As love, truth, creativity and our sense of agency are thwarted we become unstable. If these four aspects of a healthy will become inverted we go close to the edge of becoming crazy. They are the means of our becoming more alive and whole. They are the expressions of our distinctive humanity that clearly separate us from the animals.
Love, truth, creativity, and autonomy through responsibility are not only the four pivotal attributes of the human spirit without which life has no joy but they become the platform through which, if we’re spiritually healthy, we quest for goodness and beauty, through truth.
These are the unique aspects we’ve been shown about the Divine Being’s essential nature
This is why theologians tell us that God is Love, God is Truth, God is Creator and God is Supreme Ruler. These expressions of the divine nature are innate aspects of our human spirit initially breathed into our spirit by God himself at our creation. Sadly this part of us went missing when we humans left our relationship with God. We are now left with the exquisite yearning and unsatisfied ache of the spiritual absence. It is this spiritual vacuum that drives our obsessions and shapes our despair.
American wartime president Harry S Truman used to say “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” The reason so many of us are phoney is that we use a mask as our best attempt to fill the gap between what we subconsciously fear we are and what we feel we need to be, in order to draw love and respect from others. When truth punctures our inflated persona, the psychological pain moves some people to anguish and others even to contemplate commit suicide. Most of us are more interested in ego comfort than truth.
The exquisite ache that blinds us all
It was the apostle Paul who said “sin deceived me.” He went on to talk about the “mystery of iniquity” which is about the poor souls who though empty, still have their ego convincing them of their own moral superiority. It is they who are most easily deluded. They lack the will and spiritual intelligence to see past their ego needs to face the depth of their sub-conscious and exquisite ache from which comes their distorted motivation.
This is why the husband and wife philosophers, Werner and Lottie Peltz said “Your ultimate desire is your ultimate delusion unless your ultimate desire is to fulfil the words of God.” It is these words of God that bring a focus to the distinctive yearnings of the human spiritual that give life its illumination and meaning.