Positive!
Over the years I’ve heard various complaints about the Enneagram system of personality and formation. Some feel it’s too “new-agey” (is that still a thing?) and are uncomfortable with its mystical origins. Some feel like the system is too confining, like you’re being forced into a box. Others feel that the system is too negative—that the types are descriptive of our brokenness more than our wholeness.
So for starters I want to say that any system of personality or formation is a limited system that can never fully map or describe the vast intricacies of the soul. It’s not possible…and that’s not its purpose. Its purpose is to shed light on the inner space, help us pay attention to the human-divine partnership, and offer a shared language for building a healthy, Godward community. And for me, the Enneagram does that better than any other system I know.
My quick response to the objections above is that the earliest seeds of the Enneagram were pre-Christian, that parts of the tool were certainly shaped by Christians (notably the desert monk Evagrius, and also that they system is supra-Christian in that it transcends institutional ownership. Second, that the Enneagram doesn’t put you in a box; it shows you the box you’re already in…and how to get out of it (as was said by wiser minds than mine). And the point I’d like to discuss today: that the Enneagram is first and foremost a matter of gift and grace, not brokenness.
Any system of personality that hopes to play well with a Christian perspective must begin with the imago dei. Women and men are created in the image of God. We bear God’s likeness and carry God’s “fingerprints,” as it were, in our very DNA. We sin and fall short of that glory, but our deepest identity is not as sinners, but as image-bearers. We are the recipients of original goodness and original blessing! Our truest selves reflect the glory of God and manifest the very Body of Christ in the world. The weight of that truth is staggering in its potential, and most of us struggle to full reconcile ourselves to the divine nature we carry…as Peter boldly proclaimed.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. ~ 2 Peter 1:3-4
The Enneagram then describes nine broad categories for how we carry our uniquely divine gift into the world, and my version of those “holy ideas” and “heart virtues” are these:
Type 1: Divine Order & Serenity
Type 2: Divine Compassion & Humility
Type 3: Divine Wisdom & Honesty
Type 4: Divine Uniqueness & Peace
Type 5: Divine Knowledge & Contentment
Type 6: Divine Trust & Courage
Type 7: Divine Vision & Joy
Type 8: Divine Truth & Purity
Type 9: Divine Love & Engagement
Do you resonate with that particular type-potential beating in your chest? Can you own that as your truest self—the divine gift you bring into the world? I hope so because the world needs Christ-in-you. Paul calls it the very “hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Yes, that gift gets skewed and silenced in our false selves, but don’t lose sight of who you really are. Your deepest identity is Christ. Or as the Italian monk Catherine of Genoa said it in the fifteenth century, “My deepest me is God.” Now that is some Good News indeed, and the Enneagram helps us live into that reality.