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CHARTING THE PAGANISM OF GALEN AND JUNG
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Just look at these disturbing facts behind the background and
beliefs of two men, Galen and Jung, who Warren has relied on to
develop his Personality Theory in SHAPE… |
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| GALEN
OF PERGAMUM |
CARL
JUNG |
BIBLICAL
RESPONSE |
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| THEIR
GENERAL BACKGROUND |
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| GALEN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| Galen
of Pergamum, a pagan physician and philosopher
born in A.D. 131, was strongly influenced by the
Greek myths and the Hippocratic Treatises.
Though Galen’s teachings on medicine were
influential for centuries after his death, very
little is known about him personally. Some of his
writings have been preserved, but many were lost
forever in a library fire during his lifetime.
He was best known for his extensive anatomical
studies, his elaborate pharmacological formulas,
and his theory on the four temperaments
(melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine, and choleric)
to classify human dispositions.
As a typical Greek, he was brought up in the
pagan myths of his day and was not a Christian,
though he seemingly appreciated the Christian sect
as a philosophical school of thought. As a student
of medicine, he became a devotee of Asclepius, the
Greek god of healing, and more than likely adhered
to the Hippocratic oath which stated, “I swear
by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and
Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and
goddesses, that, according to my ability and
judgment, I will keep this Oath and this
stipulation…” |
“Jung
was certainly not a religious man in the
Christian, Jewish, Moslem or Buddhist sense. He
was essentially a pagan, more specifically a
worshipper of evil gods and goddesses rather than
those of the Olympian religion. Jung with his
mixture of sophisticated superstition, vague pagan
idolatry, and equally vague talk about God,
together with his claim that he was building a
bridge between religion and psychology, offered
the right mixture to an age of little faith and
little reason.” (Erich Fromm, “C.G. Jung:
Prophet of the Unconscious,” Scientific
American, 1963, p.209)
Jung's “psychological” theories were “constructed
deliberately, and somewhat deceptively...to make
his own magical, polytheist, pagan world view more
palatable to a secularized world conditioned to
respect only those ideas that seem to have a
scientific flair to them.” (Richard Noll, The
Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung,
Random House, 1997, xv) |
Romans
1:21-22: “For even though they knew God, they
did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they
became futile in their speculations, and their
foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise,
they became fools…”
I Cor. 1:20-23: “Where is the wise man? Where
is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through
its wisdom did not come to know God, God
was well-pleased through the foolishness of the
message preached to save those who believe. For
indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for
wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a
stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness…”
Rev. 22:14-15: “Blessed are those who
wash their robes, so that they may have the right
to the tree of life and that they may enter the
city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and
sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers
and idolaters, and everyone who loves and
practices falsehood.”
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| THEIR
BELIEF IN ASTROLOGY |
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| GALEN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| As
an admirer of Hippocratic medicine, Galen promoted
and improved on the theory of the four
temperaments, or humors. The humors were
associated with the time of the year, the
astrological cycles, and the astrological
information pertaining to a person's birth. These
changes in nature's cycles would cause subtle
changes in a person's basic balance of humors,
perhaps making them more susceptible to humoral
imbalances. Thus doctors also had to be well
versed in astrology, besides their medical
training to treat their patients correctly.
Hippocrates, Galen’s predecessor in Greek
medicine, is
recorded saying: “He who does not understand
astrology is not a doctor but a fool.”
“it must be confidently demonstrated that
fire, earth, air, and water are the primary
elements common to all things... and in his book On
the Nature of Man, Hippocrates is first to
explain not merely that these are the elements of
all the cosmos, but he is also the first one to
determine the qualities of the elements -
qualities according to which one thing acts on
others and is affected.” (Galen's “On the
Elements According to Hippocrates”) |
In
May of 1911 Carl Jung wrote his (at that time)
mentor Sigmund Freud saying: “Occultism is
another field we shall have to conquer - with the
aid of the libido theory, it seems to me. At the
moment I am looking into astrology, which seems
indispensable for a proper understanding of
mythology. There are strange and wondrous things
in these lands of darkness.”
“Please don't worry about my wanderings in
these infinitudes. I shall return laden with rich
booty for our knowledge of the human psyche....
For a while longer I must intoxicate myself on
magic perfumes in order to fathom the secrets that
lie hidden in the abysses of the unconscious…”
In a subsequent follow-up letter, Jung wrote
Freud that his (Jung's) evenings were currently
being taken up largely with astrology and the
calculating of horoscopes: “in order to find a
clue to the core of human psychology.” (From The
Freud/Jung Letters, Abridged Edition, 1979)
Letter written to Hindu astrologer,
B.V. Raman, September 6th 1947: “Since you want
to know my opinion about astrology I can tell you
that I've been interested in this particular
activity of the human mind since more than 30
years. As I am a psychologist, I am chiefly
interested in the particular light the horoscope
sheds on certain complications in the character.
In cases of difficult psychological diagnosis I
usually get a horoscope in order to have a further
point of view from an entirely different angle. I
must say that I very often found that the
astrological data elucidated certain points which
I otherwise would have been unable to understand.
From such experiences I formed the opinion that
astrology is of particular interest to the
psychologist, since it contains a sort of
psychological experience which we call 'projected'
- this means that we find the psychological facts
as it were in the constellations.”
“...the serpentine way of the individual is
the straightest way he can possibly go. That is
symbolized by the serpentine way of the sun
through the Zodiac, and the Zodiacal serpent is
Christ, who said: "I am the way [John 14:6].
He is the serpent, so in the early Christian
church he is the sun, and the signs of the Zodiac,
the apostles, are the twelve months of the year.”
(C.G. Jung, Dream Analysis, pp. 307-308.) |
Isaiah
47:12-15: “Stand now with thine enchantments,
and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein
thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou
shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest
prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy
counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers,
the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save
thee from these things that shall come upon thee.
Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall
burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from
the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal
to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall
they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured,
even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall
wander every one to his quarter; none shall save
thee.”
Jeremiah 10:2-3: “Thus saith the LORD, Learn
not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at
the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed
at them. For the customs of the people are vain…”
(See also Deut. 18:9-12) |
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| THEIR
BELIEF IN PAGANISM AND THE OCCULT |
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| GALEN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| In
his youth, Galen had a dream that Asclepius (or
Asklepius), the Greek god of healing, told him to
study medicine and he thus became an “attendant”
of Asclepius within the pagan temple dedicated to
the god.
People came from all over the world to be
healed by the god Asclepius, who was worshiped in
the form of a living serpent fed in the temple.
The serpent was intimately connected with one of
the ways in which cures were effected. Sufferers
were allowed to spend the night in the darkness of
the temple. In the temple there were non-poisonous
snakes. If the sufferer was touched by the
harmless snakes during the night (which was
equivalent in their thinking to being touched by a
god himself) he would be healed.
Galen records with apparent agreement the case
of a wealthy man who came to the shrine of
Asclepius at Pergamum and was cured there by a
dream from Asclepius (Subfiguratio Empirica
10,78 Deichgräber = Edelstein & Edelstein
T436, p. 250) and acknowledges his own cure at the
hands of the god (De Libris Propriis 2 =
Edelstein & Edelstein T458, p. 263). |
Jung
attended seances with his cousin Helene Preiswerk
and wrote his dissertation on her psychic
experiences, “On Psychology and Pathology of
So-Called Occult Phenomena” (1902). Beginning
in 1913 he conversed with spirit guides, in
particular a guide named Philemon, whom he called
his “guru.” One afternoon in the summer of
1916 Jung experienced spirits in his house. They
gave him what was to be the first sentence, and
under inspiration he wrote Seven Sermons to the
Dead in three evenings. Jung felt that he was
expressing the ideas of Philemon. He distributed
it privately under the pseudonym Basilides. Jung
said: “All my works, all my creative
activity, has come from those initial fantasies
and dreams which began in 1912” (MDR, p.217).
“Philemon (Jung’s spirit guide) was a pagan
and brought with him an Egypto-Hellenistic
atmosphere with a Gnostic colouration.” (Jung,
from “Confrontation with the Unconscious” MDR,
pp. 174-8, 181-5)
“Philemon and other figures of my fantasies
brought home to me the crucial insight that there
are things in the psyche which I do not produce,
but which produce themselves and have their own
life. Philemon represented a force which was not
myself. In my fantasies I held conversations with
him, and he said things which I had not
consciously thought. For I observed clearly that
it was he who spoke, not I. . . . Psychologically,
Philemon represented superior insight. He was a
mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me
quite real, as if he were a living personality. I
went walking up and down the garden with him, and
to me he was what the Indians call a guru.”
(Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, op.
cit., p. 183.)
In 1935 Jung started building Bollingen Tower,
a stone building by a lake, which “represented
himself.” After the death of his wife in 1955,
he so considered Bollingen his true home that he
had ‘Shrine of Philemon’ inscribed over its
entrance. (Memories, Dreams, Recollections, p.235) |
Exodus
20:3: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Leviticus 19:31: “Do not turn to mediums or
wizards; do not seek them out, and so make
yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your
God.”
Deut. 18:9-14: “When you come into the land
that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall
not learn to follow the abominable practices of
those nations. There shall not be found among you
anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an
offering, anyone who practices divination or tells
fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a
charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer,
for whoever does these things is an abomination to
the Lord. And because of these abominations the
Lord your God is driving them out before you. You
shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for
these nations, which you are about to dispossess,
listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as
for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to
do this.”
1 Chron. 10:13-14: “So Saul died for his
breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in
that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and
also consulted a medium, seeking guidance. He did
not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the
Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over
to David the son of Jesse.”
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| THEIR
FALSE VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY |
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| GALEN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “Galen
compared medical doctors who practiced without
scientific training to Moses, who promulgated laws
and wrote his books without proofs, simply saying,
'God commanded, God spoke!' In his treatise de
usu partium Galen criticized the Mosaic
cosmogony and rejected its reliance on divine
miracle.” (Stephen Benko, “Pagan Rome and the
Early Christians,” BT Batsford Ltd, London,
1984, p 142-3)
Galen was a pagan who was critical of
Christianity, but from an objective and scientific
point of view. He was an ancient scientist,
involved in live animal vivisections and as a
gladiator physician able to observe human
responses. Thus he had no respect for religions
that were based on faith alone, because in his
opinion faith was a poor substitute for
experienced truth. |
“The
utter failure came at the Crucifixion in the
tragic words, "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" If you want to understand the
full tragedy of those words you must realize what
they meant: Christ saw that his whole life,
devoted to the truth according to his best
conviction, had been a terrible illusion…
“We all must do just what Christ did. We must
make our experiment. We must make mistakes. We
must live out our own vision of life. And there
will be error. If you avoid error you do not live;
in a sense even it may be said that every life is
a mistake, for no one has found the truth. When we
live like this we know Christ as a brother, and
God indeed becomes man. This sounds like a
terrible blasphemy, but not so. For then only can
we understand Christ as he would want to be
understood, as a fellow man; then only does God
become man in ourselves.” (Jung, New York
Lecture, edited by Lane A. Pratt, 1972.)
“The self or Christ is present in everybody,
a ‘priori’, but as a rule in an
unconscious condition to begin with. But it is a
definite experience of later life, when the fact
becomes conscious. It is not really understood by
teaching or suggestion. It is only real when it
happens, and it can happen only when you withdraw
your projections from an outward historical or
metaphysical Christ and wake up this Christ
within.” (C.G. Jung, “Psychology and
Religion West and East”, Collected Works
11, par 1638, c1958)
“I had been living with the still medieval
concepts of my parents, for whom the world and men
were still presided over by divine omnipotence and
providence. This world had become antiquated and
obsolete. My Christian faith had become relative
through its encounter with Eastern religions and
Greek philosophy.” (Jung, Man and His
Symbols, p.43)
“Jung was waging war against Christianity and
its distant, absolute, unreachable God and was
training his disciples to listen to the voice of
the dead and to become gods themselves.”
(Richard Noll, The Jung Cult, p. 224) |
Matthew
10:32-33: Jesus said, “So everyone who
acknowledges me before men, I also will
acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but
whoever denies me before men, I also will deny
before my Father who is in heaven.”
1 John 2:22: “Who is the liar but he who
denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the
antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”
Psalm 26:2-5: “Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
test my heart and my mind. For your steadfast love
is before my eyes, and I walk in your
faithfulness. I do not sit with men of falsehood,
nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the
assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the
wicked.”
1 Cor. 15:33: “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad
company corrupts good morals.’”
2 Cor. 6:14-16: “Do not be unequally yoked
with unbelievers. For what partnership has
righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship
has light with darkness? What accord has Christ
with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share
with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple
of God with idols?...”
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ARE THESE
THE KINDS OF INFLUENCES RICK WARREN BELIEVES CAN
BRING GODLY INSIGHT TO CHRISTIANS? |
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THE BIBLE SAYS: “Do
not be bound together with unbelievers; for what
partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or
what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what
harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a
believer in common with an unbeliever?” --- I
Cor. 6:14-15. |
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CHARTING THE WARREN-JUNG CONNECTION
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| RICK
WARREN |
CARL
JUNG |
BIBLICAL
RESPONSE |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON PERSONALITY THEORY |
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WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “When
you minister in a manner consistent with the personality
God gave you, you experience fulfillment,
satisfaction, and fruitfulness.” (The Purpose
Driven Life, p. 246)
“…when you are forced to minister in a
manner that is “out of character” for your temperament,
it creates tension and discomfort, requires extra
effort and energy, and produces less than the best
results. This is why mimicking someone else’s
ministry never works. You don’t have their
personality.” (PDL, p. 245) |
“…the
ultimate aim and strongest desire of all mankind
is to develop that fulness (sic) of life
which is called personality… To the
extent that a man is untrue to the law of his
being and does not rise to personality, he has
failed to realize his life’s meaning.”
(The Development of Personality, Collected Works
17; from The Essential Jung, pg. 191, 207) |
There
is absolutely no biblical precedent for this
position. Personality typology has never
been a criteria for God choosing someone for
ministry, but is in great part grounded in Jungian
psychology.
Did Paul rely on personality assessment
to guide his ministry? Hardly...
“God has chosen the weak things of the world
to shame the things which are strong, and the base
things of the world and the despised, God has
chosen, the things that are not, that He might
nullify the things that are, that no man should
boast before God.” 1 Cor 1:27-29
“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is
sufficient for you, for power is perfected in
weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather
boast about my weaknesses, that the power of
Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well
content with weaknesses, with insults, with
distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties,
for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am
strong.” 2 Cor 12:9-10 |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON A MUTUAL BELIEF IN THE "UNCONSCIOUS" |
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| WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “You
may be driven by a painful memory, a haunting
fear, or an unconscious belief.” (PDL, p.
27)
“(Guilt-driven people) often unconsciously
punish themselves by sabotaging their own success.”
(PDL, pp. 27-28)
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“The
unconscious . . . is the source of the
instinctual forces of the psyche and of the forms
or categories that regulate them, namely the
archetypes.” (The Structure of the Psyche, CW 8,
par. 342)
“Constant observation pays the unconscious
a tribute that more or less guarantees its
cooperation. One of the most important tasks of
psychic hygiene [is] to pay continual attention to
the symptomatology of unconscious contents
and processes.” (The Portable Jung, New York:
Penguin Books, 1986, p. 156) |
The
“unconscious” is the foundational concept of
both Freudian and Jungian psychology, and has no
biblical basis whatsoever. In fact, Scripture does
not allow for the idea that people are “driven”
by an “unconscious belief.” By endorsing the idea
of the unconscious, Warren is promoting the
Jungian belief that people must analyze the forces
of the unconscious to discover their life’s
purpose.
According to Scripture, any driving force
outside of God’s will is sin, no matter where it
resides. Psychology, however, downplays our
personal accountability for sin by making the “unconscious”
the ultimate reservoir and bastion of unavoidable human instinct. “And
he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because [he
eateth] not of faith: for whatsoever [is] not
of faith is sin.” Romans 14:23 |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON UNCONSCIOUS METAPHORS & IMAGES |
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| WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “If
I asked how you picture life, what image would
come to your mind? That image is your life
metaphor. It’s the view of life that you
hold, consciously or unconsciously,
in your mind.” (PDL, pp. 41-42)
“Your unspoken life metaphor influences
your life more than you realize. It determines
your expectations, your values, your
relationships, your goals, and your priorities.”
(PDL, p. 42) |
“An
archetypal content expresses itself, first and
foremost, in metaphors.” (“The
Psychology of the Child Archetype,” CW 9i, par.
267)
Archetypes are not inborn ideas, but “typical
forms of behaviour which, once they become conscious,
naturally present themselves as ideas and images,
like everything else that becomes a content of consciousness.”
(Collected Works 8, par. 435)
“Indeed, the fate of the individual is
largely dependent on unconscious factors.”
(“Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation”
CW 9) |
The
analysis of “metaphors” housed in the
unconscious is a trademark concept of psychology,
not of Scripture. The use of images, fantasies,
and dreams to better understand our “unconscious”
is a signature feature of Jungian psychotherapy
that borders on the occult. |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON USING JUNGIAN TERMINOLOGY |
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| WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “God
made introverts and extroverts…
He made some people ‘thinkers’ and
others ‘feelers.’” (PDL, p.
245)
“Your personality will affect how and where
you use your spiritual gifts and abilities. For
instance, two people may have the same gift of
evangelism, but if one is introverted and
other is extroverted, that gift will be
expressed in different ways.” (PDL, p. 245)
“Ask yourself questions:… Am I more introverted
or extroverted? Am I more a thinker
or a feeler?” (PDL, pp.251-252) |
“Two
types (of typical differences in human psychology)
especially become clear to me; I have termed them
the introverted and the extraverted
types.” (“Introduction” Psychological Types,
CW 6 par. 1)
“I have found from experience that the basic
psychological functions, this is, functions which
are genuinely as well as essentially different
from other functions, prove to be thinking,
feeling, sensation, and intuition.
If one of these functions habitually predominates,
a corresponding type results. I therefore
distinguish a thinking, a feeling, a sensation,
and an intuitive type. Each of these types may
moreover be either introverted or extraverted…”
(“Introduction” Psychological Types, CW 6) |
Warren
is explicitly using the specific terminology of
the psychological typology theory originally
conceived by Carl Jung. Despite the claims of his
supporters, Warren has clearly based his
Personality Theory (the "P" in his
SHAPE teaching) on the unbiblical foundation of
Jungian psychology.
“Beware lest any man spoil you through
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not
after Christ.” Colossians 2:8
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we
might know the things freely given to us by God,
which things we also speak, not in words taught by
human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit,
combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.”
1 Cor 2:12-13 |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS |
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| WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “The
Bible gives us plenty of proof that God uses all
types of personalities. Peter was a sanguine.
Paul was a choleric. Jeremiah was a melancholy.
When you look at the personality differences in
the twelve disciples, it’s easy to see why they
sometimes had interpersonal conflict.” (PDL, p.
245)
“There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ temperament
for ministry.” (PDL, p. 245) |
“…the
physicians of ancient times…tried to reduce the
bewildering diversity of mankind to orderly groups…
The very names of the Galenic temperaments
betray their origin in the pathology of the four
“humours.” Melancholic denotes a
preponderance of black bile, phlegmatic
a preponderance of phlegm or mucus, sanguine
a preponderance of blood, and choleric
a preponderance of choler, or yellow bile.” (“Psychological
Typology” CW 6)
“The whole make-up of the body, its
constitution in the broadest sense, has in fact a
very great deal to do with psychological temperament…”
(“Psychological Typology” CW 6)
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Despite
Warren’s claim, the Bible never gives “proof” of
the classification of personalities; it is a
purely pagan concoction. The four temperaments, as
conceived by Hippocrates and later developed by
Galen, was a prevalent Greek philosophy during the
time of Paul’s apostolic ministry. Unlike Warren
and Jung, however, Paul did not implement these
Greeks ideas into his teachings. In fact, he
categorically rejected them and “determined to
know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and
Him crucified” (I Cor 2:2).
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to
thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings,
and oppositions of science falsely so called:” I
Timothy 6:20
Worse yet, Warren is teaching that a person’s
“no right or wrong” personality is somehow
unaffected by the fall and is always beneficial
for ministry. How, we ask, does a “phlegmatic
temperament” towards laziness and slothfulness
serve God’s purpose in ministry? |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON PERSONALITY TESTING |
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| WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “Today
there are many books and tools that can help you
understand your personality so you can determine
how to use it for God.” (PDL, p. 246) |
MBTI
is “based on Jung’s theory of psychological
types.” (Isabel Briggs Myers, Introduction to
Type, Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists
Press, 1983, p.4)
“The (MBTI) Indicator was developed
specifically to carry Carl Jung’s theory of type
(Jung, 1921, 1971) into practical application.”
(Dr. Gordon Lawrence, People Types & Tiger
Stripes, p. 6, also p. x)
“Carl Jung’s psychology lies behind...the
MBTI.” (Robert Innes, Personality Indicators and
The Spiritual Life, p.8) |
Without
qualifying this statement, Warren is promoting any
and all Jungian personality and temperament tests
and theories, including the widely-used
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Kiersey
Temperament Sorter (an offshoot of the MBTI), and
the Enneagram Test, which has its origin in
Sufism, a mystical offshoot of Islam. (Click here
for more information on Enneagram).
Despite the contrary advice offered by Warren,
Christians must acknowledge the Bible as the only
book needed to understand the human condition:
“For the word of God [is] quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and
spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart.” Hebrews 4:12
(See also II Timothy 3:16-17) |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON THE ENDORSEMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY |
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| WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “Every
behavior is motivated by a belief, and every
action is prompted by an attitude. God revealed
this thousands of years before psychologists
understood it.” (PDL, p. 181) |
“(Unconscious
phenomena) manifest themselves in the individual’s
behaviour… ” (“Conscious, Unconscious, and
Individuation” CW 9)
“Modern psychological
development leads to a much better
understanding as to what man really consists
of.” (“Psychology and Religion” CW 11) |
Warren
is suggesting here that psychologists have the
same understanding as God on the issue of human
behavior, thus putting man’s “wisdom” on
equal footing with God’s revelation.
If Warren truly believes in the preeminence of
God’s revelation to understand man, then why
does he rely so heavily on the “useless wisdom”
of psychology instead of Scripture?
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness
before God. For it is written, ‘He is THE ONE
WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS‘; and
again, ‘THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the
wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.’” I Cor 3:19-20 |
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| THEIR
CONNECTION ON FINDING AND DEVELOPING PERSONALITY |
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| WARREN |
JUNG |
BIBLE |
| “The
best use of your life is to serve God out of your
shape. To do this you must discover your shape,
learn to accept and enjoy it, and then develop
it to its fullest potential.” (PDL, p. 249)
The SHAPE program states: “To discover
your S.H.A.P.E. is to discover where God is
calling you to do His work in the world.” |
“Only
the man who can consciously assent to the power
of the inner voice becomes a personality.” (“The
Development of Personality” CW 17)
“The achievement of personality means
nothing less than the optimum development
of the whole individual human being.” (“The
Development of Personality” CW 17)
“In so far as every individual has the law
of his life inborn in him, it is theoretically
possible for any man to follow this law and to become
a personality, this is, to achieve
wholeness.” (“The Development of
Personality” CW 17) |
Finding
your SHAPE has no biblical support. Warren’s
teaching that one must “discover his shape” is
philosophically and systematically akin to Jung’s
teaching that a man must “consciously assent to
the power of the inner voice” and be true to “the
law of his being.”
While Warren has rightly acknowledged God’s
sovereign purpose in creating us, he has
mistakenly made God’s divine purpose synonymous
with our so-called “shape” by advocating the
Jungian idea of developing the personality to “achieve
wholeness.” This Jungian process, however, does
not serve God, but serves the god within us.
Scripture calls for an active, heartfelt obedience to God’s
will through the transforming power of the Spirit,
not a misguided exploration of our natural psychological
makeup to define our God-given purpose.
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and
lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy
ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy
paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
“…your faith should not rest on the wisdom
of men, but on the power of God.” 1 Cor 2:5 |
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| CONCLUSION:
THIS IS NOT SIMPLY "GUILT BY ASSOCIATION" |
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Yes,
Jesus associated with sinners, but he certainly
didn't borrow his teachings from the Pharisees or
any other false teachers. Clearly there is a
very tangible connection between Rick Warren's
SHAPE teaching on personality and the
psychological theories of Carl Jung. Not only does
Warren base his teachings on parallel
psychological concepts, but he uses exact Jungian
terms to make his case. By focusing on assessing
and developing one’s personality as the key to a
successful life or ministry, Warren, like Jung, is
promoting a reliance on one’s inner self instead
of on God’s transcendent truth and the working
of the Holy Spirit. As a popular Christian
teacher, how can Warren ignore the crucial
biblical truths of the sufficiency of Scripture
and the power of the Holy Spirit to perfectly
furnish every Christian with the ability to
minister according to God's purpose?
“All scripture [is] given by
inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness: That the man of God
may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto ALL GOOD
WORKS.” II Timothy 3:16-17
“According as his divine power
hath given unto us ALL THINGS that [pertain] unto
life and godliness, through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue:” II
Peter 1:3
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