Auguste Comte, Humanism, and the Christian Faith

It's a bit odd for me to single out one person in the history of western philosophy, and say, "Look at this and you foresee America's future." Especially when this man lived from 1798-1857. That's around the time Beethoven was dazzling Europe with his nine symphonies.

Auguste Comte, a Frenchman, lived in that transitional time when Christianity was being uprooted and replaced by science and the scientific method. He coined the term "altruism," and came to be called the father of sociology and the father of the philosophy of science -- no small accomplishment.

Why is his thought so important in 21 century America? I'll tell you in capsule summary what beliefs he championed, and then perhaps you can judge for yourself if this view has purchase in America today.

Comte believed that Christianity was finished, done, kaput.

Humanity no longer needed fairy tales and superstitions to grant meaning to life. Yet he knew people had an instinctual need, a passion even, to worship what he called Grand-Etre, the Supreme Being. So in God's place he substituted Humanity itself. He instituted a calendar of saints to celebrate the new humanism, mostly renowned scientists and intellectuals. He also created a catechism, near the end of which he says, "Humanity definitely occupies the place of God."

The sacraments of humanism included Initiation at the age of 14, then Admission at the age of 21 when a person becomes able to serve humanity. Destination or career choices takes place at 28, and Retirement at age 63.

Since Comte realized that Reason itself could not carry the day on such a proposed new direction, he added Feeling and Activity as an afterthought. Altruistic service to humanity would be fostered through an education process that hero worshiped all who brought prosperity, scientific advances, and social progress to society. Even a flag was designed to inspire love and loyalty to Humanity.

Who would create human values and resolves ethical issues? Why, experts, of course. Certainly not the people themselves, who could never represent the most disciplined and highly trained minds. Certainly not God, who never existed in the first place. And certainly not the Bible, which needed replacement by thousands of scientific studies, journal articles, and books showing people how to conduct every aspect of existence, helping all of life become "a continuous and intense act of worship," focused from birth to the grave on the truly human moral standard of "living for others."

In place of the theological notion of Providence—or divine guidance to nations and individuals—Comte stressed human effort and good intentions. He states that "we must look to our own unremitting activity for the only providence by which the rigor of our destiny can be alleviated."

Above all, there must be the supremacy of the intellectual elite, because only experts can understand the technical problems of administering a complex mass society. Though he had unmitigated positive optimism for the worship of Humanity, he died too soon to see his theories made real. But made real they were, and many in America and Europe draw their perceptions of life's meaning from experts in science and technology, the humanities, and the sociopolitical governance of Western nations.

But Comte was wrong about his primary assumption. He was wrong that Christianity had died and needed replacing with sociology and humanism. In fact, during the next century and a half there came an outpouring of the Holy Spirit greater than the world has ever known, affecting a billion people, according to Harvey Cox at Harvard Divinity School. Thus Christianity is still a major force in the world today, now about 1/4 of the world's population, and a recent Gallup poll reporting that 78% of Americans declare themselves Christian. 

Compass psychotheology suggests that God's plan for humanity always includes a remnant of believers who are not assimilated into the humanistic social matrix of their day, but who derive their identity from Christ and their values from Scripture. These individuals respect experts in modern fields of human endeavor, but retain the right to define the purpose of their lives through worshipping the Holy Trinity and look beyond contemporary society to the coming transcendent-eternal Kingdom of God.

Indeed, a major distinction between Auguste Comte, the father of sociology and the founder of the philosophy of science, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father and the founder of Christianity, is that Comte is dead and Jesus is alive.

Compass Personality Theory and Humanistic Personality Theory

Pioneers in humanistic personality theory include Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Fritz Perls. The uniqueness of humanistic theory lies in its benevolent view of human nature with an emphasis on the positive potential for self-actualizing development that lies within every person.

What is the essence in the life work of these three theorists? A perspective that plays down the unconscious factors in behavior and builds up the self-actualizing tendency of the human organism, suggesting, as Maslow does, that when basic needs such as food and shelter are met, higher order needs such as belonging and a quest for meaning emerge.

Hierarchy of Needs

The idea is that people can be trusted to develop in pro-social ways because the more they come to esteem and love themselves, the more capable they become of esteeming and loving others. The more patient and sensitive they become with themselves, the more patience and sensitivity they express toward others. The path to healthy self-development is not through the internalization of “shoulds, oughts, and musts” from parents or society, but through listening to the ever-changing gestalt of needs, wants, and preferences from within one’s self, thereby attending to one’s “inner perceptual field.”

Humanistic psychology is strong on validating people and not inclined to categorize behavior so as to judge right from wrong or good from evil. The reason why some people are cruel, harmful, or exploitive of others lies in their earlier development, because they were not treated with appropriate respect and trust when growing up. The remedy lies in providing educational or therapeutic influences that offer unconditional positive regard and the prizing of one’s personhood. Once people internalize this empathetic form of relating, they are likely to radiate this response to others, increasing the quality and intimacy of their social relationships. As Carl Rogers said, “The basic nature of the human being, when functioning freely, is constructive and trustworthy.”

Compass personality theory agrees that human beings are endowed with potential for noble and praiseworthy behavior, adding that Christ expresses this human ethic in the Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Mt 7:12).

Yet as the Bible shows and human behavior empirically validates, there exists a profound capacity within human nature and personality to resist, corrupt, and even destroy the possibility for positive outcomes in self and others. 

Compass theory calls this mystery of iniquity by the biblical name of sin, a problem in which human beings manipulate the self and others through personality patterns. These patterns create rigidities present in every person to some degree. Jean Paul Sartre writes of these rigidities that “all human beings are guilty in principle, of self-deception, of inauthenticity, of playing a role or trying to disguise one’s actual personality behind a façade.”  

Manipulative Strategies

Maslow, too, noted, “We must also face squarely the problem of what stands in the way of growth: that is to say, the problems of cessation of growth and evasion of growth, of fixation, regression, and defensiveness, in a word, the attractiveness of psychopathology, or as other people would prefer to say, “the problem of evil.”

When it comes to human growth, Maslow, Rogers, and Perls see self-trust as fundamental to making authentic choices that foster congruence through listening to one’s emotions, sorting out thoughts, and integrating thinking and feeling with an awareness of bodily states. All three theorists believe that religious attitudes can contribute to the process of healthy living:

• Maslow offers a Taoist orientation to reality, a non-invasive, non-interfering way of listening to one’s own needs and relating to others.
• Rogers is sympathetic to the teachings of Lao-Tse, believing that this way of being promotes “agape love” in human encounters by encouraging non-possessive openness and respect for individual differences.
• Perls, though at times distinctly anti-religious, nevertheless asserts that Zen Buddhism provides a laudable orientation to living in the here and now, free from the burden of demands and expectations. 

By the same token, all three theorists espouse a humanistic personality theory precisely because they believe that the highest form of authority lies in one’s own human experience. 

The Kingdom of God is Within You

Compass personality theory shares with humanistic theory an emphasis on the importance of inner experiencing in becoming a person. Jesus taught that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21), indicating God’s intimate concern with a person’s thoughts and feelings, sensation and perception, learning and memory, attitudes and worldview. Christianity encourages an attitude of trust in the present and hope for the future: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:13).

Indeed, it is within a person’s inner perceptual field that the Holy Spirit moves to create self-trust, self-love, and self-development, versus fear of life or idolatrous subjugation to any external facet of creation. From this inner phenomenological field, which compass theory terms the spiritual core, Christ moves in cooperative dialogue with persons, ever-guiding them toward expanding circles of caring involvement with people and culture. Since God enjoys infinite contact with all creation, individuals growing in Christ are called to develop tenderness toward existence that reflects God’s connectedness to all that is. 

This outreach requires a rhythmic reliance upon the structure provided by the Word of God, orthodox creeds and doctrine, sacraments, and the Lord himself, offering a higher authority than an individual’s private perceptual field alone, a rhythm that benefits from developing an interpersonal selfhood in Christ. Within this context, trusting Christ for inner and outer guidance makes one’s personality and human nature relatively trustworthy, since Christ has redeemed human beings and calls them to exercise autonomy in creative dialogue with the Trinity.

Compass Psychotheology and the Spiritual Core

At the center of the Self Compass lies an inner circle called the spiritual core. Compass psychotheology interprets the spiritual core as the “I am” center of awareness and free will. 

The Self Compass

The spiritual core also finds expression in personality theory as a person’s:

• center of gravity (Horney)
• inner locus of control (Rogers)
• nucleus of the total psychic system (Jung)
• inner supreme court (Maslow)
• core of personality (Shostrom)
• higher self (Assagioli)
• spiritual self (Frankl)

For compass psychotheology, the spiritual core is the sacred center of personality, the equivalent of a nucleus within a living cell. The spiritual core symbolizes the depth dimension of personality from which people find self-identity and develop intimacy with others and with God, whom William James calls “the Great Companion.” 

From the spiritual core arises the “I am” quality of personal existence, endowing human beings with the capacity for self-awareness and free choice, a capacity imparted by God in the creation of humankind. The Lord is the transcendent “I AM,” a name that signifies eternal self-existence and personality. By contrast, the human person is a temporal and finite “I am,” a limited interpersonal being created in the image of the Trinity, whose spiritual core needs God’s indwelling for completion. 

The Holy Trinity

The spiritual core is what differentiates Homo sapiens from other mammals, bestowing a sense of responsibility for behavior and receptivity to inspiration from the Holy Spirit. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit when he said, “As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom believers in him would receive” (Jn 7:38-39).  

Jesus' metaphor of existential intimacy conveys the dynamic flow of the spiritual core, for God is in the hearts of his people. It is the personality of the believer that is the residence filled with God’s living presence. That place of the Holy Spirit where Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “the water I will give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). 

The wellspring of the Holy Spirit provides a fountainhead of existential intimacy between God and individuals, and between persons. God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Ro 5:5), through whom we actualize the love of God in Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the one called alongside to help. Parakletos. Comforter. The Companion who inspires transformation in the personality by accepting and understanding people, while spurring them on to their full potential.  

The Holy Spirit

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (Jn 16:8,13). When individuals open themselves to believe and trust in Christ's Holy Spirit, their spiritual core becomes the vehicle for healing and transformation.

Why We Need A Christian Personality Theory

There is a Freudian personality theory, a Jungian personality theory, a cognitive-behavioral personality theory. And now there is a Christian personality theory.

   

Compass personality theory offers a Christian approach to personality and relationships that is anchored in a biblical worldview, informed by personality research, and applied to the understanding of self, others, and God.

Compass theory describes human beings through the term interpersonal selfhood, a term that unites the essence of individual persons with their common humanity, a term that preserves the singularity of personality while reflecting the plurality of social existence, a term derived from the Trinity as three persons in one God who created humankind in their image. Thus, human beings derive their personhood and interpersonal orientation from God, who is “a living person whose nature defines the meaning of personhood” (cf. Nah 1:4-5).

God exists as the transcendent and sovereign Creator of all that is: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut 6:4). Yet the plurality of God’s Being is revealed by the use of the plural pronoun, elohim, in the Genesis narrative of creation: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness’” (Gen 1:26). Further, God has disclosed his personality and interpersonal nature through Jesus Christ, the God-person, and through the social Trinity—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who are historically and progressively revealed in the biblical narrative.

Because Jesus voluntarily descended from the Godhead to assume human nature, he relates to all humanity. His death accomplished the atonement for sin that reconciles persons to God and one another. At his resurrection he declared on behalf of every person, “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17).

Because Jesus is himself God, sharing with the Father and Holy Spirit the interpersonal selfhood of God’s essence, Christ mediates the Lord’s actualizing purpose for human personality, infusing those who trust in him with the power of personality transformation, power imparted not through esoteric teaching, ethical striving, or religion per se, but through an individual’s own human nature, personality, and connection to Almighty God.

Human psychology is not foreign to Christ because he invented it. Human personality development is not irrelevant to God, because God’s personality gives infinite significance to human personality. Human community is not alien to God, because he delights in it, reflecting as it does the Trinitarian community. 

When joined together in Christ, human psychology, personality, and community find actualizing fulfillment, as Jesus foresaw in his earthly prayer to the Father. “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (Jn 17:22-23).

Christ actively engages those who invite him with the greatest challenge they can know: to develop their thoughts and feelings, sensation and perception, learning and memory, motivation and intentionality—with the presence of God in their personality. 

Since the Trinity radiates supreme health in their unity as God and their relationship to humanity, Jesus provides the standard for assessing personality health among human beings, not just theoretically, but as the ontological foundation for compass personality theory.

For more, read:

CHRISTIAN PERSONALITY THEORY:

A SELF COMPASS FOR HUMANITY

God Gave You A Mind, Heart, Body, & Spirit. Why?

God gave you a human nature -- a mind and heart, body and spirit -- to grow closer to him.

The Human Mind

The mind houses cognition, where people think about their life experiences, store past learning, plan for future contingencies, and make choices about whether or not they seek God as an intimate companion. 

For all who seek a living relationship with the Trinity, the mind plays a crucial role, capable not only of conversing with God, but of understanding God’s self-disclosure received through the Bible, God’s living and lively Word, which conveys a historical record regarding God’s attributes and expectations about people’s personalities and patterns of behavior.

For good reason Paul says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Ro 12:2). 

The pursuit of God requires intellectual commitment, a hunger to know God interpersonally, and a willingness to develop conceptual constructs in accord with the Word of God and in the person of Christ. To think about God is a good thing, to pray to him even better, asking what matters to him, and what his plans are for one’s life. This takes the discipline, mental focus, and thoughtfulness that only the mind can bring. 

The Human Heart

While the mind plays a crucial role in self-understanding and perceiving enough about God to trust in him, it is the heart, one’s emotional attitude, where God encounters the person.

Whether it is God speaking through the prophets to the Israelites or Christ speaking about what really matters in a relationship with the Father, the heart holds high status in the eyes of the Lord.

“I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart” (Jer 24:7).

Parents want their children to love them. Spouses want to give and receive love. Friends share love through their loyalty and enjoyment of each other. The Trinity desires to experience heartfelt human love, and wants persons to know and trust God's love for them.

Carrying on a relationship with God brings inclusion in the active love flowing between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Though it has received little emphasis in the history of the Church, God is far more interested in people feeling warmly connected to him than he is in all the rites and rituals and rules combined—and not just connected by way of membership in the church, but interpersonally connected to the Lord by way of attraction, excitement, curiosity, delight, and celebration. 

Jesus experienced John as the beloved disciple precisely because John more than all the rest cared for Jesus, treasuring the time they could spend together, the many talks they shared, the good times and frightening times they walked through together as friends, including the Last Supper, where John, alone among the disciples, rested his head on Christ’s shoulder, and at the cross, where Jesus entrusted his mother Mary to John’s tender, faithful care.

The sharing of one’s emotions with God is not limited to love, but within that love, encompasses occasions of frustration, confusion, depression, irritability, complaint, anguish, insecurity, anxiety, loneliness, and even doubt. God, for his part, never turns a deaf ear or tries to change the subject in order to cut short a person’s cathartic release. The Lord draws especially near when one is processing and ventilating human emotion, knowing that some feelings are crucial to express before gaining a larger perspective. David, the Psalmist, a man after God’s own heart, knew this well.

The Human Body

God views the human body as good. He created it. He wants people to cherish it. “Do you not know,” Paul says, “that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Cor 6:19). The human body—whose tangible bone and tissue, muscle and sinew, brain and spinal cord, central and autonomic nervous systems—is home to that mystery called the human spirit, something that scientists can never explain. Paul declares that the body and spirit are raised together in a personal resurrection that transfigures the corruptible biological body into an incorruptible one like Jesus Christ’s (1 Cor 15:39-44; Ro 8:23).

Yet persons are called by God to live in their bodies in the here and now: touching, tasting, seeing, hearing, moving, dancing, making love, playing sports, walking, running, swimming, exercising, eating, drinking; using one’s hands to express caring, write a poem, create a science experiment, or fold in prayer; lifting one’s arms to embrace another with a hug, carry a load of groceries, shovel snow, or praise the Lord: surely reason to celebrate the body—as does the Son of Man during his time on earth. 

As embodied persons, human beings need techniques for reducing the distraction of body tensions that mount in a stressful day. Teeth grinding, chest tightness, migraines, or lower back pain need attention not only for bodily health, but for finding the source of the underlying psychological stressors; not only for mental health, but for the health of one’s relationship with the Trinity. Relaxing the muscles and deepening the breathing helps the Holy Spirit move through the human body to inspire the human spirit.

The Human Spirit

The spirit rounds out the fullness of human nature, the gift of God to Homo sapiens, a gift that differentiates them from other mammals, bringing a level of awareness, choice, and responsibility unparalleled in the animal or plant kingdoms.

While no field of study can objectively account for the spirit within human existence, we can say that when people are dispirited they are depersonalized, losing the sense of meaning and purpose that would otherwise enliven them. This awareness increases the trend for health professionals, including psychotherapists, to respect and utilize spirituality as a healing force within human nature.

The human spirit is not an ethereal, otherworldly affair, but rather a concrete, embodied dimension of one’s grounding in Christ, the “life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45). While persons can live apart from a relationship with God, they cannot abandon his image within them as the true origin of their existence. They can repress the spirit that comes as part of human nature, or distort it to such an extent that their behavior is far removed from God’s will. But they cannot escape the reality that God loves them and is calling them into his family.

Christ’s entry upon this earth unites the human spirit with God the Holy Spirit, who in turn assists the human spirit to form an intimate, inner connection with God, a connection that generates a conscience, not in the sense of Freud’s rule-shackled superego, but in the sense of a living union with Christ, an inspired yet vulnerable capability to know and do the Father’s will. 

In other words, the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and Son to indwell the person, bearing witness with their spirit that they belong to God. “And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6). Invited to serve God with the same intentionality that Christ did and the Holy Spirit does, individuals can now learn to do so, not by following the letter of the law, but because God is so loveable. 

For more, read:

TRUSTING IN THE TRINITY:

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY APPLIED 

 

The Narcissist, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit

What goes on in the mind of the Narcissistic Boaster?

I wait for you to admire me, to reflect back to me my astuteness. Accomplishments. Attractiveness. I am quite irresistible, you know.

And because my essence emanates these extraordinary qualities, it will take no effort on my part before you recognize them.

And applaud me. Compliment me. Orient your attention on me. 

Me.

If you try to steal my glory, you will find yourself eclipsed.

After all, it is I with whom you are competing.

With omnipotent self-assurance, Boaster patterned persons follow in the footsteps of their namesake, the Greek god Narcissus, who according to legend, fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.

Paul understood the Narcissistic pattern. Of his years as Saul of Tarsus, Paul wrote: “I was so enthusiastic about the traditions of my ancestors that I advanced head and shoulders above my peers in my career” (Gal 1:13-14). 

Christ was unimpressed. On the road to Damascus, Saul was confronted and rendered helpless; made temporarily blind, in fact. This was followed by three years in the desert. 

And then…Paul writes, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit,” Paul says. “Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another” (Gal 5:25-26).

These are the words of one who chose to face and surrender his Narcissistic pattern to God. Of one whose core fear was being replaced by actualizing trust. “For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son” (Rom 1:9). The Spirit is the source of Paul’s serving God through his spirit. Paul’s spiritual core is yielded to God, flowing with the rivers of living water in an actualizing rhythm of weakness and strength, love and assertion. Paul did not secure such a life in the Spirit; rather, he risked realizing it imperfectly, as does anyone who grows in Christ.

Risking trust in the Lord. How? “The Spirit assists us in our weaknesses; for we do not know for what we should pray as we ought, but the Spirit makes appeal (in our behalf) with inarticulate groanings” (Rom 8:26-27). 

Fear is still present. Anxiety still spirals in wormy wisps within one’s spiritual core. But the Spirit employs the vulnerability one feels, gently handling the enormity of one’s weaknesses, and intercedes on one’s behalf. A person prays with the visceral immediacy of one’s whole being—mind and heart, body and spirit—by enlisting the help of the Holy Spirit, who understands the mind of God.

The Spirit’s aim is not to eliminate a person’s humanity, but to work through it with the “water of rebirth and renewal” (Titus 3:5). For it is the Holy Spirit who circumcises the heart so that the righteousness required by the Torah is fulfilled by those who walk in the Spirit (cf. Rom 8: 4).

The result of such surrender? Receiving as gift a growing core trust in the Spirit. Trust that erases core fear sufficiently for one’s personality to work for good; to be conformed by that same Spirit into one’s unique image of Christ.

As the spiritual core is opened to the cleansing flow of the rivers of living water, the core grows more free from the tyrannies of one’s narrowness (cf. 1 Cor 3:18-23).

For more, read:

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY: 

WHERE PSYCHOLOGY and THEOLOGY REALLY MEET

Why God Wants A Humble Mind From You

Here is a Bible verse that has seen me through sixty years of Christian faith, and challenges me to this day: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

All who walk with the Lord -- you and me included -- are challenged to open our minds to His mysterious ways. Abraham opened his mind to God's strange promise that his ninety-year-old wife, Sarah would conceive a child. His humble mind allowed him to believe the impossible dream. 

Moses shook in his sandals when he thought of confronting Pharoah, the most powerful man on earth. God told him to give Pharoah an ultimatum to deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt. Albeit reluctantly, Moses opened his mind to God's direct guidance. Moses' flexibility allowed him to obey God's unusual commands.

An angel appeared to Mary and announced that the Holy Spirit would mysteriously impregnate her with the Son of God. The angel praised Mary for her humble and receptive mind.

After Christ's ascension into heaven, the apostle Peter made up his mind that only Jews could be saved. The Holy Spirit gave him an inspired dream that contradicted his rigid bias: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean” (Acts 10:15). Peter opened his mind and responded to God's new directions. He preached the Gospel in the Gentile household of Cornelius. After all gathered had received the Holy Spirit, Peter said, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34-35).

 Scripture refers to the importance of a humble mind in Isaiah 55:9:

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so my ways are higher than your ways
    and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

 NEW WINESKINS

Sometimes we think we've figured out God. We judge everyone according to what we think are God's standards. Occasionally, God has to dash our prideful thinking to pieces.

Compass Psychotheology reveals ten different ways that people from all cultures and every age can close their minds and hearts to God. This is why your personality matters so much to Christ. Every rigid personality pattern embodies represents a set of inflexible attitudes captured by in name of the pattern: Narcissistic Boaster; Compulsive Controller; Antisocial Rule-breaker; Paranoid Arguer; Dependent Pleaser; Histrionic Storyteller; Schizoid Loner, and Avoidant Worriers.

We all hold one or more of these unconscious mindsets. It is part of the sin that burdens us and sets us at odds with one another. We even resist and grieve the Holy Spirit when He would otherwise guide us to health and wholeness. As long as these mindsets are intact, our thinking is intractable. We unknowingly resist the grand adventure of God's will for us. 

Following the Lord on a daily basis requires a maximum openness so that we can keep revising our narrow assumptions into more complete versions of the Way, the Life, and the Truth in Jesus Christ.

Remember Jesus' metaphor about wineskins? The new wine of the Spirit-led life must continuously be put into fresh wineskins of new attitudes, perceptions. and values. Humble minds are constantly renewed, while rigid minds get stuck in a God-resistant rut.

The more obedient to Christ's Spirit we become, the more our minds are humbled. We are responsive to the genius of God in daily living. Giving up our rigid personality patterns and underlying attitudes brings us liberty -- a sense of creative living that is fresh and original -- in the Holy Spirit. “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

How Does The Trinity Relate to One Another?

The New Testament in particular offers insight into the inner life of God: a life that can be understood in terms of the rhythms of the Self Compass.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit act in perfect concert, orchestrating the rhythms of humble strength and caring assertion in their interaction with one another (cf. Jn 1:33-34; 14:16, 26; 16:13-15; 20:21-22). “For there are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one” (1 Jn 5:7 NKJV).

Consider how in the incarnation the Son humbly submits to the Father’s will, while the Spirit caringly asserts himself to impregnate Mary. “The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God’” (Lk 1:35 NKJV). And the baptism in the Jordan River. As Jesus was “coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” (Mk 1:10-12). 

Jesus surrendering. The Father gratified. The Spirit compelling.

Trust and courage. Humility and esteem. Three in one.

With an economy that could leave one breathless, Jesus says, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf” (Jn 15:26).

Surely the Trinity is a life of identity, intimacy, and community. Each person expressing the compass polarities of love/assertion and weakness/strength in rhythmic dialogue with the others.

Intradivine Love/Assertion

“Father,” Jesus prays, “I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (Jn 17:24). A heartfelt request. An assured response.

After the mission of the seventy was realized by the assertive power of the Spirit, “in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit” (Lk 10:21 NKJV). Love-filled jubilation, conjoined with all the might there is. Expressed too, in the Father’s joy as he pays tribute to his Son: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11 NKJV).

Intradivine Weakness/Strength

“The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing,” Jesus says, “for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise” (Jn 5:19). Yet there is no doubt of Christ’s self-confidence in relationship to his Father: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower” (Jn 15:1). Strength, perfectly balanced with weakness, in non-competitive surrender.

Jesus explains that he has the authority to decide about his own life: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father” (Jn 10:18). The Son is decisive and obedient. The Father, deferent and in charge. 

In his Jordan River baptism, Jesus surrenders in weakness to the Spirit’s strength. In his healing ministry, Christ is aware that his power comes from the Holy Spirit (Lk 4:18-19). Indeed, Jesus’ consciousness of the Spirit of God empowering him to speak and act is basic to his mission. In turn, when the Son is resurrected to the Father, the Holy Spirit acts on behalf of the Son, spreading the Word throughout the world.

For more, see:

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY:

Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet