The doctrine of christian perfection in the light of modern dynamic psychology

Abstract

Niebuhr says "Man has always been his own most vexing problem". Niebuhr - The Nature & Destiny of Man, P.1. The answers given to the question what is man? have varied widely in every generation. Today it is one of the main questions facing the Western world. In theory at least the present war is a conflict between rival conceptions of man writ large! Democracy conceives of man as an end in himself and possessing certain rights and privileges simply because he is a man; totalitarianism both in theory and in practice subordinates the individual man to the state: he is a means to an end, not an end in himself. The issue is not in reality of course as clear cut as this in the political field - the edges are considerably blurred in places; neither is there in reality a clear out distinction in the psychological field. Rather, we have all opinions from that of the Psalmist Psalm 8, verse 5. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with honour and glory", to that of J.B. Watson who would interpret man simply in terms of the S - R pattern. The questions facing us then may be phrased something like this - Is man the crown of a long process of evolution, the highest point yet attained, perhaps the end to which the whole process has been moving through countless years, or is he the fallen son of God, originally made in the image of God, but now sunk in depravity? Or is he both of these? Is man sufficient in himself, the measure of all things, with a dignity of his own, or have the events of the past fifty years discredited this optimistic humanistic view? "The unspoken assumption of Humanism was the belief in the inevitability of progress - philosophical Coveism. History was the record of man's steady, if painful rise from the slime to civilization, which showed an unbroken advance in morality, justice and goodness. The passing ages bespoke an unhindered development towards the perfection of the ideal. …… It is the belief that man is capable of creating a just and perfect society; that by education and organisation he can become rational and righteous." On to Orthodoxy D.R. Davies, P.10. This view Davies characterises as a myth, and W. McNeile Dixon The Human Situation. W. McNeile Dixon and Nicholas The Destiny of Man. Nicholas Berdyaev are in complete agreement - to name only two writers. Are we to think of man as a rugged individualist, the master of his fate, and captain of his soul, with head bloody but unbowed mid the bludgeonings of fate, or are we to think of him rather as a being, social by nature, who most have fellowship with others, or perish, whose mental health and general well-being depend on his ability to adapt himself to society, and integrate inter-personal situations with his fellows?