The Problem of the Gnomic Will: A Proposed Model for Spiritual and Psychological Development

This paper will briefly describe and relate the gnomic will to a model for assisting persons in spiritual guidance and psychotherapy/counseling. With its many conflicted manifestations, both spiritual fathers and similarly oriented psychotherapists encounter these challenges. Spiritual fathers prioritize aligning the human will with the divine will. Introduced will be four types of presentation styles based on levels of Openness and Introspection, and their apparent opposites: Closed and Unreflective. In this preliminary and theoretical consideration, various interactions between them are defined, and the implications for each will be briefly illustrated. Suggestions for the future of such an approach are discussed.