ABC or FHL?

I was running today and I began to think of 1 Corinthians 13:13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Suddenly I was also reminded me of the ABC's of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).

A = Affect (Emotions)
B = Behavior
C = Cognitions (Thoughts)

Perhaps the connection was a loose one but I thought about how there are similarities between the triads. Faith is rooted in belief so one could call it Cognition. Hope is related to emotions so I saw it as Affect. And love is an action so I thought of it as Behavior.

As I realized that my apparently brilliant connection was probably not as profound as I first hoped, I did realize that the two ways of thinking of life could illuminate one another. I believe that faith is a set of beliefs and therefore something that we have in our mind. But while "good" cognitions are often thought to be positive thoughts about yourself from a psychological perspective, the concept of faith reminds us that our belief is rooted in our relationship with God.

Now hope illustrates one principle that therapists are well aware of: you can't change mood directly. You can only change behavior or thoughts and that will in turn change mood. In the same way, hope is clearly emotion that is built upon a foundation of trust. But while psychology often focuses solely on positive emotions, hope illustrates that it is possible to suffer now with the expectation that our future will be bright. Hope does not demand a positive mood now.

Finally, I have always seen love as an active process. While there is an emotional component, love is primarily the act of sacrificing your wants for relationship with another person. But love, unlike behavior, must be done in a relationship. One indicator for depression is social isolation and thus the "behavior" is actually to put yourself into a love relationship. Thus the concept of love reminds us that the most valuable behaviors are those that place us in a relationship (i.e. going out with friends).

I believe that breaking down life into affect, behavior, and cognition is very useful. But it seems that we need a better model of living that actually points to how we should change. Faith, hope, and love are models of living that demonstrate our need for relationship with God, belief in redemption, and, most importantly, to find ourselves in a love relationship with others.