Christ and Codependence

PART THREE

I think self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous are successful because they are founded on the right principles and practice. I love the fact that the principles and practices are Christian, but they would be true, right, and good, no matter who had come up with them.  No one in AA or any other self-help group has to be a Christian. The principles work for anyone who practices them.

 A reading of the twelve step program makes it clear that: 1) we need to believe in a Higher Power to which we surrender our lives, 2) take a moral inventory of our lives,  3) admit our character defects to another human being, 4) acknowledge our powerlessness to change ourselves, 5) humbly petition the “God” we believe in to remove our faults and defects,  6) ask forgiveness of God as we understand Him and of the persons we have offended  (in so far as it is possible)  for the harm we have done,  7)practice prayer and meditation so as to grow in our awareness of God and our willingness to do His Will, and  8) carry the message of AA to others  through regular group meetings where we give and receive the help we need.   All of that would certainly help me be a better human being as well as a better Christian and Catholic. (All those steps are what we do in the Sacrament of Reconciliation which empowers us to witness to Christ’s mercy in our lives).  If I am neither Christian nor a Catholic, the principles and practices will help me be a better whatever-I-happen-to-be.

I don’t suppose the principles and practices would help an atheist be a better atheist, but who knows?  Atheism is something I don’t really understand. Atheism seems to be a matter of Faith to me as much as any other religion is. From my perspective, atheism is even more a matter of Faith than Christianity because atheism more unreasoned and unreasonable. Christianity, on the other hand, goes beyond reason, into Mystery, but is consistently reasoned and reasonable in doing so. Perhaps atheism can be defined as the religion of those who believe in the God-who-is-not-there?  Are there common dogmas which compose the Creed of Unbelief?  Are there different splinter groups or sects that have separated themselves from a main body, as with other religions? What little of it I do understand makes me think some atheists make the same mistake all of us human beings make to a lesser degree, but as atheists  they carry the mistake to its logical extreme. Namely, they act as if our minds were the measure of all that is, even God. Of course, our minds are in no way up to the task of taking the measure of God. So these atheists conclude God doesn’t exist because he doesn’t fit into their brains. The believer concludes He does exist for that very same reason!  We could never think Him, because He thinks us.  He can’t be an idea in our minds, since we begin as ideas in his.

 Other varieties of atheists, such as those who deny God because of the existence of suffering and evil, I find myself more in sympathy with. They make some sense to me because I know my mind by its natural powers could never reason beyond the existence of God, to a God who was self giving Love, one who would take all of our sin and suffering into his very being and use it to redeem us. I could never think such a thing logical or reasonable unless I believed in Christ, the Son of God who actually does “become sin so that we could become the very righteousness of God”.

 To grow out of codependent behavior we human beings must grow in Truth and Love.  That would include atheists too. Any atheist who thinks that Truth and Love are nothing but imaginary abstractions has no way to explain how he grows and becomes a better person.  The transformation, the growth in goodness, (if real, and not a matter of grandiose imagination), is the work of Love and Truth in him, stretching him beyond the limits of is self centered Ego. Any atheist who does develop his head and heart has to confront the fact that Truth and Love are taking his measure, no matter what Creed he holds to.