Theistic Relational Spirituality: Development, Dynamics, Health, and Transformation

Most of the world's population identify as religious or spiritual, and most religiously affiliated believers identify with one of the world's major monotheistic traditions: Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. Within each of these traditions, especially Christianity, one important aspect of ma...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology of religion and spirituality 2021-11, Vol.13 (4), p.401-415
Main Authors: Davis, Edward B., Granqvist, Pehr, Sharp, Carissa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
attachment
Christianity
Congruence
God
God Concepts
God representations
Health
Human
Islam
Judaism
Monotheism
Neurobiology
Neurosciences
Psychology
psykologi
Religion
Religious Affiliation
Social cognition
Social psychology
Spirituality
Traditions
Transformation
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Summary:Most of the world's population identify as religious or spiritual, and most religiously affiliated believers identify with one of the world's major monotheistic traditions: Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. Within each of these traditions, especially Christianity, one important aspect of many believers' religion/spirituality is how they view and relate with God. The purpose of this paper is to describe a model of theistic relational spirituality (i.e., the ways monotheistic believers view and relate with God) that integrates theory and research from the fields of psychology, attachment, social cognition, and interpersonal neurobiology. We argue that theistic relational spirituality comprises two main types of God representations: doctrinal (primarily explicit and affect-light) and experiential (primarily implicit and affect-laden) representations. From an attachment perspective, we discuss the development and dynamics (e.g., context-dependence) of these God representations. We propose that doctrinal-experiential congruence forms the basis of a healthy theistic relational spirituality, when it is contextually adaptive, consistent across time and situations, and aligned with the theistic believer's behaviors. We also delineate potentially adaptive transformation of less healthy forms of theistic relational spirituality. Lastly, we discuss ways in which this model of theistic relational spirituality might direct future research.
ISSN:1941-1022
1943-1562
1943-1562
DOI:10.1037/rel0000219