Page 44 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 1

Christian Psychology

Comment on Romuald
Jaworsky’s essay “The Role of

Religious Trust in Overcoming
Conflicts”

by Roland Mahler

In his essay Romuald presents a survey on his research on between religious concepts of trust (whatever emotional
harmony and conflict in correlation to religious trust. As and cognitive states are related to this) and an individually
one of the results, the study presents a strong correlati- harmonious conception of the world, of fate and destiny,
on between a minimum of internal and external conflicts of human collaboration. This underlines the salutogenic
(mainly in the areas of human fatalism, conflicts with concept of the sense of coherence by Antonovsky: Indivi-
other people, weakness of character) and a certain in- duals who find an integrative concept of understanding
tensity of religious trust. Individuals with religious trust their own history as well as their destiny, which provides
seem to find life significantly less conflicted than others enough meaning to their individual fate, are fit for over-
– this correlative effect is found among the majority of a coming stressful life-events; which means that they are
tested population of more than 300 individuals. prepared to return to a harmonious state of mind even
out of severe conflicts and troubles.
But what is religious trust? It is obviously more a kind of
personal reliance than a conviction of an abstract truth So we find here a valid platform from which we can go
(Jaworsky is refering to Buber). But personal reliance in further on, to methodologically shaped insights in hu-
what? Mainly in the reliable und predictable behaviour man trust-building abilities, and maybe even to a natural
of social beings. For Romuald Jaworsky, religious trust base for faith (against all sceptical positions of theology
stands primarily for a scale that emerged by factor ana- like Barth).
lysis of the CHS (Conflict-Harmony-Scale), and it repre-
sents a spiritual human attitude towards life. To define it
he draws the line to Buber’s concept of faith. The latter
one is of course a more philosophical definition of faith
than a psychological one. Therefore the specific psycho-
logical content of religious trust (dependence, obedience,
yielding etc.), which is theologically not equal to faith, re-
mains unrevealed – also in Romuald’s essay.

R. Jaworsky’s research provides a valid evidence based
understanding of the relating factors of personality (ac- Roland Mahler, Dr. Theologist, Psychologist MSc, Psy-
cording to NEO) and their conflicted aspects in correla- chotherapist SPV, Director of
tion to a concept of self-evidence called religious trust. ICPTP-Switzerland
Trust in a supernatural personality (as well as in human
relationships) obviously strengthens the ability of hand-
ling potentially conflicted situations. The question we
concern is the following one: Which elements or factors
forming (religious) trust have mainly influenced the re-
sult: is it a personality trait like conscientiousness or
dutifulness that plays a central role, or is it the spiritual
dimension of being a part of a comprehensive wholeness
governed by the personal image of god? In the latter case,
religious trust could rather be defined as a spiritual state
of mind than as a simple personality trait. Of course spi-
rituality also is a structure in the personality framework
– though its content is maybe not! In the practical realm
of counselling and psychotherapy, the quest to specify in-
gredients of spiritual trust is crucial. How can spiritual
trust be constituted in individuals having run out of trust?
Which aspects of personality provide a trust-building ef-
fect? Where can our spiritual development strategies in
therapy find natural structures and resources to rely on?
All these questions remain to be answered.
Nevertheless the essay shows a fundamental relationship

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