Howard C. Wilkinson - "Maturity as Understood by Freud and the Bible" (July 19, 1970)

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	(faint orchestral singing)	0:14
	(lively organ music)	1:51
	(faint orchestral singing)	2:12
-	May we pray together.	4:19
	Eternal God, our Father,	4:27
	we stand to stay under the judgment of your word.	4:30
	You have commanded us to seek first the kingdom,	4:36
	But we are convicted of divided loyalties	4:41
	and uncertain aims.	4:44
	We have only occasionally put first things first.	4:49
	We have too often bowed before the idols of our culture.	4:55
	We have answered yes to you and acted no.	5:01
	We have lost our courage and faith.	5:08
	We no longer have the ears to hear your clear voice	5:14
	in Jesus, the Lord,	5:17
	or the eyes to see you in the face of a brother.	5:19
	We confess that we haven't really meant anything	5:27
	when we have said, thy kingdom come.	5:30
	Have mercy upon us, oh Lord, forgive us,	5:36
	and enable us to take up that life	5:41
	that is worth living for.	5:46
	Amen.	5:50
	The words of assurance this morning are these:	5:59
	In all things, we are more than conquerors	6:03
	through him who loved us,	6:06
	for I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels,	6:10
	nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come,	6:15
	nor powers, nor height, nor depth,	6:21
	nor anything else in all creation,	6:25
	be able to separate us from the love of God	6:28
	in Christ Jesus, our Lord.	6:31
	Now, will you join with me as we offer together	6:37
	the prayer of thanksgiving?	6:40
	Oh Lord our God, the author and giver of all good things,	6:46
	we thank thee for all thy mercies,	6:53
	and for the loving care over all thy creatures.	6:56
	We bless thee for the gift of life,	7:00
	with thy protection 'round about us,	7:03
	with thy guiding hand upon us,	7:07
	and for the tokens thy love within us.	7:10
	We thank thee for friendship and duty,	7:14
	for good hopes and precious memories,	7:17
	for the joys that cheer us and the trials	7:21
	that teach us to put our trust in thee.	7:24
	Most of all, we thank thee for the saving knowledge	7:28
	of thy son, our savior, for the living presence	7:31
	of thy spirit, for thy church, the body of Christ,	7:35
	for the ministry of word and sacrament	7:40
	and all the means of grace,	7:44
	and all these things, oh, Father,	7:47
	make us wise under a right use of the days	7:50
	of our life through Jesus Christ.	7:53
	Amen.	7:57
	(gentle music)	8:05
	(faint orchestral singing)	8:48
	Scripture lesson this morning is taken from	14:35
	the letter to the Church at Ephesus from the fourth chapter.	14:38
	And his gift were that some should be apostles,	14:45
	some prophets, some evangelists,	14:48
	some pastors and teachers, for the equipment of the saints,	14:51
	for the work of ministry,	14:55
	for building up of the body of Christ until we all attain	14:56
	the unity of the faith and of the knowledge	15:00
	of the son of God to mature manhood,	15:03
	the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.	15:07
	So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro	15:12
	and carried about with every wind of doctrine	15:16
	by the cunning of men,	15:20
	by their craftiness and deceitful wiles.	15:21
	Rather speaking the truth in love,	15:25
	we are to grow in every way into him,	15:27
	who is the head, into Christ from whom the whole body joined	15:30
	and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied,	15:34
	when each part is working properly,	15:39
	makes bodily growth and up-builds itself in love.	15:41
	Now, this I affirm and testify in the Lord	15:46
	that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do	15:50
	in the futility of their minds.	15:53
	They are darkened in their understanding,	15:56
	alienated from the life of God	15:59
	because of the ignorance that is in them	16:00
	due to their hardness of heart.	16:03
	They have become callous and have given themselves up	16:07
	to licentiousness, greedy to practice	16:09
	every kind of uncleanness.	16:12
	You did not so learn Christ.	16:15
	(lively organ music)	16:38
	(faint orchestral singing)	16:48
	The Lord be with you.	17:19
	Let us pray.	17:22
	Our Father, we are only slightly upset	17:39
	by the growing suspicion somewhere inside the head	17:45
	that what we are doing here perhaps means very little.	17:50
	We admit that it is most difficult to live,	17:57
	in New Testament terms, as sons and heirs.	17:59
	We are 100% citizens of this world	18:09
	and have lost confidence in the future	18:13
	while casting off a wasteland of past history.	18:15
	O' God somehow free us to recognize the significance	18:26
	of our place in the creative redemptive process	18:29
	of the world's history,	18:34
	Restore our courage and revive our faith in ourselves.	18:38
	Let us learn the forgotten lesson within your word,	18:46
	that this is our world,	18:50
	that this are earth is our responsibility,	18:53
	that we are not keepers of each other,	18:58
	but brothers to one another.	19:01
	We pray for the young mother of eight children	19:08
	who can't find her husband this morning,	19:10
	for all children who have access to toy departments,	19:14
	but never the price of a toy,	19:17
	for everyone over 30 whose mind is frozen to new ideas,	19:23
	for everyone under 30 who thinks solutions are simple	19:30
	and everyone but himself a cop out.	19:35
	We pray for our president in the hope that insight	19:42
	and wisdom might have greater influence on his actions.	19:45
	For those who bend under the awful weight	19:51
	and terrifying dimensions of warfare,	19:54
	for those who still think that real peace	20:01
	can come as a result of waging war.	20:06
	Our Father, save us from boredom.	20:13
	Give us the peace of a single minded purpose	20:19
	in the name and spirit of Jesus, the Lord,	20:25
	who taught his disciples to say when they pray,	20:29
	Our Father, who art in heaven,	20:33
	hallowed be thy name.	20:37
	By kingdom come, thy will be done on earth	20:39
	as it is in heaven.	20:43
	Give us this day our daily bread	20:46
	and forgive us our trespasses	20:49
	as we forgive those who trespass against us,	20:52
	and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,	20:55
	for thine is the kingdom and the power	21:01
	from the glory forever.	21:04
-	Late at night on July 3rd, 1969,	21:34
	Mr. Ralph Benning set out from his home at Fair Hope,	21:42
	Pennsylvania in search of his 17 year old son, Thomas,	21:47
	who earlier in the day had gone to visit his grandparents	21:54
	on his motorcycle.	21:59
	The father was driving toward the home	22:02
	of his son's grandparents in the family car,	22:06
	but at the same time, the son was driving toward home	22:11
	on his motorcycle.	22:15
	They were on a gravel road.	22:18
	As the car came around a curve,	22:21
	the motorcycle rounded the same curve	22:25
	coming from the opposite direction.	22:28
	The motorcycle slid into the path of the oncoming car.	22:32
	A head-on collision resulted and young Thomas	22:38
	was killed instantly.	22:42
	Ironically, he was killed by a collision with his father,	22:46
	not withstanding the fact that his father	22:52
	was at the moment searching for him,	22:54
	and in spite of the fact that the son was traveling toward	22:59
	his home and his father.	23:02
	The son was killed because the approach which he was making	23:06
	toward his father and the approach which his father	23:11
	was making toward him were not according	23:16
	to the best judgment and the most enlightened wisdom.	23:19
	This is a parable of what happens all around the world	23:27
	in the relationships between parents	23:32
	and their teenage children.	23:35
	Parents are reaching out toward their children	23:39
	and the children are seeking to relate to their parents,	23:43
	but often the relationship leads to collisions	23:47
	which result in tragedy as serious as physical death,	23:51
	though, it often does not take that particular form.	23:56
	Most of the parent and teenager collisions center around	24:01
	the whole concept of maturity,	24:06
	The greatest source of tension between parents	24:11
	and their offspring is the question of the relative maturity	24:14
	of the daughter or son,	24:20
	and therefore of daughters' or sons' fitness	24:23
	to operate independently of parental control	24:27
	and interference.	24:30
	There never seems to be any disagreement	24:33
	that the parent should supervise an immature child,	24:36
	nor is there any significant disagreement	24:41
	that the mature son or daughter should be free	24:44
	from parental interference.	24:48
	But how frequent, how furious, and how futile	24:51
	is the disagreement over when this maturity	24:58
	has been achieved.	25:02
	In all the years of my counseling,	25:06
	I do not remember a single instance in which there	25:07
	was a disagreement between a parent and child	25:10
	on this subject in which the parent contended	25:13
	that the child was mature and the child contended	25:18
	that he was not mature.	25:24
	It's always the other way around.	25:28
	It always seems that the younger eyes of the daughter	25:31
	can detect this priceless maturity in herself quicker	25:34
	than the older eyes of the mother can.	25:38
	And so it is that during the college years,	25:43
	daughters and sons chaff under the vestigial remains	25:46
	of parental control and parents chaff	25:49
	under the vestigial remains of the adolescent immaturity	25:53
	of their offspring.	25:57
	Now, because this is a recurring problem,	26:00
	I have decided to discuss it today.	26:07
	But mark you, It is not my chief purpose here this morning	26:10
	to furnish ammunition to any parent who is seeking	26:16
	to preserve control for just one more year,	26:21
	nor is it my main desire to hand a sermonic key	26:26
	to any son or daughter who is attempting	26:30
	to unlock the parental door behind which he or she exists	26:33
	in something less than total freedom.	26:37
	In short, I am not out to please dad or daughter.	26:41
	What I hope is that through this sermon,	26:46
	some light may be shed on the nature of the maturing process	26:48
	so that both parent and offspring may achieve	26:56
	a creative approach to the solution	27:00
	which both so properly desire.	27:03
	Now, I want to do this by focusing upon it	27:07
	light chiefly from the Bible and from the writings	27:10
	of the Father of modern psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.	27:14
	Although it would certainly be a mistake to suggest that	27:22
	there is complete harmony between all that Freud taught	27:25
	and all the teachings of the Bible,	27:29
	I really know of no reason why the biblical understanding	27:33
	of the maturing process cannot be accurately described	27:36
	in terms of the familiar categories set forth by Freud.	27:42
	For Freud, the human personality was seen in the interaction	27:48
	of three levels of our functional nature,	27:52
	the super ego, the ego, or EH-GOH, and the id.	27:58
	The super ego he described as that part of our nature	28:05
	which contains and expresses the mores of society	28:08
	and the standards of behavior which are impressed	28:13
	upon us from without beginning in earliest childhood.	28:16
	Freud occasionally referred to this as reality.	28:23
	The super ego is made up of such things as table manners,	28:27
	politeness, tact, conscience, family traditions, the law,	28:32
	a sense of duty and so forth.	28:40
	It's a kind of penal code and jury board rolled into one.	28:42
	Now, when someone gives us a present, our super ego demands	28:47
	that we express thanks, right, a thank you note.	28:51
	When we sit down to the table to eat,	28:56
	it's our super ego that insists that we wait until everyone	28:58
	is ready before we begin eating.	29:01
	We walk into a store and we see the drawer	29:04
	of the cash register open with no one in sight.	29:08
	It's our super ego that demands that we keep	29:13
	our cotton picking hands out of the cash.	29:16
	Since class attendance at Duke is not compulsory,	29:20
	and in view of the hot weather, which you may have noticed,	29:26
	we would love to go to the beach and spend all of next week,	29:30
	but our super ego cries out that we must stay	29:34
	on campus and study.	29:37
	We start to cut across the lawn,	29:40
	but our super ego cries out, let it grow, Joe.	29:43
	All right, now the second phase of human nature,	29:49
	according to Freud, is the id.	29:52
	this is composed of the animal instincts and passions,	29:56
	the hunger for food and drink, the mating instinct,	30:01
	the desire for bodily comfort, et cetera.	30:05
	When you feel you just have to have a banana split	30:10
	or a Tasty Freeze, you're hearing from your id.	30:13
	Now the super ego and the id do not talk the same language	30:19
	or represent the same interests	30:28
	in spite of the fact that they exist in the same person.	30:30
	They are in fact, almost constantly at war with each other.	30:35
	They always have been, they always will be.	30:39
	It is at this point that the third phase of human nature	30:43
	necessarily comes into play.	30:47
	The ego is the organizing principle in the personality	30:51
	which chooses between the super ego and the id.	30:56
	Sometimes the ego lets the super ego have dominion,	31:01
	forces the id to be unsatisfied.	31:07
	No, no you cannot have that Tasty Freeze.	31:10
	Sometimes the ego unleashes the id and lets the super ego	31:14
	take an awful beating.	31:18
	Feel bad about it the next day.	31:21
	But other times the ego works very hard and tries	31:25
	to manage things so that both get	31:28
	their reasonable demands fulfilled without injury to either.	31:31
	Now, listen, it is in this area	31:37
	that we see either maturity or immaturity.	31:41
	We acquire our id and our super ego without	31:50
	very much effort on our part.	31:53
	But maturity is something which we have to achieve by trial	31:56
	and error, through much anguish and over a period of time.	32:01
	It requires training and discipline.	32:08
	Maturity is achieved when the ego develops the strength,	32:13
	the control, and the judgment that ensures the proper	32:18
	blending of the norms of the super ego	32:26
	and the passions of the id.	32:29
	Jacques Ellul delineates this very convincingly in his book,	32:34
	"The Political Illusion", and I recommend it to you.	32:39
	In the immature child,	32:45
	the parent takes over most of the functions	32:47
	of the child's ego and makes his decisions for him,	32:50
	organizes his super ego and his id.	32:54
	Now in the mature adult,	32:58
	on the other end of the spectrum,	33:00
	the individual's ego does this from within.	33:03
	The crucial and controversial time is that period	33:08
	when the parent thinks the daughter's ego	33:12
	has not yet sufficiently matured and the daughter	33:15
	is very sure that it has.	33:18
	And regardless of who may be correct in this dispute,	33:23
	the fact remains that the essence of personal maturity lies	33:26
	in the ability of the ego to manage a healthy	33:30
	and creative blending of the other two phases	33:33
	of human nature.	33:37
	In light of this is clear that some people live 60	33:40
	or 70 years and never achieve maturity.	33:43
	Now having taken an all too quick look at what maturity is,	33:51
	let us turn to the negative side for a little bit	33:57
	and see what maturity is not.	34:00
	Very likely we shall see in sharper focus what it is	34:04
	if we remember what it is not.	34:07
	First, maturity does not consist	34:11
	of having personal experience with things at the age of,	34:15
	say, 18, which one has neither the freedom or the capacity	34:20
	to experience at eight.	34:25
	Maturity does not consist of knowing	34:29
	what a cigarette tastes like.	34:32
	You could stick a lighted cigar in the mouth	34:35
	of a three year old child.	34:38
	When he had recovered from his coughing fit	34:40
	and had ceased to cry,	34:42
	he would not be one bit more mature than he was before	34:44
	his encounter with that fog of cigar smoke.	34:49
	Maturity does not consist of knowing from experience	34:54
	what the throb of a hangover is like.	34:58
	It is not composed of the knowledge	35:03
	of the empirical difference between driving a tricycle	35:05
	on the one hand and a jet airplane on the other.	35:08
	Wearing manly or womanly clothes does not make one mature.	35:13
	Going without clothes altogether does not make one mature.	35:20
	If one could high jump only three feet	35:27
	at the age of eight, it is no proof of personal maturity	35:30
	that he can now jump five feet high at the age of 18.	35:36
	This only indicates that his physical growth has continued.	35:41
	In short, the degree of one's personal maturity	35:48
	is not in any way changed by the mere fact	35:53
	that he has or has not had firsthand sensory experience	35:56
	in the areas of food, drink, mechanics, drugs, sex,	36:02
	athletics, or anything else.	36:07
	One may have tasted a very broad range	36:12
	of sensory experiences without having increased	36:14
	his personal maturity to the slightest degree.	36:17
	Okay, let us now look at a second thing	36:24
	which maturity is not.	36:27
	A rash of contemporary novels and movies suggest	36:31
	that maturity comes with the loss of innocence.	36:35
	If you wish to be mature, hurry up and lose your innocence,	36:41
	they seem to say.	36:44
	This is not the case at all.	36:47
	In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.	36:50
	To attempt to equate guilt with maturity	36:53
	is to misunderstand both guilt and maturity.	36:57
	The eight year old child who greedily grabs the toys	37:02
	of another child is just as guilty of selfishness	37:08
	as the dirty old man who lecherously uses the body	37:12
	of a woman merely to gratify his sensate appetite.	37:17
	It is simply immature selfishness operating	37:22
	on a different level.	37:24
	Some unprincipled young men use every argument	37:28
	they think will be effective in breaking down	37:32
	the decency of beautiful young women.	37:35
	One argument often attempted is to tell a girl	37:38
	when she reaches her 18th birthday	37:41
	that she cannot really be mature	37:43
	until she gives up her virginity,	37:46
	and of course they kindly offer to be of help in that area.	37:48
	Others feel that the way to achieve maturity is to write	37:54
	or shout obscenities.	37:58
	To use lewd, loud, gross, or foul language.	38:00
	That the way to become mature is to lie down in the gutter	38:05
	and to wallow in it until they fairly reek with filth.	38:09
	Where this notion came from is anybody's guess,	38:15
	but its correlation with reality is exactly zero.	38:18
	As a matter of fact, sin and guilt enter the human heart	38:24
	at a very early age.	38:27
	And if the mere loss of innocence conferred	38:31
	any sort of maturity on anybody, all of us,	38:34
	every one of us would have been gloriously mature	38:39
	by the time we were in the second grade.	38:43
	Loss of innocence has nothing to do with maturity.	38:47
	Now turning by then to the positive,	38:53
	it is very important that we really understand	38:57
	the significance of the process	39:01
	by which we achieve maturity.	39:03
	And now, so before going further,	39:06
	I would like to pause long enough to give	39:10
	an illustrative analogy.	39:13
	As a teenager in south Texas,	39:16
	I went to all the rodeos that I had	39:18
	the time and money to attend.	39:20
	Large crowd of persons would generally be present	39:23
	to witness the various events of the rodeo.	39:26
	Bleachers were constructed on each side of an arena	39:29
	in a fashion very similar to our football	39:35
	and basketball courts with their stands for spectators.	39:37
	But now at one end of the arena,	39:42
	a gate usually opened into a pasture.	39:44
	At the opposite end, there were corrals	39:48
	in which the animals were kept.	39:51
	One of the exciting events which the crowds	39:55
	have always enjoyed watching is the steer roping trial.	39:57
	Steers are anxious to dash down through the arena	40:01
	and make their way to freedom through the gate	40:05
	at the distant end.	40:08
	The Cowboys on horses are released soon after the steers	40:10
	are released into the arena and it is each cowboy's purpose	40:14
	to rope his steer and bring it under his control	40:18
	while the steer is still in the arena	40:22
	and before it gets out to the pasture.	40:26
	I remember the arrangement of one of the rodeos.	40:29
	The steers were in one corral on the right,	40:32
	the Cowboys on horses were in a second corral on the left.	40:35
	The two were separated by a plank fence,	40:39
	Both the steers and the Cowboys had access to the arena	40:43
	by means of a Y shaped corridor or passageway between them.	40:46
	The trunk of this Y opened out into the arena.	40:53
	The left branch of the Y opened into the Cowboys corral,	40:57
	the right branch of the Y opened into the steers corral.	41:00
	At the point in the passage way where the two branches	41:05
	of the Y came together, there was a three-sided gate	41:07
	which swung freely on hinges	41:11
	which were attached to a heavy post,	41:14
	and above this three-sided gate was a small platform	41:16
	on which a man stood.	41:20
	And by means of a manually operated device,	41:22
	the man was able to swing this gate at will.	41:26
	When the gate was in neutral,	41:31
	each one of its three sides closed a branch	41:33
	of the passageway so that nothing could get through	41:36
	from any direction.	41:39
	But when the man on the platform swung the gate	41:41
	to the right, the horses and Cowboys could pass through	41:44
	into the corral, into the arena.	41:48
	And when the man swung the gate to the left,	41:51
	this made it possible for the steers to go out	41:53
	into the arena.	41:56
	Now for the success of this particular event,	41:57
	it was important that the man on the platform handle his job	42:00
	with great skill, with great firmness,	42:04
	and with great strength.	42:09
	Although the casual observer often thought	42:12
	it was not a difficult assignment,	42:14
	actually a considerable amount of wisdom and speed	42:16
	and strength were required.	42:19
	If he made a mistake,	42:22
	too many steers would be released at one time	42:24
	and some of them would never be brought under control	42:27
	in the arena.	42:29
	If the horseman were released too late,	42:31
	wild animals would escape into the arena without being roped	42:34
	or in their confusion, they might even try to jump	42:38
	the side fence of the arena and cause panic	42:41
	among the spectators.	42:44
	If only one steer was let out, and then if the gate	42:46
	were held open for the Cowboys so long	42:51
	that two of them dashed out, confusion would result	42:53
	from the attempt of two Cowboys trying to rope one steer.	42:56
	In such a situation, Cowboys sometimes	43:01
	have accidentally rope each other,	43:03
	or one of the horses in their eagerness to rope the steer.	43:06
	Now in Freudian terms,	43:11
	the super ego is represented by the corral with the Cowboys	43:13
	and their ropes.	43:19
	The id is the corral with the wild steers.	43:21
	Ego is the man on the platform with the gate.	43:26
	It's not the business of the man on the platform	43:31
	to hold the gate forever in neutral,	43:33
	allowing neither the wild beasts of the id	43:37
	or the Cowboys of the super ego to enter	43:40
	the arena of action, nor is it the business of the man	43:43
	on the platform to allow Cowboys only	43:46
	into the arena of action.	43:48
	What an inhibited and repressed life that would be.	43:51
	On the other hand, Freud taught that when the gate	43:58
	is left open to provide for an uninterrupted flow	44:02
	of the wild beast of the id into the arena,	44:04
	or in other words, when a person lives	44:08
	by the pleasure principle, he eventually loses, says Freud,	44:10
	the ability to satisfy his pleasure impulses,	44:16
	and he loses the will to live.	44:20
	Seneca and Tillich both agree with Freud	44:25
	that the death wish is simply the reverse side	44:28
	of the coin of what we call the pleasure principle.	44:33
	This accounts for the familiar suicides of some	44:39
	of the so-called sex queens and others	44:43
	whose animal passions are not brought under the rope	44:46
	of the super ego.	44:49
	In the language of the Bible,	44:52
	those who live by what Freud calls the pleasure principle	44:54
	have a carnal mind.	44:58
	And as Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans,	45:02
	the carnal mind is death.	45:04
	The force of the essential parallel of the biblical	45:08
	and Freudian view at this point is not weakened	45:11
	by the likelihood that Freud referred mainly	45:15
	to physical death and the Apostle Paul	45:18
	mainly to spiritual death.	45:20
	When the ego joins forces with the id in an attempt	45:23
	to shut out the super ego,	45:28
	the person eventually loses even the ability	45:29
	to find satisfaction in pleasure.	45:32
	The biblical view of creation in general and of man's nature	45:37
	in particular is that the animal instincts of the id	45:41
	were created by God and that God has looked	45:45
	over his creation and pronounced it, quote,	45:48
	Very good, unquote.	45:51
	God has how however not left us without advice	45:55
	and instruction concerning the use of his creation.	45:59
	His holy word revealed through the law givers,	46:04
	the prophets and supremely unfolded in the incarnation	46:07
	of Jesus Christ furnish a system of values	46:11
	and a significance for living,	46:15
	which transcend the claims of the id,	46:18
	but without denying them,	46:22
	Jesus made it clear that since God is the one	46:26
	who gave us appetites for food, drink, shelter, sex,	46:29
	and the rest, he is aware of our needs in those areas	46:34
	and he wants to have those needs fulfilled.	46:39
	However, our first loyalty is to what Jesus	46:44
	called the kingdom of God and his righteousness.	46:47
	In the Christian, the ego must respond affirmatively	46:51
	to the claims of the kingdom as they come to us	46:56
	through what Freud called the super ego.	47:00
	The ego, which organizes its life around the kingdom	47:05
	will relegate the id to a secondary place,	47:08
	but to a place of importance.	47:13
	The person who does this intelligently will discover	47:18
	to his surprise what Jesus meant when he said	47:21
	that those who seek first the kingdom of God	47:25
	and his righteousness will have all these other things	47:27
	added unto them.	47:31
	We now are in position to see the maturing wisdom	47:34
	of another biblical insight.	47:37
	Our Lord Jesus Christ taught the paradox that whoever	47:41
	will save his life will lose it.	47:44
	Whoever puts the pleasure principle first	47:52
	will lose pleasure.	47:53
	Whoever loses his life for my sake,	47:57
	that is for the kingdom, will find it.	48:01
	Looking only at the first part of the paradox,	48:05
	I understand Jesus to have meant by this	48:07
	that those who are selfishly determined to squeeze	48:10
	every drop of pleasure they can	48:14
	from the uninhibited expression of the id	48:16
	will find this pleasure elusive and unsatisfying.	48:19
	They will progressively demand more and more from the id	48:25
	in order to find a thrill,	48:28
	Eventually it all becomes empty.	48:31
	And as, Tillich writes in "The Courage To Be", quote,	48:33
	the acceptance of the pleasure principle necessarily leads	48:37
	to disgust and despair about all of life.	48:41
	The mature Christian then is one who makes no effort	48:48
	to repress the id, but who is wise enough to see that	48:52
	the id needs a master,	48:57
	who chooses Jesus Christ as that master,	49:00
	who seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness	49:04
	in the assurance that this will give eternal significance	49:08
	to his life which he now lives in the flesh.	49:12
	The maturing Christian will know that the goal	49:17
	of full maturity is not too easily achieved,	49:20
	whether at the age 18 or 28 or 38,	49:24
	but he will continue seeking it until,	49:29
	as Paul wrote to the Ephesians,	49:33
	we all attain to the unity of the faith	49:36
	and of the knowledge of the son of God	49:39
	to mature manhood so that we may no longer	49:42
	be children tossed to and fro and carried about	49:46
	with every wind of doctrine.	49:50
	Rather speaking the truth in love,	49:52
	we are to grow up in every way into him	49:55
	who is the head into Christ.	49:58
	And so as parents and their teenagers seek	50:03
	to avoid head on collisions as they grow toward each other,	50:07
	both may seek to avert tragedy by a clear understanding	50:14
	of what maturity essentially is,	50:19
	and by truly seeking to achieve it.	50:23
	Let us pray: Oh God, our divine creator,	50:26
	our heavenly Father, we pray that we may be childlike	50:31
	in our faith, but not childish in our attitude.	50:36
	Give us mature grace that we may be enabled	50:41
	to choose wisely, to live nobly and creatively	50:45
	through Jesus Christ our master.	50:50
	Amen.	50:53
	(organ music)	50:57
	(faint orchestral singing)	51:35
	(gentle music)	54:37
	(gentle orchestral singing)	55:08
	(lively organ music)	1:01:27
	(faint orchestral singing)	1:01:48
	We offer and dedicate these offerings,	1:02:46
	not as a substitute for,	1:02:49
	but as a symbol of a gift of our lives into thy service.	1:02:52
	Amen.	1:02:58
	Amen, Lord, bless us and keep us.	1:03:04
	Lord, make space to shine upon us and be gracious upon us.	1:03:07
	(speaking faintly) and give us peace.	1:03:11
	(faint orchestral singing)	1:03:18
	(bell chiming)	1:04:22

Item Info

Title:

Howard C. Wilkinson - "Maturity as Understood by Freud and the Bible" (July 19, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49s1qm8s

Date:

July 19, 1970

Speaker:

Wilkinson, Howard C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0530
ref6263_siz
uachapelsermaud
duke:628678
dcrau002519
ark:/87924/r49s1qm8s
3c28fa46-c314-4a6a-9b38-87eddfb02f8d

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Language:

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Howard C. Wilkinson - "Maturity as Understood by Freud and the Bible" (July 19, 1970)

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1. Howard C. Wilkinson - "Maturity According to the Bible and Freud" (April 21, 1963)

2. Howard C. Wilkinson - "Maturity, According to the Bible and Freud" (April 21, 1963)

3. Howard C. Wilkinson - "Maturity, According to the Bible and Freud" (July 19, 1970)

Duke University Archives

Howard C. Wilkinson - "Maturity as Understood by Freud and the Bible" (July 19, 1970)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives