Johnson states (2010), “This book provides an opportunity to understand the intellectual crisis facing the church in the area surrounding psychology and counseling, and it does this by exploring five major positions evangelicals have taken regarding the relationship of psychology and the Christian faith” (p. 38). In this week’s reading of Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, Levels-of-Explanation View, Christian Psychology View, and a Biblical Counseling View are discussed.
1. Provide a brief overview of each view discussing the critiques each.
2. Even though all the models have not been discussed so far in the class, of the 3 presented this week, which one do you feel more closely aligns to how you view integration? What would you change or remove from this view to make it fit more closely to what you believe integration should look like? Use the text and scripture. You can also use the other class texts to help to connect the different conceptualizations of what integration looks like.
PSYCHOLOGY & CHRISTIANITY: FIVE VIEWS
By- Eric L. Johnson
The book ‘Psychology and Christianity: Five Views’ was revised by Eric L Johnson which is contained with chapters of ‘Psychology and Christianity: Four Views(2000)’, authored by notable Christian scholars David G. Myers, Stanton L. Jones, David A. Powlison, and Robert C. Roberts. The book presented four models of the relationship between Christianity and the discipline of psychology that included levels of explanation (Myers),integration (Jones), biblical counseling (Powlison), and Christian psychology(Roberts).
This book came at a time when Christians were striving to determine how to establish a clearer picture of human nature. It addressed the concerns that many had about psychology being antithetical to Christianity, and it provided intellectually sound arguments for a variety of positions. The Four Views text also contained responses between the authors that highlighted points of agreement as well as disagreement among the models.
In Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, Johnson expanded the historical context and the dialogue that has been developing with respect to the interface between the discipline of psychology and the Christian faith. In addition to the four original models, a fifth view presented by John Coe and Todd Hall and frames the interaction as atransformational view.
Q1. Provide a brief overview of each view discussing the critiques each.
The main evangelical responses to the modern discipline of psychology are represented in the book’s five views which are as follows-
1. Levels of Explanation- This view/model was presented by David G. Meyers who believes that psychology and Christian theology are two separate disciplines that provide complementary perspectives on the human experience i.e. it informs us on a different level than faith. He continues to explain this by stating that faith may drive one’s psychological research program or clinical practice but it does not inform, nor is informed by, one’s faith. He indicated that Psychology is a science of behavior and mental processes. It does sometimes confirms the aspects of Christian faith especially while describing the science that supports family values and other times questions the theological perspectives and scriptural interpretations such as acceptance/disagreement on the concept of Homosexuality. In this book, Myers admitted that his thoughts about homosexuality being a sinful choice have changed to being a ‘natural disposition’ due to psychological scientific and genetic studies.
2. Integration- This view/model was presented by Stanton L. Jones who believes that Scripture determines the fundamental beliefs and practices of Christians. He further expands this perspective by stating that Christian psychologists and counselors should seek to integrate psychological findings with their more fundamental Christian faith. He acknowledges that science is not a pristinely objective enterprise. Nevertheless, he does believe that Christians can engage “critically and constructively” with secular psychology. He explains that the fact that humans are made in God’s image plugs into current psychology and to leave this out in a secular fashion then one is going to miss out on the whole picture, thus, leaving Secular Psychology & concept of Integration with limitations.
3. Christian Psychology: This view/model was Presented by Robert C. Roberts who pointed out that psychology is a critical reflection on “human psychic well-being and dysfunction and is ancient and not modern in origin. He reiterates that the definition of psychology includes historical, theological, and philosophical considerations rather than mere empirical findings. He claims that psychology is explicitly based upon the Christian tradition. This recovery of a distinctly Christian psychology takes place in two stages: retrieving the “rich resources that lie within our own tradition and engaging in empirical research from within this framework which includes utilizing “well-established” social-scientific methods as well engaging in critical dialogue with psychologies that are based upon other worldviews. This view is a bit like Integration however it takes more of a presupposition approach by communicating how Christians must start from Christian values and operate on that foundation to interpret and explore empirical findings. He demonstrated the view by stating that faith informs science rather than science informing faith. Faith is the lens from which researches view their findings and since all have a lens from which they peer through all should acknowledge which perspective they are working from whether that be secular or religious.
4. Biblical counseling: This view/model was presented by David Powlison who argues that “Christian faith is a psychology,” and “Christian ministry is a psychotherapy” . He explains that the Christian faith is Psychological View in its own right. He states that the Christian faith makes claims about the identity of humans, what human nature is really like, how humans behave, and what a fully healthy and complete human is in Jesus Christ. It argues that we are to be restored in Christ and so Christ is what we ultimately need to be whole and complete. He further elaborates this with his studies and work on how Biblical counseling attempts to work out “biblical faith into the particulars of our time, place, problems, and persons”. He developed the word “psychology” along the following six lines/ aspects during a particular counseling encounter-
Psych 1- The raw experiences of life
Psych 2- Organized descriptions of those experiences
Psych 3- Interpretive model
Psych 4- The practical application of those models (psychotherapy),
Psych 5- Professional and institutional arrangements
Psych 6- The ethos of the culture.
According to Powlison, biblical counseling is just one example of “practical theological work”: it seeks to apply Scripture to the complex circumstances of life.
5. Transformational psychology: This view/model was presented by John Coe and Todd Hall who maintained that “psychology is ultimately an act of love”. It focuses on the spiritual and emotional transformation of the psychologist. It stated that Science can operate independently of faith but the goal in this view is to bring science and faith together because they are truly not something separate. The Transformational view offers a uniting of science and faith in the effort to transform both client and practitioner. The focus is on God and the process of the journey back to God and whatever one can use from the Christian tradition to achieve this goal can and will be utilized. One of the key premises of the transformational view is its insistence that “quantification” (the methodology of the empirical sciences) is not one-size-fits-all methodology. They argued that psychology should be open to investigating, as a unified field of knowledge, all of the phenomena of human experience, including the facts of “science” as well as the realities of faith. Therefore, the transformational model is critical of methodologies that are based upon naturalistic presuppositions. He concluded this stating that, for the transformational model, the “transformed person is the most fundamental” and it insists that “doing psychology truly is to do it in faith, in the love of God”.
Q2. Even though all the models have not been discussed so far in the class, of the 3 presented this week, which one do you feel more closely aligns to how you view integration? What would you change or remove from this view to make it fit more closely to what you believe integration should look like? Use the text and scripture. You can also use the other class texts to help to connect the different conceptualizations of what integration looks like.
After going through a thorough and elaborative understanding of each view, I feel that I find the Levels of Explanation View by David G. Myers closely aligns to the integration of Psychology and Christianity. For some of the contributors, psychology is primarily an academic enterprise, for some Christians ought to engage the discipline of psychology as they would any other academic discipline, employing the accepted methods in the field (levels-of-explanation) and for others Christians ought to carve out their own niche in the discipline, opening the field up to methods that move beyond the naturalistic presuppositions that have prevailed in the modern era (Christian psychology and transformational psychology). If Christians are to engage the discipline of academic psychology, it looks comfortable and right see the levels of explanation view be preferred, because it rightly calls into question the naturalistic dogmatism that characterizes much of the field of psychology and taps into the psychological resources inherent in Scripture and the Christian tradition.
I'm also pretty much convinced with the Biblical Counselling View by Powlison. However, there are some of the parts of the viewpoints that leave a scope for argument.
In Biblical Counselling, understanding that the Christian faith is Psychological View in its own right and given the six aspects through which christian counselling is given to individuals, I would like to change the perspective of belief in what is right and wrong in Christian Scriptures to the choice left to the individual to decide what is right and wrong in his/her own belief and bring an acceptance to the decision made by the individual, for he has to progress further in life and we are the mere promoters and sources/ directors of choosing the right direction. We live in the Gods World however, there is a reason why we function in a particular manner for which the evidences are more scientific and empirical.
Johnson states (2010), “This book provides an opportunity to understand the intellectual crisis facing the church...