I'm reading this fascinating book by a great thinker of this past century, Lesslie Newbigin. He spent many years in India having spiritual conversations on faith. He has written a number of influential books including the one I am currently reading called The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.
One significant point he makes is that one cannot come to know people through dispassionate analysis. You can learn much about our world through research, analyses, discovery including coming to the conclusion that God exists. You can learn a lot about people through the above process as well. He describes this as the I-it position in which the "I" is in control or is sovereign in relation to its world.
The surprise for me was that he agrees that one can come to believe that God is real and does some miraculous things but that heading in the I-it direction will actually lead one away from God and from meaningful relationship to people.
He offers the I-You approach which takes us out of the seat of control and now puts us in the position not of discovery but of revelation. This position means that there are things being done and shown to us that come as a surprise and are not within our control. We are willing to be questioned and challenged by the other. This is how we really come to know God and people.
How does this strike you? Do you find this to be true in your relationships with people, with God? How does this play out at work? What if we were to take this posture more with God and others? Would we fare better, worse?
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I think we all could benefit from the “I-You” point of view. If I understand correctly, a move from “I-it” thinking towards “I-You” thinking, is a move away from hyper subjectivity and the need to control and toward gentleness and a child-like sense of wonder (your example of “I discovered this” vs. “this was revealed to me” illustrates this). By letting go of the ego/I/Eye it allows you to see yourself as part of or interconnected with the world, as opposed to your surroundings just being another frontier to examine and/or conquer. As you stated, the “I-it” point of view can be capable of great things, however often times the need for control or to see oneself as “sovereign” only seems to create a moat around you. This, of course, is not exactly conducive to truly relating to the world around you, be it another person, nature or God. I can think of many times where I’ve felt unable to fully connect with someone because I will ultimately realize that the ‘“I” is too much with me,’ to mutate/butcher a line from Wordsworth. I have been unable to relate because I couldn’t get past myself (my ego, my hang ups and so and on) which becomes a moat isolating me. Our identities and ideas will always be challenged, but when you cling so hard the “I,” those challenges seem to become threats which in turn will prevent people to relating and ultimately communicating with another. It would be interesting to see what would happen in the world if everyone started to make an effort towards an “I-You” way of thinking. That said I do believe it is a challenge. If you think about it, our minds/souls are often viewed as being on the inside looking out through sensory preceptors (our body), so in a basic way the “I-it” way of thinking may come to us more naturally. But perhaps if we rise to the challenge of an “I-You” consciousness we can really see what can be revealed to us.
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