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3:5), which is offered to everyone upon conditi- At the same time, the psychologies based on
on of believing in Christ (p. ??). When modern Christianity and those based on naturalism
psychology was in its infancy, Abraham Kuy- will share many beliefs, given common empiri-
per (1898) applied the Two-Cities Framework cal and intellectual powers and a common hu-
to the human sciences and concluded that each man nature and fallenness, particularly in areas
City will develop its own version of them, re- of psychology that study more mechanistic
flecting its respective ultimate values. aspects of human nature, like neuropsychology,
A Christian approach to the human sciences perception, memory, and human reasoning, as
will differ from a modern approach because of well as more mechanistic social processes, like
the following values: socialization, the impact of trauma, and group
1. The triune God is the author, center, and processes.
end of human life and his glory is the high- Areas of greatest contention currently between
est human motivation (Is 43:7; 1Co 10:31); these two versions of the human sciences in-
2. Humans are made in God’s image (Gen clude the role that the triune God has played
1:26-27; 9:6), so they can only be under- in the formation of the human species, and his
stood properly in terms of their relation to role with respect to the individual person in
God, and they flourish best in communion maturation and psychospiritual healing; what
with him; psychopathology is from a theistic standpoint
3. However, humans are now sinful and alie- and how human responsibility and sin are in-
nated from their Creator (Gen 3; Ro 3:10- volved, the use (and overuse) of medication to
18). In addition, they are damaged creatu- treat mental disorders; questions about whether
res, both in body and soul, which can lead certain conditions ought to be considered a dis-
to the emergence of psychological disorders; order (e.g., homosexuality and gender identity
4. Humans now require union with Christ in confusion); and the prohibition against theists
order to attain the greatest kind of psycho- sharing their worldview assumptions in therapy
spiritual healing available, and complete he- sessions, given that naturalists are free to share
aling in the age to come. Through their uni- theirs all the time.
on with Christ, believers obtain many psy-
chospiritual blessings from God that have Christian Psychology on the Spectrum
the potential to gradually but significantly There are basically three approaches Christians
improve human functioning and relation- currently take towards contemporary psycholo-
ships, over the course of the believer’s life. gy. Probably the most common approach is a
The most important blessing is the gift of relatively uncritical acceptance of them as they
the indwelling Holy Spirit. are currently constituted. Christians taking this
These (and other) truths would presumably stance conduct themselves in these fields ac-
have a profound impact on the development of cording to the rules of discourse and practice
a Christian version of psychology (especially in of naturalism and secularism, but they seek to
the areas of psychopathology and psychothera- do so with Christian integrity and fidelity to
py). Some examples of distinctly Christian em- Christian ethics. To this group, the idea of a
pirical research include a study of positive men- distinctly Christian psychology is as nonsensi-
tal health outcomes associated with believing in cal as Christian chemistry or Christian plum-
the Christian doctrine of sin (Watson, Morris, bing. Psychology is a science, and as such it is
Loy, Hamrick, & Grizzle, 2007), Christian post- based on empirical and quantitative methods
formal thought (Johnson, 1998), the Christian that yield universal knowledge accessible to
concept of communion (Bassett & Aubé, 2013), those trained in the methods, irrespective of
and the Christian concept of grace (Sisemore, their worldview. Consequently, good science is
Arbuckle, Killian, Mortel¬laro, Swanson, Fis- unaffected by worldview. On the other side of
her, & McGinnis, 2008), and a Christian model the spectrum are those Christians who largely
of wisdom (Kwon, 2009), just to name a few ex- reject psychology, because of its secular, natura-
amples. listic worldview, and instead practice a model of
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