The Manhattan Declaration

Posted on December 7, 2009

[Eric Johnson is our guest blogger for December. Eric is the Director of the Society for Christian Psychology and professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This is his first post].

In this week’s blog I want to call attention to an outstanding document that was recently released called the Manhattan Declaration (http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/). It is a very well-crafted statement on issues of contemporary cultural importance to those committed to historic Christianity, and it is signed by an impressive cross-section of evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox leaders. As such, it provides inspiration to us in the Society for Christian Psychology to pursue some of our aims. Let’s briefly consider the three main themes of the declaration.
Life
The Declaration begins with a section affirming human life and actions that support the sanctity and care of all human life, including unborn or abused children, racial minorities, victims of war, and the disabled and elderly. Psychologists and counselors might add to this list those with mental illness, particularly those who are homeless. The authors also criticize governmental policies that advance a culture of death, by increasing the number of abortions or deaths by euthanasia or promoting the destruction of embryos. Christian psychologists can support these goals by working with disadvantaged people and in pro-life clinics and doing research on such topics as war trauma, child abuse, abortion effects, and minority experience.
Marriage
Marriage is defined as a union of one man and one woman, and it is argued that marriage is an objective reality that ought not to be redefined according to personal preferences. The statement insightfully addresses the role of the body in human life. Humans are not mere centers of subjectivity, it is suggested, but embodied beings, and bodies constitute an important part of human reality. Consequently, the one-flesh union of man and woman seals, completes, and actualizes the covenantal union of human marriage. There cannot therefore be “a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage.” The value and dignity of those disposed to same-sex attraction is made clear, and the Declaration rightly acknowledges the church’s sins of judgmentalism as well as complicity in the weakening of marriage through sexual immortality and increased rates of illegitimate divorce among Christians.
Religious Liberty
The authors of the Declaration decry the contemporary promotion of intolerance under the guise of tolerance, and express concern that religious freedom is being increasingly threatened as Christian organizations and individuals are being forced either to violate their own convictions regarding issues of life and marriage in their vocations or ministries or to vacate the public square.

The Declaration concludes with a statement of support for governmental authorities, but also an acknowledgment that Christians must be prepared to obey God rather than comply with injustice.

There are other issues of importance in our day that were not addressed by this Declaration. However, these are among the most momentous. The Society similarly brings together Christians of different faith traditions, but in order to promote distinctly Christian psychological theory, research, and practice. Psychology in our day is a cultural institution and set of practices, as well as a body of literature, shaped by the dominant worldviews of its participants. Mainstream psychology today is a leader in the cultural revolution that the Manhattan Declaration is seeking to address and resist (e.g., see the APA’s resolution this past summer critical of sexual orientation change efforts; http://www.apa.org/releases/therapeutic.html). As a result, the Declaration serves the Society well as a model of the kind of reasoned, principled, and gracious discourse we too need to engage in regarding relevant psychological matters in the public square. There is already tremendous cultural pressure on Christians in psychology and counseling in America to conform to the dominant values in the field. (Someone has quipped that Christians in the field have been heading into the closet, while others have been coming out.) We cannot be silent about these matters, or we may soon find Christian academics, therapists, and counselors being forbidden to express their convictions which are unpopular or risk exclusion from public university faculties, grant awards, public mental health facilities, and licensure. Those in psychology and counseling who are committed to historic Christianity have a voice, and they must use it wisely, but courageously, for they too should have the right to be participants in the field of psychology, regardless of their worldview beliefs and minority status. The Society is committed to such participation.

I added my name to the over 250,000 people who have signed the Manhattan Declaration.

Levels of Engagement in Christian Psychology: Theology and Psychology – 2

Posted on November 15, 2009

[by Peter Hampson, Head of Department of Psychology, University of the West of England, Bristol. Professor Hampson is our blogger for the month of November, and this is his third post]

In what ways might philosophy and philosophical theology inform and assist Christian Psychology?  Last time, I briefly mentioned my debt to Alasdair MacIntyre’s intellectual journey. MacIntyre’s work has helped me understand that rational discourse between intellectual traditions is possible in a way that allows escape from the limitations of both a ‘one-size-fits-all’ modernist rationality, and an equally unsatisfactory to my mind, postmodern, narrative relativism.

A second major influence on my thinking has been discussions of the faith-reason relationship.  To some extent, such discussions have been at the heart of Christianity’s self understanding for last the last two thousand years, but certainly since the church fathers, and are part of our more general thinking about the relationship between Christianity and culture.  More recently, however, the debate has been developed by the late Pope John Paul II in his thoughtful and influential encyclical, Fides et Ratio (FR), where the dual dynamic of faith-seeking-understanding and understanding seeking completion and perfection through faith is sensitively explored. FR charts a careful course between a restricted view of reason as closed from belief or ‘ratiocinative’ on the one hand, and faith understood as divorced from reason (or fideism) on the other.  Interested readers might like to follow the link to read more:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

A further related powerful influence has been the Radical Orthodoxy project associated with Cambridge and Nottingham based theologians, John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Graham Ward, Simon Oliver and others.  RO is a complex theological movement, emerging from a High Anglican context.  In tune with postmodernity, at its heart lies the recovery of theological concepts that have been obscured and distorted over the years especially since the Enlightenment.  To this extent it bears some resemblance with the nouvelle theologie movement which helped inform the second Vatican Council. One such concept is the patristic (neo-Platonic) understanding of ‘participation’.  In contrast to the idea that God is yet another entity, albeit a super one, or a ‘being amongst other beings’, and asserting the radical dependence of creation on God, participation invites us to think of our life ‘in God’ as the one in whom ‘we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28) and completely and utterly depend. Developing this idea is beyond the scope of a brief blog, but suffice it to say that it sits well with a rejection of a ‘pure autonomous nature’ open to explanation through reductive ‘naturalism’, and implies that ultimately all our (fallen) human understanding can only be part of the divine understanding but that now, of course, we ‘see through a glass darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13:12).

If, ex hypothesi, reason, is not closed (as the secular, positivist scientism of a Richard Dawkins might suggest), and nature, while radically different from God is not radically distant from and in that sense separate from the Trinitarian God, as to be completely autonomous and solely explicable in secular terms, what is the relevance of this sort of understanding for the CP project?  In a nutshell, I suggest that it allows space for a secular understanding of the world, with which dialogue is possible, while at the same time clearly showing the limits of such secular understanding.  More particularly it implies that psychology as a scientific discipline will always be ‘incomplete’ if it lacks a broader philosophical and theological perspective.  Even psychology’s best accounts will be necessary but not sufficient, while its weakest will frequently be found to be conceptually distorted and impoverished.

As for faith, well, however else we construe it, the Christian tradition has been clear that faith is at least theological virtue, or what Thomas calls a ‘habitus‘, and I will explore the latter concept next time.

Levels of Engagement in Christian Psychology: Psychology and Theology (1)

Posted on November 8, 2009

[by Peter Hampson, Head of Department of Psychology, University of the West of England, Bristol. Professor Hampson is our blogger for the month of November, and this is his second post]

 In my last posting I began to suggest that there are two levels of engagement within the CP project.  At the strategic level, the Christian narrative positions psychology hermeneutically, by providing an overarching, meaningful, God-given and Christ-centered framework; within this, at the tactical level, there is space for useful truth-seeking, dialectical engagement between theology, philosophy and psychology. Both levels of engagement are presumably guided by the Spirit.  In line with this, in different though potentially related ways, thinkers seemingly as distinct as St Thomas Aquinas and Friedrich Schleiermacher see the truths of Christianity, (as captured in, say, ‘sacra doctrina’ or dogmatic and historical theology), as being in creative and positive interaction with philosophy and human knowledge (‘scientia‘ or ‘philosophical theology’).  This suggests that there should be room within the CP project as a whole for both the direct application of Christianity to theory and practice, and for more detailed conceptual engagement of psychology with other disciplines, especially theology, to allow us to train properly the next generation of therapists, counselors and practitioners, and to assure that their education is both faith based and intellectually sound.  We should be seeking to produce, I suggest, theologically and philosophically reflective, Christian psychologist practitioners. 

 I wonder, too, do such broad differences in levels of approach reflect in part differences between evangelical and apologetic strategies in Christian mission, with the direct, faith-based application of Christianity evincing the former, and the more dialectical theological engagement the latter? Interestingly, when addressing non-Christians in the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas artificially separates philosophical understanding of God from Christian truths in a way that he does not in the Summa Theologiae.  For apologetic purposes, Thomas sometimes found it convenient to use the language of reason separated from faith to communicate successfully with unbelievers.  There may be times when we need to do this and to indicate to our secular psychology colleagues simply and directly where we see psychology as limited within its own framework, at other times we may need to assert and apply the truths of Christianity more robustly, at yet other times we may need to engage in debates by deploying a more nuanced understanding of reason’s relation to faith.

 Is it also the case that the practicalities and real time choices of counseling and psychotherapy, and their meaning seeking and meaning making activities make more insistent the need for the CP architectonic, whereas the requirement to seek truth in the long term characterizes the theology-psychology project?  Do CP and theology-psychology approaches reflect different hidden background assumptions about the relative importance of theology? Finally, I suspect there is work to be done in teasing out how these approaches are positioned relative to long standing Christ and culture debates.

 I’ll leave these questions hanging for now, and begin to articulate how I see the relation between theology and psychology, the ‘tactical level’, being played out.

 Much of my thinking has been profoundly affected by the work of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre particularly as developed from After Virtue (AV), through Whose Justice Which Rationality (WJWR), to Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (TRV).  As is well known, MacIntyre has not only helped re-establish the importance of virtue ethics but has shown how rationality is tradition dependent (AV), but that this need not trap us in postmodern relativism since ‘translatability’ or dialogue between ‘rival’ traditions is possible (WJWR).  A given tradition can in principle establish its superiority over another at points where one tradition experiences ‘epistemic crises’, which the challenging tradition can not only diagnose but also ‘solve’ to the afflicted traditions satisfaction, i.e. in its own terms (TRV).  It is this threefold understanding that allows me to claim, with my colleague Gavin D’Costa, that I am postmodern in outlook in accepting that rationality is tradition dependent, modern in accepting that rational dialogue between different rationalities is possible, and premodern in accepting the ultimate truth of the Christian tradition, and the power and validity of a broadly catholic, Thomist understanding of the relation between faith and reason.  This may sound like having one’s cake and eating it, but I suggest it is a useful way to avoid becoming trapped into either context free or totally context bound rationalities while also holding fast to what we know to be true, rooted as it is in Christ, who is Truth incarnate.

 I will develop this further in my next posting.

References

MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 2000, first ed., 1981).

 MacIntyre, Alasdair, Whose Justice, Which Rationality (London: Duckworth, 1988).

 MacIntyre, Alasdair, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia,

Genealogy and Tradition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,

1992).

Experiencing the Supernatural: A Problem of Will

Posted on August 16, 2009

(Paul C. Vitz is Professor of Psychology/Senior Scholar at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and Professor of Psychology Emeritus at New York University. He is our guest blogger for the month of August, and this is his third post).

Taken from Things on Heaven and Earth, Exploring the Supernatural (Brewster: Paraclete, 1998), 81-92).

I would like to address the skeptic, the atheist, or the agnostic (and the doubter in all of us) who rejects both God and spiritual reality. Doubting the transcendent may seem to solve many intellectual dilemmas because it teaches us to rely on what we can know empirically-the data most easily transformed into technical solutions. Certainly the advent of the twentieth century brought with it tremendous hope that age-old problems of the human condition could best be addressed in this way.

            I am convinced, however, that the rejection of God and the transcendent which figured so large at the start of modernity must be dealt with if we are to overcome our current dilemmas from bioethical, to environmental, to social-political. The Western intellectual community has shown serious bias it seems to me, in failing to bring these issues into the open. They ought to be part of the public debate. Many people are waking up to the possible linkage between spiritual questions and such prob-lems as family collapse, crime, environmental degradation, and “predator youth.” The collapse of ideologies such as Marxism, Freudianism, behaviorism, and the like is causing us to reassess many questions once thought disposed of, specifically the exis-tence of God and humankind’s ability to apprehend God. Therefore, the time, I believe, is ripe to make God and the spir-itual life an active part of the contemporary intellectual agenda.

            There need to be good reasons to do so, of course. Let’s investigate a promising argument.

            An important initial point is that throughout human history and its varied cultures three great external types of reality commonly have been assumed to exist. These are the external physical world, the world of other minds, and the transcendent spiritual world, for example, of God or the gods. An interesting feature that these three presumed realities share is that we cannot prove the existence of any of them (1). Indeed, in 1967 the eminent philosopher Alvin Plantinga published God and Other Minds, in which he proved that the degree of rational uncertainty about the existence of other minds and about the existence of God is exactly the same. (This proof assumes what is called “classical foundationalism”-namely, that an argument or proof for God’s existence is required, and that an acceptable argument is one derived from an original set of self-evident axioms.) Plantinga shows that the rational grounds for accepting the existence of God and other minds has the same structure and involves the same assumptions-assumptions that he then demonstrates are often question-begging. There need to be good reasons to do so, of course.  Let’s investigate a promising argument.

            An important initial point is that throughout human history and its varied cultures three great external types of reality commonly have been assumed to exist.  These are the external physical world, the world of other minds, and the transcendent spiritual world, for example, of God or the gods.  An interesting feature that these three presumed realities share is that we cannot prove the existence of any of them.[1] Indeed, in 1967 the eminent philosopher Alvin Plantinga published God and Other Minds, in which he proved that the degree of rational uncertainty about the existence of other minds and about the existence of God is exactly the same.  (This proof assumes what is called “classical foundationalism”-namely, that an argument or proof for God’s existence is required, and that an acceptable argument is one derived from an original set of self-evident axioms.)  Plantiga shows that the rational grounds for accepting the existence of God and other minds has the same structure and involves the same assumptions-assumptions that he then demonstrates are often question-begging.  For example, we never directly experience other people’s minds, and our assumption that they exist is based on an analogy with our own mental life.

            Plantinga’s proof itself is sophisticated and cannot be summarized easily, but its general structure is not hard to grasp.  Plantinga first systematically shows that neither natural theology nor natural “atheology” offers a satisfying solution to the problem of a rational justification of belief in God’s existence or of God’s nonexistence.  He then tries another approach to the justifications of belief in God by exploring its analogies and connections with a similar problem, the “problem of other minds”; that is, how do you rationally justify the existence of other people’s minds?  Plantinga goes on to “defend the analogical argument for other minds against current criticism and argues that it is as good and answer as we have to the question of other minds.  But…it turns out that the analogical argument finally succumbs to a malady exactly resembling the one afflicting the teleological argument [for God's existence].” (2)

            The malady is that the analogical argument-derived from our own mental life-proves too much. That is, the argument can prove not only that other minds exist and feel pain, but also that the mind can feel all pains, and so on. Since we do not feel all pains, or remember all past experiences, the argument must be wrong. Likewise the same argument for God’s existence proves too much. Plantinga concludes that “belief in other minds and belief in God are in the same epistemological boat; hence if either is rational, so is the other. But obviously the former is rational; so, therefore, is the latter.” (3) His formal proof for this conclusion has stood without a successful challenge for some thirty years.

            In his more recent work, Plantinga shows that, just as we can-not prove the existence of other minds, it is also impossible to prove the existence of external physical reality or even to prove the existence of the past. Again, he shows that the failure in each proof is identical to the failure of the teleological argument for God’s existence. One obvious implication of Plantinga’s work is that if scientists tend to accept the existence of physical reality and of other minds, but to reject that of God, then this is done on nonrational grounds. Before we turn to some of the nonrational reasons behind the rejection of the spiritual realm, it will be useful to discuss how it is that the existence of the external world is commonly accepted. First, the problem of proving the existence of external reality arises once one accepts the fact that our knowledge of external reality is always mediated by the nervous system: All we are directly aware of is our own states of mind. We must-we can only-infer an external reality existing behind and acting as a cause of our sensations, perception, and so on. But the validity of this inference is what cannot be proved. We may accept Plantinga’s reasoning in this matter or we may be convinced on other grounds that proving the existence of the physical world is not possible. There are, of course, many skeptics on this issue in Western philosophy; for example, the writings of David Hume, Bishop Berkeley, and Thomas Reid certainly support Plantinga’s conclusion on this issue.

            Nevertheless, almost no one has ever doubted physical reality to the point of trying seriously to live by such a position. Someone who lived on the basis of such doubt should not bother to eat food and would surely walk into walls, fall into ditches, and make other such blunders. A few idealist philosophers seem to be the intellectual representatives of a position that does deny or comes close to denying the physical world, but they do it only in their lectures and writings, not in their daily lives.

            The overwhelming majority of scientists, not to mention ordinary citizens of the world, have always accepted the existence of an external physical reality. Scientific theories are, after all, about something outside of us. The grounds for this acceptance seem to be that we are so made that sensory and perceptual experience carries with it the completely convincing notion that we are experiencing external reality. Put somewhat differently: Our normal interaction with what appears to be physical reality naturally creates a firm conviction of its existence. Of course, in some rare instances one’s perception of external reality may be faulty. There are such things as illusions and hallucinations. But even these errors are observed, noted, and corrected by more refined and systematic perceptual contact with the same presumed external world. Hence, to believe that the whole realm of physical reality does not exist, or that most, or even much, of our perceptual experience is without an external source, is rightly considered bizarre. Except for certain kinds of philosophers, such as the above-mentioned idealists, who are given a kind of philosopher’s license, at least briefly, to suspend common sense, anyone who fails to believe in the external world is judged as suffering from a mental pathology.

            Likewise, our belief in the existence of other minds comes from interaction with other people. Sensory contact with a per-son, plus interaction involving language and symbolic communication, appears adequate to persuade us of the existence of other minds.

            It is important to note that a crucial issue with respect to initiating and maintaining contact with external physical reality or with other minds is whether the person has the will or desire to initiate the interaction with the presumed reality. For example, suppose you find a man who is on an artificial respirator in a darkened room and who believes there is no external reality. After some investigation you discover that he has not walked or used his eyes or ears for some time. You desire to cure him of this intellectual ailment-one obviously supported by his markedly reduced physical and perceptual activity. A reasonable strategy would be to get him to open his eyes and unstop his ears, and to. talk with him often. In time you, his guide, would encourage him to strengthen his muscles and begin to walk so that he could come out of his room and enter the outside world. Therapy for his pathological intellectual position is thus to immerse him in direct interaction with the reality that he denies. In this case, there is every reason to believe that such a program would convince him of the reality of the physical world. But such a procedure depends upon his willingness to cooperate with you in interacting with the outside world. As for logical proof, that would remain, as always, impossible.

            Now let us suppose we find someone who denies that other minds exist and lives as though other minds do not exist. (Such a position, of course, seems to be quite rare, so rare that I have never heard of its existence.) However, let us also suppose we have found such a person and that our subject’s condition is strongly supported by his social isolation. He lives alone and has for years; he never speaks to anyone, and he appears to have withdrawn completely from interpersonal communication. As a result, his lack of belief in other minds is not that surprising. He remembers interacting with people when he was young, but these experiences he attributes to a childish and immature understanding of things at the time. Again, this man’s condition is fundamentally pathological, and correction would involve the introduction of interpersonal communication into his life. In time he would discover friends and enemies; perhaps he would even love or hate. Later, after years of friendship, if he were to be reminded by an old friend of his former belief that other minds do not exist, his only answer might be to look at his friend and laugh. In short, interaction with other minds is necessary in order to accept their existence; apparently in all known cases this interaction is sufficient.

            Let me suggest that the situation with respect to belief in the transcendent spiritual realm is similar. First, note that most of the people who consistently deny the existence not only of God but indeed of the entire spiritual realm constitute a relatively small group that seems to have come into existence in Western Europe about 250 years ago. Most of them have been trained in science or other rationalistic and intellectual disciplines. They tend to work in universities or certain professions that are highly specialized and often involve peculiar environments. They tend to socialize mostly with those having similar skeptical outlooks. What they mean by “real thinking” is the mental manipulation of abstract written symbols, often numbers, or other very digital elements. To such people a proper belief system or world view is something constructed by the correct sequencing of these symbols with occasional checks on whether some kind of observation backs it up. That is, their world view is something that exists in a digital code, and they seem to assume that digital codes are adequate for representing any kind of question, problem, or knowledge. The very notion of a belief system based on perceptual information coded in the body and often unavailable to conscious verbal expression, or on a world view based significantly on direct personal experience, does not occur to them.

            Also striking is the fact that these people never or almost never go to church or synagogue or read religious writings. But most peculiar of all is that they appear never to pray, to meditate, or to engage in other spiritual exercises. That is, they rarely, if ever, use the well-known procedures for getting and staying in contact with the transcendent spiritual realm.

          Again, the answer to this pathology is not some logical attempt to prove the existence of God or of spiritual reality. As in the cases of the physical world and other minds, this is impossible anyway. The answer is to try and convince such a person to pray: that is, to talk with God, to listen for God’s voice, or to engage in other spiritual activities. If such a person refuses to interact with the transcendent and is determined to remain in spiritual isolation, there is little one can do. This requirement that one engage in prayer and meditation is a serious one. For example, if someone doubted some astronomical or physical claim-such as the existence of moons around Jupiter or the reality of a whole level of physical existence (e.g., of subatomic particles)-an honest search for an answer would require a number of steps. First, the person, if ignorant of astronomy or physics, would need a guide–a trained scientist-and would have to become at least something of an amateur scientist. It would take considerable time and commitment from the seeker. After all, observations are often ambiguous; in any case, observations do not reliably interpret themselves. Even more important, a person who denied the very existence of the external world would be unqualified to judge the validity of physical knowledge; likewise, a person who did not believe in the existence of other minds could not be an adequate psychologist. (4)

            In almost all religious and spiritual traditions a knowledgeable person–a guide, if you will–is needed. And prayer and meditation are the primary instruments, the “telescopes,” for contacting or interacting with spiritual reality. No scientist who refuses to seek religious experience has the intellectual right to say that spiritual reality does not exist or that the mind cannot be affected by that reality. A person who has had no religious experience is simply unqualified to comment on the existence, much less the nature, of spiritual phenomena. Please note, I am not saying that the person must have a particular interpretation or understanding of his religious or spiritual experience–only that he must have had a reasonable amount of such experience. Perhaps after various religious experiences the person will conclude it was all an illusion or something other than what it first appeared to be. Fine. Scientific observations, too, can be mistaken; there are such things as artifacts. Particular spiritual experiences can also be artifacts, or perhaps even all such experience is illusory. However, a scientist who has no systematic empirical understanding of a phenomenon is not in a position to give informed criticism. And a scientist who was ignorant of and refused to become involved with the experimental methodology used to demonstrate that a major phenomenon existed would be considered incompetent to evaluate the claim. If he actively per-sisted in rejecting the phenomenon on a priori grounds, his col-leagues would rightfully dismiss his claims as unqualified, even should subsequent research prove his position to be right.

            I trust the argument is clear. Religion for most people is sup-ported by religious or spiritual experience in which people claim a relationship or interaction with a spiritual realm, in par-ticular with “spiritual minds” This may mean interaction with God, or Jesus, or with a dead person, or even with evil spirits. To evaluate the validity of these extremely important claims requires that an investigator seek contact with spiritual reality. There are various ways people do this, but first they must have the will to seek. The desire to seek, of course, is something rooted in psychological factors and has relatively little to do with what we usually refer to by such terms as “reason” or “evidence.” (5)

         This issue of having the will to seek interaction with spiritual reality is a very important one. For example, the prominent American intellectual and philosopher Mortimer Adler frequently wrote about the case for belief in God, but pulled back from accepting such belief. In his autobiography Adler wrote that his reluctance “[lay] in the state of one’s will, not in the state of one’s mind” And he admitted that to become seriously religious “would require a radical change in my way of life…. The simple truth of the matter is I did not wish to live up to being a genuinely religious person.” (6)

            Countless other atheists and skeptics presumably suffer from the same motivational weakness. They are likely, however, to disguise their problem as due to the evidence of modern science or some other similar “reason:’ And, of course, many atheists and skeptics are extraordinarily superficial in their motives for unbe-lief. This understanding is well described by the Baron d’ Holbach, the French Enlightenment philosopher and perhaps the first public atheist. But though an atheist, he was very critical of many nonbelievers. He wrote: “We must allow that corruption of manners, debauchery, license, and even frivolity of mind may often lead to irreligion or infidelity…. These pretended free-thinkers have examined nothing for themselves; they rely on others whom they suppose to have weighed matters more carefully. How can men, given up to voluptuousness and debauchery, plunged in excess, ambitions, intriguing, frivolous, and dissipated–or depraved women of wit and fashion-how can such as these be capable of forming an opinion of a religion they have never thoroughly examined?” (7)

            Presumably such motivation is very prevalent today, especially in the media and entertainment industries. One is reminded of Psalm 14: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God:”‘

            Sigmund Freud wrote as follows in his critique of religion, The Future of an Illusion: “If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on inner experience which bears witness to that truth, what is one to do about the many people who do not have this rare experience?” (8) The problem with Freud’s lament is that, first, religious experience is far from rare and, second, Freud himself never sought God or religious experience. Freud was unwilling to seek; thus, he did not find, nor should he or we be surprised at his predictable failure. At best, Freud’s complaint is foolish, at worst, dishonest.

            In any case, given the will to seek, the most common instruments or techniques for contact with spiritual reality are prayer and meditation; they are the “telescopes” of the religious person. No truth-seeker should be afraid to look through any kind of telescope. Another way to put it is to note that in the United States some 95 percent of the population says they believe in God. Every year millions of people in the United States alone have personally significant religious experiences. To ignore evaluating this obviously relevant information is an act of intellectual denial that boggles the mind.

            The major reason for raising the question of spiritual experience is its relevance to the social and moral dilemmas of our postmodern age. These dilemmas have taken many years to unfold, and no doubt they will take many years to resolve. I am convinced, however, that until we can regain the perspective of our intermediate place in reality, there is no way to deal with our crisis. That intermediate position is between God and nature while being thoroughly connected to both. Thus, many of our problems today come from a self-preoccupation derived from an intellectual misunderstanding of who we are. We are not autonomous and alone; instead we are part of nature interacting with the external world, and we are part of our relationships with other minds. Our purpose is transcendent, derived from interaction with God. To once again accept this ancient wisdom, the modern intellectual community will have to address the reality of the transcendent–in particular, God.

 

 (1) Certain Catholic philosophers do believe it is possible to prove the existence of God.  If this is true, then the present argument is irrelevant and the problem is the bias of modern intellectuals.  However, the failre of so many thinkers to accept such a proof is probably evidence that the proof is unsatisfactory.

(2) A. Plantinga, God and Other Minds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), viii.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Certain forms of extreme behaviorism at least in theory came close to denying the existence of other minds.  However, such positions were rare, and appear to be nonexistent today; in any case this kind of behaviorism made for a grossly inadequate psychology.

(5) For a book treating the psychological factors behind atheism, see the forthcoming The Psychological Origins of Atheism by Paul C. Vitz (Dallas: Spence).

(6) M. Adler, Philosopher at Large:  An Intellectual Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1977), 316.

(7) Système de la Nature, tom. ii, chap. 13; quoted in N. Laforet, The Causes and Cure of Unbelief, rev. and ed. by J. Gibbons (Boston: Thomas J. Flynn, 1909), 123.

(8) S. Freud, The Future of an Illusion, trans. and ed. by J. Strackey (New York: Norton, 1961), 28.

Evaluating Models of Christian Psychology

Posted on July 20, 2009

(by Philip G. Monroe. Associate professor of Counseling & Psychology at Biblical Seminary. Dr. Monroe is our blogger for the month of July and this is his third post.)

Today I received a request to evaluate a new model of Christian counseling. The writer wondered if I had heard of it and did I have an opinion about its quality.

Let me admit to you that I love and hate this question. I love it because I love to discuss concepts, ideas, and approaches. And having read many of the key writers in my field I have some strong opinions too. But I hate the question because many often just want to know if they should put the book in the good book pile or the toss pile. However, in this case, I know my questioner is thoughtful and interested in the deeper conversation.

Have you ever wondered how you might evaluate whether the next new book or model of Christian counseling is faithful to the Christian tradition? To good psychology? Should you recommend it or warn others away? I recommend the following “outside-in” procedure to help you come to that decision: 

  1. Look at the packaging. First, explore how the authors sell the model? How do they place their endorsements? How effusive are they? Do the blurbs overemphasize the qualifications of the endorsers (their degrees, books, positions)? Are the endorsers also clients or users of the model? Second, how is the model advertised? How do they speak of healing? Do they seem to promise more than what seems reasonable based on prior experiences of change? Your findings here may not tell you all you need to know but ought to tell you whether the author is interested primarily in selling a product or participating in the advance of the field.
  2. Model descriptors? All models need descriptor words so that the reader understands and can classify its connection (or opposition) to other models. What words do they use? What do they connect or disconnect from? This will tell you about who they like, dislike, and what they think their new model supersedes. Do they use many neologisms or combinations of words? For example (and I’m making these up), bio-spiritual attachment, theo-neuro healing. New words aren’t always wrong and can be useful. They can also be used to create impressions such as intentionally trying to sound biblical and scientific at the same time. Finally, how do they interact with Scripture? Many verses? A few that are deeply explicated? Stated theological suppositions without much support? Greek/Hebrew word studies leading to some previously unknown understanding of the human psyche or soul? Again, your impressions of descriptors ought to tell you whether or not the person is seeking superficial impressions of solid work or something more.
  3. Observations. Every author or model begins their conceptual work via personal experience. Some may be anecdotal, others may be more scientific. But whichever is the case, the author has made some observations about problems and the way things get better. These are important to evaluate as almost every model builder (even the most naïve or wrongheaded) sees something of value. You may find this portion of your evaluation most helpful to you. What does this person see that you have not? What fresh angle do they have on something that you have overlooked? Have you become pessimistic about change or about the bible’s role in emotional health? Do they challenge your view on things?
  4. Techniques. The interventions used by a model builder tend to be the most attractive portion of their work. They’ve spotted a problem and developed a solution or a process towards a solution. Often, readers skim for these tools in order to add them to their therapeutic belt-without considering how they fit into the larger scheme of things. Notice that interventions may work well but not always for the reasons the author suggests. Second, interventions usually produce an effect but does the effect lead in the right direction? For example, techniques designed to “get the anger out” have proven to have create short-term positive feelings but do not lead to long-term health (since anger’s root has not been touched). In your evaluation of techniques, what does the author see as most important?
  5. Philosophy and Worldview. Now we drill down to the foundation. What is the model really built on? This part of your evaluation is the hardest as many authors don’t explicitly tell you (sometimes they don’t know themselves!). How do they interact with scientific literature? Do they use it to make global and black/white statements about human functioning? Are they willing to identify either holes in their theories or raise questions that still need answering (empirical humility)? Do they deny the value of scientific research? Can you describe their view of human nature? Of the nature of problems (causes and correlations)? Of the sources of solutions to human problems? Of health and optimal living?

Once you have explored your model in question using this outside-in technique, you should have developed some impressions. What have you learned that gives you pause? Sometimes such pause forms the basis of our new learning; of rebuke of erroneous thinking. Other times, pause reminds us that stepping outside the norms of scientific endeavor or historic Christian beliefs ought not be done lightly. Second, what has the author observed about the world we live in that might be useful to you? What techniques might be employed by you that are in keeping with your understanding of the Christian life? What of the model is dangerous and misleading? In your overall review, is there enough of that is worthwhile? Will the casual reader be helped or led astray?  

Why is such careful evaluation necessary? During my recent trip to Rwanda I had a conversation with a Christian man working in an NGO. He started the conversation this way,

“Do you know what is wrong with Rwanda? Christians in name only. Rwanda is supposed to be 98% Christian and yet look what didn’t happen in the country during the genocide. Christians didn’t rise up en masse and say no to this terrible sin. I was in [a Muslim country] recently and their Christian population is under 3%. And yet Christians there are bold and active.”

Sometimes the greatest threat to Christian psychology is not secular suppositions from psychology or a world that has set itself up against the truth claims of Scripture. Sometimes, the greatest danger comes from inside Christian psychology-from those who are “in name only” looking to build their own empire and willing to do so through superficial use of the bible or the science of human functioning.

May the Lord make us wise as serpents and harmless as doves!

Modernism and Its Impact on Spirituality

Posted on February 2, 2009

[This is the final post for January by Dr. Eric Johnson (Southern Seminary). He concludes his thoughts on the study of spirituality and the difficulties inherent in speaking of the topic from a generic faith standpoint.]

This month I have been suggesting that a Christian psychology approach to spirituality will differ considerably from the faith-neutral, generic spirituality that is promoted in contemporary therapy (what Richards & Bergin call “ecumenical spirituality.”) In my final blog this month, I would like to explain what has contributed to my skeptical interpretation about mainstream generic spirituality, in spite of my hearty appreciation for its accomplishments. My interpretation is shaped by the “Great Tradition” of classical Christianity, as well as elements of a postmodern critique of modernism. Modernism strives for a generic rationality, based on “faith-neutral” reason and the experimental method, leading to conclusions that all rational people supposedly can agree on. Modern psychology and therapy have been products of and contributors to this movement. Postmodernist and recent Christian philosophers (like MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Wolterstorff, & Plantinga) have attempted to critique and deconstruct this quest for a universal, generic system of thought. I would summarize their work as suggesting that modern thought is compromised by a lack of awareness of its own hidden biases, which in its exorcising of the influence of communal and religious perspectives in the interest of objectivity in knowledge and a generic kind of unity, unwittingly divorced facts from values, knowledge from love, observations from worldview assumptions, and in the process created a new ideological tyranny. But humans actually don’t think that way—they can’t think that way. Universal, objective, unbiased human thought, uncontaminated by basic beliefs or assumptions about the world—the viewpoint from nowhere in particular—was a false ideal. So rather than striving for this chimera, many Christian philosophers (and some psychologists) are advocating that everyone be more worldview sensitive, honest, and transparent.

 

Spirituality, in particular, similarly cannot be properly understood generically. True spirituality, whether Buddhist, Muslim, New Age, or Christian, is always situated within a rich and thick sociocultural context. Yet most writing in this area in psychology (implicitly) assumes a universal, faith-neutral posture for discussing religion and spirituality—the viewpoint from nowhere in particular.

 

At the same time, I don’t want to be misunderstood. There is an important place for generalizations and for describing similarities across communities. Of course. This is one of the tasks of science. Moreover, it is important to respect one another and the views of communities that differ from one’s own in trans-communal conversations. Consequently, we need to aim at creating a pluralistic place of discourse where members of different worldview communities can talk with each other and describe generic features of the community-constituted phenomena of interest. My point is that modernism is mistaken in thinking that its form of discourse has arrived at that place. Modernism does not promote genuinely pluralist discourse, but only discourse that conforms to its standards of universality and faith-neutral objectivity. But in order to develop a truly pluralistic place of discourse, it requires listening to the objections of members of those communities that complain of feeling disenfranchised…like the “Great Tradition” Christian community.

 

So I am alleging that a modernist agenda is still dictating autocratically the rules of discourse and practice in the field in spirituality. One way to verify the arrival of a more genuinely pluralist public square in therapy will be how open the field is to the “freedom of speech” of non-modernist counselors and therapists. I await the day when across-the-board advocacy for religious diversity among counselors and therapists, and a recognition of their rights to practice according to their deeply held values—lovingly, responsibly, and sensibly—is permitted.

 

The bottom line issue for Christian psychology is one of justice and fairness. Therapists and therapy educators and supervisors need to become more aware of their implicit worldview assumptions and more transparent about them and also recognize that those who sensitively and carefully advocate a specific spirituality are fundamentally no different from those who choose to advocate for an ecumenical (or even a denominational) spirituality that is shaped entirely by the client or counselee, or for that matter, no spirituality at all (a belief stance loaded with value assumptions that goes almost entirely unchecked in the contemporary therapy system controlled by modernism). Sensitively and wisely sharing one’s ultimate assumptions of reality with one’s counselee is always going on in therapy. It’s just that it is done implicitly in modernist frameworks, and it would be better for everyone if everyone were more aware of it and were allowed, even encouraged, to be more explicit about it.

The Politics of Spirituality

Posted on January 27, 2009

[Manager's note: Dr. Johnson continues his weekly blog posts on the topic of Spirituality and Christian soul care.]

 

One of the respondents to last week’s blog (Paul Martin) helped me realize that I was too simplistic in my remarks, so this week I would like to expand on the distinction I made between Christian spirituality and what I called the “faith-neutral generic spirituality” that is being advocated by some in contemporary psychology. It was suggested that there is no such thing as faith-neutral generic spirituality being advocated today.

 

In A Spiritual Strategy for Counseling and Psychotherapy, a classic in the field published by the American Psychological Association, Richards & Bergin (1997) helpfully distinguish between what they call “ecumenical spirituality” and “denominational spirituality” (p. 238). The latter involves content that makes it appropriate only for persons who belong to a particular religions tradition. The former contains no “theological content or meaning that would identify the intervention with a specific religious tradition.” The content of this spirituality is “general, flexible, and as universal as possible so that they can be accepted and used with clients from a variety of religious and spiritual traditions” (p. 239). That’s what I was referring to as “faith-neutral generic spirituality,” and still seems to me to be the primary approach advocated in most texts on the subject. Distinctively Christian spirituality fits better in the category “denominational spirituality.” However, even here, contemporary literature tends to focus on the diversity of clients’ religious orientations (Richards & Bergin, 1997; 2000)—and does not promote the same kind of openness and diversity regarding the therapist’s religious orientation and worldview assumptions.

 

The issue that I was trying to address was the stance that explicitly Christian psychologists should take today. Currently, the vast majority of the literature in psychotherapy and counseling that addresses spirituality forbid the counselor/therapist from being an advocate of any “denominational” position. Rather, the professional counselor/therapist is required to accept and work within the counselee’s religious values (1997, p. 135). Of course, therapy professionals need to be sensitive and discerning regarding any values issues, particularly those working in public mental health settings. But the current “regulations” regarding what therapists can say or do go beyond the rules for normal human discourse in a pluralist culture like ours, and they potentially inhibit the sensitive, discerning expression of some values of some therapists. But there really are two people in therapy, and there are good therapeutic and humane reasons to regard therapy generally as a genuine dialogue involving two persons, neither of whom should have “denominational prohibitions.” This is particularly grievous when secularists or ecumenical spirituality advocates do not have the same kinds of worldview strictures placed on their discourse. Why are the denominational spiritual values of therapists treated in this way? I would argue that it is not merely a concern to protect vulnerable clients (something that should concern all professionals), but primarily the powerful, pervasive, but implicit values of modernism that controls the discourse in the field. My last blog this month will unpack this challenge.

 

References

 

Richards, P. S., & Bergin, A. E. (1997). A spirituality strategy for counseling and

psychotherapy. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

 

Richards, P. S., & Bergin, A. E. (2000). Handbook of psychotherapy and religious

diversity. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

 

Christian Spirituality vs. Generic Spirituality

Posted on January 19, 2009

[This is the 2nd post from Dr. Eric Johnson (Southern Seminary; Director of this Society) for January 2009. This month he is blogging about soul care and spirituality in counseling.]

 

Over the past two decades, spirituality has become increasingly recognized in contemporary psychotherapy and counseling to be a valuable resource for some persons in their journey toward wholeness. Given the historical hostility towards religion during the previous 80 years in these fields, this change in perspective is nothing short of revolutionary. Since this change began, the American Psychological Association and many other mainstream psychology publishers have published dozens of books on the role of spirituality in therapy.

 

Christian psychologists rejoice in these developments. They have created an opening in training and counseling contexts for Christians to advocate and use spiritual techniques and make reference to spiritual teachings in therapy. All this is central to a Christian psychology approach to therapy. However, from our standpoint, there is a serious limitation to the contemporary advocacy of spirituality: it permits the advocacy of a generic type of spirituality, but not one that promotes a particular faith perspective. Counselors currently may ask questions about “religion” and “spirituality” in general, encourage counselees to explore their own faith tradition, and perhaps even promote the use of spiritual practices, but they are not allowed to advocate for a particular faith.

 

But such restrictions perpetuate a modernist kind of unreality regarding these topics, since most people do not believe in generic religion or spirituality—most believe in a specific religion and spirituality that has certain tenets that distinguish it from others.

 

Moreover, just as it is unethical to force counselees to accept the beliefs of their counselors, it is also unethical to force counselors to be inauthentic regarding their own soul-healing beliefs. Christians believe that an honest, sincere faith in Christ is the best way for one to grow in psychological wellbeing. Secularists and adherents of a generic-faith spirituality have their own views on such matters, but they (and notably, Buddhists) should not be the only ones who are permitted to counsel within their worldview understanding of psychological wellbeing. Modernism has been remarkably successful in persuading its adherents that the sharing of all other worldview beliefs are off-limits in therapy and that only its worldview beliefs are legitimate and only its assumptions should control how therapy is done—and this continues to affect contemporary thinking about spirituality. But justice requires that Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, as well as Christian therapists be given the same freedoms that modern, “generic-faith” therapists have to discern what is best to share to promote their clients’ wellbeing. Of course, there is the genuine concern that some “evangelists” would manipulate vulnerable counselees.[1] Training in sensitive, appropriate sharing must begin in graduate school, and Christians will have to be very clear about their respect for the rights of their clients to choose for themselves what they need. But the mature, well-trained Christian counselors I know have no desire to promote superficial “conversions” anyway, since they believe their counselees are made in the image of God so they genuinely need to freely determine for themselves their ultimate beliefs—this is the only kind of Christianity worth promoting. Besides, therapists who are resistant to this Christian understanding will lose clients.

 

But when working with Christian counselees, there can be no objection to counselors advocating for the use of the Christian spiritual disciplines (prayer, Bible reading, the reading of spiritual books, meditation, fasting, healthy church involvement, and so on), and they should be able to talk freely about the tremendous psychospiritual resources of the Christian faith, including God’s beauty; Christ’s life, death, and resurrection; identity in Christ; the blessings of salvation; heaven; and so on; to explore their rich therapeutic potential with their counselees.

 

So, while Christian psychologists are delighted about the new openness to spirituality in our day, I think we ought to avoid its generic versions, and promote instead a distinctively Christian spirituality, the features of which we will discuss next week.


[1] But even that cuts both ways. Tapes I’ve seen of Carl Rogers show a very sophisticated and subtle form of humanistic evangelism, and surely he’s not alone.

Promoting the Unity of the Spirit in the Counseling World

Posted on October 27, 2008

[Authored by Dr. Eric Johnson, SCP Director, and professor at Southern Seminary]

 

Some Christians in the field of psychology and counseling have been waging a cold war with each other for over 40 years—proponents of particular approaches who have been deeply distrustful of those who hold other positions.

 

Nearly a decade ago, Stan Jones and I helped to put together Christianity and Psychology: Four Views (Johnson & Jones, 2000). This book allowed representatives of the four major approaches that Christians take to psychology to present their positions and interact with one another. They included Levels-of-Explanations, Integration, Christian Psychology, and Biblical Counseling. (BTW, we are currently working on a 2nd edition with five views.) One might think that such a book would promote division between those holding different positions. But it was our contention that serious, respectful interaction promotes mutual understanding and a greater appreciation for the strengths of positions other than one’s own.

 

The Society of Christian Psychology began around five years ago to promote and pursue the project of a Christian psychology. However, it has never been our intention to discredit the other approaches. While we believe the Christian psychology position has distinctive merit, we also recognize there are good reasons to hold the other positions. As a result, it has been the aim of the Society to draw together and work with biblical counselors and integrationists. Last year and this year we have had bloggers for the Society from both of those approaches. One of the blessings of our last few SCP conferences has been the participation of biblical counselors and integrationists, along with Christian psychology proponents, in workshops and preconference seminars, and even as keynote speakers.

 

Those who insist there is only one correct model will not appreciate what the Society is doing here. Ideologues on the fringe often enjoy their perceived “superiority” too much to let it go. But God is calling his people in our day to be peacemakers within the Christian community. It has to begin here, with us. Thankfully, there appears to be a growing consensus among those who recognize the Bible is foundational to a Christian understanding of psychology and counseling and who also value good science, that is bringing together folks from different positions, and helping them to figure out how they can encourage and even learn from each other.

 

Such mutual respect does not mean we ignore our differences. Genuine dialogue assumes there are differences in perspective and understanding, and a strong commitment to God’s truth assumes that some are necessarily closer to that truth on some issues than others, leading sometimes to vigorous disagreements. But so long as we treat one other as brothers and sisters in Christ, Christian love need not fear to disagree. Such fear is another kind of vice: cowardice. Christian maturity entails the ability to hold one’s beliefs confidently, while respecting the non-essential beliefs of other Christians, always being open to grow and see things better. As a result, let us keep learning how to listen to all of those psychologists and counselors who take their Christian faith seriously.

On Teaching and Training Christian Counselors

Posted on August 27, 2008

[This is the 4th and final post by Dr. Sam Williams of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary]

Differences regarding how to teach Christian Counseling struck me about 2 years ago during a meeting with the chief counseling professor in an educational institution in which I had been teaching as an adjunctive professor. Leadership of this institution had changed hands and while I previously had carte blanche about what and how to teach, the new regime handed me a protocol, kind of a combination of curriculum and syllabus, from which they hoped I would teach. My initial reaction was a bit hurt, but still non-defensive and hopeful about being able to accommodate their approach.

How do we go about teaching Christian Counseling? What should the curriculum and syllabi look like? How much time, if any, should be devoted to biblical and theological training, to training in the secular psychologies, if any, and to practical nuts and bolts instruction and to discussion and supervision of real cases and real counseling?

And how much training in each of these domains is sufficient? Within each domain, what should be taught? What should the biblical/theological portion of the curriculum look like? Is systematics enough, or do they need OT and NT also. Do they need hermeneutics, so they can interpret and apply scripture in a systematic and intellectually defensible manner? How about Greek and Hebrew – are the original languages important? And then of course what about Christian ethics, church history, evangelism and missions? Are these relevant and important in assuring that the graduate in Christian Counseling has attained sufficient training and scholarship in those things distinctively Christian?

And then with respect to training in counseling or psychology, in a proper and maybe more accurately, secular sense? Do they need to study the metapsychologists – Freud, Jung, Rogers, Skinner, Beck, and Ellis? If so, how much? Is an overview sufficient, or should it be more extensive? Do they need to learn the theories and methods of various psychotherapies? How about research design and stats and experimental psychology, and developmental, and physiological or neuropsychological – how much of this do they need?

How do we provide practical hands-on training so that students complete our programs and are competent to care for souls? What is the best way to move from theory to practice, from the propositional to the personal? How do our students make the transition from case presentations to case wisdom? How do we teach students this particular form of Christian love that we call counseling?

The distinctiveness of Christian Psychology and Counseling is still in need of much development, and that won’t happen without an understanding not just of what CP (Christian Psychology) and CC (Christian Counseling) are, but also how to go about teaching it.

Our role as educators is one with great impact and not to be taken lightly, as we are reminded in James 3.1, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”

Boxes and Labels: Part 2

Posted on August 11, 2008

by Sam R. Williams, Ph.D.

In my previous post, I posed a question about labels in Christian Counseling –integrated Christian counseling and biblical counseling, from my perspective anyway, being the most contemporary and popular.
In this post, I’d like to back the truck up a bit and ask another question that begs to be asked: What makes Christian counseling “Christian”? What is it that makes the adjective “Christian” an appropriate description of a given type of counseling?

The phrase CC is not copyrighted, so at the end of the day, it belongs to the public domain…every person will do what is right in their own eyes, and also coram Deo.

However, it does seem that simple respect for the fair and accurate use of words, not to mention respect for Christ and the root meaning of the word Christian – belonging to or resembling Christ; follower of Christ – makes this important.

AACC’s Christian Care Network provides a list of licensed or certified professional “offering care that is distinctively Christian” …so my question is what does, or should, make counseling “distinctively Christian?”
How is it that counseling might belong to or resemble or follow Christ?

Wade, Worthington, and Vogel (2007) in a recent Psychotherapy Research article, “Effectiveness of religiously tailored interventions in Christian therapy” acknowledged a lack of consensus in defining CC:

exploring Christian therapy empirically is complicated because there appears to be no clearly demarcated form of Christian therapy. It is defined variously as treatment offered by a therapist who is Christian, therapy using methods consistent with a Christian worldview, therapy using Christian practices such as prayer, or therapy that advertises itself as explicitly Christian. However, Christian therapy in general appears to share at least two characteristics: (a) It is labeled as explicitly Christian in orientation by the therapist or agency despite the fact that it may use many or a few techniques that are explicitly tailored to Christians (e.g., reading Scripture, praying), and (b) it attempts to provide clients who profess a commitment to Christianity with therapists who share that conviction. As a result, we have used these two characteristics to define Christian therapy for the purpose of this investigation. We note that, according to our definition, the therapists might or might not (a) self-identify as Christians (although it is reasonable to suspect that most will) or (b) use techniques that are explicitly tailored to Christians (e.g., quoting the Bible, praying).

So, in this study, W, W, and V settle for the least common denominator: CC is defined by the mere label (without regard for contents) and its recipients.

Is anyone happy with that definition??? Nonetheless, is this not the way it is, in vivo?

Houston, we have a problem here.

Cognitive Reframes

Posted on July 14, 2008

[This is the second guest blog from Dr. Bryan Maier of Biblical Seminary for July 2008. In this post he briefly considers cognitive reframes from the vantage point of Romans 6 and 7.]

In my last post, I looked at the concept of reinforcement from the theory of behaviorism to see how it interacts with scripture. In this post, I would like to think a little bit about the idea of a cognitive reframe. This is one of the primary tools of cognitive therapy which focuses on how one thinks about situations and the subsequent feelings and behaviors that emerge from such thinking. What is a cognitive reframe and is there any such thing in scripture? I don’t have the space to unpack all of the philosophical implications of cognitive reframing but for simplicity sake, I think most of us would agree that cognitive reframing at least involves choosing how we look at something for the purpose of modulating our emotions and behavior. At least two thorny questions come with this definition. The first is whether there is any true or objective way of looking at anything or if everything is merely just a mental reconstruction. The second question is whether we can actually choose how we see anything.

These two questions arise from Paul’s famous injunction in Romans 6:11 to “consider yourself to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus”. Here Paul seems to be saying that how you view yourself with regard to sin has a great impact on how you behave (vs. 12ff). How many of us have challenged clients to claim the freedom that this verse seems to promise? When we do this, are we calling them to believe something that is actually true? Are we really dead to sin? If so why do we keep on sinning (see Romans 7)? On the other hand, Paul could be saying that merely construing ourselves to be free from sin (regardless of actual reality) will provide an incredible boost in our personal war with evil. To the degree that I view myself as free, I will tend to act less as a slave – or more accurately, to the degree that I see myself as a slave of God and not sin, I will act more in line with the Master I own.

So it seems God is calling us to view things differently. But is he calling us to bring our cognitions in line with some kind of true reality or is he trying to introduce us to the amazing motivational tool of seeing lemons and thinking of lemonade? What do you think?

Psychology Words: Wisdom

Posted on June 8, 2008

by Eric Johnson, Director of the SCP. This is his second post for the month of June. Dr. Johnson teaches at Southern Seminary, Louisville, KY and is the author of a recent text, Foundations for Soul Care, available from InterVarsity Press.

This month we are considering how words function in a human science like psychology, where one’s interpretations are often necessarily shaped by one’s worldview beliefs. This week we shall consider two levels at which words (and concepts) operate: a generic level, where different worldview communities can share a general definition of a concept, and a community-specific level, where the same topic is viewed within one worldview community. Let us consider the subject of wisdom. Over the past 20 years, wisdom has been the focus of increasing interest in psychology, especially in positive psychology. Of special note is the Berlin wisdom paradigm, in which wisdom is defined as “an expertise in the conduct and meaning of life” (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000, p. 124). This is a fine, broad definition for the general category of wisdom, under which every worldview community’s understanding of wisdom could presumably fit.

However, most well-developed worldview communities will have a distinct understanding of wise conduct and the meaning of life. A Christian psychology, for example, will define the meaning of life in theocentric terms, emphasizing some features over others. So a definition of Christian wisdom might be that it consists of excellent knowledge and love of the triune God, of others, and of oneself in Christ, formed in Christian community through grace-based, skilled practice, that enables one to work at overcoming evil and suffering in oneself, others, and the world.

This Christian definition is more wordy, but it is just as psychological as is the more generic definition. Neither the general concept nor the community-specific concept is more scientific than the other; they simply refer to different levels of the concept—one is broader in its application, the other applies only to a specific community with certain worldview beliefs that shape its understanding of wisdom. But both kinds of definition are necessarily part of a comprehensive, pluralistic psychology that aims at describing the wisdom of all human beings. And a Christian psychology can affirm them both.

The mistake of modernism (and modern psychology) has been to think that only the general (universal?) kind of definition was scientific—implicitly supposing that psychological concepts that only applied to one community would not be scientific. But that bias was due to positivist assumptions, and was a result of insufficient awareness of how worldview beliefs shape the human sciences. From a postmodern standpoint, such assumptions are no longer valid.

Reference
Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (2000). Wisdom: A metaheuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue toward excellence. American Psychologist, 55 (1), 122-136.

Psychology Words, Part 1

Posted on June 2, 2008

By Eric Johnson, Director of the SCP

This month we’re going to talk about words. One of the greatest challenges facing a Christian psychology has to do with language. All science is a function of language and is based on written texts, so the project of a Christian psychology has to be concerned about words.

What makes our task difficult today is the fact that contemporary Western science is dominated by naturalism and secularism, and psychology is no exception. As a result, a vast psychological literature has been written by the secular majority over the past 100 years. How ought Christian psychologists to deal with these texts?

The response of hyper-conservatives is the simple rejection of all words originated by secular psychologists. Counseling and diagnostic terms are considered especially offensive, for example, “cognitive-behavioral therapy” or “personality disorders”. In their defense, some caution here is in order, because such areas are more likely to be distorted by secular bias. But a more careful analysis of most such words will lead to the conclusion that the real problem is usually not the words themselves, but the worldview that contributes to their secular interpretation.

A special vocabulary is basic to a science. As scientists explore God’s creation, they discover new features of the world that have not been recognized before, so they have to devise new labels. As a result, Christians must resist a mindset that rejects all such terms, simply because of their source. Philosophers call such a reason the “genetic fallacy” and consider it invalid. Scientific terms should simply be evaluated in terms of whether they in fact label a feature of reality (e.g., some counseling strategies are more mental and warrant the label “cognitive”; some characteristics can be properly organized as a “personality disorder”). Christians simply must interpret them according to their own worldview.

When Christians identify terms that are distorted by a secular worldview, in some cases, they must reject them, and in other cases, it will be good enough to reinterpret them Christianly. But generally speaking, it would be silly for Christian psychologists to invent new Christian terms for phenomena that have already been designated with valid labels in contemporary psychology. To do so, would be to despise the gifts of the Holy Spirit from whom all truth ultimately is derived. So Christian psychologists should thank God for the development of an accurate, sophisticated, and comprehensive psychological vocabulary, and work with other worldview communities on its development

Reconceptualizing Virtue in Christian Psychology, Part 2

Posted on March 24, 2008

[Editor's note: This is the last post for the month of March, 2008. This post is the second of two from Wolfram Soldan of IGNIS.]

Last week we compared the Christian and secular approaches to virtue in general. This week I would like to take a look at the six core-virtues developed by Peterson & Seligman (2004) in their important, but secular catalogue of the virtues. As I mentioned last week, there are corresponding biblical terms, so I have added the key Greek terms to show the biblical origins of the Christian understanding of the core-virtues.
• Wisdom and knowledge (sophia, words derived from ginosko): Bible and Positive Psychology similarly understand wisdom as the practice of “the good life” and don’t equate it with intelligence. But in the Bible the aim of human wisdom and knowledge is directed explicitly to God and is closely tied to intimate and obedient relationship with him. This connection is made throughout the entire Bible, in doctrinal passages (e.g., Col 2:2), as well as proverbs, parables, and narratives.
• Courage (hypomone): Most often the Bible speaks about this topic in opposition to fear especially the fear of man. But the concept “endurance” (hypomone) comes close to the definition of courage developed by Peterson & Seligman. Even so, this term is also more associated with one’s relationship to God than with stable human traits (see for example to story of Peter in Jo 13: 38, 18:10f, 26f, 21:15ff).
• Love (agape): Humans are connected to each other by altruistic love according to Peterson & Seligman. Although Christians often consider agape to be the highest virtue, it is clear that in biblical understanding it is something that comes entirely from God, as a fruit (Gal 5:22), as a way (1Co 12:31b), as an outpouring (Rm 5:5), and at last even as God in the person of Christ (1Jn 4:16).
• Justice (dikaiosyne): The Bible and Positive Psychology agree that justice should rule social human relationships. Justice, however, in the Bible is based in one’s relationship to God (e.g., Mt 5:20, 6:33) and His (eternal) reign. (e.g. Ps 15, Prov 11) that consider the character-trait aspect, Paul is stressing the character of gift or grace so much, that justice as a (mere) human character-trait almost is vanishing. But even in the OT the justice of God or given by God is the much more important and more frequently mentioned topic than the aspect of character trait.
• Temperence (enkrateia): Very near to the meaning offered by Peterson & Seligman is the Greek root “enkrat(eia)” that does not convey the relational dimension as much as the other biblical virtue-terms do. But it is not often used (6 times: 3 times as a noun, elsewhere as a verb or adjective), and some Bible translations misread it as “abstinence” instead of temperance. The long passage on virtue in 2Pe 1 is very interesting. It contains several virtue-terms (besides one of the few uses of the term virtue itself, it includes the already mentioned endurance, and love as the ultimate goal), but all in a very clear relational context to God in an interesting hierarchical ordinance. In the middle of this list is enkrateia.
• Transcendence obviously is much more personal, intense, intimate and specific in its meaning in the Bible than one will find in contemporary Positive Psychology. In fact, the abstract term “transcendence” has no place in the Bible, since it doesn’t make a philosophical distinction between a divine and a creational realm, so much as a division between holy and unholy.

So a look at individual virtues underscores last week’s point that the virtues in the Bible have basically a relational quality, particularly focused on God. This leads us to question the modern Positive Psychology emphasis on virtues as stable character traits. Also, the possibility of faking the virtues is taken for granted. With this background, basing one’s science of the virtues on self-report questionnaires seems highly questionable (cf., Ps 139:23f). The very dynamic, theocentric and relational orientation to the virtues in the Bible makes it highly relevant to therapy, but it would seem to pose a big problem for serious empirical research (especially quantitative).

References

Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Reconceptualizing Virtue in Christian Psychology: Part 1

Posted on March 17, 2008

Editor’s note: This posting is from Wolfram Soldan, colleague of Kathrin Halder at IGNIS–this month’s blogger.

I am not a “virtue-psychologist.” I encountered the topic while studying the opposite area of “sin” within the scope of forgiveness. Nevertheless I made some interesting discoveries, when I traced the concept in the Christian Bible.

We might say that the “Virtue-Bible” of positive psychology is Seligman and Peterson’s (2004) Character Strengths and Virtues, and it uses very ambitious expressions for describing the topic, e.g.: “fulfillment”, “the good life for oneself and for others”, “… effort, the willful choice and pursuit over time of morally praiseworthy activities” (p 17). The Authors try to distill six supposedly trans-cultural “core moral virtues” (p28f): “wisdom and knowledge,” “courage,” “humanity” (including love), “justice,” “temperance,” and “transcendence.”

As we will see, the Bible includes the term “virtue” (Gk. arete) as well as terms that correspond to the six “core virtues”: wisdom/sophia/knowledge/gnosis, courage/hypomone, love/agape, justice/dikaiosyne, temperance/enkrateia, transcendence/phobos theou). Of course, the interpretion of such important words is necessarily complex, so not everyone will agree my choices, but I invite you to investigate them for yourself.

The contemporary movement of positive psychology is dealing with very important topics that up to now only theologians or philosophers worked on. The merit of positive psychology is to highlight moral reality, which were not investigated by modern psychology for decades, because of its positivistic paradigm.

In typical modern psychology research, secular positive psychology authors stress the following qualities:
• measurability (in self-report questionnaires),
• trans-cultural generalizibility and
• the study of long-term individual, character-traits

However, questions can be raised about all three of these characteristics, as far as moral virtues are concerned, as we will see. On the other hand, sometimes the secular study of the core-virtues makes mention of their relational quality.

If I compare their orientation with the Bible’s approach to these topics, some significant distinctives can be seen:
The abstract term “virtue” is rare in the Bible. One finds “arête” in only two passages, used a total of four times; and none of them in the Old Testament (OT). “Arete” has a very specific meaning. To show this I will translate from the German Dictionary of the New Testament (Bauer/Aland 1988). “In the usual meaning of good behaviour, virtue … Phl 4:8 … 2Pe 1:5. … according to a linguistic usage that utilizes arete and doxa as synonyms and also finds his expression in the assorting of both terms beyond the OT (Is 42:8,12), the Septuagint renders hod, glory, brilliance (Hab 3:3; Zech 6:13), and also tohila, praise, extolling (Is) with arete.… Godly (showing of his) power, miracle, … also the strength of God. This is surely the meaning in 2Pe 1:3.” Both New Testament passages put “virtue” in the context of the grace and power of God, of faith and peace, and most importantly, a close relation with God (Phl: being in Christ. In 2 Peter, to being participants in God’s nature).

To summarize: Though the abstract term “virtue” is rare in the Bible, when mentioned it has to do mainly with a dynamic relation(ship) with God as its aim and center. Individual human character traits (the primary focus of secular positive psychology) is subordinate to this central relationship.

References
1. Bauer, W. (1988). Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur. Berlin/New York: deGruyter

2. Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

The Researcher’s Heart as Central to Psychological Research

Posted on March 10, 2008

Doing something that can really be called Christian Psychology greatly challenges us not only to change some of the content of our teaching, to add some Christian aspects, but to allow for a new paradigm of how to do research and how to teach. One of those fundamental paradigm shifts I want to focus on in this post is the shift of attention from the recognition object to the recognition subject.

While the common scientific paradigm calls a result valid only if it can be scrutinized by everybody, a biblical scientific paradigm focuses on specific features of a researcher’s heart as a prerequisite of a valid outcome of his studies. Although these prerequisites include a schooling of the intellect (where modernism could agree), this is not the main focus. In biblical thinking a researcher’s heart, the growth in his relationship with Jesus, his love and obedient submission to God will be first and foremost core prerequisites for a valid outcome in the most important questions and issues of life (of course not talking about all questions e.g. in biochemistry, neuroscience etc.). Real perception in main matters is not subject to our own good will, to common ways of scientific striving, to money released for research, but is dependent on revelation by God, is dependent on the right eye of the recipient as the famous philosopher and theologian Romano Guardini puts it:

“The prerequisite of recognition is, that the person has a right eye and ear for it… The most gloriest piece of art work can be there; but when somebody only has an eye for technical or economic matters, he might look at it, but he will not see, what is actually there.” (Guardini, 1976, p.22)

Many biblical references and Christian authors are unified in the answer to the question how we obtain revelation, how we get that right eye: “The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.” (Pro. 1, 7) “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” (John 14, 21)

Calvin challenges to see the world through “biblical spectacles” (Calvin, 1960), Johann Georg Hamann to perceive it as a “philologus crucis” (Hempelmann, 1988, p.32), Anselm of Canterbury speaks of “credo ut intelligam” and Oswald Chambers focuses on our obedience as core prerequisite to revelation: “The revelations of God are sealed until we open them up by our obedience. They will never be opened up by your philosophing and thinking.” (Chambers, 1961, p.284)

Biblical thinking connects knowledge and obedient action closly. When somebody hears from God, hears His message in reality and acts not upon it, he will not understand, he will be like the man that forgets his image in the mirror: “Or if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like.” (James 1, 23-24)

When you read that far, you might be disappointed with this post, because it is not really new. Probably you heard of this connection of obedient action and knowledge before, perhaps you already reflected and perhaps even taught it.

But my question to myself and all of us is, whether we really live it. Is it not one more of those teachings we know very well, that we all nod our heads to, but that we finally leave in church (and/or confine it to themes directly related with the knowledge of God)? Does this connection really penetrate our entire professional life, are we really aware that it is God that in the end closes and discloses reality to us? Are we really aware that our heart, our attitudes, our loves don’t only have a vast impact on our sanctification, on our relationships, marriage etc., but also on our research activity as Christian Psychologists? Have we really understood that any study we do, is biblically to be called a vanity unless we as researchers are also changed by it? Do we know that we can’t claim to have studied forgiveness or love (or many other relevant subjects to Christian Psychology), if we can’t also claim that we came closer to the mystery of these matters, that we were touched deeply by God and were made able to live more forgiveness and love in our own lives.

We as Christian Psychologists need all the intellect and training we can get. We need to learn common strategies of how research is done. But above that we need a changed heart, a heart that acts upon God’s revelation so far received, so that He can reveal more and lead us as researchers more and more deeply into the mystery of man.

Calvin J. (1960). Institutes of the Christian religion. Philadelphia: Westminster

Chambers, Oswald (1961): Mein Äußerstes für sein Höchtes. Bern: Berchtold Haller Verlag

Guardini, Romano (1976): Die Existenz des Christen. München/Paderborn/Wien: Ferdinand Schönigh Verlag

Hempelmann, Heinzpeter (1988): „Gott ein Schriftsteller!“ Die Schriftlehre Johann Georg Hamanns und ihre hermeneutischen Konsequenzen. In: Theologische Beiträge, 19.Jg. 1988/3, Stuttgart: Brockhaus Verlag

The necessity of Christian Psychology

Posted on August 27, 2007

[Moderator's note: In this final blog Kathrin details an argument for developing a psychology within a Christian worldview.]

Today I want to reflect a bit on the necessity of a Christian Psychology (CP) with the aspects 1. underestimation of world view influences, 2. danger of a lack of consistency, 3. the necessity of a new agenda.

1. A CP calls for a thorough evaluation of world view influences in secular psychological models. Often (not always) I have seen an underestimation of world-view influences in the integration work of some colleauges. Some spoke of the possibility of simply baptizing secular concepts, neglecting the necessity of an evaluating process widely. Others spoke of the necessity to filter the secular model through a Biblical filter. What I sometimes found was, that obvious ethical world-view conflicts got filtered out, while most of the psychological theory, the inner structure and logic of the original finding was left unchanged. Consider Cole (1998):

Christian psychological knowledge is often nothing more than psychological notions disguised (or clothed) in biblical language. Within this body of work one is hard pressed to find the Christian psychological ideas these authors claim to have found. Peel off the biblical language of this Christian psychology and what often remains is psychological theory. Not that the remaining psychological theory is necessarily inaccurate, it’s just that the justification for the additional layer of biblical narrative is often ambiguous. One is prompted to ask why it is even necessary. Like the Emperor’s new clothes, it appears to look good, but, in reality, there is nothing there.

Of course I have seen many exceptions outside of CP. And I am so glad for everybody already going deeper. But I think CP, the Society can play an important part in encouraging more and more Christian professionals in that direction.

2. There is another danger to integration, that could be improved by CP. Often in integration many different secular schools are being reflected resulting in some kind of an instrument cabinet, where a counselor can draw out different methods and techniques as it seems useful. But there is a danger to this.

Therapeutic schools need to be consistent buildings as the well-known German professor Eva Jaeggi (1995) states:

Of great importance is “the demand that therapeutic action ought to be justifiable by a logical, somewhat consistent theoretical building. This “building” contains: a notion of the origin and continuing of psychological disorders; a notion of healthy and handicapped development; considerations of the construction of the psyche, and of the driving forces behind development; an explanation of individual therapeutic strategies through this theoretical system.

Integrating the techniques of diverse schools will not only lead to complementarity, but also to the danger of chaos due to contradictions as Andrea Huf (1992) and Jaeggi (1995) point out:

A basis of eclectic views … is often found in the hypothesis that methods of treatment from different schools of therapy complement one another reciprocally (Kommer, 1982). From a scientific theoretical viewpoint, however, such a standpoint cannot be supported. The discrepancies among the integrated approaches in regard to the theoretical positions about knowledge, the degree of explication, the empirical content, and the degree of confirmation would be too great (Linsenhoff, Basine, & Kommer, 1982).

A unevaluative demand for integration such as: a beef stew is good, and strawberry cream is good – how good must a mixture of beef stew and strawberry cream be – ought to be stopped by this book.

But there is a way to avoid these dangers and continue to draw from different schools. We need to oppose a simple technical (or pragmatical) eclecticism or integration and vote for a theoretical eclecticism, i.e. we can’t just integrate techniques of different schools in a pragmatic way (throw beef stew and strawberry together), but we need to bring different ideas together also on a conceptual level (try to find a recipy where beef with strawberries will actually taste good).

Often the term eclecticism in and of itself refers to ‘a pragmatic approach for the most part, by which the therapist uses any technique that he’s convinced of is effective, whereby a theory influences this choice either to only a minimal extent or not at all’ (Arkowitz, 1992, p.262). This course of action is seen with skepticism by many experts, including … the authors of this book, because it lacks a justification of when and under which circum-stances a therapist decides to use a certain technique. Without theoretical guidelines, which help the therapist to grasp conceptually the patient’s problem and the processes of therapeutic changes, eclecticism corresponds to the chaos by which decisions are based on suppositions, on the basis of what could be right (Davison/Neale, 1998).

As CP first focuses on building its own house (task 1 and 2, last blog) it can be a theoretical framework providing theoretical guidelines that help to evaluate how the different impulses of various secular schools of thought could fit together. There will not be an unharmonized instrument cabinet or a number of integrated ideas (or houses in the metaphor) standing next to each other, but there will be one house in which different ideas have flown into, but where the different bricks have been connected together thoroughly on a conceptual level.

3. Sometimes when being asked why we really have to take the effort to establish a unique CP, I answer: Have postmodernists said, well we just filter things of positivistic psychology a bit, we just change a few things, but basically we stay in its paradigm? Have Humanists, System theorists, Transpersonalists said, we just put some color on psychoanalysis or behavioral therapy and then it will be good enough? No. I note that Buddhists, Esoterics, Humanists, Post-modernists and others dare much more than we Christians to develop their own psychology. For them it is so clear that they need a ________ psychology, while we still argue.

Having a different world view foundation doesn’t just call for a minor change, for some filtering, but it calls for a different agenda, for conquering new territory, for new ways of research like Eric Johnson (1997) says:

“Christian psychologists have more to do than parasitically sift the writings of their secular colleagues. The Christian faith has its own agenda that may or may not resemble the agenda of any secular psychology. Within the kingdom of God, the Christian psychological community is set free to chart new territory in psychology. By becoming immersed in Scripture and the Christian tradition, Christian psychologists may be enabled to discover new facts and theories, devising new lines of research to more accurately understand human nature.”

References:
Calvin J. (1960). Institutes of the Christian religion. Philadelphia: Westminster

Cole, Dick T. (1998): Against the Integration of Psychology and Christianita: A Bold Proposal for an Alternativ Paradigma. In: Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 1998, Volume 17, Number 3

Davison, Gerald C., Neale, John M. (1988, 1998): Klinische Psychologie. München – Wien – Baltimore: Psychologie Verlags Union 5. Aufl.

Huf, Andrea (1992): Psychotherapeutische Wirkfaktoren. Weinheim: Psychologie Verlags Union

Jaeggi, Eva (1995): Zu heilen die zerstoßenen Herzen. Die Hauptrichtungen der Psychotherapie und ihre Menschenbilder. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH

Johnson, Eric L. (1997): Christ, the Lord of Psychology. In: Journal of Psychology and Theology, Spring 1997, Vol. 25, Nr. 1, Biola

Empirical Research

Posted on July 23, 2007

[Editor's note: This is the last entry from our July blogger, Mark Yarhouse. Thanks Mark for raising some good questions here and in your previous posts.]

Is there a place for empirical research in Christian psychology? This may seem like a strange question, but I have noticed that much of what I read about a distinctively Christian psychology is theoretical. It is often tied to philosophical and theological perspectives on psychology. This has been valuable to me and, I think, to many others.

Empirical research is the currency of modern psychology, at least academic psychology. Some would say it ought to be the currency of clinical psychology, both academic and in actual practice, particularly with recent efforts to identify “best practices” and empirically supported treatments.

Will Christian psychology use a similar currency? What are the benefits to relying upon empirical research and what are the limitations? I do not think of myself as a hard core researcher, but I do see its value, and I hope Christians will not shy away from conducting good research on various elements of a Christian psychology. As I think back to my first blog, I had quoted Alvin Plantinga in his inaugural address as he began at Notre Dame. He spoke of integration for philosophers, and I applied it to psychologists. What I want to point out this week is that he also included that we would have our own research program. We should think about this as psychologists. What is the research program for a Christian psychology? More accurately, what are some of the research programs for a distinctively Christian psychology? What would we benefit from studying?

Also, will a distinctively Christian psychology value both quantitative and qualitative methods? I would say it would depend upon the research being conducted, but I can certainly see the value in both approaches. What has kept research from having more of a prominent role in the early stages of Christian psychology?

Psychopathology

Posted on July 16, 2007

[Ed. note: This is the 3rd blog entry by our July blogger, Mark Yarhouse of Regent University. Mark and two other colleagues at Wheaton College have authored a text, Modern Psychopathologies: A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal, published by IVP in 2005.]

This past week I have been thinking about what it means for something to be a psychopathology. There is a committee currently working on revisions that will eventually become DSM-V, with publication probably around 2011 or so. This is always an interesting time when various symptom clusters are given consideration and some current psychopathologies may end up being removed.

It is interesting to me to explore the question of psychopathology in a Christian psychology. As an intellectual exercise, it may be telling to consider what a diagnostic manual would look like if it were developed out of a distinctively Christian psychology. If there were no DSM and a group of thoughtful Christian psychologists, philosophers, and theologians were to have come up with a manual of some kind. In what ways would it have been different than the DSM? In what ways would it have been similar?

One of the many challenges in psychopathology is how to determine if a cluster of symptoms represent a condition that is pathological. The DSM tries to draw upon atypicality to some extent, but also maladjustment and distress are obviously considered. What we are left with is no real consensus on psychopathology today, and we see that the DSM has some disorders that are more clearly tied to sociocultural variables (e.g., eating disorders) while others (e.g., schizophrenia) are not.

It should also be pointed out that sociocultural variables are but one of several considerations in contemporary understandings of psychopathology. David Barlow is one of many authors who would also consider biological, emotional, learning, and cognitive factors.

So we are talking about more than what is in and what is out of a manual. We are talking about criteria for what constitutes psychopathology, as well as the many factors that are given consideration when determining what contributes to psychological problems.

Further Thoughts About Emotions

Posted on June 18, 2007

[Editor's note: this is the 3rd blog post by Dr. Ed Welch. In this post he muses about a practical theology of emotion.]

In the last blog I suggested that a Christian counselor’s identity is that of practical theologian. We want to think both biblically and theologically about all the issues of life. One way to do that is to examine the standard theological texts of our denominational traditions and ask, so what? What difference does that make for life? What difference does that make when my neighbor just lost his job? These questions are actually biblical themselves. They are not simply those of pragmatic practitioners. In Scripture, you will never find a dangling theological proposition. Every theological statement is expected to lead to action. It always has a “So what?”

One thing you won’t find in a theological text is a chapter on the emotions. Granted, emotions are embedded in the theological discussion about the heart or soul, and emotions are not things in themselves but they are signposts that reflect interpretations of life, so we can understand why they don’t receive separate chapters. But if you spend any time with people, you need a theology of emotions.

The Society for Christian psychology has already had presentations on this topic, but there is always room for more. Here are a few thoughts. They assume that we are ontological dualities, but most Christians who hold to theological monism would probably agree with most of them.

Emotions are bodily experiences. No debate there. You can feel them. Scripture even uses names for bodily organs as a way to identify emotions. A messed up body (or brain) will lead to messed up emotions.

As embodied souls, our emotions are also expressions of our souls, hearts, or spirits. This is not always true, because sometimes emotions are exclusively bodily experiences caused by bodily weakness. Also, emotions can be a hybrid, caused by both physical and spiritual issues. But Scripture as well as our own experience suggest that it is true more often than not. Emotions are a language of the soul. They have a cover story: “I am alone,” “I am a failure.” They also have a deeper meaning: “God has abandoned me,” “I want to trust in at least something I can do well rather than trust in God who strength is apparent in my weakness.”

In these two propositions, we have a fairly sophisticated and robust theology. Notice, for example, their application to depression. Depression is a bodily experience that may well be an expression of the human heart. One of the beauties of Scripture is that you don’t have to know the actual cause before you can help. There is nothing that keeps you from trying to assuage the emotional storm with physical treatments while you simultaneously ask, “what else is depression saying?”

When you walk with someone who is depressed you usually find that it is saying a lot. Listen and you might hear anger, fear, guilt, hopelessness, and shame. All these have spiritual roots and are addressed through spiritual means.

Did anger cause depression or was it simply revealed by it? It might be an interesting question, but, for ministry purposes, the answer is irrelevant.

How often can we expect to hear spiritual matters in depression? (“Spiritual” meaning that it points to our relationship with God). We rely on our own experience for that. Scripture doesn’t give the statistics. In my own experience I find that there are critical spiritual matters in the majority of depression, and as these spiritual matters are resolved in the gospel they seem to make a significant difference in the depressed person’s experience.

These propositions can form the foundation for a theology of emotions, but there is much more than can be said. One worthwhile area to consider is the connection between emotions and wisdom. My thesis is this: intact emotional responses are huge assets for growing in wisdom; without them, we can easily repeat foolish mistakes.

A 16-year-old male goes to a friend’s house with his buddies. He didn’t know that the friend’s parents were away. Soon after arriving, the alcohol and drugs come out. The young man refuses. Why? Because he was caught drinking a few weeks before. Apparently his parents have a keen nose for drugs and alcohol. As a result of getting caught, he parents took away all car privileges for a month.

The reason he refuses drugs and alcohol is that he can emotionally imagine the consequences of getting caught again. One month could turn into one year, and the thought of that is horribly depressing. So he refuses, not because he has anything against drugs and alcohol. He refuses because he can viscerally imagine the consequences of getting caught.

Take the same situation, same internal moral compass, but a different facility with emotions. Take a young man who is unable to feel very much. He will indulge because his emotions supply no warning signals.

This, in part, is what happens during mania. The artificial high leaves the person unable to feel anything miserable. As such he or she is prone to make decisions that have deleterious consequences.

These are a few thoughts on emotions. Certainly there is more to say. One final meta-comment. If you read my first blog you know that I call myself a biblical counselor. The reputation of biblical counselors is that they are obscurantists. But this last point on emotions showed my affinity with integrationists in that I was suggesting something that was not explicitly biblical. I am not so sure that our stance toward extra-biblical data is what distinguishes us along the Christian counseling spectrum.

The nature of persons: Monism or duality?

Posted on June 18, 2007

[Editor note: this is Dr. Ed Welch's second post for the month of June. In this post he considers the consequences of seeing the nature of persons from a monistic rather than the historic dualistic perspective.]

Do you remember the days when human beings were neatly divided into three relatively separate compartments? We were body-soul-spirit, and each part had its own expert: the body belonged to the medical doctor, the spirit to the pastor, and the soul to the psychologist. Since it was one of the few widely accepted theological axioms, it ruled over Christian psychology from the 1960’s to the turn of the century. It has probably had more impact on our present discussions within Christian counseling than we realize.

But without warning, this view of the person disappeared. Apparently, it was attached to modernism, and it was run out of town by postmodernism and it’s successors. You can still find those who won’t let it go, but this remnant lives isolated from present-day discussions. Neuropsychology, for example, has long been monistic, though you can detect a tip of the hat to duality in discussions about bottom up and top down relationships (“bottom” being our neurological hardwiring, “top” being our cognitions). Theological discussion is also leaning toward versions of “Hebraic monism,” though duality is tolerated.

Call me old-fashioned, I have not yet been persuaded by the monistic arguments, so as of today, I find that duality – that we are embodied souls – best fits both Scripture and human experience.

You can find teaching on duality in most any theology text book. The counseling task is to shake the dust off old theological formulations and ask practical questions such as, So what? What difference does it make that we are embodied souls? Christian counselors, from my perspective, are applied or practical theologians.

Before posing some applications of this theology, we need some clarity on what we mean by inner person, heart, mind, spirit, and soul. With only two ontological categories from which to choose, all these are now overlapping perspectives on the same spiritual core of the person. They all accent that we are connected to God in everything we do. We have our loyalties to him or to ourselves. Granted, there are nuances among these different words, but they universally emphasize the God-wardness of all of life. For example, the Greek word nous, usually translated as “mind,” is not so sterile as cognitive therapists make it out to be. Rather, thoughts are anchored in our spiritual allegiances.

Here are possible applications of our ontological duality.

• There are ways that the body cannot affect the inner person (a.k.a., heart, spirit, soul, mind). The body is wasting away but a deteriorating body, even at the level of the brain, does not leave us morally incompetent (2 Cor. 4:16). Simply put, the body can not make us sin. This has innumerable applications to psychiatric disorders.

• Emotions and cognitions are no longer in a discrete category that is separate from “spiritual” matters. Emotions don’t just simply exist, as they are an expression of the inner person they are a kind of language. They reveal the heart. They are interpretations of our world. They point to our spiritual allegiances. Anger, for example, typically says, “I have been wronged, and I authorize myself to be judge, jury and executioner.” More deeply, it says, “I will be a god rather than trust the Righteous Judge.”

• Emotions can also be authored more by the body than the inner person. Emotions, after all, are physical phenomena. A host of problems in the body and brain can affect our emotions. Ontological duality does not always lend itself to simplistic formulations.

• With regard to medication, this ontology gives guidance on what it can do and what it can’t. For example, medication can affect bodily functioning. As such, since emotions are dependent on the physical body, we can expect that psychiatric medications can affect emotions both positively and negatively. But they cannot motivate obedience to or love for Jesus Christ. That is the purview of our hearts.

Lurking under the various differences within Christian counseling are matters of theological anthropology. Who is the person? Of what do we consist? At issue is not that some counselors have a theology of the person and other’s don’t. The reality is that everyone has an action-guiding theology of the person. Sometimes that theology is implicit, other times it is explicit. A reasonable goal for Christian counselors is that we ferret out our deep theological assumptions, submit them to exegetical scrutiny, and engage in the task of practical theology.

Christian Psychology and Intelligent Design

Posted on May 29, 2007

In February of this year, the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution rejecting the teaching of intelligent design as science. The Council is the APA’s “supreme legislative and oversight body” that “speaks for its members on matters advancing psychology as a science, as a profession, and as a means of promoting health, education, and human welfare.” (http://www.apa.org/governance/rephandbook.pdf), so this resolution is notable. In doing this, APA “(1) recognized evolutionary theory as a major unifying force in contemporary science; (2) affirmed that fully understanding the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of humans and other animals requires attention to evolutionary heritage and processes; and (3) reaffirmed previous APA resolutions that endorsed the importance of teaching and research activities grounded in evolutionary reasoning as vital to psychological science.” (http://www.apa.org/science/psa/apr07id_prnt.html).
The complexity of the issues involved here precludes an adequate discussion in a single blog. However, a few things can be said.

Most obviously, this resolution strikes at the heart of the differences that distinguish modern psychology and Christian psychology. In passing the resolution, the APA unsurprisingly endorsed the neo-positivist sentiments and naturalistic worldview that undergird the project of modern psychology.
But the action reveals some assumptions regarding the nature of science. According to modernism, true science is based on methodological naturalism and a corresponding empiricism that requires it be restricted to describing reality solely in terms of natural processes. Consequently, reference to any transcendent influences on human dynamics is forbidden.

But shouldn’t a science strive to understand its object as fully as possible? How scientific is it to rule out a priori any causes other than natural? Can it be empirically proven that transcendent factors are not involved in human life? No. Can even the validity of the assumptions of naturalism be proven? No. Worldview beliefs are assumptions everyone must bring with them to their science. It would likely be embarrassing for modern psychologists to admit it, but their science too is based ultimately upon faith: faith in their system of psychological knowledge, their procedures for gathering knowledge, and the boundaries which they have established for their science. We are all in the same boat here. Christians are just more aware of this fact, simply because being in the minority has forced us to think more deeply about our knowledge-gathering assumptions. Nevertheless, this resolution by the APA is nothing other than science established by fiat, the naturalist majority enforcing its unfalsifiable assumptions regarding reality as the “Truth.”

I recognize that there are good Christians who hold to evolutionary theory, and that evolutionary theory is able to explain well many aspects of phylogenetic development that no one disputes (like new species of bacteria), including some simple psychological dynamics involved in mating and survival behavior (e.g., attachment; though I personally think the biblical and empirical evidence require some form of creationism to explain the history of life on earth). However, pure evolutionary theory is useless for explaining a whole host of higher psychological dynamics that would have been of no survival value in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA: the African savannah a few hundred thousand years ago), when all homo sapien characteristics were supposed to have arisen, including advanced mathematical understanding (algebra and beyond), language of the complexity of ours, formal logic and advanced philosophical reasoning, religious experience and belief in supernatural beings, musical ability, and narrativity, to name a few. None of these would have led to greater reproductive or survival success back in the EEA. To suggest, as evolutionists have to, that they are exaptations—by-products of other evolved psychological dynamics—is fanciful, and no more scientific (according to their own rules) than the belief in the dependence of all humans upon God for their psychological well-being (Acts 14:17).

The resolution is also important for what it implies about what counts as scientific knowledge. Christians have long understood that humans are fundamentally relational—being made in the image of God—and influenced by indwelling sin—which unconsciously moves all people away from their Creator, and they have understood Christians to be regenerated, joined in union to Jesus Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and in healing relationship with God. These are all psychological assertions, and they entail spiritual dimensions that transcend empirical observation, and cannot even be investigated according to the research rules of neo-positivism. Does that mean they are not psychological knowledge or that the study of them is not scientific. Again, no. Not according to historic Christianity. As a result, intelligent design theory and Christian psychology would seem to be fundamentally allied in today’s culture wars.

There is much at stake in how one defines science, and the APA’s willingness to pass the anti-ID resolution reveals its absolute commitment to naturalism and also makes clear how challenging will be the road ahead for Christian psychologists (as well as other believers in Transcendence in the field).

For more information about intelligent design theory visit
http://www.iscid.org/
http://www.designinference.com/
http://www.idthefuture.com/.

The effects of sin on the science of psychology

Posted on May 21, 2007

I said last week that I might address the topic of the distorting effects of sin on psychological writing, and so I will, but I’d like to cover a bit more territory than that.

It is a virtual truism for many Christians that everything humans do is marred by sin. The book of Romans teaches that humans are corrupt, hopeless, and morally and spiritually blind in themselves. When faced with God’s holy standards, sin is actually exacerbated (ch.7). If even human moral activity is marred by sin, then everything humans do is corrupt, including the science of psychology. So psychological research, writing and speaking, reading and hearing, teaching and studying, and counseling and being counseled are marred by sin. What are some implications of this conclusion?

1. Because humans are made in the image of God, they are made for God and enjoy fullest satisfaction only in God. They were made to be theocentric.
2. Being made in God’s image has left in all normal humans a sense of divinity. However, because of original or indwelling sin, we are simultaneously bent towards an autocentric orientation (towards self-centeredness or narcissism). This affects our perceptions, thinking, memories, and interpretations of the world, and our emotions, motives, and actions are ultimately more self-promoting than God-promoting. The former has been termed the noetic effects of sin (Moroney, 1990; Westphal, 1990), but psychologists might term it the cognitive effects of sin; and we might call the latter the carditive effects of sin, since it deals with the heart.
3. Non-Christian psychologies are not even aware of this fundamental cognitive blindness and affective/motivational misdirection, regarding the most important dimensions of human life. Consequently, autocentrism pervades their psychologies.
4. Christian psychology must contend explicitly for theocentrism and resist an implicit autocentrism throughout the entire discipline of psychology.
5. This ultimate psychological sin-dynamic influences some aspects of human functioning (and research and theory about those aspects) more than others. For example, it is most influential in areas of psychology the study of which are the most worldview-dependent: sexual and uniquely human motivation, personality, psychopathology, psychotherapy and counseling, and social relations; and it is less influential in areas of psychology the understanding of which are less worldview-dependent (and more mechanistic): neuropsychology, sensation and perception, animal learning, basic cognitive processes, and drive motivation.
6. Christians in psychology who are not mindful of this dynamic and are relatively unquestioning regarding the underlying worldview assumptions of non-Christian psychology are likely to be more influenced by the cognitive and carditive effects of sin in their psychological work than they are aware.
7. At the same time, since sin affects everyone, it also affects those who are the most aware of these effects, and that in at least two ways: a. Those who are more aware of these effects can become arrogant towards secular psychologists and Christians in psychology who are not as mindful as they are about these cognitive and carditive dynamics, and b. Being aware of these effects doesn’t immunize someone from them, so they too have to be constantly mindful that sin is affecting their thinking, feeling, and acting in autocentric ways of which they are currently unaware, and be constantly working to undermine those effects.
8. There is therefore a continual need to seek God’s wisdom and discernment through personal and public worship and to be open to the wisdom and discernment of others, regarding one’s own blindspots and the influences of remaining sin in one’s own life. This is an important part of a Christian psychology.

References

Moroney, S. (1999). The noetic effects of sin. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Westphal, M. (1990). Taking St. Paul seriously: Sin as an epistemological category. In T. P. Flint (Ed.), Christian philosophy (pp. 200-26). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

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