Human Development / Stage Theory Essay

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As for supernatural acts, the primary sources of these are God and Satan. Satan or the Devil constantly urges the individual to adopt sinful ways, to behave contrary to God's directives. To combat Satan's influence, God is always available as a guide and supporter for people in moments of indecision, of spiritual weakness, and of temptation. God's guidance and strength may be sought directly through prayer and through reading passages of Holy Scripture, or sought indirectly through consulting a priest or pastor. Not only do Christians believe God serves as adviser and spiritual supporter, but also that he can intervene to change either the individual or the environment so as to cause an event to turn out as the individual has hoped it would. This conviction that God at any moment can manipulate events to affect a particular outcome is suggested in many passages of the Bible.

A familiar example is Psalm 23, which reflects the faith that both the individual's behavior and the influence of environmental elements-such as one's enemies -- can be controlled by God on any occasion (Nee, 1968). The Lord is my shepherd .... He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He ... leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me ...

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. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.... A passage from the oft-repeated Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:11, 13) reflects this same belief in God's ability to fashion events that influence the individual's development: 'Give us this day our daily bread .... And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' The fourth force affecting development is human will or intention. In contrast to a belief in complete determinism, which holds that a person's development is entirely the result of hereditary and environmental factors that are beyond the control of the individual, Christian doctrine suggests that humans have a free will which permits them to make decisions about how to behave. Hence, people's conscious intentions and determination play an important part in deciding the direction their lives take. Expressing one common view of will within Christian doctrine, Strong (1907 p.509) has pro- posed that: Man is responsible for all effects of will, as well as for will itself; for voluntary affections, as well as for voluntary acts; for the intellectual views into which will has entered, as well as for the acts of will by which these views have been formed in the past or are maintained in the present (Derezotes, 1995). In summary, then, from conception until death, human development results from the interaction of forces of heredity, environment, God and Satan, and the individual's own.....

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