Learner:     Brent A. Gray, ID #77812

Convener:   Kevin Sharpe, Ph.D.

Location:    Oxford, England

A Theme in Science and Spirituality

 

      TENSIONS BETWEEN THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY AND CHRISTIANITY

 

I thank Dr. Sharpe for allowing me, per his e-mail, to write on some other new literature related to our upcoming studies at Oxford.  I had previously written three papers on science and spirit based on my readings by Sharpe, Barbour, Bohm, and others.  Recently I have read another book by Barbour, titled Where Science Meets Religion, as well as Paths from Science Towards God by Arthur Peacocke.  These two readings were exhilarating and I very much look forward to Dr. Peacocke presenting to us while at Oxford.

To coincide with the assigned reading by Dr. Sharpe, I took time to read a number of books by C. S. Lewis.  My belief system In God is similar to his and I appreciate his scholarly style of writing in Christian world view thought.  I find myself very challenged as I examine the personal motives of my own life compared to the purposes of the faith I follow: Lewis has an uncanny capacity in his writings to bring about a conviction on my soul (psyche) and to pointedly remove some of the nice fluff from the ways I frame my faith and personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

In my work with Christians, I separate out the person by physical body, the spirit (which I believe differentiates human kind from all other animals and gives capacity for personal relationship with our Creator God) and the soul (our personality, will, and emotions).  My counseling focuses on soul life and, at times, physical life that is hindering them in ways that brings them to counseling.  Of course, helping them to be aware and open to the spirit of God working in and through their spirit to address matters of the soul is a significant part of the healing process.  Biblical scripture is also sought to address their issues of pain.

In the New Testament, Jesus said that, AWhoever wants to save his life will lost it@ (Luke 9:24).  In this passage, Christ was not using the word Abios@ for physical life.  The word Christ uses for Alife@ is the word psyche -- the word for our soul, our inner self, our heart.  I believe he was saying that the things we do to save our psyche, our self, those plans to preserve living life on our terms may cost us or even destroy us as was the case in my life (but that=s another paper).

Having shared this perspective, I must also share that many Christian theologians, educators, counselors and lay people disregard the healing work I deem valuable for matters related to the soul (psyche) of the clients I counsel.  They say that the person need only pray more, stop their sinning, or maybe they aren=t even a Atrue believer.@  As a matter of fact, the largest church in my community is of this belief (10,000+ members).  Interestingly, I counsel (behind closed doors) a number of their congregants as well as those in some leadership positions.  I am not sure how their theology deals with ^1st John 1, which says, AHe, who says he is without sin (missing the mark), deceives himself and calls God a liar.@  We all have our stuff.  I believe God measures our success by our faithfulness to trying and not a focus on our failings, AI will cast your sins into the sea of forgetfulness.@  Amen!

So, for many Christians, the science of counseling psychology with Christians, facilitated by scriptural guidelines as well as principles found in psychological theory and neuropsychology is viewed as pagan and heretical and equated by some in the Christian community as cults, only worse because, as they say, errors of psychology are less identifiable, so therefore, more deceptive than a cult.

Followers of God have always been interested in his creation.  The psalmist cries out, AHow many are your works, O Lord!  In wisdom you made all of them, the earth is full of your creatures@ (Ps. 104:24).  The greatest interest to most of us is our own nature.  AFor you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother=s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well@ (Ps. 139:13-14).  John Calvin wrote, AA human being is a microcosm of the universe, and a rare example of God=s power, goodness, and wisdom, and contains within, enough miracles to occupy our mind@ (1960, p. 54).  Why then is it a surprise that Christian thinkers seek to understand and nurture human character and behavior through the science of psychology? 

Many secularists and Christians alike see science and faith as competing systems of explanation or natural versus supernatural.  One side says beware of skeptical scientists; the other, judgmental fundamentalists.  When our forefathers and mothers began seeing lightning as nature other than God, they ceased seeing it as an act of God.  When some contemporaries see humans as a product of evolutionary history, they cease viewing them as a special spiritual creature of God.  Science and religious faith seem to rest in opposite camp sites of explanation for many.

Interestingly, many founders of science had strong religious convictions.  Pascal, Bacon, Newton, and Galileo distrusted human intuition, explored God=s creation, and submitted their ideas to the test.  Whether searching for truth in the Book of God=s Word or the Book of God=s Works, they viewed themselves in God=s service.  If we believe, as I do, that our world is the intelligible creation of God, then it is a work to be enjoyed, managed, observed and investigated by checking out theories against reality and God=s word given to us in scripture.  Part of loving God is to love God with our minds.  ALove the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, and soul@ (Matthew 22:37).

I believe there are a number of values for the bridging and integration of the science of psychology and religious faith as a Christian.  First, Christians have a responsibility to care for the world and its people.  I believe part of the reason we were created is to protect, cultivate and have dominion over the planet where we live (Gen. 1:26-28).  Secondly, Christians have the challenge of understanding the world, including its people. 

Psychology, more than any other discipline, is committed to understanding people.  Psychology is a broad and rich study of people in all their complexity.  Psychologists systematically and carefully use science, clinical observation, interviews, analysis of written materials such as novels and diaries, case histories, and other methods to know about people.  As a result of these types of investigations, including what has come through scientific methods often criticized, psychological science has and continues to gather useful information about how people live, think, struggle, interact and act.  Christians must allow their commitment to Christ to penetrate every aspect of their lives, which includes those observed, known, and clarified through psychological sciences.

For psychology and religion, science and spirit to find value together, we must be willing to address issues by appropriating theory and research.  Also, I think it would benefit from eschatological (study of future things) approaches, being culturally sensitive, and outreaching to all people.  But at its core, I believe the study of psychology and religious faith must move forward as a spirit-led activity and a way of life that starts and ultimately takes place in the mind and soul of the investigator.  It is with this belief that I look forward to our investigations together at Oxford as we look deeply into issues of science and spirit as part of our never ceasing curiosities of creation and its designer.

I conclude with a portion of Journal Article by Armand Nicholi, Jr., M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, regarding the conversion of C. S. Lewis.  First, Lewis became aware that many of the great writers he had been reading were believers.  Second, Lewis was shocked during a conversation with some of his Oxford colleagues when one of them, an avowed atheist, stated that evidence for the historical authenticity of the gospel was very good.  That the evidence was sound and the gospel stories actually appeared to be true.  Third, he read G. K. Chesterton=s Everlasting Man and finally arrived at his belief in God.  He wrote about it in Surprised by Joy:

Picture me alone in that room at Magdalene, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him, whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.  That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.  In the Trinity Term of 1929, I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.