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In Psychology & Christianity: Five Views , ed. Eric Johnson (IVP), David Powlison cuts the “semantic pie” of the word “psychology” and looks at various aspects of the term.

Psych-1: How You Work

A. “You in interaction with your entire life situation.”

B. Most like what we think of as a good novel or film (a story that brings significant complexities to light).

C. What is the bottom line regarding Christianity and Psych-1?

Like good art, like the modern Western psychologies, and like the world and local religions that take the place of Psychology in non-Westernized places, Christian faith is about Psych-1. That’s why Jesus, Luke, Paul, David and the writer of Job are so often recognized as master psychologists. They know people. It’s why the Bible speaks with such vigorous immediacy to modern readers.

Psych-2: Detailed Knowledge of Human Functioning

A. “Refers to organized knowledge, to close observations and systematic descriptions of human functioning.”

B. Most like what we think of as science (the intentional pursuit of organized knowledge).

C. The bottom line regarding Christianity and Psych-2?

We can learn a great deal. But bear in mind how faulty assumptions variously overemphasize, exclude, distort or falsify information.

Psych-3: Competing Theories of Human Personality

A. “An interpretive and explanatory model that organizes and weighs the torrent of Psych-1 experience and Psych-2 information.”

B. Most like what we think of as worldview or theology.

C. The bottom line regarding Christianity and Psych-3?

The personality theories systematically differ from the Christian gaze. Secular Psych-3s diverge from the Christian Psych-3. We will be stimulated and challenged by the questions they ask and by the realities they seek to account for. But they offer false and shallow views of humanness, and we must better account for human experience and offer better answers.

Psych-4: Practical Applications to Psychotherapy

A. “Various psychotherapeutic models and skills aiming to redress problems in living.”

B. Most like what we think of as cure of souls.

C. The bottom line regarding Christianity and Psych-4?

We must do better and different than the secular pastorates. We are glad when they accomplish common-grace goods—restraining a suicide, sweetening a marriage, sobering a drunk, walking through a rough patch with a troubled person—just as we are glad when an imam, a self-help guru or mere willpower accomplishes good
things. But these other “pastorates” heal lightly the woes and wrongs of the human condition. The competencies of other psychotherapies will stimulate and challenge us, but our calling is to build distinctively Christian counseling ministry that fulfills the mission God has given his people.”

Psych-5: A System of Professional and Institutional Arrangements

A. “Institutional and professional arrangements.

B. Most like what we think of as church or parachurch.

C. The bottom line regarding Christianity and Psych-5?

Build ministry institutions and roles that can mediate the life-rearranging truth and love that is in Christ.

Psych-6: A Mass Ethos

A. “An ethos pervading popular culture, a zeitgeist.”

B. Most like what we think of as pop culture or the world.

C. The bottom line regarding Christianity and Psych-6?

Form a counterculture that breathes the fragrance of biblical wisdom. Our constructive wisdom qualitatively differs from the wisdoms of a psychologized culture. Our truth qualitatively differs from the therapeutic truisms in the air we breathe. The ethos of dependency on a Savior and of speaking truth in love offers a startling contrast to the ethos that dominates the popular mind and media.

Powlison summarizes:

Though interrelated, these six meanings of psychology highlight different aspects—a person’s dynamics, detailed information, explanatory theories, interventive practices, social institutions, and enculturated values and beliefs. It is important to see how Christian faith and practice relate in different ways to each aspect of what comes under the monolithic heading Psychology.

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