Chapter 3.X – Judgment and the Authority Problem

March 25, 2021

Judgment is in the realm of perception. If we know, we have no need of judgment. In this section judgment has a broad meaning. Judgment is really the basis for everything in this world. It is used in all aspects of our days; in decisions or judgments about what to eat and wear, which route to take, whom to call or engage with. Judgment depends on our evaluation and selection process and “always involves rejection.” (2:5) Judgment not only sees the positive as real but what is rejected remains a part of our unconscious mind, causing trouble until we can uncover it and remove it. Consequently, even though in our judgment we have rejected what we think is wrong, our judgment means that we believe it exists, otherwise there would not have been a need to reject or judge against it. That is the difference between perception and knowledge. Knowing means experiencing only truth or reality, perception needs judgment because it does not know. Whether we judge rightly or wrongly we are placing our “belief in the unreal.” (3:5)

It is particularly important to understand the requirement to become aware of the fact that what we have rejected is real to us, happily residing in our unconscious. It needs to be brought into our conscious awareness. The way to become aware of these hidden beliefs is to become familiar with the signs of their existence. These signs include a sense of fatigue, and the urge to laugh at others or ourselves. These examples highlight the fact that we have judged against reality—capable of being tired, debased—which “does make us tired, because it is essentially disheartening” (6:4)

It seems crazy to hang onto this ability when we understand how debilitating it is, but there is one “good” reason to do so. We hang onto judgment because we want to maintain authorship of reality. Judgment is our weapon of defense against the truth and for what we have miscreated or authored to take the place of reality.

Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself to keep the miracle away from me.  (See lesson 346)

An author is a creator, and his creations are known by their authorship, or origin. We believe we have “authored” ourselves and we have projected this belief onto others. This means we have given others power or authority over us and our identity. Our image, therefore, changes constantly according to others perception of us. We resent that and now see this “situation as one in which two people are literally fighting for [our] own authorship.” (8:3) In other words we vacillate between being our own author and being authored by others.

Having done this we fear we have usurped the power of God and that judgment will be used against us. Jesus tells us that God knows us. He does not judge. Our belief that we have usurped His power “hardly troubles God at all.” (8:5) He only wants to undo our misperception “because He knows that it makes [us] unhappy.” (8:6)

We were given the ability to create in our likeness, becoming authors of our own creations, but decided to separate from our Author. This decision has tainted the meaning of the word author and made it fearful. Separating from God, our Author, has made us anonymous, of unknown authorship. This means we are unknown; our origin is a mystery.  We believe then, that we have no author, we do not know where we have come from. Did we produce ourselves? Do we even exist?  

Now we use judgment to “separate segments of reality according to the highly unstable scales of desire.” (12:6) We do this to maintain our position of self-creator. “All fear comes ultimately, and sometimes by way of very devious routes, from denial of authorship.” (11:4) We need to understand this and that it is not offensive to God that we have done this, although it is to us because it keeps us from peace as our natural heritage. We can choose to accept our inheritance now.

In our training we are learning to “meet [ourselves] and [our] brothers totally without judgment.” (4:1) To do this we are encouraged to “look back over earlier remarks about what you and your brothers are, (and) you will realize that judging them in any way is really without meaning.” (4:2) Looking back at previous times when Jesus has described our real identity, we will understand that by judging we have lost our brothers’ meaning. It has become far less than what he is telling us in the Course. We will then desire to “suspend judgment” and look upon knowledge as God knows His Son. (5) When we feel fear, or any other symptoms signifying we have become anonymous, we need to put this into effect by realizing we have judged our brother and therefore do not know him. “You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting your brothers totally without judgment.” (4:1)

Suggested Practice

I want the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting my brothers totally without judgment.