Psychological and Religious Pessimism

Fire in the Soul: A New Psychology of Spiritual optimism
by Joan Borysenko

(Page 3 of 4)

A doughnut-shaped greeting card that I once sent to a friend defined optimism and pessimism succinctly. It said, "The difference between an optimist and a pessimist is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut and the pessimist sees the hole." When we get down to our beliefs about why bad things happen, optimists and pessimists indeed see the doughnut differently.

Psychologists classify people as optimists or pessimists based on how they answer the question "Why me?" The pessimist is a helpless sort who explains his plight with three characteristic arguments: internal, stable and global. The pessimist believes: It's all my fault (internal), it's the story of my life (stable) and I mess up everything I do (global).1 Jay, the AIDS patient whom you read about earlier in this chapter, was a pessimist. Like all pessimists, he tended to be chronically anxious, depressed and guilty since he felt helpless to keep bad things from happening.

If the psychological pessimist like Jay beats his breast and laments, "I am worthless, life is hopeless and it's all my own damn fault," his religious pessimism takes the argument one step further to, "And God is going to get me for it. I'm doomed."2

Religions that lead us to experiences of interconnectedness and deep participation with one another and the divine are bridges to the spiritual. They direct us to that indwelling center-the Self-in which safety, communion, awe, gratitude, compassion, joy and wisdom are matters of experience rather than dogma. The core of all great religious traditions is essentially the same-to connect deeply and thankfully with life by loving ourselves, one another and God. Jesus summed up the teachings of Christianity as being the same as the primary teaching of the Pharisaic Judaism of his time: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself."

A problem arises in religious teachings, however, when fear is used in an attempt to inculcate love. This tactic is an obvious impossibility that defies common sense and defiles what it is to be loving. Hearkening back to our previous discussion of God as father, a parent who attempts to criticize and threaten a child into being polite, loving and respectful generally produces a helpless, ashamed and angry offspring. The child may put on a mask of niceness, politeness and piety, but underneath is a seething volcano of resentment, and guilt for feeling that way. If our secular psychology has figured out this much, it is a good bet that God knew it long ago.

Looking back to your own answer to the question "Why me?" are you a psychological pessimist like Jay who helplessly blames yourself for the problems of your life, or are you an optimist like Leslie who believes that life's challenges are part of your psychological and spiritual growth? Are you a religious pessimist or a spiritual optimist? Jay's pessimistic theory was that his illness was proof that he was a sinner destined for eternal punishment. Leslie's theory about her illness is much more benign. Her strength is in the admission "I don't know why these bad things happened," coupled with her faith that the pain she experiences will someday be revealed as part of a larger wholeness.

Is the Universe a Friendly Place or Not?

Albert Einstein's view of life was similar to Leslie's. To Einstein the universe was mysterious and magnificent, awesome and holy-a "great eternal riddle" that is only partially knowable. The quantum mechanical view of the universe that Einstein introduced in 1905 rocked the world of science. Instead of a machine-like universe where separate factors operate by simple cause and effect, the quantum mechanical revolution that Einstein began speaks to the notion that all things are interrelated in one great field of energy. At some level, everything is actually part of an interconnected Whole.

Einstein's genius for apprehending creation through mathematics led him to the physical/mystical understanding that the idea that we are separate entities is simply an "optical delusion of our consciousness." What, then, would Einstein have said in answer to the question "Why me?" In his luminous book Recovering the Soul, physician Larry Dossey relates that, during a serious illness, Einstein was asked if he was afraid of death. He replied, "I feel such a sense of solidarity with all living things that it does not matter to me where the individual begins and ends." Dossey continues,

Where did the individual begin and end for Einstein? The boundaries of the person were seemingly far-flung. We get a hint of this view in his attitude about freedom of the will, in which he reveals his belief that we have unseverable ties with all the things and events of the world-an affinity which is so intimate that the entire question of individual freedom is nonsensical. Our concept of freedom of the will in one sense is very limited, implying an isolated individual situated in the here-and-now who can exercise it. Einstein does not share this local concept. For him, freedom of the will is tied to an endless chain of events extending far into the past in an indefinitely large expansion (p. 147).

To Einstein, Jay's notion that we are 100 percent responsible for creating our own reality would have been too simpleminded. Who is the "I" separate from the "we" who has the hubris to think that it acts in isolation? Strangers wrote to Einstein from all over the world about their hopes and dreams, their suffering and fears. At one point Einstein was asked what he thought the most important question was that a human being needed to answer. His reply was, "Is the universe a friendly place or not?" And indeed, our answer to that question is the cornerstone on which many of our values and beliefs inevitably rest. If we believe that the universe is unfriendly and that our very souls are in danger, peace will be elusive at best.

What is your answer to the question "Is the universe a friendly place or not?" Hopefully, in returning our attention to the plight of Job, you can think about your response to this critical question and perhaps gain some new insights into your most basic beliefs.

Copyright © 1993 by Joan Borysenko