Unity among division : dissociative identity disorder and the indwelling of the holy spirit

Abstract

Dissociative Identity Disorder is a mental disorder in which seemingly independent identities arise within the same body. It is a disorder that raises profound questions about our understandings of certain theological concepts and doctrines, especially if one can consider the different identities to be different persons. In this paper, I shall provide support for this claim by exploring the implications that Dissociative Identity Disorder can have for our understanding of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. After outlining two models of the indwelling that have been proposed in the contemporary analytic literature, I am going to explain the problem that Dissociative Identity Disorder seems to raise for these models. I will then consider various potential solutions and shall highlight which I find to be the most convincing.