By Michael Motes

John A. Hammes, professor and associate head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia, has written two recent articles that appear in specialized journals.

In the first, entitled, “The Loss of Objectivity in Contemporary Man” (Homiletic and Pastoral Review, November edition), Dr. Hammes relates “today’s crisis in faith, and the crisis of confidence in church authority, to the mentality of our present time.”

“To see things as they are is to be objective,” the author states. But modern man is “presently immersed in an age of skepticism, subjectivism and disbelief.”

Catholics who contradict and reject the teaching of the hierarchy have substituted personal opinions for this teaching, he says. “They have refused to accept the objective basis of the church’s teaching authority and have chosen to place their subjective opinion above the authority of the church.”

Not only has there been a loss of objectivity, but a loss of “the sense of the sacred.” This encompasses a loss of respect for God’s created world (ecological crisis), the sacredness of sex and parenthood (sexual permissiveness and pornography) and life itself (abortion).

Dr. Hammes attributes such loss “to a human prosperity that long ago led to man’s original sin – pride.” To remedy the situation man must become an object of humility.

“The antidote to pride has been, and always will be, humility … prayer, penance and the pursuit of truth are the handmaids of humility. Without them we shall never recover the sense of objectivity in today’s subjectively confused world,” he states.

In the January edition of the Journal On Psychology and Theology, Dr. Hammes concentrates on two hypotheses: (a) man needs to fulfill himself in all aspects considered human, and (b) whatever aspect of human nature is most repressed or ignored in one age will be most apparent in the rebellion of the age following.

His article is entitled “The Christian in the Age of Id” and in it he hypothetically traces mankind’s respect for Christianity from the Middle Ages to the present.

The Middle Ages period “was the age of faith, with a focus on eternity, permanence and the absolute stability of religion. Man’s awareness was spiritual and his posture that of kneeling. Borrowing from Freudian terminology, this period of history could be characterized as the Age of the Superego.”

Describing today’s society, Dr. Hammes writes, “Man has finally assumed the prone posture. It is the age of passion, feeling and sensualism. It is the Age of the Id.

If this condition continues, three solutions are offered: (1) continuance of the drug orientation and a consequent “vegetative society;” (2) a return to the “reign of reason;” and (3) an emergence of the spiritual aspect of human nature, which would include the religious interest in groups such as the Jesus-People movement and the Pentecostal movement.