If Jesus is your ideal, that means that he is your target; he is what you are aiming to embody. To sin, then, means to fail to hit the target, or to fail at achieving your ideal. To sin is to not live as Jesus lived.
The conscience is the inner critic that tells you what to do, and especially what not to do. It tells you what behaviors fall short of your ideal, and how to avoid sin. And when we do miss the mark, we know it, and we have a “guilty conscience.”
Jesus is viewed in Christianity as the ultimate Judge and as the Savior. This too makes sense from a psychological perspective. As psychologist and public intellectual Jordan Peterson explains, when you set up an ideal, you elevate something above yourself. Your ideal looks down at you, and you look up at it. You are then judged in relationship to that ideal, and your conscience delivers those judgments.
Christ is also the Savior because in pursuing an ideal, the journey itself produces a rebirth into something new. That is why Carl Jung said, “He who cannot lose himself, neither will he save himself.” To become something new, we must sacrifice what we currently are and be reborn.
Religion is the relationship between yourself and your ideal. And religious faith is trust in, and obedience to, that ideal. To do something “religiously” is to do so in a disciplined manner. It is no coincidence that the words “discipline” and “disciple” share the same root. A disciple is a student and discipline is defined as, “Training that corrects, molds or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.”
To become disciplined is to give things up for a higher aim; to make sacrifices in the pursuit of an ideal. Religion, then, is about the discipline of self-control and self-perfection that result from pursuing an ideal.
Religion says that freedom without discipline is no freedom at all. Freedom without discipline is analogous to being dropped in the middle of the ocean. To have completely unconstrained freedom is to be in a sea of chaos and to be defenseless against the elements.
Freedom without discipline ultimately amounts to self-enslavement. What freedom do you really have if you cannot control your impulses, your emotions and your reactions? Is it really you that is in control? To carry on the ocean metaphor, where is the freedom in being powerless to the elements?
What religion says is that discipline will give you true freedom. Obedience to, and trust in, an ideal—in Jesus—will put you on the path to self-mastery. Overcoming the self is one of the most noble and most difficult tasks one can embark on achieving. Lao Tzu said: “Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”
Of course, we can never completely master ourselves and we can never completely embody the life of Jesus. It is an unattainable ideal. But as Carl Jung said, “Unattainability is no argument against the ideal, for ideals are only signposts, never the goal.”
Sam Dugan is a fourth-year student majoring in economics with a minor in philosophy. They can be reached at SD829860@wcupa.edu.