The Wholeness Industry
There is big business today in the “wholeness industry”. Innumerable books and magazines explain how to reach your full potential. Personal development course such as EST and INSIGHT help people to find contentment, meaning, security and direction for their lives.
For some years I worked for a large multi-national company which was quite keen to pay for us to attend such courses. Many businesses have made the self-fulfilment of employees a major part of their corporate management strategy. They know that the company will benefit by having highly motivated workers who believe in their own abilities and who set ambitious goals for themselves.
The church too has joined the industry, so that personal prosperity, healing damaged emotions, self-esteem and wholeness have become common topics for sermons, camps and Bible studies.
It is true that God wants us to be the people he made us to be, to reach our potential, to be truly me etc. But this is not the basis of our life’s ambitions.
Claim: once again, the church has been sucked into the latest social movement, in this case a set of psychological resources to support first-world materialistic individualism.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Virtually every first year psychology text book has a diagram something like Fig 1. This pyramid represents a hierarchy of human needs derived from the work of Abraham Maslow in the 1960’s[1]. Maslow was born in 1908 and grew from a Jewish heritage to become one of the founders of humanistic psychology.
Fig 1. Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs
Maslow’s intention in this hierarchy is to describe the way people’s needs change as they grow towards a mature and fulfilled life. The person who has acheived wholeness has been able to satisfy all these needs and has become self-actualised. Hence, self-actualisation is seen as the highest human goal.
The base of the pyramid represents those basic human needs such as food, without which there could not be life. People who have these physiological needs met soon recognise a further need: the need for security. However, people tend not to be concerned about this second layer if the first layer of needs is not being met.
This principle continues up the pyramid. Those whose need for security is being met start to recognise their need to belong to a group and to be loved. Once this need is met, people become concerned about self esteem (the need to achieve, to be competent, to gain approval and recognition). Only when that need is being satisfied will people focus on cognitive needs (the need to know, to understand, to explore). And finally, a person with all subservient needs being met is able to pay attention to self-actualisation.
Another way of interpreting Maslow’s pyramid is in terms of motivations. If someone’s physiological needs are not being met then their prime motivating force will be to meet those needs. But once those needs are met, the person’s motivation will change: now their major motivation will be to meet their need for security.
The term “self-actualisation” requires some explanation. It was first suggested by Kurt Goldstein[2] in 1939 to signify one of the basic patterns of human life: that of desiring some goal and then achieving it. But the term has since taken on broader connotations. It is now used interchangeably with “self-fulfilment” and “self-realisation” and has become connected with the Eastern religious concept of achieving Enlightenment.
For Maslow, however, to be self-actualised was to be ???. Self-actualisation is characterised by spontaneity, creativity, the ability to think beyond stereotypes, open and intimate friendships coupled with a frequent desire for solitude, an accepting attitude towards others, treating people with dignity and non-exploitiveness, an ironic sense of humour towards the human condition (rather than towards individuals), the ability to differentiate between the real and the imagined, and an inclination towards mystical experiences[3]. In studying people he considered to be self-actualised he found that they were invariably concerned about some cause outside themselves. They were driven by what he called “meta-needs” such as truth, order, the welfare of others or some religious ideal.
There is much truth in this anaylsis of human development. It is true that no-one is going to be motivated by the higher needs unless the lower ones are being met. That is why it would be inappropriate to run university courses in computer technology for people who have trouble finding enough food for the day. And it is difficult to improve someone’s self esteem if they have no sense of belonging or of being loved. But prove to someone that they are loved and they will naturally become able to build their self-esteem.
We should also see implications here for the mission of the church. Sometimes our message addresses needs which are beyond the recipients’ motivations. We should not expect people to see any relevance in the Gospel if their more basic needs for food and a secure home are not met. We need to bring an integrated Gospel which treats people holistically (ie meets their needs at every level). The very nature of human development requires that evangelism and social action go hand in hand.
Further, there are plenty of us sitting in churches (even some who have been serious Christians for many years) who live somewhere in the middle layers of the pyramid and who desperately need uplifting. There are many who live without self esteem, without feeling loved and even without security. For these people, the need to gain wholeness is undeniable.
However, Maslow’s pyramid stops short. Gaining wholeness or self-actualisation is not the final goal. It is quite understandable that Maslow, working from humanistic pre-suppositions, should stop there, but we now need to turn to the Bible to see what lies beyond wholeness.
But what does the Bible say about our life’s goals?
Central to Jesus’ life was the knowledge that it would end at the cross. But though it was the end of his life, it is the beginning of ours. It is in relation to the cross that our lives gain their meaning and direction.
In the passage describing how Jesus washed the apostles feet, there is a revealing verse about his self-esteem: “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off is outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist” (John 13:3,4). Jesus knew exactly who he was and yet his position of superiority didn’t prevent him from being a servant. In fact the exact opposite is true – it was precisely because of his confidence in who he was that he was able to serve. His self-esteem provided a secure basis from which he could serve.
I am not concerned then about the question of whether self-esteem is a good thing. There remains, however, two important question to be asked –
- On what basis is self-esteem established?
- What effect should self-esteem have on one’s actions?
Probably the biggest difficulty Christians must have with a humanistic understanding of self-actualisation is that the inherent self-centredness contrasts sharply with New Testament teaching.
Jesus says not to worry about food or drink or clothes but that these things will be taken care of if you “seek first the kingdom” (Matthew 6:25-34). In three separate contexts (Matthew 10:39, John 12:25, and Matthew 16:25 with parallels in Mark 8:35 and Luke 9:24) Jesus is quoted to have taught that “whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”. Paul too writes about dying to self (Romans 6), not fulfilling self. [what does dying mean?]
In all these passages we are taught not to strive to have our needs met but to focus beyond ourselves. Then, as a consequence, we will find fulfilment. This is a far cry from Maslow’s analysis of human nature in which we must fulfil all our personal needs before we can reach a stage where we are capable of reaching outwards.
A repeated call in both the Old and New Testaments is to be holy. “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourself and be holy, because I am holy” says God in Leviticus 11:44, a sentiment which is repeated 4 times in Leviticus and quoted in 1 Peter 1:15-16. Paul agrees that we are called to be holy (1 Corinthians 1:2, Ephesians 1:4) and in Hebrews 12:14 the message is even stronger: “Without holiness no-one will see the Lord”.
Furthermore, the Romans 6 passage links holiness with dying to self. It is by becoming slaves to God that we become free. The benefit to us is holiness and holiness leads us to eternal life (Rom 6:22). Isn’t it strange that we think of holiness more as a heavy weight than as a benefit? But Paul believes that the choice to serve God is a choice to become who we were designed to be and hence that holiness maximises life. In becoming holy we become whole.
By a popular definition, to be holy is to be set apart for God’s purposes. Among other things, this means we are freed from other responsibilities so that we can be fully dedicated to God. We can live without anxiety in the knowledge that our master, who has commissioned us with a task, will not fail to provide the necessary resources for that task.
To be holy requires that we become like-minded with God…
It is in virtue of our relationship with God that we become whole…
The picture seems to be that wholeness is not a quality for which we should aim, but comes as a by-product of holiness…
That is, we are called not to fulfil ourselves, but to transcend ourselves in order to .. (serve others?, share in the very nature of God? worship God and enjoy him forever?) …
How could we express these Biblical insights within the framework of Maslow’s pyramid? …
It seems to me that what we want to say as Christians is that there is a step beyond self-actualisation. God calls us out of self-centredness into self-transcendence. This then should be an extra layer at the pinnacle of the pyramid of needs[4]. Once we have all our personal needs fulfilled, we must give them up and be driven by the need to serve.
What allows us to pass from self-actualisation to self-transcendence?
Change the focus of our security. Examine where security comes from in each stage of Masklow’s hierarchy.
What does it mean to find security in God? cf finding security in a husband.
– to yield ourself totally to God. But what does this mean?
– what does “yield” mean – cf being on the ground with a sword at the throat
“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot hold to gain what he cannot lose” – Martin Lloyd Jones?
Summary
The call then is not to strive for wholeness, but to forsake ourselves in order to serve God. Seek first the Kingdom …
I want to make a call to all psychologists, counsellors, pastors and preachers who emphasise wholeness to teach clearly that wholeness should not be a goal in itself but rather one of the consequences of holiness.
Bibliography
Maslow, A. “Self Actualisation and Beyond” (1965) in “Challenges of Humanistic Psychology”; ed. J.F.T. Bugental; pub. McGraw-Hill, 1967.
Hannes ???,J.A. “Humanistic Psychology: a Christian Interpretation”; ??? 1971.
Taylor, J.V. “The Go-Between God”; pub. SCM Press, 1972.
Adams, J.E. “The Biblical view of self-esteem, self-love, self-image”; pub. Harvest House, 1986.
Footnotes
[1] From what I’ve seen of his books and articles, he probably never drew such a pyramid in his life, but pedagogically the diagram has become a common summary of his views.
[2] Ref??
[3] Maslow’s use of the phrase “mystical experiences” compares closely with those moments which John V. Taylor calls Annunciations. Taylor writes “Nothing is more needed by humanity today, and by the church in particular, than the recovery of a sense of ‘beyond-ness’ in the whole of life to revive the springs of wonder and adoration.” [The Go-Between God, p45]
[4] As I have noted, the modern connotations of the term “self-actualisation” differ from Maslow’s intention. It is this modern understanding, focusing on self-centred gratification, which needs to be questioned in the light of the Gospel. While reading Maslow’s writings to research this article, I was pleasantly surprised by his acknowledgement that there are motivations and needs which are external to self interest. Even so, his humanist framework limits his vision somewhat.