The Role Of Christian Philosophy In The Field Of Positive Psychology

[C. Eric Jones, Ph.D., is the Director of Undergraduate Psychology and Associate Professor of Psychology at the Regent University School of Undergraduate Studies. Eric is our blogger for the month of June, and this is his first post.]

As a prelude to the Society for Christian Psychology's conference on Christian Positive Psychology in October, I would like to begin a discussion on how a Christian philosophy can inform the field of positive psychology. I will mention perhaps the most central theological concept that can provide room for new work and I hope to hear from others about their complementary ideas.

Positive psychology has established three main areas of research: the positive person (defined by character strengths and virtues), the positive experience (the good life), and the positive community. The concept of the Trinity is central to mainstream Christianity and therefore is related to and defines a great deal of other theological ideas. For example, the relationship between the personhood of the Trinity and the Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation framework opens a plethora of considerations for all three areas of positive psychology.

For instance, thinking Christianly about character strengths and virtues conjures up thoughts of becoming more Christ like. However, the goal of Christlikeness and the process of becoming so both differ from the more secular correlates of current positive psychology. Perhaps the biggest difference between a Christian perspective and a secular perspective concerning the positive person is that the Christian perspective describes qualitative differences and the secular perspective typically describes quantitative differences as changes occur in one's character. When a person encounters a salvation experience, establishes a relationship with Christ and moves through the process of sanctification, that person is a new creation and not merely someone exhibiting more of the positive characteristics the person already possessed.

Clear connections can also be made between the positive person/the good life and the persons of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Based on Trinitarian theology, assuming humans are fundamentally relational, the relationship between Christ and the person is foundational to strengths and virtues as well as foundational to the good life. The same case can be made for the work of the Holy Spirit in one's life and the positive person/positive experience. Currently positive psychology has a relatively central place for relationships when describing the positive person/positive experience, but the roles and effects of Christ and the Holy Spirit must look dramatically different when compared to the effects from human-human relationships.

The above ideas barely scratch the surface of this discussion, which is acceptable as I hope others will now join in and expand the dialogue. How can the Christian academy mine the differences above and facilitate the growth of positive psychology? What approaches can be used with the ideas above to contribute to the field? How do we best begin the contributions - theoretical work, empirical work? What other big ideas from Christianity can provide direction and structure to our work? Please join the conversation, answer any of these questions, build off of anything presented here or ask and answer your own question. If you want to experience the good life, you should help advance this discussion!

Source: lay-reports.blogspot.com