I want to keep this brief, so I will take shortcuts. If I lose you, feel free to contact me. This is a VERY IMPORTANT (and very complex) SUBJECT.
Man is a three part being:
Body (other consciousness through seeing hearing, smelling, tasting and touching),
Soul (self consciousness through reason, desire, emotion, conscience and will) and
Spirit (God consciousness though enlightenment, enablement, expiation, edification and exaltation).
* The whole man (body, soul and spirit) has been affected, infected and defected by the fall of Adam.
* God provides salvation for the whole man, though it comes in phases (here and now as well as in the resurrection).
The Church has surrendered the healing of man into the hands of the humanists (philosophy, psychiatry, psychology and therapy).
By default, the human mind (soul) has fallen into humanistic domain, and therefore humanistic terms and therapy abound in the absence of Christian concern.
Humanistic gurus in education, medicine, and mind science have driven Christian counselors from addressing the soul problems of man, and have confused the real issues with the "wisdom of man." It is a mistake for people to evaluate the human personality based on humanistic standards, such as Freud, Jung or Myers/Briggs.
However, humans do have personality types or temperaments or character traits, which people need to surrender to the sanctifying work of Christ. Even though we may use some of the same terms, we must insist on a Biblical model. No one can reach spiritual maturity until they are Biblically sound.
Too often Christians allow corrupted and defective aspects of their inner man to continue unabated, or they accept their perverse worldview, attitude and behavior as being outside of the realm of salvation.
Once we reject the confusion of humanistic nomenclature and secular analysis, and we turn to God for wholeness as well as holiness, we will see spiritual purity and maturity flourish, and we will see childish, carnal chaos diminish and disappear.
(COMMENT)
The Jung and Myers/Briggs list of personality types is very complex. The more complex a system is, the more opportunity for humanism to bend and twist the information into a humanistic web, that confuses and controls people. Though I am not fond of the terms used in reference to the Four Basic Types of Temperaments used by Tim LaHay, the ideas are workable tools in dealing with and developing our inner man into the person that God wants us to be.
