Inter-personal Relationships: A Biblical Perspective

love and exhibitionism of lust is seen throughout the history of human culture and civilization. The problem is sin at war in the individual’s members. The works of flesh listed Galatians  5:19-21 may be classified as (1) Sexual aberrations – adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness; (2) Spiritual aberrations – idolatry, sorcery; (3) Social aberrations – hatred, jealousies, outbursts of wrath; (4) Goal or Career aberrations – selfish ambitions,  dissensions, heresies, envy, murders (which is rivalry and obliteration of rivalry); and what may be called (5) Mental aberrations – drunkenness, revelries and the like. Modern psychologists use terms like “limerance”, “co-dependency”, and “relational aggression” to identify such disorders in inter-personal relationships.

The reduction of inter-personal relationships from “I-Thou” to “I-It” (cf. Martin Buber) marks the end of pure and personal relationship. The problem, however is severe when each of the members mutually treat each other as “It”, a means to use to obtain some desired “It” – money, sensual gratification, etc. The result is increased dissatisfaction and increased aberration; so that the final condition is not an “I-It” but an “It-It” situation. Idolatry is one example where God is stultified into an object of use, and the Bible says that they that invent such religion become like it (an “It-It” situation, Psalm 115:8). The feelings of religiosity may exist but the object of worship is impersonified. Similarly, in adultery and all other aberration, impersonalization and dehumanization are severe, despite the presence of the feelings of fidelity within the aberrations of relationships. Self-deception is acute. Social psychologists such as Philip Zimbardo of Stanford

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