Meredith Thornton's Archive

Of everyone we’ve covered through out this class I think I agree most with Frankl. He leaves so many things open to the individual while still allowing room for humanity as a whole. In classifying his theories I chose to categorize Frankl under the restoration. His high view of Free Will coupled with his beliefs concerning Destiny are so thought provoking to me. I love the idea that while we have an ultimate destiny that is our task alone, it is our free will that allows us to choose how we handle our destiny. I think this agrees greatly with our Christian beliefs that God has a path he has set before us, but it is up to us to act according to his will.

I also really like what Frankl has to say about Good and Evil. I think the idea that the rift between the two is present in all humans agrees with scripture as we are fighting a constant battle of the flesh. I think this also goes great with his ideas regarding Self-transcendence. I totally agree with him that we can’t have self actualization without looking outside of ourselves. If you only look within you will always have a torn world caused by the presence of good and evil, but if you look outside of your tiny world and see the whole picture you can find yourself in Christ.

One of my favorite quotes by Jung is from the video we watched in classes in which he said that he didn’t think one should believe.  If you have the facts then you know, otherwise you have no reason to believe.  I like this quote because it describes perfectly how so many in our society think, and how I used to think.

During some of the lower points in my faith I relied heavily on logic and science.  That is part of why I would definitely categorize Jung with the fall. A big part of faith in Christ in my opinion,  is not knowing. God didn’t give us all the answers, and that gives us a need to lean on him at times instead of on science and our knowledge. However with that being said, I don’t think that everything Jung had to say was worthless, I think he had a lot of really great input to the field and to life in general.

We learned in class that Gestalt means form, essence, or whole in German.  This school of Psychology focuses on the big picture, the whole of a person and their experiences, not just a certain part. The Gestalt school also looks to the simplest answer for problems. To me this pointed straight at Redemption.

When I think of redemption and salvation, I think of how God loved us with his whole heart and sacrificed his whole world to save us. I also think that a key part of how we are taught to view others is a whole. You can’t judge someone based on one interaction, we are to look at the person and their life and their heart as a whole, a whole loved by the father.

I used to be a biology major, and I love studying Darwin. He is seriously one of my favorite characters from history.  I would definitely classify Darwin with creation. I know that might not make a ton of sense to some people, but let me explain.

So most conservative christians, like myself, are raised to believe every word the Bible has in it as pretty literal, and that evolution is of the devil (that might be a slight exaggeration, but it’s pretty close).  But if every word in the Bible is completely literal then the world is even more confusing because the Bible contradicts itself. For example, the gospels have differing versions of the same stories.

With this wonderful knowledge in mind, I started reading about Darwin’s life. That’s when I first learned he was a Christian and even went to Seminary at one point. Now armed with the knowledge that Darwin was a Christian and the Bible (in it’s entirety)  wasn’t meant to be taken literally I took a closer look at evolution.  I now view creation much like a progressive creationist, which is what allows me to classify Darwin with Creation.

I choose to believe both science and the Bible, in that I believe God created the world, but I believe he used evolution to do it. There fore, Darwin and his theories belong under the Creation heading.

Then again an argument can definitely be made that Darwin belongs under the fall. I think it all depends on what period in his life you analyze. I would say that earlier in life he belonged in the Fall category but ended his life more in the creation category. Earlier in his life however, he was credited with many anti-biblical/anti-christian quotes, that make it quite obvious he did not put much stock in religion.

My initial instinct was to place Kant under the fall.  We talked about his rejection of religion and his dependence on Science. I have a very scientific and logical mindset for the most part, but I think he was mistaken in placing science over religion and faith in God. However, his reasons for not trusting organized religion, such as fake service, external ritual, and corruption are quite valid. This makes me want to consider categorizing Kant with the restoration as this is consistent with the restorative movement in the churches.

Then you have Kant’s views regarding freedom and peace which makes me want to put him under redemption. I think Kant can’t really be categorized under one section of the C-F-R-R theory. His views seem to be oddly inconsistent…which in a way kind of reminds me of the creation. I think that as a human, not fully understanding why God does what he does that his approach to creation and how he decided to document it is confusing and inconsistent with what he teaches us through sciences.

Otherwise known as the “Jewish Plato,” Philo shared much of his reasoning.  Philo believed that the senses cannot provide knowledge and that sensory experiences can interfere with our direct understanding of and communication with God.  He believed that all knowledge and wisdom came from God, not from introspection. However he did believe that the soul should be purified and that true knowledge can be attained only with a purified and passive mind.

Because of his belief that all knowledge comes from God, I think I’m going to categorized Philo with creation. Honestly I’m really torn as to where to put him at all, I like how much he depends on God, but I don’t think it really agrees with our world today which I would classify as in the restoration stage. Today we gain to much of our knowledge from Science and our own life experiences, and in some cases from introspection. Philo’s complete dependance on God for any and all knowledge strikes me as how Eden would have been. Adam and Eve knew nothing, they didn’t study science or sit and ponder, up until the fall they relied fully on God. I wish we lived in a society that depended more on God in this way, I think it would be a more peaceful and agreeable place.

If I wasn’t a Christian, I think Thales would be my favorite Philosopher. I find his theories very interesting, particularly the one about water being the primary substance of physics. With water being found in all living things and as such a vital resource required for life, this theory makes sense to my scientific side. I also really admire the way he accepted criticism and wasn’t to high and mighty. I think all of us should strive to be better and help one another in a constructive atmosphere.

However, I must categorize him with the fall. Thales, though he acknowledged the existence of the Greek gods, taught natural explanations for everything, deemphasizing any supernatural explanations.  To me Thales represents the overly scientific world with at our society has been consumed by. Instead of looking for any higher being as the source he looks to the world. He would never assume a miracle but would search in nature for a more scientific explanation. Despite categorizing him with the fall, I think that some of Thales ideas are reminiscent of restoration, particularly his creation of the critical tradition. I feel that this idea of building off of one another really aligns with how we as Christians work and think together in order to further God’s kingdom here on Earth. And I love the quote below, but I think in order to find ourselves we must search in God and not in this world.