Thursday, March 12, 2015

PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Losing to Win #2



LOSING TO WIN
PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
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Diagnosing a broken structure requires familiarity with the nature and function of its parts.  To relay the results of any investigation demands the use of accurate terms with precise meanings. To correct the effects “loss” had on my personality I first had to deal with a semantic difficulty.  Psychologists, Sociologists, Philosophers, Anthropologists, and other fields of study frequently use terms and definitions peculiar to their specific disciplines.  Unfortunately more often than not they adopt Biblical terms but alter them with none Biblical definitions. I also recognized from my study as a pastoral counselor that despite a shared vocabulary nearly all Christian Theologians use their own nuanced definitions for the same words.  The entire topic of human personality seems plagued with vague terms and fuzzy definitions.  The simple fact is the Bible was never intended to be used as a psychology text book.  Rather its purpose as stated in 2 Tim. 3:15-17 is to make us “wise for salvation” and equip believers “for every good work”.  So it should not be surprising that on the topic of human personality even the Bible varies its own wording with quite vague meanings on the subject, especially between the New and Old Testaments.
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Even so, a lot of Christian authors and Biblical scholars agree that the term “heart” means man’s personality.  The physical heart makes a great metaphor for its none-vascular namesake.  Both are composed of two regions with four functioning chambers. Naturally a case could be made for other configurations.  Yet the number of well-known authors, theorists, and Biblical as well as none Biblical scholars that use the concept in their work contribute a great deal of legitimacy to this model.  An abbreviated list of those who use the four-sided heart approach to personality includes such authorities as:  Judson Cornwall, Stephen Covey, Lawrence J. Crabbs, Ron Jenson, Peter Honey, Carl G. Jung, David Kolb, Robert S. McGee, Pat Springle, and many others.
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While grasping at the topic, I was struck by the number of instances of scriptural repetitions related to the quadrilateral nature of man’s personality…that is the heart.  Perhaps the clearest example of the four elements of man’s personality is found in Romans 15:13.  
“May the 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,”    Romans 15:13 (NIV)
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These four components are further divided in two distinct spheres within the heart it calls the soul.  Of course Jesus describes the heart and its structure with extreme precision in Mark 12:30 and it is repeated in Luke 10:27. 
 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
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Viewed as whole this pair of pairs affords a tremendous visual aid for identify the makeup of the human heart. 

I constructed the diagram below to illustrate the structure showing its components.  It pictures the “HEART” as the entire unit while the “SOUL” refers specifically to the orbits in which four interrelated elements operate.  

 Notice the Bible references do not include the diagram’s central feature, the human spirit.  That vital feature is the focus of a future blog. We must set it aside for now in order to concentrate on the soul of man’s heart.  The exclusion, at this stage of the discussion, serves to keep us from confusing the spirit’s role with that of the soul.  The differences between the spirit and soul are too important to allow their distinctions to get mixed-up. 
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 There are quite a few references that confirmed the quadrilateral structure of the soul. The most convincing ones include; Colossians 1:9-13, 1 Thessalonians 1:3, Philippians 1:9, and Ephesians 1:17-19 + 3:17-19.  Each of these is a prayer for Godly maturation in the hearts of the saints.  Taking these as a whole they provide a standard by which to evaluate the healthy resilience well-formed heart.


The elements of personality categorized in this manner helped me visualize the consequence of loss.  Without this kind of dissection into identifiable components an accurate assessment of a healthy personality would be impossible.  However with this list I believed I could (A) identify and (B) assess areas of weaknesses within me.  Such a procedure is essential for a diagnosis.  However as you follow me through this process please heed the warning of a respected expert in the field of psychology, Lawrence J. Crabb, Jr., Ph.D.
“As I discuss the various component parts of this whole person, I may give the impression that I think of a person as nothing more than an assortment of parts.  Let me state clearly that I believe a person is an indivisible whole.  My effort…is to better understand how that indivisible whole functions by looking at the key functioning elements within the human personality.”
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The components of the soul identified in the previous diagram and chart present a number of descriptive words.  I found it most convenient and descriptive to synthesize terms for those components from those words. The two main categories of the soul then became Emotion and Intellect. They could have been Instinctual and Mental, Feelings and Ideas, or something else but Emotion and Intellect worked just fine.
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Emotion is subdivided into (1) Identity and (2) Action.  “Identity” can be thought of as our inclination to establish associations with people, places, ideas, and things.  “Action” designates the element of personality that activates our capacities to confidently initiate conduct.  The two facets on the intellectual side are (1) Knowledge and (2) Understanding.  The things we think we know I recognized as “Knowledge” and the things we believe are true or real is “Understanding”.  These four combine to form what some refer to as our attitude of heart, our personality, or our heart.
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With accurate terms selected to identify these four aspects of personality I believed I was able to confront the harmful effect of loss but could now discover a workable solution and present the results in a reasonable manner. However before that I had one more key feature to identify within the heart.  That central feature is mans’ spirit.  Understanding the human spirit and the role it plays in the human heart led me as I hope it leads others to the Key which overcame the destructive effects of loss in my life.

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