Psychology E-Book

Stanton L. Jones

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 179

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

PSYCHOLOGY

A STUDENT’SGUIDE

Stanton L. Jones

Psychology: A Student’s Guide

Copyright © 2014 by Stanton L. Jones

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Jon McGrath, Simplicated Studio

First printing 2014

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3978-7ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3981-7 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-3979-4Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3980-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jones, Stanton L.

   Psychology : a student’s guide / Stanton L. Jones.

        1 online resource. — (Reclaiming the Christian intellectual tradition)

   Includes bibliographical references and index.

   Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

   ISBN 978-1-4335-3979-4 (pdf) – ISBN 978-1-4335-3980-0 (mobi) – ISBN 978-1-4335-3981-7 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4335-3978-7 (tp)

   1. Christianity—Psychology—Textbooks. 2. Psychology and religion—Textbooks. 3. Psychology—Philosophy—Textbooks.I. Title.

BR110

261.5'15--dc23                  2014032202

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To Emily, Canon, Brady, Aaron, and Brian; five wonderful people whose addition to our family—by marriage as our new children or by birth as our grandchildren—has expanded the scope of our joy and our experience of love. Thank you.

CONTENTS

Series PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1  Psychology in Its Intellectual Context2  The Work of Integration and a Christian View of Persons3  Neuroscience, Embodiment, and Mind4  Behavior Genetics and Responsible Personhood5  Positive and Applied Psychology and Sanctification6  Psychology of Religion and TruthQuestions for ReflectionGlossaryResources for Further StudyGeneral Index

SERIES PREFACE

RECLAIMING THE CHRISTIAN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION

The Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition series is designed to provide an overview of the distinctive way the church has read the Bible, formulated doctrine, provided education, and engaged the culture. The contributors to this series all agree that personal faith and genuine Christian piety are essential for the life of Christ followers and for the church. These contributors also believe that helping others recognize the importance of serious thinking about God, Scripture, and the world needs a renewed emphasis at this time in order that the truth claims of the Christian faith can be passed along from one generation to the next. The study guides in this series will enable us to see afresh how the Christian faith shapes how we live, how we think, how we write books, how we govern society, and how we relate to one another in our churches and social structures. The richness of the Christian intellectual tradition provides guidance for the complex challenges that believers face in this world.

This series is particularly designed for Christian students and others associated with college and university campuses, including faculty, staff, trustees, and other various constituents. The contributors to the series will explore how the Bible has been interpreted in the history of the church, as well as how theology has been formulated. They will ask: How does the Christian faith influence our understanding of culture, literature, philosophy, government, beauty, art, or work? How does the Christian intellectual tradition help us understand truth? How does the Christian intellectual tradition shape our approach to education? We believe that this series is not only timely but that it meets an important need, because the secular culture in which we now find ourselves is, at best, indifferent to the Christian faith, and the Christian world—at least in its more popular forms—tends to be confused about the beliefs, heritage, and tradition associated with the Christian faith.

At the heart of this work is the challenge to prepare a generation of Christians to think Christianly, to engage the academy and the culture, and to serve church and society. We believe that both the breadth and the depth of the Christian intellectual tradition need to be reclaimed, revitalized, renewed, and revived for us to carry forward this work. These study guides will seek to provide a framework to help introduce students to the great tradition of Christian thinking, seeking to highlight its importance for understanding the world, its significance for serving both church and society, and its application for Christian thinking and learning. The series is a starting point for exploring important ideas and issues such as truth, meaning, beauty, and justice.

We trust that the series will help introduce readers to the apostles, church fathers, Reformers, philosophers, theologians, historians, and a wide variety of other significant thinkers. In addition to well-known leaders such as Clement, Origen, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Jonathan Edwards, readers will be pointed to William Wilberforce, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers, C. S. Lewis, Johann Sebastian Bach, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, George Washington Carver, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Michael Polanyi, Henry Luke Orombi, and many others. In doing so, we hope to introduce those who throughout history have demonstrated that it is indeed possible to be serious about the life of the mind while simultaneously being deeply committed Christians. These efforts to strengthen serious Christian thinking and scholarship will not be limited to the study of theology, scriptural interpretation, or philosophy, even though these areas provide the framework for understanding the Christian faith for all other areas of exploration. In order for us to reclaim and advance the Christian intellectual tradition, we must have some understanding of the tradition itself. The volumes in this series seek to explore this tradition and its application for our twenty-first-century world. Each volume contains a glossary, study questions, and a list of resources for further study, which we trust will provide helpful guidance for our readers.

I am deeply grateful to the series editorial committee: Timothy George, John Woodbridge, Michael Wilkins, Niel Nielson, Philip Ryken, and Hunter Baker. Each of these colleagues joins me in thanking our various contributors for their fine work. We all express our appreciation to Justin Taylor, Jill Carter, Allan Fisher, Lane Dennis, and the Crossway team for their enthusiastic support for the project. We offer the project with the hope that students will be helped, faculty and Christian leaders will be encouraged, institutions will be strengthened, churches will be built up, and, ultimately, that God will be glorified.

Soli Deo Gloria

David S. Dockery

Series Editor

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am especially indebted to Ray Phinney, William Struthers, and Philip Ryken, with whom I discussed various ideas for this volume; Jay Wood, who helped me with some philosophical concepts and resources; Cynthia Neal Kimball and Richard Butman, who read specific chapters and offered extremely wise suggestions and criticisms (some of which I chose to ignore—sorry); and especially to Sarah Miglio, whose careful reading of the entire manuscript, editorial suggestions, encouragement, and thoughtfulness came at the right moment. Thanks to Magnolia Laya and Dianne McCarty for structuring my professional life and creating space on the margins for this project to come to fruition; you two are amazing.

I acknowledge with gratitude the wonderful Christian intellectual community of Wheaton College, from which I continually draw spiritual and intellectual inspiration.

Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my ever-supportive and patient soul mate, Brenna, without whose strength, depth, and forgiveness my life would be infinitely diminished.

INTRODUCTION

In the Bible, the prophets and apostles ask various forms of the question, What is a human being? (e.g., Job 7:17; 15:14; Ps. 144:3; Heb. 2:6). “Who are we? What are we? What are we supposed to be doing? Who are we in relation to everything else?”1 They do not leave the question unanswered but give concise, general answers describing human beings as created in God’s image and in relationship to the one true God. Do we need more than that?

You have picked up this book because you are interested in the field of psychology and seek a general understanding of how Christians should approach this field. I commend you for this interest but warn you that the answers are complex, first because the contemporary discipline of psychology has been conceptualized and pursued from a fundamental commitment to turning away from answers from theology and religious traditions in favor of the findings from supposedly objective, neutral scientific methods. As we shall see, careful thought and contemporary scholarship challenge the supposed objectivity and neutrality of this approach (chapter 1). Further, many psychologists manifest disinterest or even antagonism toward religion, especially toward institutionalized, traditional religious faith (i.e., Christianity; see chapter 6); these attitudes show in their work.

The answers are also complex because, while careful biblical study gives us many rich perspectives on human existence, human growth, and ministry to those in distress, the guidance offered is often more skeletal and abstract than we might want. For instance, you’ll discover in chapter 2 that the most fundamental truth about human existence—that we are made in the very image of God—has been the subject of theological dispute since the earliest days of the church. This truth is simultaneously fundamental and indispensable but also terribly complex and vague.

Finally, the answers are complex because psychology is so diverse. The discipline spans from neuroscientific studies of single neurons in simple organisms on the one hand, to the measurement of cultural attitudes about religion and their impact upon individuals, families, and organizations. The applied facets of the discipline range from studies of animal learning to behavior modification of the profoundly developmentally disabled, to problem-oriented psychotherapy with individuals and groups, to organizational and social interventions to foster enhanced functioning. Such complexity befuddles the formulation of any simple understanding of how faith and psychology relate.

The field of psychology should be approached by Christians with enthusiasm for all it offers from the vast cornucopia of research probing the nature of human existence. At the same time, the field of psychology should be approached by the Christian with caution because much of the field needs to be reinterpreted or challenged on the basis of fundamental Christian convictions. We should approach psychology critically, teasing out aspects incompatible with Christian faith, challenging key concepts and rethinking them on the basis of scriptural truth. But we also should approach psychology constructively, seeking to make positive use of its best theory and research and striving to synthesize this into a system congruent with Christian conviction to advance the scientific quest.

It is this two-part dynamic of critical and constructive Christian engagement with the field that I regard as the “integration of psychology and Christian faith.”2 I will expand on this definition of integration in the second chapter. It is my hope to model such Christian engagement in this brief work. But first, in chapter 1 I place psychology in context of the great intellectual tradition of the West. Psychology’s fit within this intellectual history can be hard to discern for the student new to the field, in part because of psychology’s pervasive penetration into popular culture: psychological thinking seems almost second nature; it is in the air we breathe and the water we drink. In chapter 2 I outline the fundamentals of biblical perspectives on human beings and elaborate a bit on the task of the integration of psychology and Christianity.

Because a review of and response to the entire field of psychology would be quite impossible in a brief book such as this, I present to the reader four case studies from representative facets of the field. Together, these allow us to engage some of the most challenging and fundamental questions about how Christian faith relates to the field, hopefully equipping us with a basic understanding of how to responsibly engage psychology as thoughtful Christians.

____________

1 Marc Cortez, Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological Anthropology and Its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate (New York: T & T Clark, 2008), 1.

2 Stanton L. Jones, “A Constructive Relationship for Religion with the Science and Profession of Psychology: Perhaps the Boldest Model Yet,” American Psychologist 49 (1994): 184–99; Stanton L. Jones and Richard Butman, Modern Psychotherapies: A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011); Stanton Jones, “An Integration View,” in Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, 2nd ed., ed. Eric L. Johnson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010), 101–28.

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