Reading the therapeutic contract in the Quran

On the process of #teaching and #learning

Day # 8

I mentioned in the previous post (day # 7) that the life drive seems to go hand in hand with responsibility “I am putting a successor on earth”, relatedness to God “He taught Adam” and knowledge “He taught Adam all the names of things”.

The process of teaching and learning is worth reflecting on at this stage in terms of our own experience as human beings. How does this story relates to us and if God had taught Adam how is that knowledge transmitted to us?

Surat Al-Baqara

2:30  [Prophet], when your Lord told the angels, ‘I am putting a successor on earth,’ they said, ‘How can You put someone there who will cause damage and bloodshed, when we celebrate Your praise and proclaim Your holiness?’ but He said, ‘I know things you do not.’

2:31  He taught Adam all the names [of things], then He showed them to the angels and said, ‘Tell me the names of these if you truly [think you can].&rsquo

2:32  They said, ‘May You be glorified! We have knowledge only of what You have taught us. You are the All Knowing and All Wise.’

2:33  Then He said, ‘Adam, tell them the names of these.’ When he told them their names, God said, ‘Did I not tell you that I know what is hidden in the heavens and the earth, and that I know what you reveal and what you conceal?’

Jaak Panksepp is a neuroscientist and psycho biologist who coined the term “affective neuroscience“, the name for the field that studies the neural mechanisms of emotion. He identified the seeking system which motivates animals and mammals to engage with the external world. Perhaps in psychoanalytic terms this would correspond to the curiosity drive. Our need to engage with the external world to survive produces a by product which is learning (Solms, 2023).

However Islam takes a different view, our need to survive is only to be able to seek and find God. The process of learning is not a by product of the encounter between instinct and environment but an intelligent design that is specific to the human race, endowed with free will; it is the end goal and essence of our human existence. In fact, psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist, Mark Solms in his book, The Hidden Spring, explains that consciousness is a very baffling phenomenon because it is not necessary for our survival which reinforces the idea of a higher objective for our existence.

Hence the capacity to learn which I think these verses refer, is our capacity to understand our environment and decipher its divine laws, something written in our epigenetics

TBC…

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