|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This page revised and Copyrighted: Theon Doxazo |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
|
03.1.5 |
||||
|
The History of Psychology holds a lesson for what the Second Peter Theory is trying to do. Early in Psychology's history there was a 'school' or group of Psychologists that came be be known as the school of Structuralism. This was the earliest of the systematic approaches Psychologists used to try to understand human functioning. The Structuralists attempted to describe a picture of the human psyche by theorizing different elements of consciousness or structures within the person that interacted to produce behaviors. While it is a massive oversimplification, one may choose to think of the Structuralist approach as dealing with the 'nouns' of human experience. It tried to explain humans by describing WHAT PARTS of the person were active at any given time.
Later another 'school' or group of Psychologists arose that has been labeled the school of Functionalism. They gave up trying to find the 'elements' of consciousness. Instead, the Functionalists sought to understand the processes involved with HOW things worked. Again, it is a vast oversimplification, but one may choose to describe the Functionalists as striving to describe the 'verbs' of human experience. Over time it has became readily apparent that Functionalism is the more successful approach to understand people. Structuralism has died out.
This very simplistic characterization of these two schools of thought can easily be applied to the task at hand. The crucial verses in Second Peter (vs 5 - 7) provide us with a listing of character qualities that we are to add to our spiritual lives, 'nouns' if you will. These verses seem to approach the concern for Christian maturity from a Structuralist perspective. The text of Scripture says nothing about HOW we are to go about adding these qualities to our lives. It is silent regarding the processes involved, the spiritual dynamics, if you will, of spiritual development.
It is the goal of the Second Peter Theory to supply the 'verbs' describing HOW each of the Scripturally-mandated qualities are to be added. In doing so, these descriptions will, hopefully, be fully compatible with the exegesis of both the Second Peter text and the Scriptures generally. The processes to be described will demonstrate how the qualities mandated by the Scriptures, together with the work of the Spirit, develop as they arise from and by means of the preceding levels.
|
||||