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[INFJ] Profile of the Prophetic person = INFJ?

S

Sniffles

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Yes, the two can be separated.

I'll refer you back to my previous post on the matter. You're also more than free to also read Heschel's study The Prophets for yourself.


When your attitude towards your fellow man is contingent on your attitude towards God, Fi is more likely than Fe. When your attitude towards your fellow man is independent of your attitude towards God, Fe is more likely than Fi.

Care to explain this?

The major message of the prophet is God's message (assuming His existence), in which case the content of the message is more a reflection of God's personality rather than the prophet's.

"The prophet is not a mouthpiece, but a person; not an instrument, but a partner, an associate of God."
--Heschel pg. 30


Which doesn't change the fact that his motive in delivering the message was not concern for the people but rather concern for (or fear of) God. Likewise Moses didn't demand that Pharoah set the Israelites free out of concern for the Israelites. He did it because God told him to. There's no indication that Moses wouldn't have lived happily indifferent to the plight of the Israelites, tending his sheep, if God hadn't intervened.

It's quite impossible to serve God's purposes without involving your entire heart and soul into the task. In fact that's what God asks us to do when obeying his will.

Are you actually arguing this is not so?


The life of a prophet was pretty harsh. Some people (eg Moses) were deterred by public speaking. Others were deterred by fear of death. I don't think feeling burdened by the vocation is a valid way of splitting Fe/Fi.

You yourself said that a Fi person would be more comfortable with this than a Fe person.
 
S

Sniffles

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Yeah, advocating instead spiritual power. As determined by them. Hrmm. "Your kings are leading you astray! Listen to me instead!" No power there.

Yeah the prophet Samuel was one power-hungry bastard:

"And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles."
--1 Samuel 8:10-20
 
S

Sniffles

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I don't think anyone said that prophets were exclusively INFJ. The thread was meant to discuss if the INFJ description fit the description of a prophet that was provided (most likely as a "just for fun" thread).

The MBTI can predict jobs that you would be naturally suited for just by knowing your type. In fact, that was its original purpose. I don't think it is a far fetched idea to think that INFJs are naturally inclined.

I think the problem with this topic is that it can be mistaken as glorifying INFJs.


As I stated above:
With that in mind, Im not arguing INFJs are closer to God or whatnot. At best I'm saying there's validity to the common claim INFJs can relate more to the Prophet more than to other spiritual figures.

Just like Im sure other MBTI types can relate more to other spiritual figures.
 

JivinJeffJones

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I'll refer you back to my previous post on the matter. You're also more than free to also read Heschel's study The Prophets for yourself.

Maybe I will, one day. To be honest, your behaviour on this thread hasn't caused me to hold any of your recommendations in particularly high esteem. :huh:


Care to explain this?

Not particularly. I was fairly clear.

"The prophet is not a mouthpiece, but a person; not an instrument, but a partner, an associate of God."
--Heschel pg. 30

The prophet is a mouthpiece with a free will. In that sense he is a person. But he's also a mouthpiece. Aaron was Moses "prophet". His role? To speak Moses' message to Pharaoh because Moses was embarrassed by his stutter.

If that's representative of Heschel, he either doesn't know what he's talking about or his point has been taken out of context to support your argument.


It's quite impossible to serve God's purposes without involving your entire heart and soul into the task. In fact that's what God asks us to do when obeying his will.

Are you actually arguing this is not so?

Impossible? Is that a typo? Are you suggesting that God's purposes can only be served by someone whose entire heart and soul are involved in the task?

Are you actually arguing this is so? Because that's ridiculous.

Even if you meant "possible", you still missed my point completely.


You yourself said that a Fi person would be more comfortable with this than a Fe person.

I said more comfortable. Not comfortable. Or rather, I said they would have less trouble with it. Which isn't the same as saying they wouldn't have a problem with it.
 

Wyst

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Uhm, maybe it'd be a good time to define what 'prophet' and 'prophetic' mean. If people can't agree on the definition of "prophet" and "prophetic" then it's the same as trying to talk about quantum physics when you can't agree on 2+2=__.

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary there are a couple definitions of a prophet. Now. The biblical definition of a prophet is
one regarded by a group of followers as the final authoritative revealer of God's will.

The bible recognizes there were many kinds of people that could see the future. But not all were prophets. This was reserved for the those that revealed the divine word of the God that created the heavens and the earth. Also it's important to make the distinction that "telling what the future is" and "revealing God's divine will" are, biblically, two very different things.

Biblically, all prophecy ended with the book of Revelation. IF... And I hope you all realize that I'm qualifying all my statements here... IF you're using the biblical context of a prophet, then there are no more prophets. No more prophecies. God's revealed will has been locked up until Christ second coming.

Now. 'Prophetic' is defined in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as two things. The first one being:

of, or relating to prophets or prophecy.
(the definition of a religious term)
and:
foretelling events
(a definition in no way linked to religion or religious idea)

The first definition fine and everyone can agree on it, as long as you affirm that the prophets: 1) revealed the divine revelation of God, and 2) ended after the apostle John (author of Revelation). So biblically, any reference to prophecy in modern day terms must refer to mere future telling, and not a divine revealing of God's will.

If you don't believe in the 1st biblical definition of prophecy then you're limited to the secular definition - merely "foretelling events". Otherwise you start arguing over algebra with agreeing on simple math.

To examine this with secular glasses, rather than a biblical interpretation, yeah. It's going to look and sound really hokey. But then again, like I said: prophet and prophetic are two completely different terms, linguistically and biblically.

So try not to pigeon-hole the word 'prophetic' as a hokey, religious word. It is simply a word that means "foretelling events". Foretelling events does not necessarily mean that you KNOW the future. It can mean, however that you have impressions, intuition that turns out to be true (coincidentally). If one speaks prophetically they never know what they've dreamed/spoken is true until it happens - their knowledge of the future is never complete. If it were a complete knowledge of the future they'd be clairvoyant.

Ex.
The Prague Post uses the word prophetic in an article, yet in no way is it linked to a religious meaning and certainly not a divine revelation of God.


So, to sum up what I am trying to accomplish with this post: The title of this thread is "Profile of the Prophetic Person", not "Profile of the INFJ Prophets". As the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it (as well as what is biblically correct), you could rephrase it as "Profile of the Person Who Has Inklings/Impressions about the Future that, for whatever reason, turn out to be true".

'Prophetic' isn't necessarily linked to a religious concept or religion. It merely describes something that someone says/feels/dreams that turns out to be true, whether they believed it would be true or not at that moment.

It's all about context. Take a word out of context and you can make it mean just about anything you want to. That goes for the definition of a word as well since many words have more than one definition, which is all based on its context.
 

JivinJeffJones

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Yeah the prophet Samuel was one power-hungry bastard:

--1 Samuel 8:10-20[/i]

Yeah, and then Samuel picked the king. And when that king didn't wait for Samuel to make an offering for the army, Samuel sacked him (to his face) with impunity and picked a new king. And all the people looked to Samuel for guidance.

Again, no power there.

Indeed, Samuel first gave that negative description of what a king would do to them to attempt to dissuade them from wanting a king at all, preferring for them instead that God be their king (with Samuel as His mouthpiece).
 

SillySapienne

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With that in mind, Im not arguing INFJs are closer to God or whatnot. At best I'm saying there's validity to the common claim INFJs can relate more to the Prophet more than to other spiritual figures.
Agreed.
 
S

Sniffles

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If that's representative of Heschel, he either doesn't know what he's talking about or his point has been taken out of context to support your argument.

Well you're more than free to critique Heschel or my supposed misrepresentation of his work if you like, but that will involve actually reading his work.


Even if you meant "possible", you still missed my point completely.

Yeah well, it's rather hard to understand what your whole point here is anyways.

It seems you're arguing that prophets are just a bunch of power-hungry psychopaths called upon God to be his mere mouthpieces(which they don't really care about doing anyways - being indifferent misanthropes and all that); and that this is somehow associated more with Fi rather than Fe.
 
S

Sniffles

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Here's more on Heschel's study of the Prophetic vocation and personality:
http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/PROPHETS.pdf

It's worthwhile to read the whole thing, but I'll post some relevant excerpts:
Love & Compassion

Heschel balances the picture of the prophets as hard and intolerant with their characteristic “love and compassion for mankind,” repeating the point that the prophetic message always began with doom but ended with hope.

While the prophet sought to escape his calling, his experience was so intense as to be unavoidable. As Heschel puts it, “the prophetic sympathy was stronger than the will, the inner passion more powerful than the personal disposition.” Heschel concludes that Jeremiah “hated his prophetic mission. To a soul full of love, it was horrible to be a prophet of castigation and wrath.”

In spite of the pain and misery associated with the prophetic role that he hated, Heschel shows that Jeremiah understood why he couldn't escape his calling. There was in him deep feeling for both divine and human pathos, and thus he was pained by injustice and human suffering respectively. “He was a person overwhelmed by sympathy for God and sympathy for man.” Heschel states that Jeremiah's anger and indignation were easily seen by others as personal hostility: “He who loved his people, whose life was dedicated to saving his people, was regarded as an enemy. . . . Jeremiah was gentle and compassionate by nature, and the mission he had to carry out was, to him, distasteful in the extreme.”

According to Heschel: “The prophet is a lonely man. His standards are too high, his stature too great, and his concern too intense for other men to share. Living on the highest peak, he has no company except God.”

“The two staggering facts in the life of a prophet are: God's turning to him, and man's turning away from him. This is often his lot: to be chosen by God and to be rejected by the people. The word of God, so clear to him, is un-intelligible to them.”

Heschel's description of the prophets’ lives confirms the loneliness and misery of the classic organizer's role. For the most part they felt “cursed” by their fates. Heschel's characterization emphasizes bitterness born of scorn and reproach, alienation from all, “the wicked as well as the pious,” leading to lifelong loneliness.

Which again brings me to my main point that this sounds very much like something an INFJ could relate to. This is further confirmed by the responses to this thread by other INFJs.
 

JivinJeffJones

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It seems you're arguing that prophets are just a bunch of power-hungry psychopaths called upon God to be his mere mouthpieces(which they don't really care about doing anyways - being indifferent misanthropes and all that); and that this is somehow associated more with Fi rather than Fe.

Good grief, that was a tangent addressing CaptainChick's "hypothetical" situation (ie God not being real). One of the explanations I offered for a prophet given that premise was that of a deceitful person claiming to hear from God in order to accumulate power for himself. You asked me to clarify how a prophet could be said to be power-hungry, so I clarified.

Fuck it, I'm done with this thread. :dont:
 

tereza

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This sounds very much like something an INFJ could relate to. I know I can. Who else agrees with me?

I don't really relate too much to the idea of being a prophet. Having psychic powers, yes. Being a messenger of God, not so much.

I mean, I've always had grand thoughts of saving the world. Actually, when I was a kid, I had this fantasy of becoming mayor of NY city and cleaning it up. When I was a teenager, I was heavily involved in my church and wanted to 'save' my high school. But I never felt that God was telling me to do any of it or that it was my responsibility, I just felt that I could make things happen and it'd make people happy in general. But then I had a really short attention span when it came to my crusades, so nothing ever happened.
 

Maabus1999

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Jeffy, we love you, but I think I speak for most INTJs when I say we don't really want to be a part of this discussion.

And everyone knows that the people God talks to most are ISFPs.
I don't know if I'm an irregular INTJ but I'm fascinated by this conversation. I'm a very strong N and slightly weak T, but I have had moments since I was a child that I swear were a divination. Still, I haven't had any since I was much younger. Now I think I just intuitively know things and can see prophetic in discussions. Development change?
 

Tiltyred

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Peguy, you're making me so nervous disclosing these things that I can hardly think straight for fear of the slamming to come. (Not prophecy, just knowing the adamantine and condemnatory nature of the atheists aboard.)

I've often thought this comes down to spiritual gifts as outlined in Corinthians (which I don't think is meant to be a complete list, but just examples). We're each called to serve in certain ways. INFJ is given the gift of prophecy -- whether it is used in the service of God, of whether it takes the form of glimpses of the future having nothing to do with God -- the point is, we have a tendency to sometimes live outside of time.

As for grandiosity -- does anybody really think we LIKE to be weird? And for those of us who believe in God in any form, it's not an easy path.
 

iwakar

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(Not prophecy, just knowing the adamantine and condemnatory nature of the atheists aboard.)

:spits out drink:
:raises an eyebrow:

You do know this is an old thread though right?
 
S

Sniffles

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There's nothing wrong in bumping a good thread. ;)

Peguy, you're making me so nervous disclosing these things that I can hardly think straight for fear of the slamming to come. (Not prophecy, just knowing the adamantine and condemnatory nature of the atheists aboard.)

Well it's best to try not to be intimidated by them.
 

tcatchim

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I would say that the prophetic sensibility is still there, even if you do not factor God into the equation. So for instance, a sense fo the tragic and a notion that things are not the way they are supposed to be are characteristics of the social critic and the social activists. So I think when God is not a part of the equation, it shows up as social critic and social activist, things born out of a deeply held conviction that things are not the way they are supposed to be, and that we need to draw attention to it and point out the gap between what is and what should be.

I think a lot oartistic folk fall in to this category, but not all of course. think Bruce Hornsby "That's just the way it, but dont you believe it" song, to use an oldy but goody.
 

tcatchim

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If there were a God, surely he/she/it would not be like, "hmm, I created people and MBTI theory so I can exclusively talk to INFJs, so they in turn can talk to the "other" people for me".

Well, good point, but it is the role of a prophet to help other people develop their prophetic sensibilities. In other words, being a prophetic person means you naturally position yourself to be sensitive to God's values and vision for the world. Not everyone is conscious of this perspective, so the mature, genuine prophetic person helps other people see things from God's perspective and values, and challenges them to align their lives and values with God's.

The same way a really caring person can help an ISTJ be more compassionate and caring, and INFJ' prophetic person can help people connect with God and see things form his perspective, although that perspective will also be unique and limited seeing they do not see all of God all of the time, or hear form him all of the time. Most prophetic people hear form God on specific things related to their context or the community they are embedded in. So it is a contextual deal in my opinion.
 

tcatchim

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Yeah, advocating instead spiritual power. As determined by them. Hrmm. "Your kings are leading you astray! Listen to me instead!" No power there.

Well, not necessarily isolated. Most prophetic people are embedded in a tradition that has sacred texts. tHose texts, and the communties that they speak to and in, hold the prophet accountable to those texts and the traditions that surround them. So not really a power vacuum there. They speak and act in the context of community, text and tradition. They typically do not reveal entirely new things, but call the communtiy back to its original values and practicies, the ones revealed in the text and accepted by the community( theoretically).
 

Lark

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I sure would agree, I actually would say that the INFJ is also the spiritually engaged or religious type, I know that my strong Thinking tendency probably shuts me off from some experiences or reckonings, I also think that N combined with F is very different from NT too.

I'd like to have been a prophet.
 
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