This paper examines human development through the lens of Christian theology, tracing both the ultimate and intermediate goals of development as defined by Scripture. It outlines the stages of life recognized in Christian tradition — from baptism through the age of reason, marriage, and the afterlife — and analyzes the four forces shaping development: heredity, environment, supernatural influence, and human will. The paper further integrates secular developmental frameworks, including Piaget's cognitive stages, Erikson's psychosocial model, Kohlberg's moral development stages, and Fowler's stages of religious faith, concluding with Ricoeur's model of symbolic faith reconstruction as a lens for understanding mature Christian commitment.
The paper demonstrates comparative theoretical analysis — presenting a theological model (Christian stage theory) alongside secular psychological models (Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, Fowler) and then using Ricoeur's hermeneutic framework to synthesize the two traditions. This technique allows the author to move from descriptive mapping of parallel systems to an explanatory argument about how individuals reconstruct religious meaning across developmental stages.
The paper opens with an exposition of Christian developmental goals (ultimate and intermediate), then addresses the temporal scope of development (body vs. soul), followed by a stage-by-stage taxonomy of Christian life milestones. It then examines the four causal forces in Christian development before shifting to epistemological considerations around conservative and liberal Biblical interpretation. The final sections layer in secular developmental psychology, culminating in Fowler's faith stages and Ricoeur's phases of symbolic engagement as an integrating conclusion.
The goals of human development in Christian theory can be divided into the ultimate and the intermediate. The ultimate goal is to achieve life everlasting in the company of God and Christ in Heaven (Sermabeikian, 1994). The intermediate goal is to do God's will in one's daily life on earth. The behaviors that represent God's will have been defined in the Old Testament of the Bible mainly in the form of specific commandments and proverbs, often illustrated with examples from people's lives. Most prominent among these are the Ten Commandments, which warn against such acts as killing, stealing, telling lies, committing adultery, coveting others' possessions, worshipping idols, misusing God's name, failing to respect one's parents, and improperly conducting religious rites (Exodus 20:4–26). God's will is reinterpreted by Christ in the New Testament in the form of more general principles of conduct, the chief of which are to love God and all mankind:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with thy entire mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is … thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Mark 12:30–31)
The principle of treating others with love is illustrated with examples in the accounts of Christ's life and with suggestions in subsequent books, most of which consist of letters sent by the apostle Paul to various groups of Christian adherents. According to Christian theory, human development can be judged satisfactory when the individual's behavior increasingly matches the behavior described in God's commandments. Or stated differently, because the term sin identifies all behaviors contrary to God's will, human development is progressing satisfactorily when a person increasingly avoids sin.
However, Christian theologians disagree on the question of the connection between (a) the intermediate goals of abiding by God's commandments and (b) the ultimate goal of the soul's ascending to Heaven after the death of the body (Nee, 1968). The question is: Will a person earn an afterlife of everlasting joy in Heaven by having faithfully followed God's commandments while on earth, or earn an afterlife of misery in Hell by having lived an earthly life of sin? Or is the soul's destiny after death dependent simply on God's inclination or grace, regardless of one's conduct during the years on earth? Can people who have lived sinful lives attain a Heavenly afterlife by, at the time of death, confessing their sins and accepting Christ as their savior? While some Christians would answer yes and others no to such queries, all Christians endorse the belief that humans are obligated to follow the Lord's commandments, and child-rearing and educational practices are directed toward such an end.
Defining the length of life and of development from a Christian perspective requires that the material being — the body — be considered separately from the non-material — the soul or spirit (Sermabeikian, 1994). For the body, the beginning of both life and development occurs with conception, with the joining of the sperm and egg, and the end comes with physical death as the heart stops beating. For the soul, life is far longer, although the length of development may be the same as for the body. The decision about when the life of the soul starts depends upon which theory of the soul's origin is adopted. Those who subscribe to either the pre-existence or traducian theory hold that the soul originates at the time of conception, when the sperm and ovum merge. Those who subscribe to the creationist theory believe the soul originates at whatever time between conception and birth God places it in the fetus. It is not clear in Christian doctrine whether the soul achieves any prenatal development, so the beginning of development of the soul appears indeterminate. However, it is clear that from birth until physical death the soul develops — that is, it changes with experience and knowledge.
One of the key tenets of Christian belief is that the life of the soul does not end with physical death but continues on through everlasting time. Hence, the life of the soul extends from the prenatal period into eternity. It is unclear, however, whether any development of the soul occurs after physical death (Nee, 1968). In the view of Jonathan Edwards, a seventeenth-century American Protestant theologian, "An unbodied spirit may be as capable of love and hatred, joy and sorrow, hope or fear, or other affections, as one that is united to a body" (Simonson, 1970), but the question of whether such an ostensibly sensate soul experiences any development while in its unbodied state following physical death is left unsettled.
For present purposes, a stage of development is considered to be a period of life marked by characteristics that differ from those of other periods. Passage from one stage to another is often indicated by a society's assigning responsibilities and rights not expected at an earlier stage, and is sometimes also signified by a formal ceremony. In view of this definition, there appear to be at least five stages of development in Christian theory: the prebaptismal stage, the post-baptismal childhood stage, the age of reason, the years of marriage, and the post-mortem period.
In most Christian denominations, the prebaptismal stage consists of the nine-month prenatal period as well as the early days or months of infancy until the baby is baptized. During the baptism ceremony, the child is officially assigned the name he or she will bear throughout life, and the ceremony signals that the parents dedicate the child to a Christian life. People who have not been baptized in infancy may be baptized at any later point in life. During the post-baptismal period of childhood, which typically extends from infancy until around puberty, children are expected to gradually learn how to be good Christians.
However, during this first decade of life, children are considered too immature to fully understand Christian doctrine or the consequences of their behavior, so they are not held responsible for moral decisions. Around the time of puberty, they are thought to reach the age of reason and thus become capable of comprehending more completely the significance of Christian commitment. They are now considered accountable for their moral decisions and behavior. This passing from the state of irresponsible childhood into the fellowship of responsible, mature Christians is signified by a formal ceremony conducted before the church congregation. The ceremony in the Catholic Church is the confirmation rite, and in most Protestant denominations it is the ritual of accepting the youth as a full church member with the right to partake of Holy Communion (Sermabeikian, 1994). During the period immediately preceding the ceremony, the youth usually engages in intensive study of key elements of church doctrine to help ensure that he or she enters the new stage of life with a truly enlightened Christian commitment.
Entrance to the next stage, which traditionally occurs in early adulthood, is signified by a marriage ceremony during which the bride and groom publicly pledge to respect, love, and protect each other, forsaking all other potential mates "until death do us part." An important facet of marriage is that of achieving parenthood.
The final stage of development begins with death. Whereas physical death means the end of the corporeal self, for the soul it signifies the onset of the life hereafter. Although there may be no change in the soul's condition during the afterlife, passage into the final stage is itself a developmental change. A person's entering this last stage is marked by a funeral ceremony in which the soul of the departed is entrusted to the care of the Lord. In certain versions of Christian theory, an additional stage — or perhaps sub-stage — during the period of adulthood is postulated: that of the born-again Christian, a condition achieved when an adult experiences a spiritual reawakening and a revival of Christian insight and commitment, with the spiritual rebirth often occurring during a religious ceremony.
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