Great Reformers And Personality Tests

I have a bunch of writing projects with deadlines at the moment, so I ended up missing the date for my blog post for Reformation Day. I had planned to go lighter this year since I put a lot of effort into “Reformation Month” last year. So when I heard the conversation I quote below it got me thinking that it would be a good starting point for a “and now for something completely different” Reformation Day post.

It has become a bit of a parlor game in my household at the moment to take enneagram tests and analyze each other using those. I am not a big fan of them but a couple of other family members are. And it is worth mentioning that all this was triggered by our pastor trying to use this with our church session. But that is a post for another day.

Now, if you are not familiar with the enneagram, it is a system for classifying your personality categorizing root motivations based on nine different types and relationships between the types includes how people can act in a variety of dynamic situations. In its use in spiritual formation it is intended for guiding personal growth and transformation. (For more info you can investigate some of the sites I link to in this post.) [The paragraph above was updated based on input from an experienced source.]

One family member mentioned a comment made on the podcast Typology that he correctly thought would interest me. While a typical episode of this podcast drives me crazy, it was an interesting historical remark that was made. In Episode 15 the guest, Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest and one of the U.S. authorities on the enneagram, comments on Martin Luther (starting at the 18:52 mark):

“I’m never sure if Martin Luther, since we’re about to celebrate him, if he was a One or an Eight. What do you think?  Have you ever analyzed Luther?”

The host, Ian Cron, replies (slightly cleaned-up):

“I think arguably an Eight given what I would call his guilt-free delight in the world – the beer drinking, the excess, the sin boldly. You know, that kind of energy.”

Fr. Rohr then continues:

“Ya, and that’s what undid him. You know, I did a conference right before I turned 70 with the Lutherans in Switzerland and the title of the conference was “Was Luther a Mystic?” And the consensus among these Lutheran theologians was – I wouldn’t have dared said it – they said he started as one. He clearly had some early Christ experiences. But then in the second half of his life, his anger so controlled him that he became a dualistic thinker himself. That was their analysis. It’s unfortunate. And of course, we Catholics have to take the blame for that because we painted him into a corner where he had to defend himself. And you paint an Eight into a corner and they come out with claws bared.

My guess would be Luther was probably an Eight.”

He then goes on to more briefly comment on John Calvin:

“Calvin maybe more a One.”

So what is the consensus out there for Luther and Calvin? Based on a web search Luther is more likely to be classified a One than an Eight with The Change Works, Enneagram Central, Saturate, Enneagram Explorations, and Typology Central favoring that type. And interestingly John Calvin frequently appears on most of those same lists of Ones.

So what are the characteristics of a One? Well, one of the things about the enneagram is that from the way it was introduced and has evolved there is no one central authority for the descriptions, although there is pretty much a consensus. People seem to like the Enneagram Institute, so here is a snippet of their description of a Type One. Type One is, appropriately, the Reformer (in their classification – different sources use different labels). They are “The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic.”

Ones are conscientious and ethical, with a strong sense of right and wrong. They are teachers, crusaders, and advocates for change: always striving to improve things, but afraid of making a mistake. Well-organized, orderly, and fastidious, they try to maintain high standards, but can slip into being critical and perfectionistic. They typically have problems with resentment and impatience. At their Best: wise, discerning, realistic, and noble. Can be morally heroic.

For comparison, a Type Eight is the Challenger. They are “The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational.”

Eights are self-confident, strong, and assertive. Protective, resourceful, straight-talking, and decisive, but can also be ego-centric and domineering. Eights feel they must control their environment, especially people, sometimes becoming confrontational and intimidating. Eights typically have problems with their tempers and with allowing themselves to be vulnerable. At their Best: self- mastering, they use their strength to improve others’ lives, becoming heroic, magnanimous, and inspiring.

Making a choice is left as an exercise for the reader. If it helps, the Enneagram Institute has a page on distinguishing Ones and Eights. As they say in there “Ones try to convert those who resist them: Eights try to power through them.”

So what about that other great personality metric, the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator. For Luther, he regularly appears on lists of famous people who were INTJ, including one from Personality Club, and another from IDR Labs.

The consensus opinion on John Calvin was that he was also an INTJ, with a Christianity Today article, and an essay on Calvin by Timothy George that put him as that type. And in looking at this, I found an interesting article on how the Meyers-Briggs basic outlook varies with how John Calvin would frame the question in his Institutes.

So in fact, the purpose of the personality assessments is to know ourselves better. And this question is part of the first chapter of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion that addresses “The Knowledge of God and of Ourselves Mutually Connected.” So the final word today goes to Calvin and the last line from that chapter…

But though the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are bound together by a mutual tie, due arrangement requires that we treat of the former in the first place, and then descend to the latter.

2 thoughts on “Great Reformers And Personality Tests

  1. Loren Golden

    I seriously doubt that Luther and Calvin would have appreciated this kind of attention.  Personality Type tests, such as the Enneagram and Meyers-Briggs, are intended as man-made analytical tools focused on the SELF, not on God, and usually made without referent to Him.  Conversely, the Reformers’ labor was to glorify God, to draw our attention to Him and His Kingdom and away from our intense preoccupation with ourselves; to help us humble ourselves and submit to His rule and authority, instead of seeking to make much of ourselves and forging identities for ourselves, in categories of our own making, independently of Him and His revelation.

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