Purposeful Stages

Purposeful Stages

Stages of development seem to be a reoccurring theme in the study of psychology. Freud started it all with his Psychosexual stages, and many psychologists seem to follow in step by fitting their theories into the structure of stages; Piaget's stages of cognitive development, Kohlberg's stages of moral development, Allport's development of the proprium and seemingly the most enduring is Erikson's Psychosocial stages of development. I don't bring up these stage theories in order to prove one more accurate or valuable than another. I believe most of them demonstrate obviously common tendencies in behavior and environment of the human growth experience. I raise these theories with interest because the idea of stages of development seems intentional. But intended by whom?

Many people who believe in God seem to discard the ideas offered by evolutionary theory because they feel that they conflict with their belief system. Those who believe in aspects of evolutionary theory, as it seems to touch many disciplines in different ways, are often assumed to be atheists or agnostics. I do not believe that belief in God and belief in some of the ideas of evolutionary theory must be mutually exclusive and there are some people who agree.

The Pope's Message on Evolution

In October of 1996, Pope John Paul II issued a message to the Pontifical Academy of Science reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church's long-standing position on evolution: that it does not necessarily conflict with Christianity.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html

It seems, to me at least, that God, or Intelligent Design if one prefers, has worked psycho-sexual-cognitive-moral-social (what-have-you) stages of development into those things that influence us both internally and externally as human beings as we progress through our lifetime.

Erikson exemplifies this best for me in adding to his psychosocial stages what he calls basic strengths. These strengths one may develop, or not, during these different stages can be thought of as coping skills for life, or if you will, survival skills.

Someone I will call a different kind of a stage theorist, John Eldredge, has written a book entitled "The Way of the Wild Heart