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

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).