Session 9 - Christian Existentialism

Theological Foundations, Spiritual Formation and Psychotherapy : 

Theological Foundations, Spiritual Formation and Psychotherapy Session 9 Christian Existentialism

Christian Existential Context : 

Christian Existential Context What Is Existentialism? Existential Distinctives Existential Philosophers Phenomenology Christian Existentialism

Christian Existential Context : 

Christian Existential Context Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one's total orientation to life. Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One's religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for. (May, 1953 pp. 180 – Man’s Search for Himself).

Christian Existential Context : 

Christian Existential Context Rocks In The River

Ontological Capacities & Compentencies : 

Ontological Capacities & Compentencies To Tolerate: Variation To Respond: Fully Well-being: “Spirituality integrates the differentiated parts of the self and holds us together as we face the uncertainty, suffering and mysteries of an increasingly complex and disintegrating world” -Siegel

Ontological Capacities & Compentencies : 

Ontological Capacities & Compentencies To Tolerate Variability To Respond Fully To Understand Relationship To Self- And self- Regulate Soothe

Tillich Continued : 

Tillich Continued Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of nonbeing. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of nonbeing upon itself by affirming itself either as part of an embracing whole or in its individual selfhood. Courage always includes a risk, it is always threatened by nonbeing, whether the risk of losing oneself and becoming a thing within the whole of things or of losing one’s world in an empty self-relatedness. Courage needs the power of being, a power transcending the nonbeing which is experienced in the anxiety of fate and death, which is present in the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness, which is effective in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. The courage which takes this threefold anxiety into itself must be rooted in a power of being that is greater than the power of oneself and the power of one’s world. Neither self-affirmation as a part nor self-affirmation as oneself is beyond the manifold threat of nonbeing.” (p. 155)

Focus: Self-Affirmation : 

Focus: Self-Affirmation Through Individuation Through Participation

Self-Affirming Individuation : 

Self-Affirming Individuation The Continuum of Differentiation Cells Mahler Bowen

Self-Affirming Individuation : 

Self-Affirming Individuation Romantic Differentiation Creating a new self, experimenting with “Moving Away From”

Self-Affirming Individuation : 

Self-Affirming Individuation Failure must be viewed pragmatically and experimentally as development, growth, and learning – something that we cannot do easily at times. To do otherwise, is to move toward despair

Self-Affirming Individuation : 

Self-Affirming Individuation A too strong emphasis on individuation, as is often the case today, leads to emptiness, disconnectedness, or self-indulgence.

Focus: Self-Affirmation : 

Focus: Self-Affirmation Through Individuation Through Participation

Self-Affirming Participation : 

Self-Affirming Participation “what a person is he ultimately becomes through the cause which he has made his own” - Karl Jasper The self needs its world in order to develop into a whole.

Self-Affirming Participation : 

Self-Affirming Participation Positively, participation enlarges our vision, increases our motivation, ties us to previous and future generations, and gives us a sense of immortality and connectedness.

Self-Affirming Participation : 

Self-Affirming Participation Today, participation within any system too wholeheartedly and enthusiastically appears suspicious because of our high appreciation for individuation.

Self-Affirming Participation : 

Self-Affirming Participation Negatively, participation, according to Tillich, can be an attempt to become “lost” within the larger group, and thereby avoid our own unique being, e.g. within a marriage, a movement, a church, a political party.

Slide 18: 

You will be assimilated Resistance is futile.

Self-Affirming Participation : 

Self-Affirming Participation In the participative dimension of life, the goal of participation is less critical than the process itself, which, when productive, lends a hand to self-affirmation.

The Role of Religion : 

The Role of Religion For Tillich, religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself.

The Role of Religion : 

The Role of Religion The individual’s personal encounter with God is the experience of being grasped by a power greater than oneself.

The Role of Religion : 

The Role of Religion Neither individuation nor participation is viewed as a means for the self to affirm itself, but rather give way to a trust in God, and an acceptance of our ultimate unacceptability. “It is the paradoxical act in which one is accepted by that which infinitely transcends one’s individual self.” (p. 165).

The Source of Courage : 

The Source of Courage “The ultimate source of the courage to be is the “God above God”; this is the result of our demand to transcend theism. Only if the God of theism is transcended can the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness be taken into the courage to be. The God above God is the object of all mystical longing, but mysticism also must be transcended in order to reach Him” (Page 186).