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.

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