Page 52 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

Foundational Discussions in Christian Psychology

psychopathology, he finds that a much stronger 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O
motivation comes when the person reclaims God!
preferred values about himself. Thus, the client How vast is the sum of them!
is asked, “What are the three most important
qualities about you as a person?” “What are the This passage is sometimes dismissed as poetic.
three most important assets your partner brings It has been used by Christian pop-psych authors
to your relationship?” to prove that “God doesn’t make junk.” But it
isn’t given the same theological weight as Psalm
Stosny writes, “Intimate partners motivated 51. Both psalms of course say something poeti-
to feel valuable tend to show compassion and cally powerful about our experience as persons
kindness. Those motivated to feel powerful in- living lives before the face God. Both need to be
voke shame or fear to get their way, or use force understood as such, as poetic hyperbole, and as
or coercion to dominate” (ibid.).The task of expressions of a felt sense (Cornell, 2013, p. 37.)
therapy, however, is not to simply build up self- Cornell describes felt senses as experiences that
esteem, but to uncover those positive preferred “widen our awareness to enable us to take in the
values that are already there…” complex whole of a situation and its many inter-
connections.” These experiences are common
I propose that beginning a theology with the to artists, poets, and to readers of the Bible. As
doctrine of original sin, and specifically, the we contemplate the two passages together, we
Calvinist idea of “total depravity”, does precise- discover the richness of the human condition,
ly the opposite. It obscures what God created. most often captured in the expression, “fallen
One way in which theologians do this is by gi- image bearers.”
ving Ps. 51:5 full theological import: “Behold, I
was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my One of the results of beginning with original sin
mother conceive me.” This verse gives vivid ex- is that it leads those who begin their theology
pression to the notion that our sin begins with with the idea of total depravity with a sense of
conception, and thus is very “original.” This was superiority over those who don’t “have the gos-
of course Augustine’s contribution to western pel”. We see ourselves as the possessors and pro-
theology (Toews, 2013, pp73ff.) It even impli- prietors of truth, which must be then dispensed
cates the act of intercourse itself and allows for to those benighted ones whom we encounter
the possibility of tainting it with sinfulness. A who don’t have it. This has found expression,
theology that begins here will be bolstered by among other places, in the attitude towards
the Pauline description of our sinfulness as gi- missions that some missionaries have taken.
ven in Romans 1-3, and will lead to obscuring A worst expression of this is the history of the
any other possibilities. European expansion into the Americas and the
encounter with the indigenous peoples, who
Overlooked, then, is a psalm like Ps. 139:13-17 were seen as ignorant, savages, and lost. The
result was a de-personalization of them, and a
13 For you formed my inward parts; failure to see them as human beings, equally
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. possessing the image of God. This is the result, I
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and won- maintain, of a theology that begins with human
derfully made. sinfulness.
Wonderful are your works; Suppose a different stance had been taken, one
my soul knows it very well. which begins with original goodness, and the
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret, idea that the new peoples encountered equally
intricately woven in the depths of the earth. bear the image of God. How might the missio-
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; naries then have first sought to understand, and
in your book were written, every one of them, to engage, from a position of “not-knowing”
the days that were formed for me, how these newly discovered peoples have con-
when as yet there was none of them. structed their worlds? How might a biblical

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