The Philosophy of Courage - Alcoholics Anonymous. AA, Meeting ...

The cure for my evil and soul-sickness:its replacement by the Absolute and PerfectThe Oxford Group people spoke frequently about the Four Absolutes, whichwere Absolute Unselfishness, Absolute Love, Absolute Purity, and Absolute Honesty.Leon says that speaking only of four absolutes is an oversimplification, becausein fact there are an infinite number of positive qualities which make up God’sabsoluteness. God is absolute power, patience, wisdom, love, efficiency, creativity,newness, harmony, bravery, and so on. As long as human beings ask God for help,they can participate in God’s absoluteness, and act, for each moment in which theysurrender to God and cling to his grace, with absolute unselfishness, love, purity,honesty, and so on. [chapter 1, section I]Leon goes on to say: “Absolute and infinite power, wisdom, love, etc.—we maysum all these up by calling them perfection.” [chapter 1, section I] What we have inthis part of the Oxford Group’s teaching, in other words, is a doctrine which holdsthat Christian perfection is attainable in this life. One can see this sort of teachingappearing in some Quaker theology (both in the early period and in the nineteenthcentury), and in parts of the Methodist and Wesleyan tradition. There are still somevery conservative Wesleyan groups in the United States, the second blessing Methodistsas they are called, who not only believe that Christian perfection is attainablein this life, but also argue that no one can be saved who has not achieved Christianperfection. 8I am not GodLeon devotes an important subsection of his book to explaining why I mustcome to understand that “I am not God.” [chapter 1, section II] A modern skeptic,he says, might well try to argue that all of these Oxford Group claims are the productof autohypnosis and naive self-delusion, and that it is only some part of my ownmind with which I am coming into contact when I think I am experiencing God.But as Leon points out, I could likewise use that kind of pathological skepticism toclaim that other human beings only exist in my own mind. That would be difficultto disprove, would it not? And yet, if I am in difficulty and need help from my fellowhuman beings, I can only be helped if I admit that they really exist.Where is God? Since God and myself-as-a-person (as opposed to my physicalbody) are not things in space, there really is no “where.” But in my experience ofGod, he is inside me rather than outside, in such a way that I can talk about “Godbeing in me” while at the same time “I am in God.”10