After this course, it is no longer possible to treat the temperaments as descriptions of behavior. Temperament is an original structure of personality, an initial form of the embodied human being, and it takes part at once in the constitution of the person, in their mission in the world and in their spiritual path. That is why Axis Ratio reads it in three dimensions, which I call ontological, deontological and paradeontological. They are not artificial divisions laid over temperament, but the very movement of the human personality: what the person is called to become in themselves, what they are called to offer others and what they are called to accomplish before God.
The ontological dimension
In the first dimension, temperament concerns the building of the personal being. It is not the finished being, but the initial disposition from which that being is built up over a lifetime: the starting point of the personality, not its finishing. It provides the living matter, the direction, the energy of its own and the axis of the person, and from there, through experience, habits, choices, falls, purifications and perseverance, someone's concrete being is gradually built.
The human being is not born finished. They are born with a structure that has to be developed, formed, worked, corrected and finished, and that is why the ontology of temperament is not a snapshot of the origin, but the reading of a trajectory. Each temperament is a particular way in which the person has to form themselves. The choleric has to make their strength truly human; the sanguine, to make their warmth a solid reality; the phlegmatic, to turn their stability into living consistency; the melancholic, to make their inner weight a full form of truth. This building ends only with life, because the personality is being built until death, and temperament is the principle of the work the person is meant to become.
The deontological dimension
Man, however, does not exist only to complete himself; he also exists for an end and for a place in the world. The deontological dimension concerns the "what for" of each structure, that is, what the person was called to be for others, for society and for history. Here temperament appears as a form of vocation. No one receives their temperament for themselves alone, but in order to serve, and the kind of energy, presence and action it brings points to a concrete way of contributing to the common good. The question of this dimension is why this person received this temperament, what service their structure can render and in what way they are useful to others and to the community.
The choleric was not made only to build their own strength, but to defend, to open the way, to face real evils, to lead and to carry difficult burdens. The sanguine was not made to radiate warmth for their own benefit, but to humanize, to bring people together and to make life circulate. The phlegmatic was not made only to preserve their own peace, but to sustain, stabilize, pacify and give continuity to what must last. The melancholic was not made to sink deeper into themselves, but to do justice to reality, to give density to truth and to guard the seriousness of things. The deontology of temperament is, therefore, its horizontal mission, and the question moves from "who am I?" to "what was I made for?"
The paradeontological dimension
Above the building of the self and the mission in the world stands the third dimension, the paradeontological, in which the line becomes vertical. It concerns the path of holiness, union with God and the supernatural perfection of the person, and it is here that temperament has to be raised beyond human fulfillment and social usefulness to become matter for sanctification. As a created structure, temperament is a capacity for virtue; after the fall, it is also a capacity for vice. That is why, in this dimension, the person needs a more radical work than building a personality or fulfilling a mission: they need to overcome the vices proper to their structure and bring their virtues to perfection. The questions of paradeontology are these:
- how can this structure be sanctified?
- which vices does it need to overcome?
- which virtues does it need to purify?
- in what way can this energy be fully ordered to God?
- how can temperament, which was only a natural potency, become a transparency of grace?
The question here is no longer only psychological or only moral; it is spiritual in the full sense. The choleric needs to be not only strong but holy in their strength; the sanguine, holy in their love; the phlegmatic, holy in their peace; the melancholic, holy in their gravity. This demands a real combat against the vices characteristic of each structure, because holiness does not go around temperament but through it: it does not ignore it, dissolve it or swap it for another, but takes it up, purifies it, reorders it and raises it. The vices proper to each must be overcome, and not merely controlled; natural capacities must be formed into virtue, and virtues must be raised, and not merely moderated, until each one's strength, warmth, peace or gravity stops serving the self and becomes a path of union with God.
Work, mission and holiness
If ontology shows what the person is building in themselves, and deontology shows what they were given to the world for, paradeontology shows where all of this must rise to. In the ontological dimension, temperament is the structure of the developing personality, the matter with which each person builds their own being until death. In the deontological, it is the orientation of the personal mission, the particular service the person renders to others. In the paradeontological, it is the vertical path of sanctification, the place where one's own vices are overcome and one's own virtues are brought to perfection.
This threefold reading prevents the most common errors. It prevents reducing temperament to a psychological description, because it shows that temperament takes part in the building of the self. It prevents reducing it to a functional moralism, because it shows that it is also a concrete mission for others. And it prevents reducing it to a horizontal mechanism, because it shows that the ultimate end of the human structure lies not in the self or in society, but in God. With this, personality stops being seen as a set of traits and comes to be seen as a work that must be built, put to service and sanctified. Temperament is the living matter of the person, personality is their being under construction, mission is their way of bearing fruit and holiness is their finishing.
That is why understanding your own temperament is much more than knowing how you react, how you suffer or how you love. It is understanding who you are becoming, what you were given to others for and to what height this structure must be raised. Seen this way, temperament stops being a label and becomes a call: a call to build the self, to serve in the world and to rise to God, who is the one who gave it and who hopes to receive it back, not erased, but ordered.
References
- Eysenck, H. J. The biological basis of personality. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1967.
- Gray, J. A.; McNaughton, N. The neuropsychology of anxiety: an enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Kagan, J.; Reznick, J. S.; Snidman, N. Biological bases of childhood shyness. Science, vol. 240, no. 4849, pp. 167–171, 1988.