"Jesus is the way to the Father.  This section is framed by two strongly worded commands to believe in God and in Jesus.  They make the claim that if one will not believe Jesus' words then his works should provide the ground for knowledge that Jesus and the Father are one . . . Jesus himself is not a course in apocalyptic heavenly geography.  He is the 'way,' 'truth' and 'life' qualify the expression 'way' with two of the basic soteriological images of the Gospel.  Jesus is not just a guide to salvation he is the source of life's truth.  (Here) it repeats the Johannine theme that there is no access to God except through Jesus." [2]

c

This Text requires surrendering the ego to the larger plan.  All humans have experienced obstacles, but faith in Christ steadies the individual to allow calm even in the roughest seas.  Life is a process of letting go and surrender.  At the point of death they have relinquished everything except Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Facing insurmountable obstacles is a small death.  Dying to self is ultimately what must happen in life.

Such deaths promise a way to surpass difficulties by surrendering to Christ.  In the decision to surrender, alternatives arise previously unconsidered.  Christ makes all things passable.  It requires Faith.  Through him, even death, is only a passage.

"Thomas questioned this. 'We don't know where you are going Lord, and how can we know the way wherever it is?'  At this point Thomas was being practical, wanting to keep things clear and above board.  Jesus answered in the famous utterance." [3]

"How know we the way?  The pessimism of Thomas was thrown into sharp contrast by his use of the word 'know' . . . He was in the position of the man who raised a dust and then complained that he could not see. Jesus had just explained that faith in him was the key to destiny.  Thomas initial denial brought disheartening results because it was a false step in reasoning.  Solutions to human problems are never found in skepticism, but rather in the affirmation of faith.   Here as elsewhere, Jesus did not upbraid Thomas for his unbelief, but held out to him a positive declaration on which he could base his thinking . . . This affirmation of Jesus is one of the greatest philosophical utterances of all time.  He did not say that he knew the way the truth and the life, nor that he taught them. He did not make himself the exponent of a new system; he declared himself to be the final key to all mysteries. He was the way.  Between the present of man's failure and the future of God's design for his is a gulf which seems unbridgeable.  Thomas recognized it, and so despaired.  Jesus said, 'I am the way,' for in him man is brought back to God, and through the living way he achieves his true destiny.  He was the 'truth.'  Truth is the scarcest commodity in the world.  All the philosophers had sought for it.  None had attained it.  No one mind was great enough to grasp it; no one personality was pure enough to achieve it by conduct.  Truth is neither an abstract system of integrated propositions, nor is it an impersonal ethic expressed in a person who is more flexible than legal rigidity and incomprehensible abstraction, and who is not withstanding, unchanging and consistent.  Christ spoke with final authority in words adapted to human understanding." [4]

Christ is the truth.  Life's passages from unknowing to knowledge are so complex.  Knowing of Christ's truth is a process the individual experiences throughout life.  Deeper understanding of Christ includes all life's experiences.  Wisdom comes with maturity.  Such wisdom is a passage through many levels and realms of life.

"He was the life.  The way was a means of reaching the Father; the truth defined the righteous standard of the way; which could make attainment possible.  All through the Gospel of John life describes the principle of spiritual vitality that originates with God and that lifts (Humans) out of sin to (God)." [5]  

The openness required to submit to such a way, truth, life is complete only if the individual says yes, yes to Christ, yes to the way, yes to learning and truth and yes to life.  The resounding response is that the impossibilities become possible. That opportunities arise that are previously not thought and fulfillment in the peace of Christ is awakened even in the direst circumstances.

Most of the Greek Fathers, Ambrose and Leo the Great (Leo I) understood the way and the truth to lead to the life (eternal life in heaven) Maldonatus had a modification of this, since he saw behind the Greek a Hebraism wherein the truth is just an adjectival description of the way . . .  Clement of Alexandria, Augustine and most of the Latin Fathers' understood that the way lead to both the truth and the life.  In this interpretation both truth and life are eschatological, divine realities.   (The truth is the mind of God, the Logos).  Thomas Aquinas held a medieval form of the theory wherein Christ was the way according to his humanity, but the truth and the life according to his divinity.  Many modern scholars still hold a modification of the theory." [6]

"Again and again Jesus had told his disciples where he was going but somehow they had never understood. 'Yet a little while I am with you,' he said, 'and then I go to him that sent me.' (Jn 7:33).  He told them he was going to the Father with whom he was one, but they still did not understand what was going on.  Even less did they understand the way by which Jesus was going, for that way was the cross." [7]

Jesus took all the doubts and uncertainties of his disciples into consideration.  He recognized their failure of understanding.  He didn't humiliate Thomas.  Instead, he invited understanding through the way of God as presented in the old texts and psalms.  Jesus invited them to witness the truth beyond all understanding which he embodied.  He led them to moral truth though his words and works and promised the way to life in the Father.

 

II. Psychological Aspects of Individuation

C.G. Jung introduced a concept which he termed individuation in his work.  It is a process which included self-actualization and maturity.  It is determined by choices of a human being which are authentic.   It is a challenge to include higher values rather than run with the crowd.

"(Individuation) is (a process of) highly differentiated and personalized values." [8]

Jung defined maturity as a value that encompassed aspects of growth and discipline.  A mature individual accepted the factors of a decision as individualized because that person processed sacredness, a wholeness which included responsible affirmation of consequences and a greater good.

"The criterion of adulthood (is) in submitting to the spirit of one's own independence." [9]

Jung valued the viewpoint of thoughtful individuals' personal processes and considered that viewpoint a greater good toward a higher order.  He believed that running with the crowd did not represent the consideration necessary for personalized intrinsic values.   Such people-pleasing lacked the work and struggle necessary to prioritize important decisions.

"For Jung, spiritual wholeness arises primarily out of one's unique and highly personalized encounter with the unconscious." [10]

Individuation can open the door to the spiritual.  It does involve suffering the consequences. It involves surrendering the ego for the higher values and commits the individual to the greater good.  Such a process of surrender involves pain.  Such introspection can be agonizing and difficult.  It is not the easy path. 

Jung truly believed that such a path would offer a greater good to the world because it involved surrender of the ego to deeper implications.  Such processes would then be externalized to offer a better way to others.  He affirmed that a genuine person could offer self-understanding and wisdom to others.

"Because individuation is a heroic and often tragic task. . .it involves suffering a passion of the ego: the ordinary empirical  (individual) we once were is burdened with the fate of losing himself in a greater dimension and being robbed of freedom.  He suffers the violence done to him by the self.  The analogous passion of Christ signifies God's suffering on account of the injustice of the world and the darkness of (humanity).  The human and divine suffering set up a relationship of complementarity with compensating effects.  Through the Christ-symbol, man can get to know the meaning of ;his suffering." [11]

The cause of the suffering in both cases is the same, namely 'incarnation,' which on the human level appears as 'individuation.'  The drama of the archetypical life of Christ describes in symbolic images the event of the conscious life (life of the ego)as well as in the life that transcends consciousness of a man who has been transformed by his higher destiny.

The shadow looms in all humanity, individual yet universal.  It is much like the experience of a Bill Viola masterpiece.  It is a journey through a series of rooms.  The experience breaks down barriers of the unconscious and promotes affects (feelings) within each area.  An individual must grapple with the experience facing the unknown and having only the choice of how long to linger with the experience.  If one stays within the experience to struggle and know the self, perhaps the final room will awaken in the person a validation and awakening from all the lessons.

"Slaying monsters is slaying the dark things." [12]

In 1 John:1 it affirms this.  "God is light; in Him there is no darkness."  Believing that God walks into this shadow or the darkest part of obstacles is essential to overcoming the darkness.  It supports, it contrasts and makes possible the surrender of the ego.

Again John's Gospel supports this because it says in (15:4), "Make your home in me as I make mine in you."

The ego must be surrendered to reveal the truth of the individual.  John's Gospel says: "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain, but if it dies it yields a rich harvest." (Jn 12:24)

CONSCIENCE, THE DECISION OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Humanity faces an inner struggle between pleasure and authority.  It is a voice of discernment which empowers the judgment to do good and avoid evil within charity.   It is a part of human essence which is in the heart.

There are many influences in society on the individual.  Society advocates unconscionable acts without guilt.  These acts such as abortion are in conflict with Gospel values and the teaching of the Church.  The need for discernment is key to a mature conscience.

"Prayer, study, reflection and consultation are of vital importance in conscience formation." [13]

Informed people, within a community of faith, are more empowered to come to terms with the true self, a mature conscience.  Knowing yourself, within God, requires sensitivity and listening.  It is openness to evaluation and struggle.  This constantly requires fine-tuning with full consideration of effect on the self and others.

Such dilemmas offer contact with wisdom and growth.  They offer development and maturity in life, through Christ.  These situations, or struggles, give individuals the discomfort necessary to become and acquire true freedom.

"God's call to freedom is above all a call to fulfill as completely as possible an authentic image of our humanity." [14]

Prayer to the Holy Spirit is a key for weighing the struggle.  It requires  openness to awareness and intuition.  In order to make an authentic decision, conscience must be based in faith.

Such wise judgments, which are carried out in good conscience, are transformational.  They allow a peace within the heart and communion with God.

Conscience requires constant weighing and struggle.  It is an authentic, mature decision to do good for self and others.  It requires openness to the Spirit.  Conscience is an affirmation of life and growth in Christ.  That opportunity is offered all humanity every day.  Conscience is a choice to be authentic in Christ.

Such authenticity is seldom a continuum.  It is a real struggle that awaits the development of levels.  On the evocative level a person surrenders to feelings whether they are pleasure or pain.  On the moral level is a decision to do right because it is told to you by an authority. Such a decision is not fully mature or questioned.  On the ethical level one has made a mature decision to do the right thing.  Ethics are a higher standard than morals in terms of decision making because the individual is involved in the decision by weighing choices.  On the post-ethical level a decision is given the highest value.  It is often not comfortable to negotiate such a standard.  This level is painful and involves values concerning everyone involved in the effects.

A conscious decision is a journey.  It requires the maturity to negotiate all the levels and make the best possible choices.  It is clearly not a comfortable process for the individual because it requires operating within conflict and choosing for the best of all outcomes often by sacrificing the self.

Clearly such struggle advances maturity.  It pinpoints the necessity to operate effectively in conflicts in order to live.  The multitude of decisions made in a day evoke all the levels of conscience.  Who, when driving hasn't succumbed to an evocative level when someone cuts them off?

Conscience and free will; are defining factors in humanity.  They are what could possibly separate us from the rest of life.

The range of decision making has clearly run the gamut in humanity.  There were the decisions to effect the holocaust and wars and there were the decisions to cure disease and illnesses.

Some of these decisions are obscured which suggests the shadow.  No one but God can know the full effect of a decision.  Responsibility carries the ramifications.  We have within each human the full range of choices.

Karl Rahner talks about such choices in his theory of transcendent hope.  The decisions we make eliminate other options and outcomes.  Good decisions lead to better options, harmful decisions tend to obscure the good within the individual.  The hardened criminal has different options than the saint.

Conscience connects humankind..  People need to be taught decision making and how it affects choice and responsibility early in life. The irrational mind is not responsible for actions; whereas a rational individual must carry full weight for choices.

Not all decisions can or should be conducted at a post-ethical level.  Setting priorities is key to functioning.  Weightier issues require considerable discernment and prayer.  Only a mature, rational person can make weighty decisions responsibly.

Choices, made responsibly, require the willingness to suffer consequences.  Making a decision bears a full weight.  It is often extremely painful  to make choices in life. That is why it is necessary to teach children choice, responsibility, and consequences early in life.

Choices are not perfect.  People err.  When such an error occurs, it is necessary for the community to practice forgiveness.  Clearly, not all influences can be carefully weighed in each decision.  Choices of conscience are not made in an autonomous world.

IMPACT OF CULTURE

Culture is an influence that affects the individual and society.  Culture influences thinking processes, life situations and customs.  An enlightened individual has examined his/her life in terms of culture.  There is no one correct way of doing things.  A self-examined individual looks at a situation and goes with tradition or abandons it according to the deepest intrinsic values. 

Culture's influences on values are a complex and important aspect of each individual.  Cultural biases affect all humanity.  Such values are passed from generation to generation often without question.

Education and travel are so important when examining culture.  It allows appreciating the varied methods that other people have for handling situations.  Culture supplies comfort, continuity, and methods of rites of passage.

Cultural biases can be a method of relinquishing responsibility to the collective.  When the individual does not examine values, the deepest ramifications of a decision are surrendered.

Traditions are beautiful and important.  They provide rites and methods which are frequently purposeful and powerful.  The impact of such rites often provide meaning to life's events.

Traditions of hate or genocide must be examined.  Such unexplored values continue in the world and it is the individual who can transform such a situation for the good.

Culture provides many aspects of human and social infrastructure.  When negative bias becomes harmful or hateful it must be examined because it undermines the sanctity of life.  In a small more mobile world it is easier to transcend negative aspects of culture.  Questioning becomes the responsibility of the individual.  With such questioning many hateful structures are breaking down within the world.

Questioning values is a difficult aspect of today's world.  Each individual is faced with choices which concern the entire world community.  Cultural norms have previously been in place to consider the good of a  of a social group.  Today, the educated individual can make decisions which affect his/her place in life and the world.  When one Pinpoints such decisions, one faces the formation of  an informed conscience.

"This I believe is the great Western truth: that each of is  a completely unique creature and that if we are ever to give any gift to the world it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else's. [15]

III. Spiritual Ramifications

God wants wholeness in everyone.  Sorrow and pain are not to be lamented but provide the lessons which bring people to completion.  Choosing to value the pain is a mature choice toward embracing the Cross and individuation.  Such situations can explore higher levels of consciousness.  Such steps are in small increments, sometimes and much larger ones in accelerated circumstances.  The validity of growth pangs makes possible the way of the Cross.

"In his denial of Jesus when confronted by the hostile collective what Peter in effect did, Jung would argue, was to deny his unique spiritual understanding, the higher consciousness he had achieved through his relationship with Jesus." [16]

"Jung suggests that Peter's denial is something of a symbol of such regression in his denial of Jesus. [17]

The learning is not all or nothing.  The Holy Spirit guides everyone who says yes to fulfillment.  The unique nature of every individual is indisputable, for everyone offers special gifts, perceptions and experiences.

A great story has gone out on the internet.  It is about two jugs of water that a laborer carried.  One jug was able to carry water to the brim while the other leaked.  The leaking vessel was sorrowful.  He could not bring home a complete portion of water and confessed it to the laborer.  The laborer showed the jug the path on his side.  All along it were blooming flowers.  He pointed out that he (the laborer) had scattered seeds so that the dripping water would nurture the flowers on the path.

People don't always know where they have nurtured, but lament at being less than perfect in the eyes of the world.  The one who chooses, can look at what to do in the sight of God.  The hardships of saying no to the collective are hard and difficult.  The path is hard and winding.  To say yes to the Holy Spirit is to walk the best path for the individual.  This is choice informed by conscience.

Things really can work out for the best if one says yes to the Comforter.  It may or may not be according to one's plan, but letting go of plans is part of the pain of surrendering the ego.  In such a yes, God's work can be done.  We are each called to be saints.  The crosses are along the way but God's promise and total love for each individual who says yes cannot conflict with Gospel values.  It is an experience of sublime joy because God's promise is unfathomably good.

The privilege and peace of such work is what Jesus called us to be.  We each have a particular purpose in the Kingdom of God.  Jesus was the only human to reach the full capacity for individuation because he said yes to the cross.  He alone walked the complete way.

The chance of perfection is only in Christ.  It is the call of humanity to say yes, accept the broken areas as gifts that Christ can perfect and to walk the path.  It may be the best and most difficult path we could choose.

Surrendering the ego is never pain free.  This surrender is necessary to let the Spirit provide the best possible outcomes.  Everything works to the good.  The Spirit needs complete freedom to provide this.  Within human freedom,  the Spirit is the hope that transformation and growth will occur.

There is also the danger, after having gained a good deal of ground in the struggle for consciousness, of regressing.  The struggle continues for a lifetime.

Bibliography

Aziz, Robert, C. G. Jung's Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1990.

Barclay, William, The Gospel of John, vol 2, The Westminister Press, Philadelphia, 1977.

Brown, Raymond E.,The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Doubleday, N.Y. 1970.

Brown, Raymond E., ed. The New Jerusalem Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, N.J., 1988.

Campbell, Joseph, The Power of Myth, Doubleday, N.Y. 1988.

Fortna, Robert Tomson, The Fourth Gospel and its Predecessor, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1988.

Gutzke, Manford George, Plain Talk on John, Lamplighter Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1968.

Tenney, Merrill C., John, The Gospel of Belief, Eerdamn,s Publishing Co.  Grand Rapids, Michigan,1976.