First, a confession. The Shape of Joy is an experiment in crypto-evangelism. On the surface, the book looks like just another offering of the self-help, pop psychology variety. Just look at the subtitle: “The Transformative Power of Moving Beyond Yourself.” Goodness.
And almost all of The Shape of Joy is concerned with sharing insights from empirical research in positive psychology in light of our current mental health crisis. But as that research is presented, I start pulling together its major conclusion: We flourish when we live in relation to transcendence. And it’s here, at this point, where the book begins to pivot from psychology to metaphysics.
The point is easily made: Is transcendence real? That is to say, when I encounter a reality larger than and other than my own, is that reality a fiction or a fantasy? Am I still just talking to myself? Is transcendence a mental game I’m playing on myself? If nothing is really “out there” from a materialistic, atheistic perspective, then is “transcendence” just a mind hack and a form of cosmic pretending?
The Shape of Joy follows the arrows of positive psychology to this question about transcendence. And there, on that threshold, it raises the issue of belief. Something “out there” beyond yourself is good for you. Is that “something” real? The Shape of Joy isn’t dogmatic on this point, but it nudges the reader to say yes, that "something" is real, and I will flourish when I live in trusting relation with that "something." This is the shape of joy.
Like I said, an experiment in crypto-evangelism. Start with our mental health crisis to raise a question about the nature of reality. Start with human experience to ask about a reality wholly other than our own. Start with Schleiermacher, end with Barth.
This pathway of reflection makes sense to me. But many theologians of a Barthian mind pit Scripture and Tradition over against human experience. Consequently, when they see a book like The Shape of Joy that begins with human experience, they fear a Trojan horse. Something humanistic this way comes! And Lord knows we wouldn’t want that. God forbid anything human creep into our conversation about God. The horror!
This horror often focuses on messages Barthian theologians perceive as being “therapeutic.” If a sermon or a worship song smacks of being therapeutic, that’s a death knell. Any therapeutic message is deemed far too accommodating, even coddling, of human experience. What human experience needs, rather, is some positivistic, take-your-medicine harshness. Not therapeutic affirmation but disciplinary ultimatums.
As regular readers know, I think this whole debate is confused. I’ve written many words defending the term “therapeutic.” Therapy concerns healing. And God is the Great Physician. What the Barthians are objecting to is affirmation. They think “therapeutic” means affirming the pathological, which would come as a great surprise to medical doctors and psychotherapists alike. All those doctors affirming cancer and psychotherapists affirming suicidal ideation! When we come to rightly understand the therapeutic, then of course God meets and heals our deepest diseases. This is exactly what Augustine was describing when he prayed, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”
And if this is so, why wouldn’t a conversation about God begin with the restlessness we find within human experience? Why wouldn’t a conversation about God start with our mental health crisis? Why wouldn't we ask if there is a balm in Gilead?
Starting a conversation about God with psychology isn’t a Trojan horse. Healing concerns ontology. The Schleiermacherian move is a deeply Augustinian move.
To be sure, we have to push through human experience to get to the question of God. Joy, again, has a shape. Our flourishing points toward a question about metaphysics, a reality wholly other than our own. And that’s why it traces the shape of joy.
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