Page 174 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 3

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A critique of “Including God

in psychotherapy: Strong

versus weak theism”

Genevieve Milnes

The authors of this paper have assumed that God can be
explained by either “strong” or “weak” theism. “Weak
theism” reduces God to Deism or Dualism and is seen as
an attempt by theists to allow for the “naturalistic” tradi-
tional science by suggesting that God is no longer present
or that God has been compartmentalized. The authors
indicate a preference for “strong theism” that “does not Dr. Genevieve Milnes (Australia) is a
restrain God or rely on naturalistic assumptions”. By po- Clinical Psychologist working with
sing the question in this way, they have posited a conund- children and adults with over twenty
rum by two elements of faulty thinking – one theological five years experience as an educator,
and the other scientific: professional counsellor, psychothera-
pist and psychologist.
• Theology. By defining God as “strong” and, as a result, She is currently the Clinical Director
not restrained by science or the naturalism of the five of Psychology Australia (National),
senses, they then struggle to find a way of integrating Psychology Australia, Mt Lawley,
science/naturalism with spiritual psychotherapy. Put and Psychology Australia Publishing.
another way, if you pose an impossible question or co- Genevieve is the CEO of the Chris-
nundrum, then you should not be surprised to find that tian Counsellors Association of Aus-
it is difficult to provide an answer. For the authors, the tralia.
unexplainable supernatural has to be in some way incom-
patible with the natural – God provides the unexplaina-
ble and extraordinary and science explains the ordinary.
They then argue that when the naturalistic worldview of
traditional science is linked with a spiritual approach to
psychotherapy then it begs the question of a “thorough-
ly theistic approach to psychological conception and in-
tervention”. However, God is not restrained by human
conceptions as either “strong” or “weak”, God is divine
and not limited by false natural/supernatural divisions.
The principle difficulty is definition of theism and not the
problem of including God in psychotherapy.

• Science. By accepting “science’s central dogma” that
only natural events can be studied and the supernatu-
ral cannot, they find themselves unable to combine the
two worldviews. By accepting the “central dogma”, they
have unwittingly “restrained God”. On the other hand, if
we were to reject the “central dogma” and accept that all
truth is God’s truth – natural or supernatural, then God and giving – all of which run counter to the naturalistic
becomes the unrestrained God that they desire. While viewpoint. Scientific Psychotherapy without reference
there may be some fundamentalist scientists who declare to the emotional and spiritual will be lacking as would
that God and science are totally incompatible, many the- “spiritual Psychotherapy” without reference to the scien-
istic scientists see the world as God’s and that it can be tific findings.
known scientifically and spiritually. To maintain the po-
sition that science alone contains the only way in which Both science and theology have much to offer Psychothe-
the world can be known is to propose a world without rapy and to divert this combination by reference to ar-
human emotions such as love, excitement, joy and pain as tificial divisions between “strong” or “weak” theism and
well as being left without the ability to set a moral com- theological or scientific orthodoxy is to limit the entrance
pass because it is very difficult to derive right and wrong of God into the therapeutic moment. God can be found
from a straight naturalistic worldview. Inevitably, a mo- in all of the world and for all parts of the human condi-
ral compass involves love, care, compassion, forgiveness tion.

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