Page 159 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

The Work and Thinking of David Benner

the divine revelation to give us exact informati- Created in God’s image
on about man in himself and thus to anticipate The second aspect of the biblical view of per-
what later scientific research on man offers” (p. sons that needs to be considered is the concept
199). of the imago Dei. Although Scripture directly
Although the Scriptures should not, therefore, discusses the fact of our creation in God’s image
be expected to provide a comprehensive theory in only a few passages, theologians have usually
of personality or psychotherapy, they obviously given it a central place in their doctrine of man.
do contain a view of persons that is most essen- Vanderploeg (1981) has similarly argued that
tial to the individual wishing to provide Chri- it must be seen to be foundational to any un-
stian therapy. In fact, whatever else Christian derstanding of psychotherapy. The fact that we
counseling is, surely it must be based on and in- were created in God’s image establishes human
formed by these biblical perspectives on human beings as essentially relational, called to relati-
nature. Three biblical themes seem particularly onship with God and with each other. Viewing
relevant: the unity of personality, creation in the the major goal of psychotherapy as helping in-
image of God, and the reality of sin. dividuals deal with and enhance their relation-
ships, Vanderploeg then argues that this repre-
Psychospiritual unity sents helping people expand and explore the
Historically, attempts to understand what imago Dei within them.
Scripture teaches about human personality The doctrine of the imago Dei also helps us
have often begun with a discussion of the so- understand man‘s religious nature. Hart (1977)
called parts of persons (heart, soul, mind, etc.). has aruged that because we were created in the
In fact, one longstanding debate in biblical an- image of God, our whole life is intended to mir-
thropology has been over whether man is best ror God. We were created to serve God and to
seen as a dichotomy (body-soul) or trichotomy lose ourselves in joyous fellowship with him. By
(body-soul- spirit). Significantly, this debate is his gift of free will he allows us to choose whe-
now receding into history, as the consensus of ther we will, in fact, serve him or not. However,
many theologians has increasingly been that the we will serve someone or something, and that
primary biblical emphasis is on the unity of per- is the heart of our religiosity. Religion therefore
sonality. The suggestion is that while Scripture defines mankind. It is not something added on
does present a number of characteristics of per- to an otherwise complete being. It describes our
sons, these were never intended to be interpre- essential meaning, our need to be self-transcen-
ted as components or parts. Always they are to dent and to lose ourselves in service to God and
be seen as perspectives on the whole. others.
The implication of this is that man does not
have a spirit, man is spirit. Similarly, man does The reality of sin
not have a soul or a body, but is soul and is While the fact of our creation in God‘s image
body. Further, this means that since we do not validates the good and noble aspects of human
have spiritual or psychological parts to our per- functioning, the Christian view of persons must
sonality, neither do we have problems that are be balanced by the reality of sin. More than just
purely spiritual or purely psychological. All a tendency to fail to meet our personal expecta-
problems occur within the common substrate tions or those held of us by others, sin has tra-
of psychospiritual processes and affect the to- ditionally been viewed by Christian theology as
tality of a person’s functioning. The Christian active rebellion against God and his holy law.
therapist must therefore resist the temptation This rebellion results in alienation from God,
to artificially separate problems and people into self, and others. These consequences of sin are
psychological and spiritual parts. Similarly, the therefore ultimately, although not necessarily
Christian therapist cannot ignore a problem personally or directly, at the root of all our pro-
just because it has a superficial religious or spi- blems.
ritual appearance. This reality informs a Christian approach to
counseling. If sin is real, then guilt may not al-

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