The Father’s Love in Terms of Attachment Theory

Understanding The Father’s Love in Terms of Attachment Theory opens some important concepts to us.

Many of us have understood grace and the Father’s love, yet we struggle to walk in this daily. We so often get stuck in our fears, worries, frustrations, and irritations. But shining light on God’s heart can help us get moving again. Seeing The Father’s Love in Terms of Attachment Theory gives this light. Picture this:

“Daddy!” the little boy says as he runs, smiling, to hug his father returning from work. Both father and son feel joy and connection as they embrace. This “connecting” is attachment, which is simply the capacity for healthy emotional relationships.

The initial parent-child relationship develops our ability for attachment. The infant’s brain receives signals from the nurture of a loving mother – her holding, rocking, soft words, and smiles – and neural connections are made. In this way attachment grows. Attachment is the foundation of emotional health and maturity.

The Gospel
Adam’s fall was about independence and separation from God, the opposite of attachment. “I’ll get the knowledge of good and evil and then I can decide things on my own.” It would not be too much of a stretch to say that independence is at the root of all sin. Think of the younger and older brothers in the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. The younger self medicated, symbolizing, in a nut shell, the sins of the flesh. The older brother tried to strive, perform, and be good enough. There are the Pharisaical-type sins. In either case, both are in independence rather than loving relationship with God. Jealousy, gossip, competition, striving, addiction, most everything traces back to attachment pain.

Let’s Extrapolate
We have much more scientific understanding today of how the brain works in the area of relationship and what emotional health looks like. There can be many good neural connections for attachment or very few. If we combine this with the Biblical truth that we know, what do we get? A new light on the idea that God came to have relationship with us.

Attachment is at the crux of Christianity. God so loved that he gave. Jesus came to give us the ultimate gift of attachment, and then we are to give it away to the world. The more I connect daily with God’s love for me and walk that out in showing kindness to others, the more healthy I become and the more I express the heart of the Gospel. But the more I get stuck in negativity, gossip, speaking ill of others, and fears, the more I build wrong structures in the brain and will struggle with being emotionally unhealthy.