Page 70 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

Foundational Discussions in Christian Psychology

References
Cozby, P. C., and Bates, S. C. (2013). Methods in Behavi- mental structures: Evidence of intrapersonal variability
oral Research. New York: McGraw-Hill. in a complex dynamic system. Motivation and Emotion.
Fowler, J. W. (1980). Stages of Faith. New York: Harper 38, 336–352.
and Row. Streib, H. (2001). Faith Development Theory Revisited:
Kaplan, U., Crockett, C. E. and Tivlan, T. (2014). Moral The Religious Styles Perspective. The International Jour-
motivation of college students through multiple develop nal for the Psychology of Religion , 11 (3), 143-158.

K. Wojcieszek (Poland)
Comment to

“The Mosaic of Maturing

Spirituality. An Alternative

Model for Spiritual

Development“

When Werner May asked to give an opini- Krzysztof Wojcieszek, Poland, MA, molecu-
on about the article by Walter Thiessen, “The lar biology, ethics, MA, Doctor of Humani-
Mosaic of Maturing Spirituality. An Alternati- ties - Philosophy, author of many programs
ve Model for Spiritual Development”, I was in and projects of prevention used in Poland.
some kind of trouble. With my poor English
competence and no deep knowledge about hu- An article by Krzysztof: http://emcapp.ig-
man psychological development theories, it was nis.de/1/#/26
really a challenge for me. After careful reading
of the text, a general vision of Walter Thiessen’s as Piaget, Kohlberg and Ericson. The effort of
proposal had slowly come to me. Moreover, it Thiessen to surpass Fowler’s proposal, or rather
was necessary to know the Fowler model with develop it, seemed reasonable to me. And this
which Theissen started the discussion… is because Thiessen’s model is more elastic,
more feasible in real conditions of human life.
My first reflection was quite obvious: both mo- In Thiessen’s model, the human being has more
dels – Fowler’s and Thiessen’s – seemed to me possibilities of development, and we have more
typical psychological models of human deve- sub-models for interpretations of any case and
lopment. It means that they are both built on life circumstances. So it seemed to be more fle-
the same epistemologic foundation and meta- xible and useful instrument for therapists, for
physical base. Really, Fowler’s model has some example.
limitations, as Thiessen says: it is “sequential, in- But I can still see the same troublesome foun-
variant, and hierarchical”. Despite that fact, this dation in both Fowler’s and Thiessen’s propo-
model was simple and really oriented towards sals. What do I mean by this? As a philosopher,
some aim, some final result of the development, I have the tendency to compare psychological
described by presenting personal ideals of ma- models with anthropological and I can see both
ture human beings (“the God-grounded self”, models discussed as… similar.
Gandhi, Mother Theresa, MLK, for example).
And it was as a kind of “religious shadow” of They both start from the simple assumption that
some other psychological models of human the human being develops with some internal
development, especially such popular ones and external forces, as biologically-understood

69