LOGIC OF THE SPIRIT

James Loder presents his Logic of the Spirit by intermarrying psychology and theology in order to redefine “the meaning and purpose of human development” (p. ix). Loder’s writing is an exploration on the spiritual dimension of human development by looking at the very purpose of life – the meaning of life. Loder attempts to answer the perennial questions of human beings – “What is a life time?” and “Why do I live it?” Quoting Camus’s surly and ironic question, “Does life deserve to be lived?” Loder believes this is “an outcry of the human spirit” meant to call someone or someplace beyond the self. Also quoting Miguel de Unamuno, the great philosopher who says, “what distinguishes human beings from other creatures is that human beings have a unique practice of burying their dead” (p. 4). Loder is trying to demonstrate the uniqueness of human beings should make us aware or lead us to the study of the human spirit.

Loder offers two approaches to look at the human spirit. First approach is what he calls “from below” meaning from the standpoint of science and experience and the second approach “from above”, viewing from the standpoint of God through His self-revelation in Jesus Christ as well as His relation to His creation.

In his first view, Loder delineates that the human spirit is expressed or manifested in arts, music, literature, sculpture, painting, drama, dance and the like explains “the expansiveness, transcendence, inclusiveness and inspiration” visible in human existence. Loder attempts to provide two vignettes to explain his first approach (from below). These two vignettes are Wolfhart Pannenberg’s “exocentricity” (the human spirit) and Wilder Penfield “strange loops in the brain” (the transcendence of the “I”). Loder parallels the universe with human nature which he calls “the two infinities” – “the big infinity” and “the little infinity” (p.7). In his parallelization, Loder presents four points of relevant connectivity, first “the emergence of order in the universe and of congruent orders of mind in human development”, second, “the analogical connection between entropy and death” third, “transformation and new order” and last, “relationality as ontologically prior to rationality” (p.7-8). All these point toward the Creator-God.

Let us turn to Loder’s second view, the view from above. Loder explains that the Author God enters His own Creation by revealing Himself in Jesus Christ as well as continuing to work in the Creator Spirit in order to bring ultimate harmony between the created and contigent order with the divine order. As human spirit is separated from its ultimate ground in the Spirit of God therefore human spirit is constantly in the state of “bewilderment, blundering briliance” crying for wisdom to an “unknown God” (p.10). Only the Creator-Spirit is capable of freeing the human spirit from “self-inflation, self-doubt, self-absorption and self-destruction” (p.10).

These two views are complimentary and it is asymmetry as well. Loder proposes, the view from above should serve as the priority or basis for the bipolar relationship of these two views. The Creator Spirit is working to “transform the negation, the nothingness, the frightening abyss that pervades and haunts human development as a whole” (p.14). The dark side, the fatalism, the nihilism, the emptiness and meaninglessness of human spirit needs total transformation solely provided by the Creator Spirit.

Distinguishing from traditional approach of human development that tend to “focus on defining and mapping stages”, Loder offers to “focus on the dynamics of development within and beyond the context of stages” (p.18). Loder prefers to concentrate on “how” the environment and persons interact resulting the personality of a human person (p.20). Loder thinks that psychological approach is too preoccupied with adaptation which may prevent a better understanding on the more profound issues of human existence (pp.26-27). And hence, he suggests incorporating theological anthropological perspective into the study of human development.

Loder sets out by laying out a succinct summary of four fundamental theological arguments by Wolfhart Pannenberg, Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance and George Hendry. Loder’s argument bases on many aspects of Pannenberg’s theology without rejecting Barth’s contribution. He grounds his argument on “what God means by human and what God means by God” (p.30). What distinguishes Loder’s approach to Pannenberg’s approach is that Pannenberg takes the approach of methods supplies material whilst Loder’s prefers the material supplies method.

Loder vividly states his theological stance as follows:

1. He takes the method and material from below and above at the same time
2. Science may inform theology as subscience and theology serves as the basis to understand and even to transform the understanding of science.
3. The expansive self-transcending power of human spirit drives toward the transformation of every obstacle in human development.
4. Differentiation of the Creator Spirit with human spirit.
5. The analogia spiritus – the analogy between the human spirit (creativity) and the Holy Spirit (transformation).
6. The new creation in Christ (I not I but Christ or I not I but God).

Loder’s methology is based on three crucial points:

1. Human science serves as subscience to the science of theology meaning its rejection of theology must undergo transformation.
2. The bipolar unity of science and theology must be based on the person of Christ who is both fully divine and fully human as the living reality.
3. The essential character of this bipolar relational unity is what Karl Barth describes as “Indissoluble differentiation”, “inseparable unity” and “indestructible order”.

Loder uses his counseling experience for a girl named Hellen to demonstrates the interaction between human spirit and Creator spirit. Using neurological terms, Loder defines the two into two systems. The first system is the ergotropic system (ET) which “combines the left hemisphere, which is analytical, linguistic, and linear, with the sympathetic nervous system and the central nervous system”. The second system is trophotropic (TT), a combination of “the right hemisphere which is holistic, analogical, and spatial with the parasympathetic and central nervous systems” (p.57).

This practice of spirituality will consequently deepen the sense of a dialectical identity in which the Divine Presence becomes the fundamental basis for one’s identity. “I-not I-but Christ becomes the way one thinks of oneself” (p.60).