INTERVIEW WITH DR. SHAIA
ABOUT QUADRATOS
Listen to "Being Steady in the Midst of Uncertainty with Dr. Alexander J. Shaia"
on New Dimensions Media
Conversation between Dr. Shaia and Michelle Gaugy
President of the Board - The Awakening Foundation
Santa Fe, New Mexico - April 2006
Dr. Shaia, why does the world need another book about Jesus?
I'm not sure the world does need another book about Jesus, but even if it does, my book isn't about Jesus at all. My book is about the four traditional gospels and the pattern of spiritual and psychological growth contained in them. Everyone has been so focused on the biographical questions of Jesus' life. And as fascinating as that is - it's time to get back to some of the other things in Christianity that have been waiting for centuries to really nourish us.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean...
At present, there is a plethora of books and scholars - each questioning whether, in actual historical fact, Jesus died on the cross, was married, or had a child. These scholars are casting doubt on every aspect of Jesus' life, and their questions extend to the words of the four traditional gospels. They are asking us to become historians in search of an "original" Jesus, his actions and every "real" sentence he spoke. The presumption is that a more factual, historically accurate account of Jesus will be somehow helpful to Christians. Presumably, the faith will either collapse or somehow be transformed and move forward.
My book states a very different premise. I believe the individual gospels were originally written to communicate the teachings of Jesus, and I believe they contain those teachings with some degree of accuracy, although we will probably never be able to determine just how much. However, I also believe that - spiritually - it is not important that we do so.
That is a fairly shocking statement.
And I mean it to be. There were many, many gospels written in the decades after Jesus died - perhaps as many as seventy. But when the Christian church became legal, and standardized its practices, it selected the four gospels we know - Matthew, Mark, John and Luke - to be put into its Bible. Furthermore, they were not selected to be a written record of the history of Jesus - neither his biography nor the words he spoke. This is why their precise degree of historical accuracy is unimportant, because their central purpose was something entirely different.
Look. Everyone agrees that the gospels are filled with discrepancies. Many details and dates differ. In the four accounts, we read of Jesus being born in three different places, and dying four distinctly different deaths. If early Christianity was confused or uncertain about their faith because of these discrepancies they had every opportunity to change them or even suppress them when the compilation was made. But they did not do it.
Instead, the early teachers and leaders of Christianity chose the four and furthermore specified that they be read aloud in a specific order for Sunday worship - an odd, unexplained, non-chronological order. This sequence remained in place in all Christian churches for over a thousand years. I am astounded that scholars today have missed its significance, because understanding it is the key to understanding the purposeful choice of these four gospels.
In the ancient sequence, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke provided early Christians the prayer and the practice of the universal four-fold journey of spiritual growth. It is the same four-fold sequence that is revealed in the wisdom traditions of every major faith. It is also the precise sequence that twentieth century psychology has "discovered" is necessary to move the immature ego to maturity. I have named this universal four-fold pattern, quadratos. And I am convinced that, through the deep inspiration upon which the Christian Church is founded, quadratos was the basis upon which the early church family chose these four gospels over all the other choices they had. They discerned rightfully. The pattern is four-fold, and it is clearly revealed in these four and only these four texts.
That certainly is a dramatically different perspective from most - maybe all - of the recent books I've seen out there. Do you think this book is especially timely because of that difference?
We are in a time of great change. Just as magical thinking gave way to The Age of Enlightenment, which crumbled before Rationalism, now we are beginning to understand that perhaps "irrational" can mean something besides "crazy." Our emotional and spiritual lives are gaining in importance.
In a time of shift, cultures and individuals experience a sense of freedom as new possibilities arise - and simultaneously, others feel threatened, confused and anxious as their security vanishes. One result is an arising of fundamentalism, or "mistaken literalism." In this time, we see this in over-reliance on rationalism - the old paradigm. It is fundamentalism to consider the specific words in the Bible inerrant - and it is just as much fundamentalism to think that knowing the more precise historicity of a word is going to produce some greater spiritual result. Even though the people who espouse one view tend to be more educated and academic than the other, both reflect an over-reliance on the rational, and in my view, both reflect a fear of the ineffable, of the indefinable, unbounded spirit.
What makes my book timely is that it provides a way that all voices can be heard, and respected. This world needs a new form - a new vocabulary - that connects head and heart and can be espoused by all faiths, enabling them to live and work together as respectful partners. Yet we will not find this "new" form by pulling it out of thin air. I am a devout Catholic, and I will never renounce that. But I equally know that we cannot move to a new level of spirituality by "junking" tradition. The challenge is not our traditional faith; the challenge is to discover new and more helpful ways to understand our traditional faith. "New" is perhaps a misnomer. We need to "refresh" ourselves, and "refresh" our traditions.
You use the word quadratos - where did it come from and what does it mean?
I coined the term quadratos. I needed a concise way to express and think of "fourness." The word represents the sequential and unvarying four-fold pattern of spiritual and psychological growth that is found across all eras of human history, geography and cultures - and in the four gospels.
After coining the word, I came across a quote from Bishop Irenaeus, who was the Bishop of Lyons and one of the leading Christian teachers in the second century. In 180 CE, writing of why there must be just four gospels, he penned: "There is just one revelation, but it must have four accounts, for natural and divine law is quadriform." When I found that quote, it was a great confirmation for me that the early Christian Church knew - whether through inspiration or full awareness - that the four gospels were "right" because they reflected a spiritual truth - and not because they repeated a biography four times.
How long has it taken you to write "Beyond the Biography of Jesus"?
Twenty minutes - and thirty years. Late one night in the Fall of 2000, I had an epiphany. I saw the four-fold design of quadratos in the four gospels. The questions of the four-gospel sequence and the patterns of transformation are ones that have fascinated me since my theology studies in the early 1970's. Since that moment in 2000, I spent two years in research, and another four writing the book. And of course, the study guides will take still more time.
Do you bring special qualifications to your authorship?
Twenty-five years in practice as a spiritual director and psychotherapist, a variety of degrees in education, anthropology, and religious education, including my doctorate in clinical psychology, and a lifetime as an observant, caring Christian with a passion to help my faith mature.
What do you want people to take away from your book?
For Christian readers, I want them to trust the gospels, and to know that they are available in new and even more exciting ways to use in their lives than they ever have been before.
Although I wrote the book first for Christians, I hope it will find broader readership, and that all who read will discover that there is a map in this book. It is a map that can be used to chart the way through change of all kinds, at all phases of life. Even though the metaphor is the four gospels, its truths transcend specific faith or tradition or philosophy. And when we have a good chart to follow when we undergo change, I believe, the process becomes more conscious and therefore richer and less frightening. So, for all of us who are trekking through that wilderness, it is my hope that this book will show that there is a time-honored way to make the journey with healthy emotions, an engaged intellect and a full heart.
Cover Photo © Jack Hollingsworth/Corbis
Author Photo by JR Lancaster
