Page 10 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 8

Critical Issues The Christian faith has its own set of concerns
In spite of its amazing accomplishments in its about modern psychology. To begin with, while
short history, questions need to be raised about Christians affirm that knowledge can be gained
the limitations of modern psychology and its through the scientific method, there is a greater
current dominance in the field. Postmodern recognition that human finitude and fallenness
and cross-cultural psychologists, for example, impose restrictions on our pursuit for know-
have questioned the possibility of developing a ledge, regardless of our research methods. In
universal science of human beings that applies fact, the human (or social) sciences are espe-
to all people for all time in all cultures and cri- cially susceptible to what has been called the
ticized most contemporary psychological re- “noetic effects of sin” (that is, the distorting
search for being too westernized and focused effects of sin on human understanding and re-
on the individual. search, see Moroney, 1999). Such assumptions
should lead Christians to be humble about their
But modern psychologists themselves acknow- own psychological claims, but also to develop
ledge the challenges they face. Most of psy- a “hermeneutic of suspicion” regarding psycho-
chology is concerned with intangible aspects logies based on distorted worldviews, like natu-
of human life that cannot be directly observed ralism, which allow for no reference to God or
and measured. For example, a psychological re- the supernatural. Religious neutrality is a mo-
searcher might collect observable, measurable dern myth (Clouser, 2005). From a Christian
data from the performance of 100 people on an standpoint, one cannot exclude God in the stu-
intelligence test, but the real focus of interest dy of the images of God. Modern psychology,
is the people’s intelligence, which is intangible. therefore, dramatically misinterprets the trans-
The observable data is necessarily one step re- cendent, God-oriented nature of human beings
moved from the actual intangible object of the and views human life solely instrumentally and
research. Contemporary psychology research adaptively. For instance, it has been common
takes such matters into account mathematical- in modern psychology to see concepts such as
ly and by replicating previous studies, but this agape-love, altruism, free will, and belief in God
“gap” between the data and the object of psy- treated as illusions and considered to be merely
chological interest keeps psychologists from chemical processes in the brain that are a func-
claiming absolute certitude about their findings tion of social experiences (this is an example
and the conclusions they can draw from them. of reductionism, especially common among
Even more problematic, all psychological sci- adherents of naturalism, a view that reduces
ence involves making some assumptions that all unique, higher-level human experience and
cannot be empirically proven (Koch, 1981). activity to lower-level natural processes that
For instance, in order to investigate the process humans have in common with the rest of the
of becoming a mature person, one must have natural world).
some understanding of what a mature human
looks like, and different communities disagree To understand better the impact of worldview
about their maturity ideals. assumptions on one’s psychology, let us consi-
der the following interaction from the stand-
Some contemporary psychologists have also point of naturalism and Christianity. During a
criticized modern psychology’s reliance on na- conversation Jesse tells Jacob he doesn‘t have the
tural science methods (see Martin, Sugarman, money he needs to fix his car and get to work the
& Thompson, 2003). They point out that some following week. Jacob tells Jesse he would like
psychological features of human beings, such as to give him the money he needs, and he does
human freedom, cannot properly be described not care if Jesse pays it back. Jesse expresses his
just using the methods of the natural sciences. gratitude repeatedly, takes the money, and they
As a result, it is necessary to use human science part ways. Believing that all human actions are
methods as well, for example, narrative, eth- fundamentally motivated by self-interest, an
nographic, and phenomenological (Creswell, adherent of naturalism will interpret the inter-
2007).
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