This concept was generated from Daniel 2:30. Daniel has been given the significance of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and as he stands before the king to express the meaning, he makes a statement about his own motivations and about his own inability. He seeks to glorify the Lord in this point. He says, "As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind." Daniel is in a posture here of humility. He doesn’t think himself better than other men. But he does function on an entirely different basis. Now 2:30 converts into a graphic. The graphic really becomes a presentation of Daniel’s life.

Here’s how we’ll try to produce this graphic. We write the words "non-situational intelligence" above and then some distance below it, let’s draw a little stick figure which is representative of Daniel. Then draw arms reaching up from the little stick figure embracing the non-situational intelligence. Then draw two other arms coming off the non-situational intelligence down and around and embracing Daniel or taking in the little stick figure. So we have arms reaching up and arms reaching down in what I will refer to as the "double embrace." This is indicated here in 2:30 because Daniel admits that apart from his embracing of the non-situational intelligence, and the embrace that the non-situational intelligence makes of his mind, there was no possibility at all that this mystery could have been revealed to the king. In fact in 2:26, when Daniel has made an appointment to go back into the palace before the king to expose to him the greater significance of the dream, Nebuchadnezzar simply asks him, "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?" Sort of a no-nonsense type of question, no small talk involved. Daniel replies in 2:27-28, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about (it is impossible on any human level), but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries." In verse 30 he then says, "…this mystery has been revealed to me," not because I’m better than other men but because I have embraced him.

This also fits in with the prayer of praise that Daniel makes in Chapter 2:20-23 where he thanks the Lord profusely for having shared this wisdom with him. He tells the Lord how he sees him. "You, O Lord change time and seasons; you set up kings and depose them. You spread this wisdom around and you make things known." It is very clear that he has embraced the non-situational and it is also very clear to us that the non-situational intelligence (the Lord himself) has reached down and embraced Daniel. Therefore, we refer to this as the "double embrace." It is a graphic and the graphic is a presentation of the entirety of Daniel’s life.

Let’s think a little bit about the double embrace. It would be at least 5 things and perhaps more but at least this will allow us to discuss it in an intelligent way.

1. The double embrace would amount to a kind of signature. It is a signature of the pushed intelligence. It’s a signature because it will be a constant in all the responses that a pushed intelligence will make relative to the world of situations or the material content that surrounds the individual. In other words, all responses would bear this signature. In any given situation, the little stick figure (representing Daniel or you or me) would reach up to embrace the non-situational. We would desperately seek for that and then according to the grace of God he would embrace us. That double embrace produces something that will show up repeatedly in all of the responses that the pushed intelligence will take to the world of circumstances. It is also very recognizable as a signature. For instance, in Daniel 1:17, it says that these four young men had been given knowledge and wisdom from God in terms of their approach to literature and all kinds of learning. Their wisdom and knowledge were going to be a sort of signature that would follow them all of their days as they respond to things and it shows up very keenly in 1:20 so that when they were tested, they were found to be ten times better than all. In other words, this ten-times "betterness" is a kind of signature that is stamped on all the responses they make. Therefore it is a constant.

In Chapter 4:9, we have a statement that Nebuchadnezzar makes, "I said, ‘Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and no mystery is too difficult for you. Here is my dream; interpret it for me.’" They recognize that this man had a unique signature in the way in which he dealt with these kinds of things. In Chapter 5:11, the night that Belshazzar has this unfortunate party for 1000 of his nobles and his wives and his concubines in the palace and the hand appears writing on the wall, he is very disturbed, of course, and cannot explain this. But his wife comes in and says of Daniel, "There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods." In other words, there is a signature. It’s the signature of the double embrace. Therefore, that becomes a prerequisite.

2. It’s a non-situational foundation for all of the relations of a bicameral nature. Anything that is bicameral looks in two directions. We need a non-situational foundation in order to understand the unseen world. That is provided by the work of the Spirit of God by revelation. Of course, it is carried on through our adherence to these things through faith and our manipulation of symbols. It looks in the other direction as well toward the situational order of things. In order to understand that correctly as well, we need a non-situational foundation. The double embrace acts as that non-situational foundation allowing us to understand what we cannot see and as well as turn our attention to the things that we can see and allow us to understand them. But we have to have this foundation.
3. It is projection. It is a projection because it is this double embrace that would project us into the index position. There is no way that we can simply present ourselves by an act of the will in the index position. We are projected into that position standing between the two worlds—the invisible and the tangible, the non-situational and the situational, absolute abstractions and the concrete world—by this double embrace, by our willingness and God’s response to us. In Daniel 10:12, we have Gabriel responding to this man and he says, "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before you God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them." That’s another great picture of the double embrace. From the very beginning, it was always Daniel’s purpose in life to embrace the non-situational intelligence. He starts doing that in the very first chapter and he wishes to be embraced by the non-situational. So God responds, and he is projected into this unique relationship.
4. The double embrace would be a determinant. It determined Daniel’s relationship to himself and to all others. Now a lot of times we think that other things should determine our relationship to ourselves as psychological entities and to other human beings. Sometimes it’s anger; sometimes it’s the lust for power. Sometimes in the case between men and women, and unfortunately now through the distortions of human sexuality, sex is involved as determinants in the way people relate. Freedom and slavery are often seen as determinants. Money or eminence perhaps. But the real determinant that will determine the relationships that a man has between his own mind and his recognition of himself and others would be this double embrace. That will really determine how one relates to himself and to other personalities. He first of all embraces the non-situational and is embraced by the non-situational. That determines how he sees himself and how he responds to his own will and his own personal freedom. But it also determines how he is going to respond to all others. Of course, we see reminders of this all the way through the bible, in the Old and New Testaments.
5. It would amount to a synoptic embrace. Anything synoptic shows likeness or similitude and it’s something that everyone is supposed to experience. It’s synoptic in just that sense. It is a synoptic embrace. It would be that all should embrace the non-situational and be embraced by it. So unity in the eternal kingdom would depend to a large degree of the synopticity of this embrace among the believers. Our perceptions of the kingdom of God have always been what we can call splotchy. Because not everyone within the local congregations has embraced the non-situational and been embraced by it, but rather is operating on an entirely different basis. Looks religious and the religious expressions seem to suggest a walk with God. But in reality it may be something very different.

So at least these five things are involved in the double embrace. The double embrace creates a non-situational entity and a non-situational fact. This non-situational fact is unique. We shall call it the "plenary personality." Anything plenary is complete. That is the meaning of the word plenary. The plenary personality is composed of three parts. There is the part that is non-situational. There is the part that is situational or that is in the situation but not of the situation, which is a very large difference. There is the part of the human personality that is in the situation, surrounded by the concrete world, surrounded by certain situational dynamics but is not of the situation. There is the part of the personality that is shaped by God, pushed into us from outside the system. The third element is the human will that links the non-situational part to the part that is in the situation by its submission to the Lord’s presence and his will, which then converts the situation into a subsequency of the Lord'’ will. This link brings the two together.

This is a unique structure upon the face of the earth. It is also a determined personality. It is determined or structured or created by the nature of the union of the two parts and therefore a plenary personality is not a creature of history. We are not shaped simply because of our presence in what is considered to be the continuum of history. We are not shaped because we happen to be socialized into a particular culture. We are not shaped because we happen to grow up in New York City. We are not shaped because we happen to be a member of a certain racial group. We are not shaped because we grow up in any particular structure. We are not shaped because of any personal or collective history. A plenary personality is something that is created and that did not exist before. It is determined by God and so is not a creature of history. Christians are not creatures of history. The plenary personality that is representative of the Christian in the world today is not a creature of history. The plenary personality is not a creature of circumstance either. We often think that to change personality we need a requirement of a change in circumstance. However, it turns out that this is not the case at all.

We are not creatures of circumstance. There are large sociological studies that have been done and no doubt that are in progress now, being funded by all sorts of financial sources, purporting that in order to change somebody’s personality, we need to deal with sociological problems that shape personality to a large degree. We have kids going to jail far too young. We have young kids committing all sorts of criminal acts. We have all sorts of mayhem and dangerous actions taking place in our contemporary cultures. To think that we can change all that without changing personality is simply a myth. But it is foolish to think that in order to change a personality requires a change of circumstance.

We need determined personalities. That is to say we need to become personalities that have been determined by the pushed intelligence, by God’s own knowledge of us and will for us shaping in us our human personality. God responds to a human will that has accepted the approach of God, particularly in this way, by manifesting his presence in the part of our personality that’s in the situation. We are not creatures of history. We are plenary personalities created by God. A plenary personality is not a creature of circumstance or of socialization. Often we hear discussions about Northern Ireland or Palestine and we even see manifestations where kids grow up in some of these cultures hating each other. For instance, not too long ago it came to light that in the Palestinian school system that they’re teaching their children hatred toward the Israelis and no doubt some of the Israelis are teaching hatred toward the Palestinian kids. It was stated that these kids are going to grow up having certain attitudes and their personalities will be creatures of socialization. This is very different than a plenary personality that is a manifestation of the double embrace.

A plenary personality is certainly not merely an amalgamation. It’s much broader than that. It’s much more profound than that. It’s a transformation. We don’t just take the personality of God and the personality of man and just amalgamate the two. We don’t just cram the two together as if the two could somehow or other fit together. They won’t fit together. They are not amalgamated. But rather something entirely different comes to light that never existed before. In the book of Ephesians Chapter 2, Paul refers to this as a "new creation," something that did not exist before. Jew and Gentile are not just crammed together. It requires the death of the human personality and it involves the embrace of the non-situational so that something new can come forth. What we are calling that is the plenary personality. In Ephesians 2:14, Paul would say that the Lord "has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall" between the two. How did he do that? In 2:15, he tells us he is "creating in himself one new man out of the two." The two are not just crammed together. Man and woman who enter into matrimonial relationship cannot just expect to make a marriage work because they have been amalgamated, where two personalities are simply capacitated within a marital relationship. Nor is the relationship that exists between parents and children just one of amalgamation.

Personalities have to die and they have to be reborn. This is not an amalgamation, but rather it is a transformation. The plenary personality is not built on affinity. Nor is it built on the merits of inherency. It requires a death of the situational personality. What we are talking about here is something composed of these three parts: the part that’s non-situational, and the part that is in the situation, and the will that links them together by submission to the Lord. This creates a determined personality. This is far beyond the vagaries of a situational production. This is very different and so we are looking at the exigencies that would be involved in the creation of this very different thing.

The plenary personality would have to be the fruit of the double embrace. The double embrace producing this would allow man then to relate analogically to its external surroundings. This apparently becomes what we can identify as an observable cosmology. A cosmology is essentially a picture of the universe, where ideas are mapped on to material circumstances by an index linkage and so we have a picture of the universe. Everybody has a cosmology functioning in this mind. But now consider this a plenary personality would be a picture of the cosmos. It would be an observable cosmology because you have the part of the personality that’s non-situational that originated in the mind of God. You have the part of the personality that is manifested in the situation and you have the linkage between the two: a human will connected to the Holy spirit by faith in the revelation of God, and submission to these absolute abstractions to understand all material reality. That is an exact picture of the universe as God governs it.

Suppose we thought of personality as cosmology. Suppose this linkage of the eternal to the temporal becomes a precursor of the unity between Jew and Gentile, between man and woman, between parents and children because the temporal side is always subordinated to the eternal. It is a creation. It is a dependency. Personality could be thought of and should be thought of as a cosmology. Perhaps we should think of our appraisal of personality in terms of it being a cosmology. Suppose we apply that same thing to marriage. We think of marriage as a cosmology, which is more than just merely two elements joined together or brought together, based on situational propositions. Marriage as a cosmology would reflect the truth that the joining of the non-situational and the situational together requires the subordination of the situational and the embracing response of the non-situational in order to create one complete new entity that never existed before. The picture of marriage as cosmology is certainly borne out in Ephesians Chapter 5.

Suppose we thought of family as cosmology. Parents relating to children, children representing the situational side. We wouldn’t have the will of parents and the will of children simply crammed together trying to maneuver around one another in a power struggle of each other’s wills. We would have a subordination. We would have transformation rather than an amalgamation. We would have a determined family personality. We would have a determined family cosmology. This is not an amalgamation at all. We wouldn’t have two realities, but only one. One reality that is composed of three parts—the part we cannot see, which is always non-situational and eternal and invisible and absolutely abstract; the part that we can see, which is observable; and then there is the link between the two. One reality composed of three parts.

The antipode to this kind of a person we could categorize as the self-actualizing personality. Self-actualization is a process of understanding oneself and developing one’s capacities, and developing one’s talents. It seems that the concept of self-actualization has been around from the beginning. The plenary personality, a result of the double embrace, is very different than anything that resembles a self-actualizing persona. Suppose we were to describe two evaluations of human history. On one hand, suppose we thought of history as the history of self-actualization. If we were to appraise the continuum of human existence upon the earth, under the general rubric of it being a history of self-actualization, we would see the competition that has graced life and been such a profound dynamic. People would often think of a life as a sequence of choices and no more than that. People might come to the conclusion that answers are to be found in history. That is why we would study history in the first place. Or that answers are to be found in some kind of situational continuum and so we just need to find which continuum to isolate and then perhaps we can get a better hold on the life that we are living. In other words, it boils down to a development of the situational self. I would suggest that by and large many of us in the church have understood personality as a self-actualizing one. That’s why in our pursuit of what is called "therapy," we might be largely pursuing a posture in life that we could call "self-actualization," where we are able to compete, able to take over our own lives, able to make the right choices and able to depart from dysfunctionality and other such things.

On the other hand, suppose we were to think of human history as a history of the double embrace. We would look at the presence of man on the earth, trying to understand its history as the history of the double embrace. That would be very different. Because self-actualization would never appear because that is a part of human self-reference which would be expunged. Certainly the church is supposed to be where the history of the double embrace is located. Often that is not the case. It would also be the case that the individual life—my life, your life, the lives of other Christians—should be a manifestation of the history of the double embrace. My personal history should be the history of the double embrace from this point on. In fact, according to the ideas that we were discussing under our lessons about "punctuated logic" and the "new birth" indicate that one history comes to an end, perhaps the history of self-actualization, and a new history begins.

Our marriages should be thought of as a history of the double embrace. If we were to take a look at a marriage and ask, "What is the history of your marriage," it would probably be one of the two histories. One, a history of self-actualization with all of the struggles and competition between personalities for all kinds of choices, looking for answers in all the wrong places and the disappointment of the situational self. We often hear that terminology, especially coming since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, where a lot of women have felt deprived and where situational development just has not been offered. We often think of societies where women are suppressed in a particular culture under male dominance and that is often resented because the development of the situational self is held down. Well, these things have manifestations in the histories of individuals.

Kids should perhaps remember family life not just in terms of the great vacations that they had or even the fact that their parents were good to them and they had plenty of clothes, plenty of food, access to entertainment and the means for education. Parents bend over backwards to make sure that their children have access to self-actualization. But perhaps it would be much more of an improvement if kids would remember family life as a history of the double embrace, where they first learned it, where they first saw father and mother reaching up and embracing the non-situational and the non-situational reaching down and embracing them. That is a history to carry forward and to be forever emblazoned in the minds of children.

Faith is certainly, if it’s anything, a history of the double embrace.

In Hebrews Chapter 11, as we read about all the splendid personalities that are mentioned there, we can take each one of these and see embedded in them a history of the double embrace. In Hebrews 11:33, it mentions "those who have shut the mouths of lions." (A direct reference to Daniel 6:21-22). This is something that is replete in the exposition of the scripture about the nature of the Christian life. The personalities of the double embrace certainly do not think that they are better than others, but they do believe that the double embrace is better than self-actualization. Personalities of the double embrace do not think they are better than others, but they do believe that non-situational propositions are better than situational propositions.

Personalities of the double embrace do not think they are better than others; but they do believe that their God is better than the gods of iron, wood, bronze, gold, silver and stone, which are mentioned in the Daniel Chapter 5. We can add to that list the gods of sex, money, power, security and eminence elements of which the self-actualizing personality always seeks to gain, where personalities will fuse with these elements because that become the purpose of life. A self-actualizing personality will seek to fuse itself to the temporal side in just that way. Therefore, a question of idolatry becomes imminent. The situational personality will embrace the temporal elements. Idolatry comes out of the direct relationship of a personality to these things. That is demonstrated not only in the Old Testament but also in the New. Therefore, while a personality of the double embrace does not think it is better than other people, it does believe that the plenary personality is better than an idolatrous one.

A plenary personality certainly has a non-situational purpose in the universe. That purpose is to serve the Lord in the context of world situations. We refer again to our starting point—Daniel 2:30. Nebuchadnezzar has been told by Daniel that he has been given this wisdom and that he is exposing this wisdom to Nebuchadnezzar "so that you may know." That means that without plenary personality it is not possible to "know" or to serve God. This brings up an interesting discussion. If one is intent on serving God, then one has to surrender to the universal purpose of God and that becomes the universal purpose of this non-situational personality—to serve the Lord in the context of world situations. But how can one serve the Lord unless one has and is in possession of the plenary personality, where we have subordinated ourselves to that which is unseen and where we are shaped in the essence of God.

Suppose we discuss personality as a problem. When we discuss problematic personalities or troubled souls, the idea has almost always been completely monopolized by the psychological discourse. We will address ourselves to those who have addictions. We will refer to those who are gripped by the pain of depression. We might mention abusive personalities. Always the word dysfunctionality is to be echoed in these surroundings. Those of us who are laymen in terms of psychological studies just refer to them as "personal problems," or perhaps someone might have suffered a "moral breakdown" of sorts. Psychological tests have been given for those preferring to go into foreign missions because they are trying to detect "personality problems" that might not allow the cohesion of a mission team to take root or to be maintained.

I will take the position however that the truth about this is that we all have a "personality problem." That personality problem is precisely the lack of the double embrace and the lack of the double embrace is itself a personality problem. The lack of the plenary personality living and abiding—something that has been created by God that could not have been created in any other way outside the double embrace--is itself a personality problem. We carry this personality problem into our marriages and into our relationships in general with people outside of the family and even those within the family. But, of course, this is never admitted to. We do not admit that we all have personality problems to begin with. This is the primary personality problem because we have allowed the psychological industry among us to simply abduct the term and to wield it as they will in a clinical fashion. It would seem to come to light that this is a major personality problem. Without the addressing of this personality problem things are not going to change and it cannot be changed uniquely through avenues such as medication or therapy or other such situational approaches. It comes through the recognition of the need for the double embrace and the formulation that comes from the double embrace which we call this determined or plenary personality made up of the non-situational, the part that is in the situation, plus the human will that links the two together. If this were admitted to be a problem then perhaps we might be able to think more clearly and it might be an advance on the way that we have perceived personality to function in the first place.

Certainly when we are thinking of the whole concept of the new birth as a punctuation, we would perhaps concede that it is the history of self-actualization that is punctuated that is brought to an end. As part of the new birth, an entirely new history begins to emerge and that is the history of the double embrace. The history of the double embrace is what is born. The plenary personality is what is born. It begins at the new birth. Pushed intelligence therefore is not rooted in any person. Nor is it rooted in any collectivity of persons. It is not rooted in the human continuum. It is not rooted in any type of situational propositions no matter the source of such situational propositions. Pushed intelligence is rooted in the double embrace. This is admitted to by Daniel. For he is the one who affirms in Chapter 2:30 that pushed intelligence is not rooted in merit. He says, "I have not been given this wisdom and intelligence because I have greater wisdom than other men." Therefore it is not rooted in merit. It is rooted in the double embrace. If the double embrace is not crystallized, if it is not formed, if it is not acted upon, then we are still seeking for something that is rooted in some human collectivity or human continuum. Of course, the search to this is going to be proven to be quite vain and quite empty. It is a waste of time. The scripture is replete with warnings about that sort of thing.

Now we live in what we might refer to as the mental culture of comparisons and contrasts. When we opened our study under the general categorization that we ought not to think ourselves better than others, we are talking about a problem of pride. Pride is always rooted in actions of comparison and actions of contrast. Psychological testing is based on an algebraic center, which turns out to be the mean behavior in a society. We identify what the mean behavior is and we assign it numerical values and we try to determine how far or how close to the mean behavior someone’s actions may be. The reason this is done is to watch for extremes. On the one hand, there is great lassitude, laziness, disinterest and lack of interest in functioning. To the other extreme there is the frenetic, over-activity, dangerous aggression, unpredictability and the like. Norms in behavior are quite comparative. They are associated with other such comparative studies such as comparative anthropology.

From comparative anthropology grows a concept that has been long embraced in the churches of Christ and long embraced in those interested in missions, where we have referred to the "indigenous church." The concept of the indigenous church is not built on a biblical concept, but is built on the mental culture of comparisons and contrast. I am of the opinion that this won’t do. Validity is a word of extreme importance to us. Things that have validity. How does one determine the valid from the invalid? If validity is rooted in comparisons and contrasts, then we have a serious problem.

I suggest that we pay attention to Romans 2:1 as an allied passage to the concept under discussion. In this passage Paul, writing about the Jews, says, "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." In other words, their idea was that validity is rooted in comparisons and in contrasts. They might have said, "Thank God we are not Gentiles. We are contrasting ourselves to this benighted segment of humanity. Because we are Jews, comparing and contrasting ourselves to them, we have concluded that we are better." Paul, of course, in Romans 2 is disabusing them of that illusion. Further on in this same chapter, verses 17 through 21, he will discuss with them the way in which they have evaluated the validity of persons. He says, "Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?"

We will continue our discussion in Part II of this study.