Attachment and Spiritual Maturity 4
heart and mind for the life of spiritual growth. In the tradition of Plato, Willard (1988)
saw that" there is an art of living, and the living is excellent only when the self is prepared
in all the depth and dimensions of its being" (p. 4).
There are also several cognitive approaches to spiritual maturity beginning with
James Fowler's theory of faith development. Fowler was one of the first scholars to
suggest that spirituality can be seen as a cognitive developmental process. Therefore he
developed six stages of faith (Fowler, 1981). They described faith as a human focusing on
developing cognitive abilities that may occur through predictable stages. While Fowler's
work focuses on the process of faith moving toward maturity, adults are found in all of
the stages from the first stage of intuitive-projective faith to the sixth stage of
universalizing faith. His holistic view integrates one's relationship with God with one's
service to others providing a framework for faith development. This framework became
the springboard for further cognitive understanding of spiritual maturity.
This cognitive emphasis became evident as the training of the mind to think
became a formal way to train future Christian leaders to become spiritually mature. God's
Word is seen as central to learning and growing. To love God with all your mind is to be
on the road to spiritual maturity. The mind is seen not only as tough and analytic, but
also generous and caring (Moreland, 1997). Cognitive spirituality is driven by knowing
the truth, followed by believing and living the truth, because it will set you free
(John 8:32). It is suggested that a proper understanding of the bible is primary to a
person's spiritual experience.
Another cognitive way to spiritual maturity is to understand or explain an
individual's sin and find a way to overcome it (Hettinga, 1996). Hettinga gives several
examples of how this is taught. If sin is seen as alienation from God, then salvation is seen
as receiving love which will transform a person as they walk with God in love. Or if
blindness is the sin, one needs light so one can walk in the light. If one is captive or in
bondage to sin, one needs grace to walk in victory. A leader may choose in his teaching to
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