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.

Why God Makes Room for Your Doubt

From a compass psychotheology perspective, too great an emphasis on perfect faith actually blocks growth instead of facilitating it, creating the unconscious expectation that without perfect faith God will be disappointed and reject a person. 

But God has more patience and maturity than that, for as Jesus said, a tiny mustard seed of faith is sufficient for the Lord to work within a person (Mt 17:20). The Trinity wants to help people face, feel, and process their doubts, which in turn leads to greater faith. 

Even John the Baptist suffered doubts, and sent a messenger from his prison cell to ask Jesus once again if in fact he was the Messiah. Jesus sent back the answer that “the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,” all signs from Isaiah’s prophecy attesting to the Messiah’s arrival (Lk 7:22 NKJV).

Thus, if individuals are trusting Christ for their right standing with God, then God makes room for occasional doubts as they experiment with how prayer does and doesn’t work, what to do when they feel uninvolved in a worship service, how to handle it when they can’t meet a homeless person’s needs, and what to do about behavior they feel is wrong but have to seek God’s help over months or years to overcome. 

Natural rhythms of faith and doubt ultimately bring people closer to the Lord. Although people can’t always hold onto God, he nevertheless holds onto them. As Jesus promises, “No one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:28-30).

During Christ’s Passion, Peter struggles with intense doubt about whether to claim friendship with Jesus or deny knowing him. He temporarily opts for denial just when Jesus needs him most. And after the resurrection, Peter reaches the point where he throws up his hands and says, “Come on boys, let’s go back to Galilee and start fishing.” He stands at the place all human beings know from time to time, even when they also know and love the Lord, where life just does not make sense. There are too many setbacks, too much confusion, and too little guidance from the Holy Spirit.

But then it does make sense. For Jesus follows his weary fishing crew to the Sea of Tiberius, and there he makes a little campfire on the shore and grills some fish, shouting to Peter and the others in the boat, “Have you caught anything yet?” (Jn 21:5). Peter starts to yell back that the fishing is as dismal as his own life, when suddenly he recognizes Jesus and dives headlong into the sea to swim ashore. 

The Bible says the disciples don’t say much at that meal, perhaps too busy internally absorbing the rhythm of doubt and faith, crisis and deliverance, self-consciousness and joy—and feeling mostly awe, not only that they had been right in choosing to follow Jesus, but that they had chosen, for the most part, to believe all he had told them.

Rather than trying to secure a flawless platform of witness that one is adamantly Christian and proud of it, a wiser stance might allow that all human beings, including one’s self, hold even cherished beliefs somewhat precariously, and therefore stand in need of God’s continuous provision to remain close to him.

Once individuals accept that they are both strong and weak, hardy and frail, capable of moments of shimmering faith and times where all seems lost, then they can relax, breathe, and trust in God’s faithfulness and providential care. 

Add to this the hundreds of scriptures that attest to the transcendent power whereby God saves those who hide themselves in him, and people can enjoy a degree of serenity, knowing that he is there for them in faith or doubt. 

For the same Peter who denies even knowing the Lord, later writes to all who would follow Christ, “Now for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Pet 1: 6-9).