God, Christianity, Spirituality, Jung, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was originally based on the theories of psychologist Carl Jung. My MBTI qualifying course instructor told us, “Jung is not God; he is a man with a theory.” I flipped through last month’s issue of the magazine Psychology Today; there were articles and editorials on a myriad of psychological problems, yet none of the psychological explanations and answers contain any spiritual solutions (or mention of Christianity or even God). At the last Association of Psychological Type (APT) conference only 6% of the participants reported a primary interest area of Religion and Spirituality (as opposed to 41% interest in Management and Organizational Development). Several members of the Honolulu MBTI group are agnostic or atheist. It is often said that people get into the field of psychology and personality type to solve their own issues; I speculate they also use it as a substitute for spirituality and spiritual answers.
Here is the new Preface, God, Christianity, Spirituality, Jung, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), that I am adding to my book Where in the World Do I Belong??
September 26th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
“I speculate they also use it as a substitute for spirituality and spiritual answers.”
If they are true agnostics, it is more likely that the interest in psychology is completely unrelated to religion, as a true agnostic lives a life unrelated to and unconcerned by religiously spiritual matters - it does not impact their day to day lives, it is not an issue they contemplate on any sort of regular basis - the need just isn’t there. Is it possible that the NF writing this blog post is transferring his own sense of religion and/or spirituality to others?
“Religious” people (this goes for any type, not just NFs) seem to think that religion or spirituality is in the core being of every human; it isn’t.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Mystery Man, thank you for your comment. Not all people use psychology and personality type as an answer to spirituality but I believe many do. This may be why some consider it the cult of personality type.
I don’t believe it’s possible to “live a life life unrelated to and unconcerned by spiritual matters.” Spirituality DOES impact everyones day to day lives (no matter what their personality type). Even the non-Christian Jung believed, A relationship with the sacred provides meaning and direction to the soul.
The spirit is what empowers the soul and body; fill it with the wrong things or neglect it at your own risk. Every person has free will to choose what they will place at the center of their life. God is perfect and everything else imperfect. Place something imperfect at the center of your life and it will inevitably fail you.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I disagree, but all I can say is it is possible to live without obsessing over supernatural questions like “who am I” “Where am I going” “why am I here” “what is my purpose”, etc. I don’t worry about that; it is immaterial to my existence. I just don’t have a need to think about it, and most agnostics don’t - hence the agnosticism. The main difference is that atheists believe there is no god - so they may grapple with these issues, but agnostics don’t have an issue with it, it doesn’t worry or concern them. They don’t need religion or spirituality because it is immaterial to their existence, so at most they understand fully that they don’t know, and they don’t have an internal need to know if there is a god. It is a common misconception among those in organized religion that the non-religious think about these things every day and suffer for it; they don’t. NFs may also assume something similar. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that personality type does have something limited to do with this.
September 27th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I concede that NF’s enjoy occupying ourselves with supernatural questions; however, all types have an inner spirit whether they claim ignorance to that fact or not. We NF’s might also be more in tune with an inner spiritual emptiness; whereas, other types may only have vague sense of something missing but not sure what it is.
They may suffer for it without realizing it. For example, a person without God might see a personal disaster (bankruptcy, divorce, etc.) as the end of their life; whereas, a person centered on God can still see the blessings in their life and is able to face the hardship without despairing.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Your speculation might be correct. The same need that people inherently have for ‘answers’ applied in a different direction. Well said.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:38 am
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