Page 21 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Empirical steps toward a Christian Psychology

Paul J. Watson (USA)
Babel of Rationalities: Christian Psychology,

Incommensurability, and the Important Role of

Empirical Research

Especially in response to postmodern times, unimagined capacities, could pursue its purely
empirical research may make essential contri- earthly ideals and ambitions only if it enjoyed
butions to Christian Psychology. Postmoder- the liberty to kill by the millions” (pp. 222-223).
nism is notoriously difficult to define (Rosenau, Indeed, a careful reexamination of Reformati-
1992), but “postmodernism” literally means on history suggests that the “transfer of power
“after-modernism.” Modernism emerged as a from church to the state was clearly a cause,
cultural confidence in reason. Early Enligh- not the solution, of the violence” (Cavanaugh,
tenment thinkers believed that secular reason 2009, p. 174). Seen in this light, 20th Centu-
would supply the objectivity needed to overco- ry bloodshed merely reflected the maturation
me the violence associated with warring subjec- of potentials already evident in the origins of
tivities of Reformation and Counter-Reforma- modernism. Modernist reason, the postmoder-
tion faith (Stout, 1988; Toulman, 1990). From nist can conclude, ended up serving as a tool
this beginning, the West began its long slow for “power” to enhance the destructiveness of
move away from social life organized around a its weaponry. Modernist science transformed a
Church guided by faith to one increasingly or- burning arrow shot from a bow into a nuclear
ganized around a nation state guided by reason. warhead delivered by a missile.
Modernist reason and its expression in science At a philosophical level, reason simply had to
remain dominant cultural forces, but postmo- conclude that reason could not discover objec-
dern critiques now make it clear to some that tive foundations for social life. This insight was
modernism simply cannot supply “objective” especially prominent in the work of Nietzsche
foundations for social life. Such critiques may (2000/1887), the philosopher typically identi-
operate at two most obvious levels, one histori- fied as the first postmodern theorist. The even-
cal and the other philosophical. tually obvious problem was that any attempt to
At the historical level, modernism undoubtedly establish a foundation necessarily began with
has made and will continue to make invaluable some presupposition about what that foun-
contributions to humanity, with advancements dation had to be, with Descartes’ (1998/1637
in medicine perhaps being the most apparent. and 1641) cogito perhaps being the first and
Modernism, nevertheless, failed to resolve con- most obvious example. Yet, reason invariably
flicts among subjectivities or to eliminate the found ways to challenge this and all other po-
problem of violence. Reason, for instance, did tential foundations as, for example, Rousseau’s
not resolve Christian disagreements on how to (1979/1762) Romantic critique of Cartesian
interpret the Bible, as post-Reformation deve- and all other available philosophical positions
lopments in the church have made clear (Gre- made clear well before 20th Century postmo-
gory, 2012). More importantly, 20th Century dernism. Achievement of a truly objective so-
wars suggested that modernist reason aggra- cial life could occur only with an infinite regress
vated rather than eliminated the problem of of justifications for all proposed foundations,
violence. Hart (2009), for instance, argues that which of course is a logical impossibility (Kauf-
“the process of secularization was marked, from mann, 1974).
the first, by the magnificent limitlessness of its Given the philosophical insecurity of all foun-
violence. … The old order could generally rek- dations, Nietzsche concluded that each system
kon its victims only in the thousands. But in the of rationality emerged out of non-rational
new age, the secular state, with all its hitherto “interests” rather than out of an impossible to

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