The Road Less Traveled
OutlineSection Four: Grace
Notes by Doug Muder (1997)
This is by far the most difficult section of the book. Up to this point, Peck has been well within the mainstream of popular and psychotherapeutic thought. The previous section has been a preparation for leaving that mainstream in a mystical, religious direction.
The departure point is a discussion of miracles. The miracles Peck sees are more common and subtle than the miracles of fable and legend. He simply finds the world to be a more fortuitous place than he can easily account for. None of the miracles he relates is compelling, and I doubt his account will change any minds already made up.
Behind these miracles Peck sees grace, which is like a favorable wind blowing in the direction of growth. Behind this grace, Peck postulates (somewhat timidly, for lack of any better explanation) a loving God. The purpose he finds in grace is that we should grow into godhood ourselves. The book concludes with a discussion of the challenge and responsibility that this vision puts on us as human beings.
"In thinking about miracles, I believe that our frame of reference has been too dramatic. We have been looking for the burning bush, the parting of the sea, the bellowing voice from heaven. Instead we should be looking at the ordinary day-to-day events in our lives for evidence of the miraculous, maintaining at the same time a scientific orientation." [pages 230-231]
"All of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it eventually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood." [page 270]
"Original sin does exist; it is our laziness." [page 273]
Spiritual power "is the capacity to make decisions with maximum awareness." [page 286] It isolates us from fellow human beings to some extent, but offers a communion with God as compensation.
By transmitting the incongruity between our individual will and God's will, the symptoms of mental illness are themselves a gift of grace.
Grace is available to everyone, but some respond to it and some don't. Why?
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