Integrative Perspectives on Human Flourishing: The Imago Dei and Positive Psychology (Report‪)‬

The field of psychology in general, and clinical psychology in particular, has historically focused on the things that go wrong in human behavior and functioning. Similarly, evangelical theology has traditionally highlighted the problem of sin and its wide-ranging consequences for human beings. Not surprisingly, this state of affairs has led to integrative efforts that concentrate on the darker side of human nature and tend to neglect what is admirable and noble in human nature. A case is made in this article that a more complete view is needed that celebrates humans' positive features as creatures who bear the image of God, while simultaneously recognizing the pervasiveness of sin and its effects. After reviewing the one-sidedness of past integrative efforts, we suggest several possibilities for relating the image of God to findings within positive psychology, before concluding with some cautions for this new endeavor. Jewish theology has long acknowledged two impulses at work in the human heart: the evil impulse (yetzer hara) and the good impulse (yetzer hatov). Many rabbis believe that the Torah was given for the express purpose of teaching people how to combat and overcome the desire for evil (Amsel, 1996). Some scholars have suggested that Paul had these two impulses in mind when he reflected on the intense internal struggles described in Romans 7 (Davies, 1980). Among Christian theologians, Reinhold Nicbuhr (1941) argued that a key distinguishing mark of the Christian view of human nature is its paradoxical claim for both "a higher stature for man" and "a more serious view of his evil" than other anthropological outlooks (p. 18). A.W. Tozer (2010) memorably quipped that "we are the glory and the rubbish of the universe" (p. 48). In short, the Judeo-Christian view of persons has long recognized that, as those who are made in the image of God yet also sinners, people are capable of great good and profound evil. It is fairly commonplace, however, to emphasize one dimension of the human condition to the neglect of the other.