Emmet Fox on the pure in heart

 ... for they shall see God. In this wonderful Beatitude, we are told exactly how this supreme task is to be accomplished and who they are who shall do it. They are the pure in heart. Purity, in its full and complete sense, is recognising God alone as the only real Cause, and the only real Power in existence. It is what is called elsewhere in the Sermon "the single eye".

Note that Jesus speaks of the pure in heart. The word "heart" in the Bible usually means that part of man’s mentality that modern psychology knows under the name of the "subconscious mind". This is exceedingly important because it is not sufficient for us to accept the Truth with the conscious mind only. At that stage it is still a mere opinion It is not until it is accepted by the subconscious mind and thus assimilated into the whole mentality that it can make any difference in one's character or life.

as he thinketh in his heart so is he (Proverbs 23:7)]

‘Recognising God alone as the only Cause, and the only real Power in existence’ is acceding to the idea.

Why might one accede to the idea? Essentially by theological argument that holds this to be the most credible theory or by bowing to the authority of others, for instance those one looks up to for guidance generally. The former route is slow. The latter route is quite. Both are honourable. To accept things on authority is perfectly reasonable. In fact, almost everything one knows is accepted on authority rather than through inference based on one’s own sense data.

Emmet Fox equates this cognitive accession with the apparent poetic quality of purity of heart. He does not explain what licenses this equation, but it may be this: to recognise God as the only cause and only power is to reject the perception that there are multiple causes and multiple powers. This is pure in the sense of being unadulterated: orange juice is pure if it contains nothing but orange juice. This is not purity in a moral sense but purity in a very specific, narrow sense of a particular theological view, held unwaveringly (e.g. vs the Manichean view, which is an ontological dualism of the existence of two opposing substances, good and evil; for the thorough discounting of this view, C. S. Lewis helpful).

Emmet Fox is purloining this notion of the ‘pure in heart’ from Matthew 5:8 (“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” in the KJV). The adjective used in Greek is ‘καθαρός’, which means literally or figuratively clean. There is no evidence whatsoever that this is meant to suggest a singular belief in God as the only causal force. The consensus is that it means having spiritual integrity, being the moral equivalent of ritual purity.

The actual beatitude suggests that, if one has spiritual integrity, then one will be able to have a clear and open relationship with God. This is entirely consistent with the AA programme.

There is also nothing to suggest that ‘heart’, in the New Testament, means the subconscious or the unconscious (let’s not delve into those two terms). Even if this were the case, Emmet Fox does not explain what operations we can perform to influence the subconscious. This is not helpful.

What is valid and helpful is the notion of single-mindedness: if one accepts the principles and procedures of the programme, without any cognitive resistance, and then applies the principles and practises the procedures, eventually they become grooved as a single coherent system of thought and action, and this dovetails well with the sense of καθαρός referred to above: a pure and undivided nature. In other words, the operations are performed on the visible, not the invisible, in the buttons and bread of everyday life.

According to biblical scholars, what is really meant by heart is actually the centre of thinking, will, and reason, as well as emotion, so certainly not the subconscious or unconscious. In other words, if we want to comply with the conditions of the beatitude, the job must be done ‘above the waterline’ in the conscious mind, not ‘below the waterline’ in the subconscious or unconscious. This idea is considerably more helpful, because the operations to perform are discernible and performable.

In the scholarly view, the notion of ‘seeing God’ is described firstly as seeing God ‘at work’ in the events around us plus also ‘meeting God’ in the afterlife.