An essay I wrote for my soteriology class (the doctrine of salvation) last spring. With a little help from THIS article.
During my studies in the biblical counseling program here at Dallas Seminary I have learned much about how an individual’s personality and life experiences can shape their view of others and their relationship with them. Oftentimes, due to various events, they create false beliefs about themselves and their surroundings, leading them to build a faulty way of coping with anxiety-producing situations and relationships. They develop coping mechanisms, a term coined by Karen Horney, a German psychiatrist from the 1950s. Horney proposed a theory in regards to the manners in which people relate to one another. She gave three different types of coping mechanisms used in every kind of relationship: moving away, moving toward, and moving against. Every human being uses all three of these mechanisms at some point or another in their relationships, but it is when an individual relies heavily on one of these mechanisms in every one of their relationships that it becomes neurotic and unhealthy.
The individual who copes through the means of moving toward others has the neurotic need for affection and approval by all. They are constantly seeking for a “partner” who will take over their life and make decisions for them. They tend to restrict their life within narrow boundaries, never taking risks and always erring on the side of reason. This mechanism is called “moving towards” because the individual is always seeking to please the people in their life, whether it’s through compliments, doing favors despite the toll it takes on their own life, or never disagreeing with those closest to them because of their fear of adversity and abandonment. Their greatest fear is that they will be alone, but in this pursuit of constant agreement and pleasantry, they lose their individuality and uniqueness. They do not have a chance to figure out what they want and whatthey believe. In the end, they have many relationships, but with no depth due to their lack of individuality to offer to others.
The second mechanism, moving against, finds an individual with the neurotic need for power, control, omnipotence and/or perfection. Their goal is to exploit others in order to obtain social recognition or prestige. Their identity comes from personal admiration and achievements, even at the cost of others. They may achieve much and find great power and success, but they ruin their relationships in the process. They become angry at individuals when they feel threatened or hindered by someone else’s actions. The only opinion that matters is their own, and they see no need to waste time working together with someone else if it costs them the power they are so desperately seeking.
Moving away, the final coping mechanism proposed by Horney, finds an individual with the need for self-sufficiency and independence, believing that others can not be trusted and therefore are unreliable and can not be depended upon. In their quest for independence, they seek perfection and unassailability. Because others cannot be trusted, these individuals have no desire for relationships. They take great pride in their individuality and ability to sustain themselves. They may know much about themselves, but know nothing about others and therefore lack the benefits of living in community and accountability. They live a life that is almost hermit-like, tending to their own needs and not worrying about the needs of others.
It was during our study on Horney’s three coping mechanisms that I began to wonder how they might affect the way we relate to God. Do we try to please Him through good works and empty praise in order to manipulate Him into giving us what we think we need? Do we doubt Him and His plans for our life, trying to take control of our own life and make decisions based on selfish motives? Or do we push Him away when we feel like He doesn’t provide our greatest needs and desires or when we think He ignores our prayers? If we do in fact use these mechanisms in our relationship with God, how does this affect our belief, acceptance, and life lived in grace? Being a sinful people, the manner in which we view God’s grace is surely filled with falsities and selfishness. It is only when we take a step back and assess our mannerisms and idiosyncrasies that we can see how they might be inhibiting us from experiencing God’s unconditional grace in it’s fullness and entirety.
Moving Toward God
It seems like many in our world today, myself included, have this deep need and desire for perfection in our life. In our earthly relationships, this is displayed when we seek perfection with our spouse, our friends, or our family. We always agree, we never put up a fight, or we shower others with compliments in order to deceive, essentially, the other into believing that we are perfect and therefore worthy of a relationship with us. We do the same thing with God—we move toward Him by acting according to His laws and commandments, by going to church, and by praying and reading the Bible on a daily basis—but for all the wrong reasons. We believe that when we act so compliantly—doing what He desires for us to do—He will reward us and give us redemption and grace. The problem is found not in our actions (prayer, following, obeying), but in our motives and expectations—the belief that our works will get us into Heaven and earn us favor with God, or that He will give us earthly rewards.
While it is the most vital aspect of the Christian faith to find acceptance and approval in God, this action of compliance becomes neurotic when we follow God only to feel accepted or wanted. The Christian faith is a hope built on the knowledge that we are accepted no matter what. Grace has set us free from the need to daily offer up our sacrifices (though this will hopefully come later as areaction to His grace). We do these things out of the fear that, if we don’t do them, God will abandon us. Relying on His grace will free us from that fear.
A hindrance to our relationship with God and His grace may also be the fear of pain or discomfort. When we avoid these types of situations we may be stunting our spiritual growth out of the fear that pain will break our connection to God. The Christian who “moves toward” God is in an unchanging, stagnant faith—stuck in the motions that so many believers find themselves in. Just like the individual who has lost their identity in their quest to please others, a believer who practices the moving toward coping mechanism does not grow or mature in their faith because they have a skewed and false belief of God’s grace—they are unable to fully accept it because they do not understand it. In relation to this, the Christian who does face pain or hardships might suppress any anger or hostility toward God in fear that this will lead to abandonment. Underneath their compliant, submissive demeanor is an underlying need to manipulate God which, of course, is impossible.
Moving Against God
Much like a believer who moves toward God, an individual who moves against seeks to manipulate and control God, but through techniques that are more forceful. Their sin stems from a strong sense of pride and entitlement, and they view God through very hostile eyes, almost as an enemy who wants to see them fail or lose all of their prestige. There is no sense of trust, therefore how can any type of relationship be built when they are questioning every teaching and calling of God’s? They are unable to be molded into God’s image because they are too busy building their own.
The moving against individual has much difficulty giving up control over his environment, so it cannot be expected that they will allow God to control, or we should say “lead,” them in their spiritual, emotional, and even physical life. Their belief that they are all-knowing and unable to be taken down does not allow them to let guidance into their life, therefore they are lacking a deep, rich, unconditional relationship with God due to their own pride.
Moving Away From God
Whether it’s due to extreme tragedy, hypocrisy in the church, or a failed relationship, it is inevitable that believers will experience a situation that breaks them, causing their faith to be shifted, turned upside-down, and spun around, only to settle in a completely different place than where it began. Some may run to God in these moments in a pursuit of safety and comfort and a sense of understanding, but others might run in the opposite direction, believing that there can be no sense of comfort in a God who allows bad things to happen. They may ask where God was in the midst of their tragedy—why didn’t He save their loved one? Why does He let bad things happen? How can this God be trusted if He cannot save me from such horrible things? Asking these questions can be a normal part of the grieving process, but some may run the risk of allowing these doubts to turn into a complete rejection of God due to His seemingly inability to be depended upon.
Other individuals may have a fear of commitment to someone who knows them so deeply—they withdraw because they are afraid of how this God might ask them to change or where He might ask them to go. They fear advice because this is a sense of mastery over their lives. Their need for self-sufficiency is annulled when they begin to rely on God and His teachings, as it may require them to change their behavior in some way at the expense of their own freedom. They have no desire to please others, like the moving toward individual, so why would they want to enter into a relationship with Christ when it means forsaking their own daily disciplines for the “rules” of another? Grace means nothing to them because it requires dependence on God. The works they do are negated according to the atonement of sins when Christ died on the cross. They are unable to build a relationship with Christ because they cannot commit to Him or accept His grace.
Conclusion
A common theme I see in these coping mechanisms is the inhibition of growth and maturity in our faith in Christ when we adopt and employ them in our spiritual life. All three manners of relating to God seem to skew our vision of grace and what it means for the way we interact with God and others. When viewed through the lens of the moving toward, moving against, and moving away relationships, grace is not a good thing. For individuals who employ these mechanisms, grace completely wipes away the way we believe is fit to live—our devotions and worship of God, our achievements, and our ability to live independently mean nothing when God’s grace enters the picture—we use these coping mechanisms to relate to God, but they are faulty and mean nothing when compared to a life filled with grace. When we live our life relating to God in these faulty ways, we are only hurting ourselves by stunting our spiritual growth and committing spiritual suicide by not allowing God to enter into our lives and work grace into our relationships. Our desire for perfection can only be achieved through grace, and not through our own works. It is vital that we examine our earthly relationships, observing how we relate to others and how this affects our relationship with God and our acceptance of His grace and unconditional love.
