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Foundational Discussions in Christian Psychology

understanding of original goodness lead to a according to the biblical story was introduced
curiosity about the worldview that these newly in Genesis 3 when the first couple broke faith
“discovered” people have? How might this cu- with their Creator, and discovered shame.
riosity lead to a more productive dialogue that
would in fact pave the way for a reciprocal cu- A better solution might be the one suggested
riosity on the part of the other? And how might by Dueck (2014) when he describes “historical”
that reciprocal curiosity pave the way for a more sin in place of original sin. Or, we might include
productive sharing of the good news of God’s Thompson’s observation. Speaking of findings
love in Jesus? in brain research, he states:

Rupert Ross (2009), academic and a judge de- “In fact, our right mode is often overcome by
scribes these ideas in his paper, “Heartsong Fi- our left mode’s systematic tendency, so that
nal”. He writes, when we’re asked how God views us, we au-
tomatically respond with words like sinful,

Aboriginal people often stress that this em- depraved, and wicked. And we can refer to
phasis on relational ‘goals-to-be-sought’ con- particular passages of Scripture to prove it.
trasts with the illness-based focus that seems We’re really good at that. But that is not al-
to prevail in western psychology. The healer’s ways good for us.”(2010, p. 140).
duty is to emphasize what we can become
in the future, because it is within us alrea- What I am opposed to is how this sinfulness
dy, rather than focus on how we have failed has been called original, and total, and how that
in the past and are still failing now. I have has obscured a basic fundamental truth about
wondered if the western world’s allegiance to the human being, namely, that we were created
the doctrine of original sin accounts for this good!
difference, and I found it interesting that a
Buddhist monk and translator for the Dalai I submit then, that the practices arising out of
Lama wondered the same:
the primacy of the doctrine of “total depravity,”
“Since the potential for actualizing Budd- and of making original sin the starting point
hahood is present in every sentient being, the of our working theology, leads to an unwhole-
Buddhist approach is therefore closer to the some, counter-productive, pathologizing and
idea of original goodness than that of original harmful practice of evangelical church life. By
sin.” working theology, I mean the theology that gui-
des our practices as evangelicals. I don’t mean
The emphasis on relational goals-to-be- the doctrinal statements that usually begin with
sought means something else as well: it is the a statement about God, or the Bible, or God’s
‘way-of-relating’ that is assessed and judged,
not the person (emphasis his). Given the dri- self-revelation to us. I mean the ideological
ving presumption that everyone is capable of starting point of our approach to people, to our
learning new ways-of-relating, it is critical world, to our culture. If we see the three sour-
that people not become defined by a particu- ces of sin, the world, the flesh and the devil, as
lar act. As a result, the ‘perpetrator’ is care- the beginning of our understanding, we will see
fully called ‘the person who has harmed’, and church life and ministry in a certain harmful
the victim is always called ‘the person who way.
has been harmed’. (pp. 20f)
There is an interesting parallel between the ef-
Again, this is not to deny the existence of sin, fect of the doctrine of original sin on the life of
and that I am not denying its harmful effects in the church and the medical model of psycho-
the lives of persons, couples, families, societies therapy which begins with the “assessment”, in
and our world. There is ample evidence for this which the first task is to diagnose. Both lead to
of course. All of the problems that show up in subjugation of the human being with whom we
the counselling offices of the nation’s therapists have to do. Both require a correction, along the
can be traced back to human sinfulness, which lines suggested in this paper.

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