Alcoholics
Anonymous History
A.A. – The Four Absolutes –The Facts Again
A.A. – The Four Absolutes –The Facts Again
Dick B.
© 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved.
See Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous, www.dickb.com/Oxford.shtml
Summary
The so-called “Four Absolutes”
of A.A. were cherished “yardsticks” in earliest A.A.—standards for determining
right behavior as measured through God’s eyes. And A.A.’s Cofounder Dr. Bob
made that clear.[1]
The Four Absolutes were Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love.
Robert E. Speer: The time-line for the recovery origins of these
principles begins with Presbyterian missionary leader Robert E. Speer. In 1902,
Speer published The Principles of Jesus.[2]
Chapter 6 was titled “Jesus and Standards.”[3]
And Speer there spelled out “some” moral principles that could be applied to
determine and practice what was “right or wrong.” Speer said the teachings of
Jesus set up absolute principles which didn’t allow men to measure their
conduct by what they “thought” was right or wrong. Jesus, he said,
enabled men to have absolute standards of conduct by which they were able to
“know whether it is right or wrong, drag it into Jesus’ presence, and see how
He looks at it, and how it looks to Him.”[4]
Some have erroneously stated that Speer fashioned the four standards from the
teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 to 7). But his citations were much
more broad. Speer said that Jesus taught in a practical way in order to make
people understand, and the illustrations Jesus used were themselves such as to
make some principle perfectly clear. The teachings set up standards (Mark 9:33;
Matt. 5:34, 37; 6:16; Mark 7:15; Luke 9:60). Perfection was his standard (Matt.
5:48). He had attained it (John 8:29). He demanded it. Right is to be right.
Thinking it right or thinking it wrong does not make a thing right or wrong.
Jesus, said Speer, set up an absolute standard of truth. He said, if God
were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God;
neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech?
Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father, the devil, and the
lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and
abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a
lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it (John
8:42-44). Jesus set up an absolute standard of unselfishness. Speer
pointed to Mark 10:45: “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Jesus set up an absolute
standard or purity. He tolerated no uncleanness whatsoever. . . . A hand or
an eye, outer or inner sin, must be sacrificed to the claims of the kingdom of
heaven (Matt. 5:29, 30). Jesus set up an absolute standard of love. Jesus
said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have
loved you, that ye also love one another (John 13:34),
Henry B. Wright: Next in line comes Yale’s Professor Henry B. Wright. And
in 1909, Wright published The Will of God and a Man’s Lifework.[5]
Wright devoted this teaching to the relation of the act of surrender of self in
doing God’s will. He contended that willingness to do God’s will is a necessary
condition for knowledge of it. He pointed to the Bible and Nature as the parts
of God’s will that every one may know.[6]
Wright emphasized that God reveals His Universal Will for the world in Jesus,
the Living Word, and in the Bible, the Written Word.[7]
Then he asked if there were “absolute standards of right and wrong; how Jesus
found out the particular will of God for himself, and said Jesus “always did
the things which were pleasing to God.” Citing Scripture, Wright pointed to
verses in the Bible dealing with purity (Matthew 5:29), unselfishness (Luke
14:33); honesty (Luke 16:11), and love (John 15:2). Wright explained that Jesus
was sure of God’s presence and guidance; and Wright reconstructed the “absolute
standards of right and wrong” from the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.
Wright quoted Robert E. Speer as follows:
Mr. Robert
E. Speer has reconstructed from the teaching of Jesus the four standards in
regard to which he never allowed himself an exception and with reference to
which his teaching is absolute and unyielding. Jesus gives us no direct
teaching in regard to such things as smoking, drinking, card playing, theatre,
dancing, etc. He recognized that some men could decide one way and others just
the opposite on like questions and yet both sides be true Christians. But in
regard to four things there was no such option. A man must be pure, he must be
honest, he must be unselfish, he must express himself in deeds of love or else
he cannot see the kingdom of God. There is no exception to be made on these
four counts.[8]
Having discussed many relevant
verses applicable to the “Universal Will of God,” Wright then explained that
God also has a Particular Will for each individual man, He suggested it rested
on the “Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles.” He suggested, as to the
four touchstones, that there be a test of Purity, Honesty, Unselfishness, and
Love. He said that obedience provided the assurance as to one’s duty and power
to achieve results. Wright illustrated:
To every
problem, great or small, which presents itself in a small matter like one’s
bearing in a game of sport, in a large matter like the choice of a life career,
the Christian who is absolutely surrendered to God asks himself this question:
“Is the step which I had planned to take an absolutely pure one? Is it an
absolutely honest one? Is it the most unselfish one? Is it the fullest possible
expression of my love? If it fails to measure up to any one of these four
standards it cannot be God’s will and I must not take it, no matter what the
refusal may cost me in suffering, mental or physical. As he holds his
instrument of apprehension, the human will, resolutely to this standard, the
Christian is conscious of its becoming strong both to know and to do God’s will
and there comes the undoubted, the compelling conviction which guides and
impels him forward. . . . The mysterious meeting place in the prepared and
willing heart between the human and divine where precisely the will is finally
moved into line with God’s of these things knoweth no man, save only the spirit
of God.[9]
Discussing each of the four
“absolutes” in turn, and using purity as the first, he proposed the following:
“Is the step which I had planned to take an absolutely pure one? If it is not,
it cannot be God’s will for that life.” And as to each of the four absolute
standards, Wright would thus look at the question in terms of purity versus
impurity, and then cite applicable Bible verses that provided definitions of
God’s will, for example, as to fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire,
adultery. Furthermore, each absolute—purity, unselfishness, honesty, and
love—was to be related to the other three so that if something were deemed
pure, it must also be absolutely unselfish, absolutely honest, and absolutely
an act of love.
Frank N. D. Buchman and the
Oxford Group:
The Oxford Group’s Four
Absolutes can be found in the speeches of its founder Frank Buchman.[10]
They can also be found in books about Buchman, descriptions of Oxford Group
principles, in Rev. Sam Shoemaker’s writings, in A.A. General Services
Conference-approved books discussing the Oxford Group, in Anne Smith’s
writings, and in some Oxford Groups today.[11]
As stated, the historical chain begins with Robert E. Speer. Speer’s discussion
and cited verses were expanded by Henry B. Wright. And, according to Oxford
Group activist and long-time employee T. Willard Hunter, Henry B. Wright was
the most influential force in Frank Buchman’s life, other than Buchman’s
mother. Buchman’s biographer Garth Lean explained:
The moral
standards which he [Buchman] used as a test of directing thoughts also became
central to Buchman’s life and teaching: he took them as measuring rods for
daily living. Here again he was indebted to Henry Wright. “The absolutes” had
originally been set out, as a summary of Christ’s moral teaching, by Robert E.
Speer in his book, The Principles of Jesus. Buchman had several times
heard Speer preach at Mount Airy, but it was in Wright’s book that he first
found the summarized standards “in regards of which,” Wright maintained,
“Christ’s teaching is absolute and unyielding.” Wright defined them as “the
four-fold touchstone of Jesus and the apostles” and maintained that an
individual could apply them “to every problem, great or small which presents
itself . . . if (anything) fails to measure up to any one of these four it
cannot be God’s will.”[12]
Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. became a colleague of Frank Buchman’s in the earliest
1920’s. He was called in 1925 to be rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New
York. He shortly became the Oxford Group’s most prolific author, Frank
Buchman’s chief lieutenant in the United States, and actually provided space in
Calvary House (adjacent to the church) for the Oxford Group’s American
headquarters where Buchman himself lived when he was in the United States.
Shoemaker also became a close friend of Bill Wilson, taught Wilson most of the
spiritual principles that were embodied in the Twelve Steps, and was dubbed a
“cofounder of A.A.” by Wilson himself.[13]
Shoemaker wrote extensively on the importance of the Four Absolutes.[14]
And the following is indicative of his view:
We must get
to the point of whether the man is “willing to do his will” in all areas. Take
the four standards of Christ: absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute
unselfishness, and absolute love. When people’s lives are wrong, they are
usually wrong on one or more of these standards. . . . By our own frank honesty
about ourselves and our willingness, under God as He guides, to share anything
in our own experience that will help the other person, and by the willingness
to ask God-inspired questions of them that carry the matter right down to the
roots, we shall get deep enough to know the real problems . . . . If the person
is honest with himself and with God, he will be honest with us and be ready to
take the next step, which is a decision to surrender these sins, with himself,
wholly to God.[15]
Early A.A.: In a few words, we can summarize how the Four Absolutes
were handled in early Alcoholics Anonymous.
Bill
Wilson: Wilson was actively involved in
Oxford Group activities from late 1934 through August, 1937. He and his wife
attended many meetings, attended Oxford Group house parties, and met Frank
Buchman and Rev. Shoemaker and other leaders such as Rev. W. Irving Harris and
his wife Julia. Bill himself was much involved in an Oxford Group team in late
1935 and early 1936. Bill said he had heard plenty about the Four Absolutes.
However, his wife Lois claimed, the “Oxford Group kind of kicked us out
[because] she and Bill were not considered ‘maximum’ by the groupers.”[16]
By October 30, 1940, Bill said: “I am always glad to say privately that some of
the Oxford Group presentation and emphasis upon the Christian message saved my
life. Yet it is equally true that other attitudes of the O.G. nearly got me
drunk again, and we long since discovered that if we were to approach
alcoholics successfully, these [attitudes] would have to be abandoned.” [17]
He wrote a laundry list of 8 criticisms of the Oxford Group, including a
condemnation of the four absolutes, saying “when the word ‘absolute’ was put in
front of these attributes, they either turned people away by the hundreds or
gave a temporary spiritual inflation resulting in collapse.”[18]
Despite these remarks, Wilson did another turnabout. According to one
historian, Wilson wrote in 1960:
In the old
days of the Oxford Groups, they were forever talking about the Four
Absolutes—Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love—trying to get too good by
Thursday. . . . Absolutes in themselves are not necessarily destructive. Every
sound theological system contains them. When we say that our destiny is to grow
in the likeness and image of God, we are stating a healthy relation between a
relative and an absolute state of affairs. Therefore when writing the Twelve
Steps, it was necessary to include some sort of absolute value or else they
wouldn’t have been theologically sound. . . . That could have been unfortunate
and as misleading as we found them in the Oxford Group emphasis. So in Steps
Six and Seven, and in the use of the word God, we did include them.[19]
Dr. Bob
Smith: His position was and remained the
opposite of Bill’s. In his last major address to AAs, Dr. Bob said:
The four
absolutes, as we called them, were the only yardsticks we had in the early
days, before the Steps. I think the absolutes still hold good and can be
extremely helpful. I have found at times that a question arises, and I want to
do the right thing, but the answer is not obvious. Almost always, if I measure
my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty, absolute
unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it checks up pretty well
with those four, then my answer can’t be very far out of the way.[20]
Dr. Bob’s
wife Anne Ripley Smith: In her journal
from which she shared with early AAs and their families, Anne spoke repeatedly
about how to apply the four standards. She said:
Test your
thoughts. It is possible to receive suggestions from your subconscious mind.
Check your thoughts by the four standards. . . . Make the moral test. 4
standards. . . . Basis of an interview. Is a challenge on the four standards. .
. . Why I had been absolutely honest but not living. . . . Follow Christ’s
absolute commandment. . . . Absolute honesty demands that we no longer wear a
mask. . . . Sharing. . . It is being honest even after it hurts. . . . Every
time we register aloud the new attitude and change of heart with absolute
honesty, another bridge is burned behind us and another stake is driven in to
mark our progress. . . . Check your life constantly by the four absolutes.[21]
Clarence
H. Snyder who founded Cleveland A.A.: Many
might conclude that when Clarence Snyder (who got sober in February, 1938, and
remained sober until his death years later) founded Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland,
Ohio, he took the best of A.A. there. The best at that time! He embraced the
Bible, the Four Absolutes, the Big Book, and the Twelve Steps. AAs achieved a
93% success rate.[22]
Clarence said:
New people
were told they had to read the Bible—The King James Version of the Bible. They
were instructed to do this on a daily basis. Clarence said that newcomers were
also told to read The Upper Room. Clarence said the new people were then
instructed on the Four Standards. These were the Biblical principles the Oxford
Group people had taken from the teachings of Jesus Christ found in the Bible.
These “Four Standards” were also called the “Four Absolutes”—Absolute Honesty,
Unselfishness, Love and Purity.[23]
Clarence frequently took
newcomers through the newly written Twelve Steps in two days time. He wrote a
pamphlet on going through the Steps to guide them.[24]
What Happened to the Four
Absolutes?
Bill Wilson framed the “moral
inventory” items in Step Four. In that Step and in Steps Ten and Eleven, he
proposed testing conduct for resentment, fears, selfishness, and harms done to
others. He also claimed that the A.A. program called for grasping and
developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.[25]
The Absolutes, as such, simply vanished from the Big Book program of recovery.
What can be said is that those, like myself, who have visited A.A. meetings and
members all over the United States and reviewed thousands of pieces of A.A.
literature, frequently encounter mention of the Four Absolutes, especially
among those who have great respect and affection for Dr. Bob or Clarence
Snyder. However, the idea of relating each of the standards to a teaching of
Jesus has usually been replaced by pamphlets or discussions of what, in the
opinion of the particular writer, constitutes conduct consistent with this or
that absolute. Also, the writers and speakers often omit the critical part of
the Four Absolute tests. Those applying them were also to look to God and His
Word for illustration and understanding and also ask God for the wisdom in
applying them to proposed action (James 1:5-8).
Gloria Deo
Dickb@dickb.com
[1] The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical
Sketches Their Last Major Talks (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World
Services, Inc., 1972, 1975), 17.
[2] Robert E. Speer, The Principals of Jesus: Applied to
Some Questions of To-Day (New York: Association Press, 1902).
[5] Henry B. Wright, The Will of God and a Man’s Lifework
(NY: Association Press, 1924). Copyrighted in 1909 by The International
Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations.
[11] For a thorough review of these statements, the
supporting bibliography, and a discussion of the Oxford Group and the Four
Absolutes, see Dick B., The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design
for Living That Works New Rev. ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research
Publications, Inc., 1998), 237-46.
[13] These statements are documented and thoroughly discussed
in Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A. Pittsburgh
ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1999).
[14] Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism, 55, 56, 97, 98,
101, 107-09, 117, 142-43, 159, 167, 234-35, 239, 241-42, 312, 314, 393, 414,
419-20, 432-33, 455, 462, 523,
[15] Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., The Church Can Save The
World (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), 110-14; Dick B., New
Light on Alcoholism, 56-57.
[19] Ernest Kurtz, Not-God: A History of Alcoholics
Anonymous.(Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1979), 242-43.
[20] The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical
Sketches: Their Last Major Talks (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World
Services, Inc., 1972, 1975), 17.
[21] Dick B., Anne Smith’s Journal 1933-1939:A.A.’s
Principles of Success.3rd ed, (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research
Publications, Inc., 1998), 32-33.
[22] Mitchell K., How It Worked: The Story of Clarence H.
Snyder and The Early Days of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio (Washingtonville,
NY: AA Big Book Study Group, 1997), 108.
No comments:
Post a Comment