Date of Award

6-1966

Document Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Theology

First Advisor

Bernard J. Cooke

Abstract

If one was to ask what particular social science had made its presence most acutely felt in the past one hundred years, one would undoubtedly agree that that science was psychology. In its earliest beginnings it perhaps over- stepped its boundaries by attempting to answer questions which were not necessarily foreign to it, but with unqualified investigation. This was a development similar to the Darwinian and Marxian attacks upon theology in which we had men professing totally valid insights in their own particular field of investigation, and yet at the same time were attempting to draw morbid and completely unqualified conclusions in the realm of theology. Such was, and is often the case of psychology today, culminating in many of the contemporary theories which hold that man is merely an animal nature devoid of any spiritual essence, as opposed to that view which understands man to be an incarnate spirit, one whose nature and very destiny is ultimately supernatural. One can therefore perceive that such schools of thought mentioned formerly, in their dealing with religious phenomena, will consider God as being a mere manifestation of the subconscious , a projection of the mind , ultimately arriving at a distorted conclusion as to what constitutes sanctity and neurosis, a life of grace as against a life of abnormal love. Even in Catholic circles of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, although there is little or no dispute over what constitutes sanctity (especially in those heroes of God singled out by the Holy See through canonization), there may be certain false conclusions drawn as to what neurosis truly is, and a subsequent affirmation that the two, if not totally compatible with one another, at least possess a considerable degree of overlap.

Comments

An Essay Prepared for Father Bernard J. Cooke as partial requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in theology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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