Psychology is basically the study of the mind, the way it works, and how it responds. No problem with that...except, psychology has its origins in man's understanding of the mind. What man sees. It doesn't start in scripture to see what God says about our minds. One might say, "well, we don't start in scripture to find information about the spleen or the liver." True. But, the spleen, the liver, etc are the material part of man. But after studying scripture I firmly believe that man has a spiritual side, which I believe the mind is part of. Sure, our mind can effected by the physical or material side of man. But the mind in and of itself is from the inner workings of a man's soul.
I am reading and reading stuff on psychology and have yet to discover a premis in psychology that says man is beyond material. In fact, what I am reading makes it sound like man is just some type of machine.
Here is what I am finding as the premis of the study of psychology:
~Man is either neutral or basically good.
~ Man's problems stem from his/her environment, pressures in his "material" mind, or man just hasn't learned to tap into his inner resources.
~Man should not feel guilt because there is no such thing as "bad" or "sin"--only ineffective behaviors and choices.
~Everything rests on man's subjective feelings. How a person feels about God, about himself, about relationships, even about "truth".
Okay, so here is my dilema today...how can this premis be integrated into Christianity? It appears to me that psychology and christianity not only have two different systems, but two different goals. Psychology seems to be in pursuit of the fulfillment and love of one's self. Christianity is in the pursuit of glorifying and loving God.
So, how can we have Christian Psychology? How can the two go together? They seem so diametrically opposed.
Yet, what I see, so many Christians embracing the philosphies of psychology. Running to Drs of Psychology and Psychiatry for medication to treat a spiritual problem. Why has this happened? And what is Psychology doing to the minds of believers? Is it making us more and more humanistic? Is it minimizing the power of God's Word and Prayer? Is it effecting our ability to believe in the sufficiency of scripture for all of our spiritual needs? Is it saying that man is no longer responsible for sin? Does it deny the depravity of man and his need for a Savior? Perhaps we are learning to be our own Saviors? Maybe we are beginning to call sin "ineffective behaviors" that can treated with medication.
What is happening to the church?
Quote from Dr. Ed Payne, publisher of the journal, "Biblical Reflections on Modern Medicine"
"Intergration implies a merging of things that can be merged. Take a field such as psychology, which is not only formed without biblical principles in mind, but is anti-God and Anti-Christian. It doesn't make sense----not even common sense that you can merge what is God's with what is rebellion against God."
So this quote got asking some questions, "Is the foundation of psychology really a rebellion against God?" If so, "How?"
First of all, as I stated above from my reading I found that psychology denies man's depravity or sin nature. Also, psychology pursues self instead of God. So, psychology appears to encourage man to idolize himself.
As Christians if we follow the sytems of psychology we will be guilty of encouraging idolatry. I mean, think about all the different techniques used to cope. This was a very convicting thought to me, because I know I have fallen into this several times. worst yet, I have used scripture to teach people how to develop better coping mechanisms. Like, if WE do it just right, WE can fix ourselves. In the process we leave out the need for Christ and the transforming power of the gospel. Maybe we have even developed our own gospel?
Hmmmm...I am feeling very challenged right now. This has really effected my thinking deeper than I had realized. IT's amazing how much of the world is in us. We have to be vigilant. We have to be like the Bereans. We have got to be in the word, constantly keeping the word at the forefront of our minds, comparing everything with scripture. We have got to be praying for wisdom. If we are not careful we will just be falling for every wind of doctrine. Easily swayed like a ship on the windy sea. Tossed to and fro...unstable in all our ways. Perhaps this explains the spiritual condition of the church today and its inablity to discern what is right or wrong.
~Di
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
My Favorite internet places
My life. . .
About Me
- padivan
- I am a Pastor's Wife. I have committed my life to following Christ--there is no turning back. The Lord is constantly revealing to me the things that need to change in my heart--yet he does this with such patience and grace. I could sing of His love forever--and I will.
I must decrease...HE MUST INCREASE!
More of you Lord in my life is what I desire. Please make it so.
4 comments:
Loved your post. Although I haven't studied as much as you it seems to me that especially for women in the western culture we are encouraged far too much to go with our feelings. I would have killed my husband and my kids by now if I did that. Our feelings lie to us and are subjective at best. Feelings come from so many sources and for so many reasons that the only true seive would have to be to measure how I feel against what God's word says. Our hearts are deceitful and not trustworthy and never once does God say that we should feel our way through a situation. obediance is better than sacrifice and the loyal obediant heart is one that loves God because we are choosing to deny our own desires to obey His truth. God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and strength and a sound mind but we are responsible to maintain it. In Phil 4:9 Paul tells us that in the practicing of such things we will find peace. Practicing focusing on what is true and right and pure and worthy. We only peace when we obey and submit. all the other times we become victims to our own understanding and that is one dangerous place to be for sure.
Love you friend. Am praying for your healing.
It is interesting Padi…My husband and I have believed that in going to a counselor the first thing of importance was to find one that was really good at what they did. The second priority was that they were a Christian counselor. As of late, we don’t think we agree with this anymore. Doug and I have been going to Christian counseling for a while concerning things from my past and we have also been reading some counseling books. God has really used both of these things to make us question our previous mentality. When I was trying to deal with stuff from the past before, it was very “me” focused. What I am realizing now is that my going back and dealing with stuff from the past should be for the purpose of me being able to “love the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind, and love my neighbor as myself.” If we weren’t going to a counselor that comes from a Christian worldview, then I would not be realizing the ways I have hurt others and not trusted God by the ways I have tried to protect myself. If I went to a non-Christian counselor they would tell me it was okay that I have done this with people around me because of what I went through as a kid rather than calling my sin what it is…sin.
As far as medicine, you know that I am on medicine for anxiety and OCD. My Psychiatrist is a Christian and she has always seen medicine as a temporary thing to help keep the symptoms at a manageable level so that counseling can be productive and you can continue to live life and not be immobilized by the stuff you are going through. For example, my anxiety medicine has helped me to not have the severe nausea I was having so that I am able to actively go to counseling and walk through the process of figuring out why I am having all of this anxiety.
I used to be worried about the use of medication for treating "mental diseases". Of late, I am not so much anymore. What concerns me is how often as believers we don't acknowledge that we are dealing with far more spiritual issues than physical. Perhaps so much of our physical is a symptom of something spiritual. Just a concern I have about ignoring the spiritual and not even taking a spiritual approach to our behaviors, especially our minds.
:-) I am still not a huge proponent on the use of medication for "mental diseases" because while those medications can put physical symtpoms at bay, they can never cure a heart issue. But I think that some Psychologists and Psychiatrists treat the medication as if it is the cure because they do not acknowledge a spiritual side of us. Many people I think have been disillusioned by the use of meds because they were under the impression it was the solution and the Dr. does not tell them otherwise. It's just the prevelant thinking out there of those who are not informed about what the medicines actually do.
I do think that if medicine is going to be used, like in your situation, there is spiritual counseling going on. Good sound counseling, counseling the starts and ends with scripture. I would imagine it would be very difficult to go to 6-8 years of college for Psychology or Psychiatry and come out with being influenced by a worldly view. It would be hard. Not impossible, just hard.
I would think it would be hard to not adopt the secular terms, systems, goals, coping techniques of the world. But I am sure there are some out there that have been able to do this. Just my thoughts as I am studying through both sides of this.
Padi
I have seen what happens when psychology is taught as truth and the resulting damage in the heart and mind spiritually and emotionally is HUGE. This should not be taught in Christian colleges. Our oldest daughter was so grounded and sure of herself until a pysc teacher told her religion was bunk and little better than a crutch. She is bearing the spiritual scars now for walking away from the truth. She is still convinced that truth is relative to life and that not all "fundamental truth" applys across the board. It is essential as believers to examine the spiritual root cause to any situation before one proceeds. The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked. We have no idea unless we are using God's word as a measuring stick that we could be acting out of pride or jealously or etc..... We can justify just about any action and we are so good at defending our own hearts that is supremely foolish at best to deny God's play in our hearts. Most things come to the selfishness of the heart. I want things my way and I will not bend sort of attitude. Instead of asking what would happen if I did bend. How will this look ten years out? How about 20 years out? What is the ulitmate goal and how should we best get there. If the goal is to glorify God with our lives then we should start by asking Him what he wants regardless of how we "feel" about it. I seldom liked doing chores as a child but obediance not only kept me out of trouble but benefitted the entire family. Obediance is the sacrifice God demands from us because if we will deny ourselves and choose to serve God come what may we are saying with our hearts that we do indeed submit to His authority over our hearts. Anything less is flat sin. Just my two cents.;-)
Post a Comment