The Parable of the Lost Son

Luke 15:11-32 presents us with a very touching tale. It is the tale of a man who had two sons. The younger son went up to his dad and suddenly asked for his share of his dad's property. The father must have been bewildered. His son could not even wait for him to die first before asking for a share of his estate. But he went ahead and gave the lad what he requested. Promptly then, the son went off and squandered his newly gotten wealth on a life of dissipation. And when he had spent it all, a severe famine struck the land he lived in. He began to be in need. He began to search for a job, and he got one looking after sheep. He was so hungry that he could easily have shared the pigs' food. Eventually, he came to his senses and realized that even his father's servants did not fare as badly as he did now. And so he resolved to go to his father and seek forgiveness. He decided to tell his dad to treat him as a servant rather than a son. And with such a resolve, he got up and began to journey back to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced and kissed the lad. The son had his speech prepared. He told his father that he had sinned against him and God, and now deserved to be only a slave.

 

But his father would have none of that. He had very fine clothes brought with accessories to boot and arrayed his son in these. Then he had a fattened calf slaughtered and a feast celebrated, "because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found" (v24). And so the rejoicing began. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field and on his way back as he neared the house he heard the merrymaking. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant told this older son that the merrymaking was because his younger brother had returned and his father was very excited at the event. This older son became very angry and refused to enter the house, and so the father had to come out to him. He said to his father, "Look, all these years I served you and not once did I obey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf" (v30). The father assured the son that all he had was his son's. Yet, the father saw it fitting to celebrate and rejoice over the return of the younger son, "because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found" (v32).

 

Let's explain this story. Let's take the father to be our reason, our capacity to think. This rationative capacity is what makes us human, and separates us from all the other animals. Because it is the most perfect aspect of ourselves, Descartes has pretty much seen it to be what we properly are. He calls us thinking things. Now, our reason serves as a moderator between two opposing aspects of ourselves: the superego and the id, to borrow from Sigmund Freud. The superego is the elder son. The id is the younger one. The id is the immature aspect of ourselves. It is our artistic mind. Recall in this regard that in a previous post we talked about the difference between the artistic mind, which is immature and inchoate, and the scientific mind, which is mature and stable. Hubbard would call the id the unclear mind. This id wants us to live at the level of appetite, to borrow from Plato, who has said that we have three aspects to ourselves: appetitive, animated, and intellectual. The father is the intellectual; the elder son is the animated, and the younger son is the appetitive.

 

The id does not care for consequences. It is concerned with the flesh only. It is interested in pleasure; it operates on the pleasure principle alone. Similarly, the appetitive aspect of ourselves as defined by Plato is drawn to material reality, the reality of sense perception, and so is prone to deceit and illusion, and falsehood. In the parable of the lost son, we see how the younger son demanded material wealth from his dad, concerned not for the father's wellbeing; sparing no thought for anyone but himself, and insisting only to satisfy himself. And when this younger son had received the share of wealth that should come to him, he went off quickly and wasted it all. This is what artistic minds do; this is what the id does; this is what the appetitive aspect of ourselves does. Our unclear mind makes us waste ourselves in dissipation. We pad ourselves with material stuff in such a way that we weigh down our souls. We cannot free ourselves enough to focus on immaterial reality, which is of a higher spiritual worth than material reality.

 

Because of its disregard for consequences, the id always leads us into trouble. The id, the appetitive aspect of ourselves, our unclear mind, always brings us ill. Without prudence, the id can run wild. It is the id that makes people text while driving; it is the id that makes people smoke pot. It is the id that makes people commit every crime there is. The artistic mind when unrestrained can cause a lot of disaster. It is impatient, narcissistic, immature and reckless. The artistic mind brings depression, sadness, neuroses, and all manner of psychological and physical ailments. It is willful, wayward, headstrong, and seeks its own way. It is properly speaking a lost cause. Without the taming potential of reason, it is doomed. Similarly, in the parable of the lost son, we see how the younger son fell into starvation once he had squandered all his wealth and a famine had hit the land. He sought to eat the food meant for pigs, but could get none. He was in rough shape indeed. Similarly, our artistic mind is a stew pot of all negative emotions there are, and negative emotions squeeze the happiness out of us.

 

But the son came to his senses and went back to his father. Similarly, Descartes has offered us a three-step method for dealing with negative emotions, for the consequences of the id. We should, having become conscious of our negative emotions and behaviors (having in the first step "come to our senses"), allow the negative emotions in the second step to travel all the way to our head, so we can process them intellectually. We should lay our negative emotions and behaviors at the feet of reason, at the feet of our ratiocinative ability. In the same way, the younger son, having first come to his senses (consciousness), presented himself to his father, and processed his situation with his father. The third step of Descartes' method is speaking words of reason to the negative emotions and behaviors (by the way, one of the ways to become conscious of emotions is through observable behavior). Similarly, the father reasoned with  his son. He made the son realize that he was welcome home in spite of all that had transpired. He sent for the best dress and the best meals and treated his son with love. Our reason always perfects us as humans when we apply it. It always reminds us of who we are: children of God, and not mere animals. It tells us that we are not our mistakes. It tells us that we have the potential to grow and change and develop and mature. Our reason consoles us and makes us whole again. This is what the father (ego, reason) did with the younger son (id, appetite).

 

But the elder son was offended that his younger brother should be so welcomed. Our superego, or our animated aspect, is the soulful aspect of ourselves. It keeps score. It torments us with guilt. It is like a score card. Just like a wind vane measures wind direction and a thermometer temperature, our superego keeps a strict account of each thing we have ever done, consciously, subconsciously and unconsciously. Recall in this regard that we have defined soul as the sum-total of everything we have consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously done. Our superego always points us to what we have done, to make us feel guilty. It says: Look what you have done; look what you have done; look what you have done! And when we look at what we have done, we feel guilty because we all have done bad. Romans 3:23 says: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

 

And so, left to our deeds alone, we can never find peace and happiness, no matter how good we try to be. Recall the scrupulosity of Martin Luther the monk in this regard; recall also the many people who try to attain peace and happiness by acting in a sanctimonious way; by crossing the river by the land, as we said in a previous post. We can only find guilt in so doing. I think it instructive that when St Rita's otherwise saintly mother was dying she complained of having not loved her family enough, to which St Rita responded with shock, wondering what more her mother could have done by way of loving. The saintliest of people have been known to be the most scrupulous; always examining their conscience and still finding themselves unworthy, in spite of everything. Also recall that when the rich young man called Jesus "good," Jesus protested, saying that only God was good (Mk 10:18).

 

Similarly, the older son tried to guilt his father into not rejoicing over the return of the lost son. He showed how the behavior of the younger boy did not deserve such merrymaking. And this is what guilt does. It tempts us with despair. It tempts us with the prospect of giving up on ourselves. It tempts us with the prospect of our inability to be redeemed. Recall the movie Seven Pounds. It was guilt that made the main character, played by actor Will Smith, who had mistakenly killed his fiancé and a few other people because he was texting and driving, fall into deep depression and ultimately kill himself. For every time he might have summoned the courage to forgive himself and move on, his guilt, his memory of what he had done, kept cropping up to squelch his progress. In the same way, our guilt (superego, animated aspect) always tries to "prove" that we are worthless; that we do not deserve salvation; that we are completely doomed forever. This is what our soulful, animated aspect does to us by calling to mind our past.

 

But we must forgive; we must sacrifice, and we must be at peace. We must "let go of the hope that the past could be any different." Our reason must rise above our guilt. Our ego, the inner teacher; God within us, should calm the roaring of guilt; should tame the superego; should adjudicate between the superego that is wont to play devil's advocate, and the id that is presumed unworthy of salvation. Reason should make us believe in spite of everything absurd about life. Psalm 116:10 says: "I trusted even when I said, 'I am sorely afflicted.'" This is what reason helps us to do. Reason makes us isolate bad situations and the occasions of guilt, and transcend them with faith, hope and love. Reason makes us realize that we have done some good as well, and not just bad. All the times we brushed our teeth; all the times we washed our clothes; all the times we said good morning to someone - all these albeit little things are good things. And just because we have done our fair share of bad things, that does not mean we should give up on ourselves because of guilt. Reason gives us a reason to live. Reason lifts us up. Reason is God in us. Reason makes us put everything in perspective; prevents us from the fallacies of secundum quid, hasty generalization and slippery slope, three of the most common and dangerous fallacies in everyday living. Reason saves us. 

 

And so, let us use our reason all the time. Let us not make decisions based on emotions. Let us allow our emotions to travel all the way to our heads each time we become conscious of them in our hearts, through our sensitivity and sensibility; and let us always endeavor, as much as we can, to maintain a contemplative and philosophical attitude. Let us embrace epistemology and ethics. Let us be happy. "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!" (Phil 4:4).