The purpose of this research is to examine object relations theory as it relates to a Christian view of sin, grace, and the life of faith. The plan of the research will be to set forth a working definition and description of object relations psychological theory and then to discuss ways in which it has found analogues and resonance in the nexus of spiritual and psychological experience in the theology of Paul Tillich, a major twentieth-century Christian theologian.
Object relations theory is a branch of psychology that focuses on anxiety disorders associated with unsatisfactory ways that individuals may cope with the world, owing to their level of cognitive development. How individuals perceive their place in the world and their ability to deal with the wash of experience, as well as their status vis-a-vis other individuals, is of special concern to object-relations theory. Cashdan (1988, p. 3) says that object relations "may be internal or external, fantasied or real, but they essentially center around interactions with other human beings." Object-relations theory, which has psychoanalytic, psychotherapeutic, and behaviorist attributes, is, as far as Cashdan is concerned, "a reaction against the Freudian motivational concept of instinctual drives" (p. 23), in favor of an understanding of complex relationships that govern human experience and behavior, particularly early childhood relationships. The focus is not Freudian because the emphasis is not merely on the internal processes of the individual but on the individual as a social but nevertheless subjective being, i.e., on the relationships that the subjective self has with the whole range of what could be called otherness that, nevertheless, impinges on the subjective view of the deficiencies in an individual's psychological configuration relative to the objective world (Cashdan, 1988, pp. 27-8).
As the individual develops, the constancy of relationship is interrupted by what ...