“WHAT IS MAN THAT THOU ART MINDFUL OF HIM” (Psalm 2)
The Christian World View of Psychology and Counseling
The decade of 2005 continues to be an era of crisis and despair, both personally and
internationally. Contemporary man is fragmented. He knows more than ever before and yet has
no organizing center (cf. Colossians 1.17 and Ephesians 1.10).
A major effort to resolve man’s social psychological crises is visible in the present intensification
of studies in counseling individual and social psychological studies. (See The Journal for
Scientific Studies of Religion; The Journal of Counseling Psychology; Psychology Today; The
Journal of Pastoral Practice; and The Journal of Psychology and Theology)
This study guide will trace the transition from Freudian to Christian counseling concerns. (See
my essay, “Rationality, Scientific Progress and Freudian Theory of Scientific Knowledge) First,
Christian presuppositions will be affirmed. Next, a brief history of the demise of the Christian
paradigm will be described. Secondly, the liberal Protestant counselor models from the
1920s/1930s will be examined. Thirdly, the increased evangelical preoccupations will be stated.
Throughout this study guide, Christian presuppositions will be maintained, but in awareness of
the radical shifts of thought beginning with the first Scientific Revolution of Galileo and
Newton. (See my essays, “Christian Faith and the Development of Physical Sciences;” “The
Christian Faith and the Development of the Behavioral Sciences;” “Christian Faith and
Development of Biological Theories of Evolution;” “Idolatrous Absolutes’” and “The Making of
the Contemporary Mind: Naturalistic, Secularistic, and Humanistic.”)
Also make note of these important books: Mary S. van Leeuwen, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A
Christian Looks at the Changing Face of Psychology (IVP, 1982); Paul C. Vitz, Psychology as
Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship (Eerdmans, 1977); Sigmund Koch, “Psychology and
Emerging Conceptions of Knowledge as Unitary,” in Behaviorism and Phenomenology:
Contrasting Bases for Modern Psychology (University of Chicago Press, 1964), pgs. 4,5; Fred
McKinney, “Fifty Years of Psychology,” American Psychologist 31 (November 1976): 834-42.
I. Biblical Presuppositions: God and the Modern Mind
Christian presuppositions dominated most of the western world up until the end of the
seventeenth century. Although men claimed to be followers of various traditions, there was a
central corpus of beliefs they shared in common. Western man believed in the existence of God
as revealed in the Bible, and that this God had revealed himself in a manner which was
comprehendible by man. The universe was looked upon as the creation of this Biblial God, and
man himself was the highlight of creation. It was from this foundational view, says James Sire,
that all other world views that developed between 1700 and 1900 got their origin (James Sire,
The Universe Next Door (IVP, 1975), p. 23).
With the Age of Enlightenment came a questioning and doubting of these presuppositions. From
Descartes forward reverence to an all-powerful God became less acceptable. Descartes, though
he started out trying to prove God’s existence (as well as man’s), represents a shift away from
the acceptance of God’s existence. His rational endeavors were being accepted in Europe, but
not his God. (Colin Brown, Philosophy and the Christian Faith (IVP, 1973), p. 52) In numerous
intellectual circles God lost his immanence and personality, and was replaced by a deistic
conception of God. Man came to have more and more trust in his own reasoning abilities. The
discipline of science was growing and often the Church represented a hindrance to this growth
rather than an aid. Man was coming to be able to explain more and more things by use of his
own reason, and the Church too often refused to examine the new findings, and labeled the
scientists as heretical. God, because of this, went from the all-powerful, transcendent and
immanent being to the God of the gaps, and finally to be in officially declared dead in the
nineteenth century by Friedrich Nietzsche (Ibid., p. 139).
The modern mind declares the ultimate reality of nature and the ultimate animality of man. In
the universities and other major centers of learning, this is the predominate message. The
modern mind has left no room for supernatural revelation, or any reference to the Biblical
conception of God. Modern man has no basis for any type of moral order, morals as well as law
have become arbitrary (H.W. Paul, The Edge of Contingency (University of Florida, 1979).
From Descartes to Dewey one finds the same confidence in man’s rational ability that man apart
from any reference to the supernatural can solve all his problems. Naturalism made the break
complete, discarding the notion of any absolutes as vigorously as it had discarded the idea of
divine revelation. In almost every realm of existence the modern mind is taught that nature is the
ultimate reality and that man is only an animal. (Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion
(Harper & Row, 1966) To a great degree the widespread acceptance of this type of thinking has
hastened the breakdown of western culture to the depths of despair in which it now wallows. Yet
Christian theism was abandoned, not because of its inner inconsistency or failure to explain the
facts, but rather because it was inadequately understood, forgotten completely, or not applied to
the real issues at hand.
God: The Biblical View
The personal aspect of God which was lost in the Enlightenment is one of the most important
parts of the Biblical conception of God. Both Old and New Testaments affirm that God is one
and He is personal. God is not just some abstract power floating through the heavens. He has a
personality which is self-reflective and self-determinative. He is portrayed in the Bible as having
attributes or characteristics. God is seen as the first and the last and knows the end from the
beginning (Isaiah 41.4, 44.6, 48.12; Revelation 22.13). He is an infinite being beyond man’s
total comprehension; He is the only self-existent being. Just as YHWH himself spoke to Moses,
‘I Am Who I Am.’ (Exodus 3.14) The Biblical view of God is that He is the source of all reality,
the eternal and the almighty, the creator of heaven and earth (Genesis 1.1, 2.4). Throughout the
Old Testament YHWH leads and guides Israel and gives to her the Promise, and when Israel is
rebellious His judgments fall upon her. God is just and good and His goodness is expressed
through His holiness and love. Because God is good, there is a standard of righteousness for
man to model himself after. God, the standard of righteousness, condemns the wicked and is the
one to whom all men have to answer. But God is not just a judge in the Old Testament; He is
also seen as gracious and compassionate (Exodus 34.6,7; Psalm 103.8). To those who live
according to His desires He shows love (Exodus 20.5,6; Deuteronomy 8.10).
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God, as revealed in the New Testament, is the same as the God of the Old Testament. The New
Testament is grounded in the Old Testament. The Old Testament speaks of promise and the
New Testament represents fulfillment. God is the transcendent one, and yet He is immanent, He
is ‘Immanuel,’ (Matthew 1.23) who is with us and actively involved in the world which He
called into being. God is seen as the father of Jesus Christ, and so our Father also, who freely
justifies His people by His grace. In the New Testament God’s action in election bursts all
claims to exclusiveness; salvation is open to everyone (Acts 28.28). The organizing center of the
New Testament is Christ who makes it possible for all people to know what God is like (John
1.14, 14. 6,7).
The key factor to the entire Biblical account is that there is a personal, all-powerful God who can
and does communicate with His creation, man. This communication takes place through either
special revelation as the God who spoke through the burning bush to Moses and who spoke to
the prophets, and the ultimate disclosure which came through Christ Himself (Hebrews 1.1-3); or
through the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit of Christ, the Comforter, God directs those who
claim the Lordship of Christ (John 14-17). In summary, the important point is that God can and
has communicated with man, and because of this communication man is responsible for knowing
who God is and what His expectations are.
What Happened to Man?
After God was eliminated, it wasn’t long before man, the most rational of all beings, became the
object of reduction. The rise of the philosophy of empiricism highlights the beginning of the
reduction of man. Though empiricism as a way of thinking had been around since the Greeks, it
really came to the fore during the Enlightenment through the help of such men as Hume, Locke,
and Berkeley. This represented a major shift away from Descartes’ type of thinking. The basic
thrust of empirical thinking was that one could know only that which was discernible by the
physical sense, then the part of man known as the mind is done away with, as it is not discernible
via the senses. In some circles this completely eliminated and mind as an object worthy of
investigation. As a whole, it fostered what is known as the mind/brain controversy. With the
mind and body separated by this type of thinking, when psychological research on the nature of
man became popular, the mind was left out of such research (see my essay, “Imago Dei: Man
Incarnation Subject”).
Empiricism denies that the immaterial exists; therefore, man is only matter. If only the material
exists, then every effect of man’s life has a material and fatalistic cause. So man becomes
mechanical and determined. Enter the theory of evolution—if empiricism made man just
physical, then evolution helped make him just an animal. If men are only material, and men and
animals share the same material, then men are only animals. Due to evolutionary commitments,
modern psychologists have felt great freedom in studying animal subjects and then transferring
the results to human nature (Mark P. Cosgrove, The Essence of Human Nature (Zondervan,
1977), pg 20; also S. Jaki, Apes, Angels and Men (1983). What has been lost in this process is
all those views of man that argue for his immaterial essence: his self-consciousness, his free
choice, his rational thought, his unique culture, etc., (or basically the Imago Dei).
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This combination of empiricism plus an evolutionary view of man gives us reductionism, i.e., a
way of viewing man that reduces him to an explanation of his parts. Man is equal to a collection
of individual biochemical processes. Yet reductionism is unable to answer why the whole man
seems to be more than just the sum of his physical parts (Ibid., p. 29).
Probably the most popular modern view of man is that he is a biological machine, complex and
intelligent, but still a machine. Not only is this the view held by those involved in psychological
research, but it is also seen in the daily routine of the average man on the street. Not only is he
considered a machine but his value and his contribution in society hinges on how well he can
identify with the machine eight hours a day. In the modern technological society man has lot his
value and is relegated to the level of a machine.
The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes
The peculiarities of human nature are too substantial to accept a view of man that labels him as
an animal, a machine, or just matter. To borrow a concept from Mortimer Adler, the difference
of man is a difference in kind, not just degree, from the other species that co-inhabit the earth
(M. Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (World Pub. Co., 1971).
Man’s behavior confirms that he is self-conscious, has complex motivation and purpose, and is
able to transcend his present moment in time. Man does not merely think objectively, but is
capable of abstract thinking. Man is a being capable of stepping outside of himself and
reflecting upon the meaning and worth of his own existence. This ability, i.e., conceptual
transcendence, is peculiar to man; animals lack this ability. Man can distance himself from his
own existence to a certain degree. He continually calls his own actions into question. He has a
self which he experiences as a ‘could be’ or ‘ought to be,’ and he has a self which he experiences
as ‘actually is.’ Yet both of these are together in the one self.
Conceptual transcendence is a key aspect of the difference of man. Man is radically different
from animals in regard to concept formation and the use of language. Man’s self-reflective
thought enables him to analyze his conscious experience and to use it as a source of abstract
knowledge (Cosgrove, p. 55). This can be manifested in man’s use of speech. In human speech
words are genuine symbols which may or may not have physical representations. Man can draw
on his abstract knowledge and transmit a meaningful message via a grammatical structure. Man
is able with a finite set of referents to transmit an infinite number of possible meaningful
sentences.
Another great difference of man is that only he is a consistent user of tools. Monkeys can be
taught to use a stick to knock down bananas, but will rarely do so unless rewarded for the action.
Animals will use tools only when consistently rewarded. The animal kingdom lives today as it
did thousands of years ago—with no progress or change. Only man has the intelligence to use
tools and to make tools with this intent of future use.
Man is the only creature with a sense of a fear of death. Animals may struggle to live, but there
is no indication that they fear death. Along with this is the fact that only man thinks of burying
his dead.
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Only man is a worshipper. Animals may howl at the moon, but only man displays a reverence of
the unseen or an inner awareness that it exists. Man’s intelligent worship defies the category of
superstition. This worship not only points to his ability of conceptual transcendence, but also to
certain feelings that he was meant to relate to God as well as other people (ibid., p. 61).
What is at stake in all of this is the notion of personhood and dignity. What is a person?
Important concepts are: actions, choices, consciousness, values, freedom, reasons,
responsibility, sociality, unity; all go together to define for us a conceptual framework of man
that we refer to as the person. Without these man is as an animal and there is no reason to give
to him value or dignity. But man is different in kind from the animals, and the difference it
makes is that he has value and is deserving of dignity. But a Christian view sees value in man
coming from a greater reason than any of the above. The greatest reason for man’s value is the
Imago Dei, that man is made in the image of the creator God.
The Biblical View of Man
In the creation accounts the key phrase in reference to man is the ‘image of God.’ That man
shares certain of the characteristics of God is what man ‘in the image’ means. Man is personal
because God is personal. Man is capable of acting within his environment according to his own
character; he is not environmentally determined. Man is capable of transcending the cosmos and
acting significantly to change the course of events. God has made the system open to reordering
by man. Neither God nor man is locked into the system (Sire, pg. 30).
In both accounts of creation (Genesis 1.1ff., 2.4ff.) the creation of man is the high point. In
Genesis 1, man is the crowning culmination; in Genesis 2, the special nature of man is
elaborated. God deems him worthy enough to speak to him (Genesis 2.16-27); he responds to
man’s need for companionship (Genesis 2. 18, 21,22); and he permitted man to have a share in
the process of creation (Genesis 2.19).
Man, in his attempt to be autonomous of the creator God, rebelled. This rebellion fractured
man’s relationship with God; it caused him to suffer alienation—alienation not only from God,
but also from himself, from other men, and from nature. So man has the need for restoration and
God has provided the means through the incarnation. God has given man freedom, and man with
that freedom must choose to restore or not to restore the relationships that he has altered.
The New Testament is not so much concerned with setting out an anthropology as it is with
referring to man as he relates to God. Man is viewed as a whole being in the New Testament; he
is not reduced to any ‘basic’ parts and then analyzed. The Gospel addresses the whole being.
The Biblical view is in conflict with any modern view that sees man as a bundle of biochemical
responses or as an advanced animal. One must see man as a personality who responds to the
world of time and sense with the body and brain as one unit. Man is capable of responding to
mental, aesthetic, and spiritual concepts even though they are beyond the reach of the physical
sciences.
Man’s ultimate destiny is beyond our measurements of time and space. Man’s destiny is
complete conformity to Jesus Christ, and so complete restoration of his relationship to God; or
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eternity in separation from God. But God views man as a responsible being; therefore, for man
to continue existing in a state of alienation is by man’s responsible choice and not by some type
of determinism. The New Testament sees eternal life as the goal for man; because of this, man is
given hope.
Personality is the chief thing about man as it is also abut God, and through personality comes the
important element of creativity which is totally mission in most modern conceptions of man.
The Christian view retains creativity, as in God so in man, and sees man as a dignified being.
But man is not the measure of his dignity; God is. Man’s greatness rests solely in the fact that
God loves him (Ibid., p. 32).
Science versus Biblical Theism
Western culture brought into being the belief that science and scripture are at odds with each
other and therefore the former is to be accepted to the exclusion of the latter. The groundwork
for the rejection of Biblical theism was laid in the Enlightenment with the battle for considering
Biblical theism as a viable world view being fought and lost in the nineteenth century. The
tendency in modern thought is to openly (and often blindly) accept criticism and skepticism and
label anything religious or theological as being mythical or unscientific (see N.M. Wildiers, The
Theologian and His Universe (Seabury Press, 1982).
In the beginnings of modern science men like Newton, Pasteur, and others based their research
on presuppositions that were Christian, i.e., that the creator God called the universe into being,
gave it order, and gave man the intellectual capability to explore and gain understanding of it.
But these men were replaced in time by men who were of an anti-Christian frame of mind. So
the God-fearing scientist became a rarity. Science was gradually taken out of the hands of
Christians. The Church as a whole dragged its feet in the face of new scientific inquiry and
turned inward. So the chasm between science and scripture widened. The prestige of science
went to the scientists and to their philosophical and religious views. More and more of scientific
advancement came on non-Christian premises. Students going through science courses were
influenced for naturalism and against Christianity because of the world views of their science
professors. The intensity of the nineteenth century Biblical critics further weakened the veracity
of the Biblical theism view.
The spokesmen for the Church at this time, instead of doing serious study of both science and
scripture, either resorted to sarcasm, vilification, or denunciation of the whole scientific
enterprise; or as mentioned before, turned inward and subscribed to a more mystical type of
belief.
The modern mind is the scientific mind. Idealism, metaphysics, and religion are all under
suspicion by the modern scientific mentality. Frequently, one of the great mistakes made by
modern scholars is to equate the Christian mind with the medieval mind, and then accuse the
Christian mind of all the mistakes and fallibilities of the medieval mind (Bernard Ramm, The
Christian View of Science and Scripture (Eerdmans, 1974), p. 21). What needs to take place on
both sides is a respect for the positions of all people involved and unbigoted search for truth (see
my essays “Christian Faith and Development of the Physical Sciences;” W.H. Newton-Smith,
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The Rationality of Science (Boston: R.K. Paul, 1981); and R. Rorty, Philosophy and Mirror of
Nature (Princeton, 1979).
The Biblical View of Science and the Universe
All of scripture views the creation as an historically real event, both Old and New Testaments
root themselves back into the first chapters of Genesis. Genesis 1 tells us over and over again an
important thing about creation, that whatever God made was good (Genesis 1.4,10,12,18,21,15).
Though the Genesis account of creation does come to an end, this does not mean that God ceases
to work in the universe He has created. God is neither locked out of nor locked into His own
universe. He transcends it and is actively involved with it.
The Hebrews considered nature to be the creation of God and did not worship nature, but they
did have a high regard for it as God’s handiwork. Nature was the material expression of God’s
creating power and in that sense sacred (Ramm, p. 55).
The Biblical view of nature clearly holds that the universe is maintained by the providence of
God. Biblical theism refuses to bar God from His works. The God of the Bible is not rendered
powerless because of causal laws, nor is he a prisoner of His own system. God called the
universe into being, it functions in an open system of cause and effect, and He is free to intervene
whenever and however He chooses. The laws of nature are the laws of God. The uniformity of
nature was a Biblical notion and not the sole creation of modern science. Nature as a vast,
orderly system functioning under certain laws was deeply imbedded in Hebrew thought. Only
because the Hebrews used a different vocabulary is this idea lost by so many modern readers
(ibid., p. 58).
It is interesting to note that the birth and nurturing of modern science as a means for
understanding the universe around us took place in western Christianized culture. It was in
western culture alone, out of all the cultures of the world, where Christian presuppositions were
maintained and where the development of the scientific enterprise took place. Barbour cites
three main presuppositions about nature that encouraged this:
1. The belief that nature is intelligible. Nature functions with an orderliness and regularity.
2. The doctrine of creation implies that the details of nature can be known via observation. The
universe is contingent on God’s will, so the universe is both contingent and orderly.
3. An affirmative attitude toward nature is dominant in the Bible (Barbour, pgs. 46, 47).
It must be seen by modern man that science and scripture do not conflict. What mutuallyexclusive presuppositions are entailed in the conflicts? Scripture provides a basis, a framework
for understanding ourselves and the universe, and science provides new findings, new insights
into the ‘hows’ and whys’ of the world around us.
The Modern Dilemma—Total Effects: Despair
With God having been declared dead in nineteenth century Europe, modern man has been left
alone to face his problems. Western man today lives in the post-Christian era. What has not
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been recognized is that man perished along with God (C. Stephen Evans, Despair: A Moment or
a Way of Life? (IVP, 1971) p. 13). The title ‘The Age of Despair’ is an appropriate one for the
world in which we live, for man’s world is crumbling into meaningless fragments with no reason
for hope.
After the declaration of God’s death and the steady widening of the chasm between science and
scripture, man came to look upon scientific knowledge as the only respectable form of
knowledge. This changed man’s picture of the world and himself tremendously. The ordinary
world full of colors, sounds, love, meaning, and values was eroded by the scientific description
of the real world of particles, masses, velocities, and other measurable quantities. The world has
become just a collection of unrelated facts. ‘Values,’ whatever they might be, are viewed as
man’s own subjective creation. Inevitably, man has become just another ‘fact’ in the world of
endless, meaningless facts, something to be studied, explained, and manipulated (Ibid., p. 89).
Hope, an overall purpose with which to face each day’s joys and frustrations, has been lost. Man
does not have hope; he only has despair. Man no longer values life; he merely fears death. For
him there awaits no God, no heaven or hell, only eternal silence which adds more despair to his
current frame of mind.
Not only does the lack of hope show up in the mental anguish of despair, but also in man’s
actions and behavior. Modern man is a pretender; he is always masquerading, attempting to
present to the world a self which is other than the real one. This indicates that man suffers from
alienation from self. When a person feels he must hide behind a mask or create an ‘image’
which hides his real self, he reveals a shame over the person that he is. In fact, to the extent that
man hides his true self, he confesses that he does not truly value his self (Ibid., p. 97).
Modern man in his dilemma needs a sense of hope, an objective reason for living his life without
pretensions and without despair. Modern man has carefully examined everything except Biblical
theism, which he labels mythical and unscientific, to try to find a reason for hope. He has found
none.
Hope versus Despair
The concept of hope in the Biblical material is an important one. The Greek term denoted not
only the act of hoping, but also the idea of the object hoped for. Throughout the Old Testament
word for God, YHWH, is the embodiment and object of His people’s hope. Hope in the Old
Testament went beyond just the temporal, it pointed ahead to YHWH’s coming in glory, His
reign over a new earth, the new covenant, and the forgiveness of sins (Colin Brown, ed.,
Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 2 (Zondervan, 1979), p. 240).
Hope is such a fundamental part of the Christian position that it can be stated that we are reborn
to a ‘living hope’ (I Peter, 1.3). Paul so aptly pens it in I Corinthians 13—faith, hope and love go
together. There can be no hope without faith in Christ. Faith without hope would be empty and
futile (I Cor. 15.14,17). And because we have hope with which to face the present and the
future, we are free to give of ourselves in love to the hurts and needs of those around us.
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This hope is more than just a ‘pie-in-the-sky’ attitude, we are called to live out hope each day.
The gift of the Spirit is our foretaste, our guarantee of what God is doing and will do in our lives.
The Holy Spirit is our guarantee of a future resurrection (Romans 8.11). So we do not have to
despair in the present life or in the face of death.
Our hope is not just in theory form, it is a personal attitude based upon an objective content of
hope. We are moving toward a goal, and in the process our hope is active, for it involves
overcoming (in contrast to just “coping with”) the age of despair that surrounds us.
Modern man no longer values life, he merely fears death, but the heartbeat of the Christian faith
is that even death is not to be feared. For death has been conquered by Christ and this is the
essence of our hope (I Cor. 15).
The foregoing presuppositions about reality must be regained before we can meaningfully
discuss any possibility of counseling modern man with all his dilemmas.
II. Liberal Protestantism
In the previous chapter the Biblical presuppositions concerning God, man, and the universe were
reviewed. In this chapter the goal is to look at psychology and its twentieth century roots in
liberal Protestantism. First, Sigmund Freud shall be looked at along with his presuppositions
which are common to twentieth century psychology (Edwin G. Boring, A History of
Experimental Psychology (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1950), considered to be the leading
reference work on the whole field of experimental psychology). Following that, Freudian
psychology will be looked at as it has been integrated into liberal Protestant circles. Finally,
three men have been selected as representatives of the three basic styles of integrating Freudian
psychotherapy and Christianity—Harry E. Fosdick, Norman V. Peale, and Thomas A. Harris.
Freud—the Starting Point
Contemporary psychology is a complex field with many varying approaches to mental
wholeness. Sigmund Freud has not been chosen because he was the first psychologist or even
necessarily because his views of the mind hold more ‘truth’ than others’ views. He has been
chosen because of his impact on the twentieth-century mind. Many of Freud’s concepts have
become basic to the modern mind’s self understanding. After Freud, psychology expanded in
interest and became an active part of other fields of study, and even invaded Christian religion.
There is a second reason for studying Freud; his presuppositions are fairly common
representations of those held by the ‘modern mind’ about psychology.
Freud’s work is hard to analyze because he spent over fifty years developing and modifying his
theories. His psychoanalytic theory is not one theory but actually a group of interrelated
theories. Freud’s view of the person is so complex that at many points there is a tension within
his own writing (C. Stephen Evans, Preserving the Person (IVP, 1977, p. 36).
Sigmund Freud clearly thought of himself as a scientist. In the early part of his life he had an
interest in biology and spent six years doing research in physiology. In 1895 he wrote a
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manuscript entitled, The Project for a Scientific Psychology which was not published until 1950.
In this manuscript he tried to relate his new theories of psychoanalysis to a material base in the
physiology of the brain (Leslie Stevenson, Seven Theories of Human Nature (Oxford University
Press, 1974), p. 62). It is important to note that Freud did not discard his early views of a
physiological basis for his psychological theories, but stated that such matters are not of
psychological interest and left them to the science of neurophysiology (Ibid., p. 65).
In Freud’s early work he developed the assertion that there is an unconscious part of the mind.
This was a break with the earlier view of Descartes that what was mental was conscious. This
view by Freud was a radical change in the concept of he mind. From the time of Freud the mind
has not been seen as a transparent realm which introspection can totally illuminate, but as a dark
and murky realm which requires specialized techniques such as psychoanalysis to illumine it. So
Freud saw consciousness as being a small derivative of a mind which is mostly unconscious in
character and whose behavior ultimately stems from forces which are biological (Evans, p. 37).
In the 1920s Sigmund Freud introduced his theory of the tripartite structure of the mind. Freud
held that there were three structural systems within the human mind: the id, ego, and the superego is a special part of the ego which contains the mores acquired in childhood (Stevenson, p.
66). Each of these three are interrelated with the ego being the conscious part of the mind
although even in it things may remain unconscious. For an individual to be mentally healthy, the
id, ego, and super-ego must have a harmonious relationship.
Sigmund Freud focuses on repression as being crucial in the causation of neurotic illness. It is an
instinctual impulse incompatible with a person’s standards so it is removed from consciousness,
but continues to exist in the unconscious part of the mind. When something is repressed out of
he consciousness, effective control over it is lost and it cannot voluntarily be lifted back to
consciousness. The place of psychoanalysis is to bring a thought back to consciousness.
Sigmund Freud’s theories of the mind are much more complex than this presentation. He also
delved into facets of human personality such as sexuality which will not be touched on within the
confines of this paper. So far Sigmund Freud’s theories have been described in a simplified
manner, but it is not his theories as much as his presuppositions that are important.
Freud’s thought represents man as being, a natural creature whose behavior can be explained by
purely naturalistic principles. Ludwig Binswanger, a psychoanalyst, determined that Freud was
the founder of scientific psychology (Evans, p. 43). It is this view of Freud as trying to make
psychology scientific that gives away his philosophical presuppositions concerning the nature of
man. Dr. Paul Meehl, who is head of the Department of Psychology at the University of
Minnesota, gives a good explanation of the assumption of scientists of which class Freud
considered himself to be:
Scientists do not begin with an absolute beginning because science does not deal with concepts
of this kind. Science begins with man as a part of nature and assumes that nature has been in a
continuous process of development which resulted in increasingly complex forms of
organization, the interplay of environmental stimulus and response.
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(Paul Meehl, et al., What Thou is Man (Concordia Publishing House, 1958), p. 40)
This view of man as being a part of nature is shared by almost all psychologists. All functions of
personality are complexes of events which are in principle physico-chemical (Ibid., p. 84).
Therefore, the majority of psychologists, including Sigmund Freud, are materialist monists. The
materialist monist holds “that there are no substances, forces, or events in human thought or
behavior which are of an irreducibly ‘mental,’ ‘psychic,’ or ‘spiritual’ nature.” (Ibid.)
A second presupposition advanced by Freud and agreed upon by most ‘experts’ in the area of
psychology is determinism. Determinism can be defined as “human behavior seems to exhibit
regularities (laws), to be susceptible of rational causal explanations (theories), and to be largely
controllable by the use of these laws and theories.” (Ibid., p. 79) Sigmund Freud took
determinism to the limit and theorized that nothing a person does or says is really accidental; in
principle everything is traceable to causes within a person’s mind. To Freud, any minor mistake
in speech (Freudian slip) is a symptom and not an accident.
Determinism is built into psychology from its scientific background of empirical observation.
Freud and psychotherapists since his time conceived of each person as being the inevitable
outcome of forces and events which conveyed to produce that person. This removes personal
responsibility from a person’s present condition. This shaping of an individual points to a
historical view of personality. Freud suggested that a past ‘traumatic’ experience could, even
though forgotten, influence a person’s present mental health (Stevenson, p. 67). He considered
the early childhood as being crucial to the adult personality, especially the first five years of life
which laid down a person’s personality. The purpose of Freud’s psychotherapy was to bring to
the surface traumatic experiences which shape a person’s life.
The third presupposition held by Freud and later psychologists was alluded to earlier and that is
intersubjection confirmability. That is any subjective proposition can be confirmed or rejected
by appeal to empirical evidence. He suggested this so as to meet the requirements of the
advanced sciences. Under controlled conditions a person should act the same way every time.
Freud looked upon his work as being built upon a foundation of empirical observation. Since the
time of Freud he has become so popular that much of what he has stated has become viewed as
being fact that has passed the test of empirical observation when in fact it is based not on
empirical evidence but upon his theories (Charles T. Tart gives a complete list of assumptions
and presuppositions of western orthodox psychology in his book, Transpersonal Psychology
(NY: Harper and Row, 1975), pp. 59-112).
After looking at Freud as the pattern for presuppositions of psychotherapists, it is important to
look at a strange phenomenon that took place following Sigmund Freud’s theories of
psychoanalysis. Freud was vehement about his animosity towards Christianity. In his book, The
Future of An Illusion, he made his opposition to and contempt for religion crystal clear (Sigmund
Freud, The Future of An Illusion, trans. W.D. Robinson-Scott (London: Hogarth Press, 1950). In
fact Freud went as far as to call religion a form of psychopathology. His contempt for
Christianity came from having suffered repeated rebuffs and disappointments at the hands of the
Christian community in Vienna, which he called the ‘compact majority.’ (Ibid., p. 11). The
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strange phenomenon mentioned earlier was that Protestantism accepted so completely Freudian
analysis.
The focus shall now turn to liberal Protestantism’s acceptance of Freud’s theories. The emphasis
shall be on two specific points of interest—that is, presuppositions and the question of guilt and
sin. So far the question of presuppositions have been discussed, sin and guilt will be discussed
while focusing on Harry Emerson Fosdick, a Protestant minister who O.H. Mowrer calls an
apologist for Freud (O. Hobart Mowrer, The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion (Nostrand, 1967).
Harry Emerson Fosdick
Harry Emerson Fosdick is the best example of the ‘modern mind’ and its entrance into the
Church (For information on Mr. Fosdick’s personal history see his autobiography, The Living of
Those Days (MacMillan, 1968), pgs. 100,101). He has been called by Reinhold Niebuhr, “that
rare
liberalism (C.F.H. Henry, Remaking the Modern Mind (Eerdmans, 1948). Henry states that
there are four basic beliefs of liberalism—the animality of man, the inherent goodness of man,
the inevitability of progress, and nature as ultimate reality.
In Fosdick’s book, The Modern Use of the Bible, a collection of lectures presented by him before
the Divinity School of Yale University, he accepts every tenet that Henry sets down as being the
position of a liberal (H.E. Fosdick, The Modern Use of the Bible (The Lyman Beecher
Lectureship Foundation (Macmillan, 1924).
The significance of Fosdick’s position is really the tension between the truth claims of the Bible
and science. At the time of Freud, the Catholic church was still licking its wounds from its folly
of dealing with Galileo and further challenges of Darwinian evolution. The Protestant church
did not oppose science as the Catholic church had, but it was still in a precarious state. Mowrer
says at that point in time:
When Freud, in the name of science, began to proclaim discoveries in the realm of the mind as
revolutionary as those of Copernicus and Galileo in astronomy and of Darwin in biology, there
was little religious vitality to oppose him (Mowrer, p. 112).
Fosdick was one of those in Protestantism who accepted the truth claims of nineteenth-century
science and endeavored to still hold on to some form of godliness. When Freud presented a
psychoanalytic theory as being empirically based, Fosdick and others were ready to accept it. It
still must be pointed out tht Fosdick saw a form of ministry which the church had truly
neglected, a ministry to individuals who were troubled mentally. Anton T. Boisen, the founder
of Clinical Pastoral Education, best described the church’s position to those hurting mentally at
the turn of the twentieth century: “Since Fundamentalism preached only hell to come and liberal
theology preached no hell at all, both were blind to the hell which was right before their eyes.”
(“The Challenge to Our Seminaries,” Christian Work, cited by Mowrer, p. 61). Fosdick
described counseling as a “gaping vacancy” earlier in this century that urgently needed to be
filled.
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Harry Emerson Fosdick was correct in his assessment that counseling for troubled persons was
needed, the problem is whether the way it has been filled was sound. The major question in this
issue is that of gilt and sin. The church responding to Biblical teaching believes that sin is at the
center of man’s unwholeness, i.e., mental sickness. The Freudian belief is that psychoneurosis
arises, not from moral weakness or failure, but from an excessive super-ego or conscience.
Those who have opposed Freud’s position on pathology have been slow to speak because it has
seemed that science was against them, and there was fear of contradicting science.
In his book, On Being a Real Person, Fosdick made his position clear that he stood with Freud.
In a chapter entitled “Handling Our Mischievous Consciences,” Fosdick stated: “Moralism deals
with symptoms and condemns results; psychotherapy diagnoses causes and is concerned with
cure. Conscience makes multitudes of people miserable to no good effect.” (Harper Bros., 1943,
p. 152)
“That we need more conscientious people is a platitude, common but highly questionable. An
immense amount of conscientiousness does more harm than good” (Ibid, p. 157)
Many Christians, including Anton Boisen, were not willing to sacrifice the Christian concept of
sin to Freudian psychology. Dr. Boisen was alarmed at Fosdick’s acceptance of the Freudian
doctrine of super-ego sensitivity and wrote him concerning this. In the letter Boisen stated:
My observation is that the patient who condemns himself, even to the point of thinking he has
committed the unpardonable sin, is likely to get well. It is the patient who blames others who
does not get well. The one is a benign reaction, the other a malignant one (“Are Psychoanalysis
and Religious Counseling Compatible?” A paper read to the Society for the Scientific Study of
Religion, Harvard University, November 1958, cited in Mowrer, p. 69).
Dr. Lee R. Steiner, a New York psychologist, stated before the Society for the Scientific Study
of Religion at Harvard University:
. . . the ministry makes a tremendous mistake when it swaps what it has for psychoanalytic
dressing. . . It would be a pity if, in one of the eras of greatest moral crisis, the clergy should
suddenly abandon its strength for something that has no validity, no roots, and no value. (“Are
psychoanalysis and Religious Counseling Compatible?” (Ibid.)
Fosdick accepted the truth claims of science and accepted Freud as being a herald of psychoscientific truth. The question must be raised on the issue of sin and guilt whether Freud was
correct. The answer will not come from empirical investigation, but from the Word of God.
Norman Vincent Peale
Peale did not follow the pattern of Fosdick by accepting the truth claims of science based on its
philosophical presuppositions. Peale instead did what the master historian of psychology, Edwin
G. Boring, called for in 1929 by writing:
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There is too much psychology now for psychologists to master their own method and philosophy
too. Psychology ought to fare better when it can completely surrender its philosophical heritage,
in fact as well as in voiced principle, and proceed, unimpeded by a divided soul, about its
business.
(A History of Experimental Psychology (Century, 1929), cited by Duane P. Schultz, A History of
Modern Psychology (Academic Press, 1969), p. vii).
Peale accepted the truth claims of Freud and psychoanalysis as not being detrimental to
Christianity because he removed psychoanalysis from its philosophical presuppositions. He
believed Freud was right in speaking about the mind, but he also believed ministers were right in
speaking about God. Peale expressed this view in his preface to Faith Is the Answer by stating:
“In this treatment of the problem, therefore, the pastor contributes the solution which he believes
religion has to offer, and the psychiatrist writes from what he feels
To be the vantage point of psychiatry. (Peale and S. Blanton, Faith is the Answer (Prentice-Hall,
1963).
In the above book, Peale writes with a psychiatrist, Smiley Blanton. In the book each man
provides a chapter dealing with the same subject matter; one is from the Christian perspective
and the other from the psychiatrist’s point of view. What is basically being stated is that there are
two types of truth—revealed and discovered. The Bible has revealed truth but so has science.
To Peale they are both correct and neither hs precedence over the other. Peale expressed this in
the book by stating: “And it seemed best for each author to keep closely within his own
province, to remain as closely as possible within his own field, availing himself of the
cooperation of the other (Ibid., p. vi).
This leaves two questions that must be asked about Peale’s method. First, can truth claims be
removed from their philosophical presuppositions; and second, can God’s revealed truth be
separated from the so-called discovered truth of the science of the mind.
As has been stated previously, Freud accepted a biological view of man that included the
Darwinian theory of man. Mowrer is a species, a derivation of biology, physiology, even
physics (Mowrer, pg. 10,11). It would be difficult for psychology to be removed from its
philosophical presuppositions, the reason being, if Freud’s psychology is based on Darwin’s
biological assumption, and if Darwin’s assumptions are wrong, it seems that there is no recourse
but to question Freudian psychology. Psychology cannot be removed from its basic
presuppositions.
The second question raised was whether God is God over psychology or whether in fact, it is a
“discovered truth.” Mowrer again questions this assumption:
We have analyzed, psychologized, pathologized religion, ignoring the possibility at it is, in and
of itself, a psychology, soulology of the profoundest sort. . . Can this be a truer, more genuine
psychology than our own. . . (Ibid.)
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Reinhold Niebuhr, who previously complemented Fosdick for his theology, states in an
introduction to Alexander Miller’s book, The Renewal of Man, that there is a line that must be
drawn between modernism and the Christian message:
Christianity has tried rather too desperately to accommodate itself to modernity. In its
desperation it frequently sacrificed just those points in the Christian Gospel which would throw
light on mysteries which modern learning left obscure. (Alexander Miller, The Renewal of Man,
with an introduction by R. Niebuhr (Doubleday, 19550, p. 8 ).
All truth must be considered God’s truth. The church has had the revealed truth of how to deal
with the
inner man. The tragedy was that it was not used, and then later liberal Protestantism accepted a
completely biological view of psychology as being truth. Peale’s method must be questioned
primarily on his acceptance of discovered truth over Biblical truth.
Norman Vincent Peale cannot be completely condemned, however. He does accept a Christian
view of sin and guilt. In Faith Is the Answer, Peale presents a Biblical view of sin and guilt. He
ends a chapter on “Conscience and the Sense of Guilt” by writing, “Religion brings to distressed
minds the knowledge of God’s forgiveness and thus the peace that passeth all understanding.”
(Peale and Blanton, p. 107) Peale does, however, return to his method of God’s truth and
psychiatry’s truth by giving Blanton his chance. Blanton’s part on sin and guilt takes a
distinctively Freudian side, which is not unusual since Blanton studied under Freud. In
Blanton’s section of the chapter mentioned he even quotes Freud as saying, “The institution of
conscience was at bottom an embodiment, first, of parental criticisms and subsequently of that of
society.” (Ibid., p. 88) To Blanton it is Freud that held truth claims for the mind, not God’s
word.
Dr. Peale is usually not condemned for his use of psychology, but for his concentration on the
power of positive thinking which comes partly from Freudian psychology and partly from the
Biblical view of man. Dr. G. Bromley Oxman has stated, “The fundamental weakness of this
message is that it is self-centered. . . Christianity says: “Give thyself.” Dr. Peale says, “Help
yourself.” (William Peters, “The Case Against ‘Easy’ Religion,” Redbook Magazine 55
(September 1955):93.)
In a thematic study of Dr. Peale’s sermon, it was discovered that he concentrates heavily on the
Bible for his themes (Allan R. Broadhurst, He Speaks the Word of God (Prentice-Hall, 1963).
As will be discussed later, this proposition will be brought out that a psychology that starts with
the word of God can adopt from sources outside the Bible as long as they are true according to
the Biblical standard. Peale did not always keep to this criteria.
Thomas A. Harris
The last person to be critiqued before going on to the chapter on Christian Counseling, is
Thomas A. Harris. He is the author of I’m OK—You’re OK, which is a popularized version of
Eric Berne’s book on Transactional Analysis, Games People Play (Thomas A. Harris, I’m OK—
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You’re OK (Harper & Row, 1967). Thomas Harris takes a pattern different from either Fosdick
or Peale. Both of them were ministers and secondarily they accepted Freudian psychology.
Harris is a psychiatrist first and he tries to sell one type of psychotherapy to Christianity. Harris,
himself a liberal Protestant, must have been a good salesman because many Christians have
accepted Transactional Analysis (T.A.) as a part of the Gospel. T.A. primarily is a therapeutic
system which examines personality interaction, and is usually used with groups. In looking at
Harris the areas of critiquing will be the same as for Fosdick and Peale, presuppositions and sin
and guilt.
In Harris’ first chapter he gives an idea of what his presuppositions are by accepting Freud as his
base for scientific inquiry. In fact, he states that Freud was the pioneer who set up the theoretical
foundation for psychoanalytic thought and that himself and others are simply building upon
Freud’s foundation (Harris, p. 2). Harris in I’m OK—You’re OK gives a strong indication that
he believes in the theory of evolution by quoting a calendar on the evolution of man written by
Robert T. Franeveur (Ibid., pgs 239-240). He is using this evolutionary calendar to state that
Christians do not have any more truth than anyone else. He states this by writing:
We are deluded if we continue to make sweeping statements about God and about man without
continually keeping before us the facts of life: the long history of the development of man, and
the present-day diversity of human thought (Ibid., p. 241).
What Harris is saying is that truth lies with science, because he accepts Darwin’s natural science
as his basis for saying that Christians do not have the truth. Harris also accepts the
presupposition of determinism which was so prevalent in Freud. To do so he quotes L.S. Kubie,
a psychiatrist:
The clinical fact which is already evident is that once a central emotional position is established
early in life, it becomes the affective position to which that individual will tend to return
automatically for the rest of his days (Ibid., p. 42).
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