Postkiwi

Can we learn anything from Carl Jung? Or is he just too occultic?
I’ve recently received an email in response to a post at Driving With Purpose, my blog on Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life. Back in November last year I reviewed Rick Warren’s chapter on personality, considering his use of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.
Here’s a portion of that post…

Rick talks about introverts and extroverts, thinkers and feelers. These categories come from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, developed by Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers during World War II, following the theories of Carl Jung as laid out in his work Psychological Types.

The Introvert/Extrovert category looks at how a person orients and receives his/her energy. The Sensing/Intuition category indicates how person perceives or receives data. The Thinking/Feeling category relates to how a person judges or makes rational decisions. The Judging/Perceiving category reveals a preference for linear approaches or subjective options. This last category would link in with Rick’s reference to routine and variety.

Rick Warren says that there is no right or wrong temperament for ministry. He refers to Peter as being ’sanguine’, Paul as ‘choleric’ and Jeremiah as ‘melancholy’. These references are straight from the work of Tim and Beverley LaHaye who popularised the theory of the four temperaments among Evangelicals in the 1960s and on.

Theories relating to the four temperaments have their origins in Greece around 400 BC. It was thought that the bodily fluids yellow bile (choler), black bile (melancholic), phlegm and blood were linked with health and temperament. the take their names from the body fluids.

Looking around the internet I’ve found a few writers who have seized on this part of the Purpose Driven Life as evidence that Rick Warren has sold out to paganism. In some quarters there is a deep suspicion of anything that’s come out of ancient Greece or modern psychology. Jung, because of his interest in the occult, has been written off by some Christian writers. Clearly it is important not to become obsessed or stereotyped by the personality typologies of anyone, Christian or not.

Here’s what my correspondent wrote:

First, your statement does not tell the whole story. Jung wasn’t just interested in the occult, he was an avid practitioner of the occult. A spirit-guide named Philemon guided him since the time that he was three years old. Second, he took part in a seance with his wife, and wrote about the experience. He wasn’t merely interested in the occult. Rather, he practiced the occult, obeyed the demonic guide Philemon, and taught occultic matter such as the Enneagram.

All the detailed analyses that I’ve read — whether in support or doubt of the MBTI — acknowledges that its sixteen types were derived either from the basis of the nine occultic types of the Enneagram, or from the four ancient occultic types, or from both. How do you reconcile use of the Enneagram with the Apostle Paul’s admonishment in Ephesians 5:11? I’ve provided varying translations below.

NKJV - Eph 5:11 - And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

NIV - Eph 5:11 - Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

NASB - Eph 5:11 - Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

RSV - Eph 5:11 - Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

How do you resolve implementation of the MBTI with this Scripture, when you consider that the MBTI is considered as truth in the context of the SHAPE plan? Or do you believe this verse does not apply to administration and implementation of the MBTI? Maybe you could explain for me?

The Christian Research Institute, in the Christian Research Journal, has an article about the Enneagram. CRI produces “The Bible Answer Man”, the radio program hosted by Hank Hannegraaff, Tell Me Who I Am, O Enneagram.

Please forgive me for any untowardness. I just don’t see how a system as occultic as the Enneagram - or how an individual as spiritist as CG Jung - can simply be brushed aside with less than a grain of salt.

A few of my initial thoughts…

In what way is MBTI truth? I would regard the system as a source of insight, but not a source of authority on human development and personality. Rick Warren introduces the tool in what he calls a Biblical system, the SHAPE approach. I would be cautious about making the SHAPE system a standard for truth. What we are looking at here are tools, models, frameworks that can be examined in their own right, regardless of who developed them.

The words ‘occultic’ or ‘esotetic’ are often used to refer to examination of hidden truths. In same cases these words are assumed to be associated with secret ‘deeds of darkness’. Another meaning of ‘esoteric’ is the examination of inner development, the parts of us that cannot easily be seen or described.
What do you think?