The Problem with Personality Tests
I once spoke at a conference where I was asked to address several controversial topics, the kind that tend to get someone’s hackles up when they do not like what the Lord has said about this or that. Yet I drew the most ire, not from the exposition of hard truths in our soft times, but from an offhanded remark I made about my disdain for personality tests. The chorus of discontentment amounted to something along the lines of, “Don’t you realize that people are different? Why wouldn’t you want to know more about yourself and others?”
Well, I don’t object to that. After all, the Lord says to us, “Consider your ways” (Hag. 1:5). And Paul exhorted everyone “not to think of himself more highly than he ought, but to think with sober judgment” (Rom. 12:3). And again Paul says that love is “not arrogant or rude [inconsiderate],” and “it does not insist on its own way” (1 Cor. 13:5). There’s nothing wrong with any of this.
What I object to is the troubling way in which most people, including many Christians, seem to think that personality tests supply us with secret knowledge that is utterly vital for life in God’s world. And though Christians would never come right out and say so, the way that many speak about personality tests makes it seem like the poor apostles did the best they could, talking about sin and virtue as often as they did, but if only they had known about personality types! Then their epistles would have be different. Better even. More like the self-care blogs so popular today. If only…
It’s worth pointing out that personality tests did not exist until 1917. Before that time various theories attempted to explain human behavior, like imbalances of the four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) or astrology (which is sadly still with us today). Yet the biblical authors were aware of these theories, and their stubborn refusal to mention any of them is a good indicator that they understood what makes people tick a good deal better than those who walk in darkness.
To be clear, we have always known there are different kinds of people who are inclined (but not destined) to act in different ways for different reasons. Anyone with eyes can see that. But to explain the underlying factors that our contribute to our behavior is another matter altogether, and this is where the quasi-religious devotion to personality tests comes into view.
People want to know who they are. They want to know why they do what they do. “I do not understand my own actions,” Paul confessed (Rom. 7:15). But he had a different answer for his conflicted state than one than rhymes with Byers-Miggs or Enneascam. And we would do well to follow Paul’s lead on this (see Rom. 7:16–25).
Yet someone will say to me, “Couldn’t a personality test help us better understand our tendencies, such that we are equipped to live with better self-awareness?” I think they could, but they often don’t. Most people tend to over-identify with personality types as a source of determinative identity. “I’m a INTJ and a 5w6, and that explains why I am this way.”
I trust you can hear the deterministic fatalism in that way of talking. Instead of thinking in terms of penchants, proclivities, tendencies, common temptations, and the like, personality tests are often treated as an infallible revelation of something that is a settled matter. “This is just who I am, and people need to accept this about me.” That way madness lies. That kind of thinking means the death of sanctification and the hope for real change.
What’s more, people who think in that way about personalities are prone to make excuses for their own actions, while placing demands on others to be treated in a certain way. But the fact that you’re an introvert doesn’t give you the right to avoid talking with your wife and children, much less to ignore the commands to be welcoming (Rom. 15:7), hospitable (Rom. 12:13), and evangelistic (Matt. 28:18–20). It just means that such commands may be more difficult for you, but they are still for you.
The same goes for any other personality type. We all have personal tendencies or behavioral trends, but we also have the same pattern of life to which we must conform (Rom. 8:29): “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ,” Paul says (1 Cor. 11:1). For, “whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). In other words, “Put off your old [INFP, 4w5] self… and be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (Eph. 4:22–23).
“Yes and amen,” someone may say. “But can’t a personality test help me see all the places where I am prone to sin or fall short?” Yes, they can, and Christians who think about personality types in these ways are wise. But I question whether personality tests are the best tool for the job. What has any personality test ever revealed that a little sober reflection and long-term friendships have not made clear? That is to say, most personality tests only tell you what your spouse and your Christian friends already know. And there is something far better about learning who you are through your relationships than through a ten-minute test on the internet.
Besides all of this, most personality tests have dubious origins that raise deep concerns. The Myers-Briggs analysis was based on the theories of agnostic psychologist Carl Jung, who candidly admitted, “We psychotherapists must occupy ourselves with problems which, strictly speaking, belong to the theologian.” (This raises all sorts of important points about the compatibility of psychology and Christianity, but that’s another article for another day.) The Enneagram was developed in 1916 by man named G. I. Gurdjieff who believed it was a mystical way to understand all truth (which Jesus would have a thing or two to say about.) It did not become a personality test until the 1970s, when Claudio Naranjo engaged in the occultic practice of “automatic writing” by entering a trance-like state that permitted spirits to guide his hand as wrote about the Enneagram (1 John 4:1 anyone?).
Call me crazy, but I’m not sure an agnostic psychologist and an new age spiritualist on good terms with Screwtape are reliable guides for understanding humanity. We all would do better to seek the kind of self-understanding that only the Lord can provide (Ps. 139:23; cf. Jer. 17:9), the kind of insight possess by those who not only know themselves but also know what to do with their self-awareness. To get this kind of understanding, keep reading the Bible with one eye on the Lord and the other on yourself (Eph. 5:15). Keep going to church, where people who love you can speak the truth that builds you up (Eph. 4:15, 25). And keep making every effort to “walk by the Spirit” who renews and transforms, “so that you will not gratify the desires of your [ESFP, 7w6] flesh” (Gal. 5:16).