Psychology
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Psychology

A Student's Guide

Stanton L. Jones, David S. Dockery

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eBook - ePub

Psychology

A Student's Guide

Stanton L. Jones, David S. Dockery

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About This Book

In this accessible student's guide, an experienced professor examines the study of psychology from a distinctly Christian perspective, introducing readers to key issues such as the origins of morality, nature vs. nurture, the relationship between the mind and brain, and the concept of personal identity.

Whether examining the history of psychological reflection, the legacy of the Enlightenment and Darwinism, or the development of modernist psychology, this volume will help students think carefully about the influential ideas that continue to shape contemporary discussions about what it means to be human.

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Information

Publisher
Crossway
Year
2014
ISBN
9781433539817
Image
1
PSYCHOLOGY IN ITS INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT
Some who trace the history of the field of psychology suggest that the discipline leapt into existence in Europe as a scientific splinter from the field of philosophy initiated by professor of philosophy Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt—as the story goes—put aside the increasingly fruitless speculations of philosophy about the human person and decided instead to do what scientists must do: build a foundation of sure knowledge by focusing on “the data.”
SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, AND THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION UNITED
In reality, psychology did not simply leap into existence in the late nineteenth century. Psychology, as more thorough histories document,1 has been around in some form since the dawn of human self-reflection and intellectual inquiry. Our understandings of the human condition as well as of the world around us have always drawn upon “data” of some sort, with that data interpreted through human reason operating in the context of a set of presumed understandings that have shaped and guided that inquiry.
Here, I want to pay particular attention to the “presumed understandings that have shaped and guided” inquiry. Specifically, I want to outline how psychology has developed in the context of Christian reflection and more recently in a Western intellectual tradition in which Christian and other religious perspectives have been pushed aside.
The most rigorous ancient outlines of human psychology are attributable to Plato, Aristotle, and other great ancient Greek thinkers, who explored human motivation and reason, the purposes and shape of human community, the form of optimal character, and the nature of human dysfunctions. Concurrent with but independent from the development of Greek thought, the Hebrews developed their own religious and intellectual traditions in the context of a dizzying array of ancient Near Eastern cultures, resulting—by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the self-revelation of God the Father—in the Old Testament.
While the Old Testament contains little that looks like psychology by today’s standards, it is nevertheless true that there is much “psychological” material there, particularly fundamental understandings of the nature of what it means to be a human being. The Old Testament depicts the first human beings—despite being “very good” (Gen. 1:31)—as succumbing to sin and reaping the full consequences for themselves and all their ancestors. Old Testament passages speak of emotions, motivations, beliefs, character and virtue, social institutions, and many facets of the human condition. Wisdom Literature such as Proverbs offers concrete guidance for proper human development, for parenting, for the development of moral character, for shaping social relationships, and other topics. The moral laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy provide a backdrop of God’s intent for human action that help us understand what it means to be human. While this may fall short of constituting an academic discipline, the Old Testament does offer rich teaching about what it means to be a human being.
The first book in this study guide series explores the rise and evolution of the Christian intellectual movement.2 Grounded in God’s truth as revealed in the Old Testament, the expanding early church first received a new set of God’s revelations from the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and then further instruction from the inspired writings of the apostles—the New Testament. Then as the church grew explosively throughout the Roman world and other areas, problems arose in key theological areas.
Many of the growing number of Gentile converts were blessed with thorough preparation in the great intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman world and used this intellectual preparation in service of Christ. The early Christian church did not take a stance of rejection toward secular knowledge but rather sought to purify and properly use secular thought in service of Christ. Early Christian thinkers used the work of Plato, Aristotle, and others as tools in their theological and practical endeavors, with these resources interpreted in light of the teachings of the Scriptures. Dockery and George note that the “third century saw the rise of schools, intertwined with classical learning, science, philosophy, and centers of art. The Christian intellectual tradition shaped by serious biblical interpretation began to develop and mature in the Schools of Alexandria [Egypt] and Antioch.”3
Thus began the great Christian intellectual tradition, including science more broadly and specifically Christian psychological inquiry. Sophisticated forms of psychological thought emerged in the early church as pastors, bishops, theologians, and others struggled to understand how to best guide the formation of Christian character, heal the wounds of the broken and struggling among their flocks, and offer the best pastoral guidance in all circumstances. Augustine (fifth century) developed sophisticated reflections on human psychology grounded in the Scriptures and “flavored by the philosophical tradition inspired by Plato.”4 Pope Gregory the Great (sixth century) developed a sophisticated pastoral psychology containing a kind of personality theory that was to guide pastoral care in the Western church for centuries to come.5
The difficult period between the decline of the Roman Empire and the rise of the European Renaissance has long been labeled as the “Dark Ages” by secular chroniclers of intellectual history, some of whom claim that the Christian tradition suppressed the advance of scientific/secular knowledge until progress reemerged in the Renaissance as a result of the rediscovery in the West of the work of Aristotle. Many historians now dispute this interpretation as wrong on at least three fronts.
First, it is clear that much intellectual work worthy of respect was going on during this period. Second, the collapse of the Roman Empire and the cultural turmoil that ensued made profound intellectual progress challenging; that the medieval Church succeeded in preserving much of ancient human knowledge was quite remarkable. Third, the characterization of the Renaissance as an intellectual step forward is exaggerated. Much of Renaissance thought was intertwined with magic, spiritism, superstition, alchemy, and ignorance. For instance, astrology reemerged and flourished during the Renaissance because Aristotelian cosmology made astrology a respectable part of natural science; this cosmology assumed that the celestial spheres exerted influences on daily life through “the natural forces that link heaven and earth.”6
Still, it is true that there were gaps in intellectual progress during the Dark Ages compared to the advances of the Scientific Revolution that followed. One fundamental problem of the period was the reliance of the Catholic Church (until the thirteenth century) on a synthesis of Christian theology with Platonic philosophy. There were limitations to the kinds of intellectual progress that could be made based on Platonic thought, which helps to explain the explosive impact of what transpired in the thirteenth century.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
The writings of Aristotle had been lost in the European West but were well preserved and utilized in the expanding Islamic world. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic scholars in Spain collaborated in exploring Aristotle’s thought, resulting in challenges to Platonic thought. A new synthesis of Christian theology with the thought of Aristotle began to emerge, particularly in Paris. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps one of the most brilliant intellects ever, used the thought of Aristotle to forge new reflections in theology, philosophy, and all of human knowledge, including insight on the nature of human psychology, and their applications to pastoral care. The resulting synthesis is often called Thomistic or Scholastic philosophy and theology.
It is common to attribute the foundations of modern science to Aristotle’s renewed influence in the thirteenth century, but this is simplistic and misguided. In contrast to the sweeping deductions of Plato, Aristotle did use induction, reasoning from bits of “data” upward toward generalizations. But there is no such thing as pure induction; Aristotle’s philosophical approach to the physical cosmos and psychology built on many a priori assumptions, including many that were false. Aquinas was cautious in his use of Aristotle, but for several generations after, Aquinas’s disciples were aggressive and undiscerning in their embrace of Aristotle.
And then something happened that set important foundations for the Scientific Revolution. Because of the excessive promotion of the philosophy of Aristotle over Christian theology by some of the intellectual descendants of Aquinas, others arose within the pre-Reformation church and began to challenge these assumptions. For example, the bishop of Paris issued a series of condemnations of such views. For instance, Aristotle had proposed that it was impossible for a void, a true vacuum, to exist. By Aristotle’s pre-Christian understanding, even a god could not make a vacuum; it was simply impossible. Some Christian thinkers followed Aristotle and argued that God could not make a void; God’s power was limited by Aristotle’s presumed necessary truths.
“Aristotle had attempted to describe the world not simply as it is, but as it must be. In 1277 [the bishop of Paris] declared, in opposition to Aristotle, that the world is whatever its omnipotent Creator chose to make it.”7 The significance of this cannot be understated. Such an assertion of contingency serves to limit assertions that the physical world, or human character, must be a certain way because of the dictates of human reason.8 Rather, the mind-set that emerges is that things could be constituted any number of ways by God’s contingent and free will, and thus we actually need to investigate physical (or human) reality to see how things really are rather than use merely rational deduction. This mind-set is part of an excellent foundation for the advance of science.
In fact, a number of other Christian principles proved to be fruitful in solidifying the foundation for the developing scientific revolution of the following centuries, by (1) providing a theological and biblical foundation for seeing physical reality as good and thus worthy of study; (2) motivating the search for universal laws by understanding the physical world as the creation of a rational lawgiver who made the world to reflect his rational mind; and (3) providing personal motives for scientists, such as improving the world to bring glory to God or helping to provide rational evidence for God’s existence.9
WARFARE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: REAL AND IMAGINED
What we understand today as modern science began to emerge in the centuries that followed, thanks to the foundations laid by theological developments in the Catholic Church and in the emerging Protestant Reformation that began in the fifteenth century. Much of the emerging scientific inquiry and development (broadly conceived, and psychology more narrowly) was integrally intertwined with and fostered by Christian theological reflection, and many great scientists were devout Christians.
But, frankly, this was not the story I grew up hearing about the relationship between science and religion. In many places in Western culture today, religion and science are portrayed as antagonists. Many secular, anti-religious scholars have asserted that religion has always stood for dogmatic certainty, superstition, and authoritarian control, while science is on an open-minded, noble quest for truth, and thus that the two forces have been locked in conflict since the emergence of modern science. This “standard account” was systematized in the English-speaking world toward the end of the nineteenth century—at the high-water mark of the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment—by the work of two ardent proponents.
John William Draper authored the highly influential diatribe History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874), which has stayed in print for fourteen decades. Draper claimed that the Roman Church had perpetually displayed “a bitter and mortal animosity” toward science and fostered brutal persecution of scientists and other nonconformists. Draper even claims, wrongly, that the church had declared that “all knowledge is to be found in the Scriptures” and constitutes “all that he [God] intended us to know.”10 This account suggests that the church attempted to maintain a stranglehold on thought to perpetuate its control in society. This control began to weake...

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