The missionary anthropologist, Paul Hiebert, defines worldview. Worldview is made up of the basic assumptions about reality. These assumptions lie behind the beliefs and behaviors of a culture. Assumptions are not arrived at by scientific method or research. These we believe to be true without proof, testing, or reason. We absorb these into our belief system from personal interactions with our environment and the prevailing views of those around us whom we use as reference groups to define reality. These assumptions become the bedrock of our understanding and identity.
The cultural and environmental mix that we are born into and raised in shapes our worldview. Most of us have been conditioned to believe certain things are always true. For example, when we see and hear a person act and speak, we assume that that is who they are. If they are in a male body, then the person acting and speaking is male. If they are in a female body, then the person acting and speaking is female. However, for those who are multiple personalities, this may or may not be true. These preceding statements will make no sense at all to most of us because our worldview precludes this from being true. However, it is absolutely true. It has been well documented and is now an established fact within the psychiatric community. To be sure, this was not an easy truth for the professional to accept. In the early Nineties, this author sat in state conventions and heard highly credentialed people speak error. They refused to believe that there were many personalities in some people. Their denials centered around two issues: there is only one personality, not many personalities, resident in an individual, and there are no “bodiless beings” in certain troubled human beings. The latter issue has still not been accepted as truth. To believe these truths would require a change of worldview. Therefore, many fight and resist the reality being presented on many fronts. They fight the change. That is the usual response when one’s worldview is challenged.
For those of us who are biblically-based evangelicals, multiplicity presents a different problem–is it biblical? Does it contradict our biblical beliefs? The answer to these questions is a resounding NO! To believe that there are many personalities in an individual does not deny individual responsibility for our life, attitudes, emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Nor does it deny that each will give account for every idle word. Every individual part of us is responsible to our Creator God.
What multiplicity does is force the believer to rethink the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in one’s life. That process we call sanctification. While regeneration happens in a moment of time, sanctification is a process that continues throughout our lifetime.
The personalities or alters are completely human. They are made up of spirit, mind, emotions, and will. Like everyone else, they are responsible for what they think, feel, and do. Each individual alter must call on the name of the Lord to be saved. If not, they will die and go to hell. Therefore, it is necessary for each individual personality to believe the gospel and be saved. Salvation for the whole and salvation for the alter, a part of the whole, is the identical process. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, all of them. As the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, our sin debt is completely paid in full. However, the Messiah’s work on the cross must be individually applied by grace through faith. My salvation does not cover my children and grandchildren. Each one must call upon the name of the Lord himself. What is true of my children and grandchildren is true of each individual alter.
Therefore, the process of salvation is the same for all: to the Jew first and also the non-Jew, to the person who does not split and to those individual personalities of the person who suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder.
