Theological Worlds

Part 4, The Nine Theological Worlds

In the last post, I shared the five theological worlds proposed by Paul Jones. In general, I like his five worlds, but I think he mixes some obsessios together that should be kept separate. For example, he mixes social justice issues with existential issues. Or relational issues with existential issues.

So, what would I set forth as a better taxonomy of theological worlds?

Pondering this, here's what I'll suggest. I'll just be focusing upon the obsessios, locations where people experience desolation or brokenness in the world:

1. Guilt: The weight of shame and guilt

2. Union with God: Spiritual restlessness and longing

3. Injustice: Injustice and oppression in the world

4. Suffering: Horrific suffering in the world, especially of the innocent

5. Belonging: Feeling loved and significant, relationally and cosmically

6. Meaning: Searching for purpose and meaning in life

7. Self-Alienation: Feelings of dismay, dissatisfaction, or distance with oneself

8. Ecological Grief: Grief over ecological damage and devastation, animal suffering included

9. Death: The predicament of mortality, finitude, and loss

Some of these nine obsessios overlap with Jones' worlds. My obsessio of Guilt corresponds to Jones' description of "condemnation," the shame and guilt we experience concerning our moral failures.

Related but different from Guilt is the obsessio of Union with God. This is the obsessio of the monastic traditions, Western and Eastern, and of spiritual seeking generally. There is a thirst and hunger to rest in God and for spiritual enlightenment. People who "go to the desert" are motivated by this obsessio.

My obsessio of Injustice is close to Jones' obsessio of "conflict," but I'm making its social justice emphasis, a concern over injustice and oppression, more obvious and clear.

My obsessio of Suffering is the same as Jones' but my description of this obsessio is more other-oriented. That is, the obsessio of Suffering isn't about my personal suffering but is, rather, the suffering of the world, especially the horrific suffering of the innocent. In fiction, Ivan Karamazov from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov is the best articulation of the obsessio of Suffering that I know.

My obsessio of Belonging is close to Jones' "isolation." The concern is to be loved and valued as significant by another. As I describe in The Shape of Joy, this embrace is twofold. There is a search for interpersonal belonging, what psychologists call "social mattering." And there is also "cosmic mattering," feeling loved and valued in a transcendent sense by God or "the universe."

My obsessios of Meaning, Death, and Self-Alienation extract from Jones' worlds what I think are three distinct obsessios that bleed across his five worlds. For example, I think our search for meaning is separate from social justice, "the problem of pain," and a desire to belong. Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning describes the obsessio of Meaning well, along with many of the existential philosophers and artists, from Camus to Kafka.

I've made Death its own obsessio, separate from Meaning. I can be convinced that these two should be folded into a single theological world, Meaning/Death. Our search for meaning if often triggered by a confrontation with human mortality and finitude. Does anything really matter if we all die in the end? And yet, I've kept Death and Meaning as separate obsessios as I think death is an obsessio in its own right. Specifically, while death is often implicated in the obsessio of Meaning, along with the obsessio of Suffering, I think the obsessio of Death is larger than those obsessios. Loss, for example. The persistent experience and sadness regarding loss, to my mind, is different from searching for meaning in life or horrific suffering. Human life is tinged with melancholia due to the persistent fading of life, and some of us fixate on this melancholic aspect of life. Think, for example, of the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

The obsessio of Self-Alienation captures our psychological and therapeutic struggles with ourselves, deeply rooted feelings of dismay and dissatisfaction, even disgust, with ourselves. There is also self-distance, feeling alienated and estranged from oneself.

Finally, there is the obsessio of Ecological Grief. Many of us locate the brokenness of the world in environmental devastation and loss, along with the suffering of animals. People with this obsessio are often judged by others, criticized for caring more about trees and shelter dogs than human beings. But here's the deal: You are who you are. And if you're wired to place your obsessio here, if this is where your heart breaks, well, there's not much you can do about that. Here is where you'll be haunted, this will be your theological world.

So, this is my proposed list of theological worlds, my clarification and expansion of Jones' five worlds. As I survey the human experience, we find nine obsessios, visiting nine theological worlds.

But, feel free to add a theological world that you think I have missed!