Intregration (Part 1)

Biblical Counsel for a Change — Steve Gregg

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Intregration (Part 1)

Biblical Counsel for a ChangeSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg explores the integration of psychology and Christianity, highlighting the potential dangers of merging secular psychological theories with biblical teachings. He argues that psychology is not a neutral science and should not be mixed with divinely revealed religion. Gregg raises concerns about the use of psychological theories in addressing human problems and emphasizes the importance of relying on Scripture for spiritual guidance. He cautions against syncretism and suggests that psychology does not have the answers to all moral and spiritual issues, encouraging individuals to seek Christian perspectives on matters such as coping with death and finding peace.

Transcript

In this session I'm going to be talking about the attempted integration on the part of many people of psychology with Christianity. It is extremely common in popular books and radio programs to hear a mixture of psychological counsel being administered by Christians, Christian authors, Christian authorities, mixed with Christianity and psychological ideas. What I've tried to show you in our previous lectures in this series is that psychology actually is a competitor to Christianity.

It is not a science like what we normally think of as science, which adds to our knowledge of things which perhaps there is no other way of knowing about. That is to say, the Bible does not tell us at what temperature water boils, but science can tell us that through experimentation and observation and the scientific methods. Science can enhance our knowledge of things that are not overlapping the realm of what God has told us.

When there is an overlap, of course, between science and scripture, science inevitably confirms scripture or at least has never been able to convincingly prove anything in scripture to be wrong. Science and psychology are not to be confused, although psychology is sometimes referred to as a science of human behavior. It is not a science, it is a philosophy and it is a philosophy that addresses the same questions about human nature as the Bible itself addresses.

As I pointed out, because every psychotherapy that is out there, every theorist who heads up some major branch of psychological disciplines is a non-Christian or at least functioning professionally functions as if a non-Christian. They do not use the scriptures as their guide and I do not know of any psychological camp that was founded or where the theorist involved was a Christian. Therefore, we have in psychology what the Bible would refer to as the counsel of the ungodly.

Yet there are many people who feel that there is much that can be gleaned from psychology. I think all Christians would say there is much in psychology that is nonsense and that is even evil and very wrongly directed and anti-God, a great amount in psychology. Some who feel that psychology is better elements, it is better features, when mixed together with Christianity can actually enhance Christianity and that Christians would be very foolish to ignore the discoveries and findings in the realm of psychology.

These people we would call integrationists. They want to integrate psychological theory into Christian theology and counseling. A good example of an integrationist who is very well known is Dr. Paul Meyer, formerly of the Minereth-Meyer clinics, who jointly with Dr. Minereth wrote many books and has now gone off on his own and writing Christian fiction and some other things too.

He is a good friend of the host of one of the most listened to Christian radio programs on the radio and that is Focus on the Family and he is a good friend of Dr. James Dobson. Dr. Dobson is a godly man and I would disagree with him on some issues. Of course, anyone who listens to Focus on the Family knows that many different issues are addressed on that program and some of them fall into very different categories.

On the one hand, on Focus on the Family, you will often find Dr. Dobson acting as a conservative political watchdog and activist. In that role, to tell you the truth, I have really appreciated many of the contributions he has made to keeping us informed as to the direction that some trends in politics are going and so forth. Unfortunately, Dr. Dobson does not identify himself as a political watchdog.

He identifies himself as a Christian psychologist. Whenever his program is on, his announcer says, your host is Christian. He doesn't even say Christian, I believe.

I think he just says psychologist, Dr. James Dobson. I think it is a shame for Dr. Dobson's reputation that he has chosen that appellation because on the occasions when his program turns to subjects psychological, those are the times when Christians can find the most to object to in them. Dr. Dobson is very orthodox in his theology for the most part, very conservative in his politics, and most evangelical Christians would find much to agree with him on in many of the subjects that he addresses passionately.

But when he turns to the subject that he seeks to find his identity in, that of psychology, he often, invariably, moves away from biblical theology and into the realm of secular psychology baptized with the Christian reputation of the man presenting it. Dr. Paul Meyer, the same thing can be said of him. He is a Christian psychiatrist or psychologist, I forget which.

Minnifer Meyer, one of them was a psychiatrist, one a psychologist, I forget which is which. It hardly matters. They are both integrationists, as is Dr. Dobson, and they believe that much that is in secular psychology and psychiatry should be accepted by Christians as answers to the serious questions of life.

How do I solve my problems? How do I begin to behave normally? How do I overcome mood problems and so forth? And the answer according to integrationists is, well, the answer is to be found in psychology seasoned and chastened and governed by biblical morality. Now, Dr. Paul Meyer was not too long ago on the Focus on the Family broadcast. I don't know when it was aired because I heard it on a tape.

It was on the Focus on the Family tape, CS568, and the title of the tape was When Mental Illness Hits Home. Now, the quote I'm going to give you from that broadcast actually is very characteristic of the kinds of things you'll often hear on this program when the program's content turns to subjects of counseling and psychology and human problems and things like that. In that place, Dr. Paul Meyer said, many people with bipolar disorder, by the way, that's manic-depressive problems, in contrast to schizophrenia, schizophrenics need to stay on medicine all their lives, but a person with manic-depressive illness, some of them need to stay on lithium all of their lives.

Some of them can get off it with seeing a psychiatrist once every two or three months to check them out and to see if those symptoms come back. Some can go years without it and need to go back on it periodically. Some will need to be on lithium for a while or some other medication like Tegretol that corrects manic-depressive illness and will need periodically to get on an antidepressant when they are in their low dips, which gets when they get suicidally depressed.

So, the treatment is primarily medication, but what can trigger an episode, even though it's a genetic predisposition type illness, what can trigger it is the poor handling of anger. So, the person with bipolar disorder needs to learn how to get in touch with his or her anger and obey Ephesians 4.26, go ahead and be angry, but don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Verbalize it.

Dr. Dobson interjected, ventilate it. And Paul Meyer continues, ventilate it. Forgive a person that you're feeling angry toward.

Forgive yourself for not being perfect, learning how to handle the stress level so they're not overly stressed. If they learn to live a normal life and handle their anger well and take medication, then they'll not only live a normal life, they can live a better than normal life because they have so much abounding energy. Now, this quote, I mean, I could multiply quotes like this from Christian psychologists and psychiatrists, but it is a typical example of mixing what they consider to be the strong points of psychology with Christianity.

How much Christianity was in that quote? Well, there was an allusion to Ephesians 4.26, which says, be angry and let not the sun go down on your wrath. So, he does allude to that. But then his treatment of the subject of anger is entirely psychological.

Get in touch with your anger. Ventilate your anger. This ventilation idea of anger is so old-fashioned, even modern psychologists have thrown it out.

It's called the hydraulic model of anger. The idea is that anger is something almost like steam in a piston or something, and unless you find an outlet for it and ventilate it, you're just going to blow up or something, and therefore you need to ventilate it. Well, even most modern non-Christian psychologists have abandoned this hydraulic model of anger in favor of other suggestions, but of course Christian psychologists don't keep up with the trends very well in psychology.

The problem is that it is a psychological and a psychiatric description. He said that a person with bipolar disorder, of course, he's got to get on lithium, maybe for the rest of his life. Sometimes he can get off for a little while, so long as he sees a psychiatrist every two or three months, and makes sure his thing is going well.

And if he gets a little depressed, or maybe very deeply depressed, almost suicidal, then of course he'll have to go on to an antidepressant. And really the real problem is he's got to get in touch with his anger, because it's the anger that triggers this thing, even though the problem is genetically, it's a genetic predisposition type illness, he says, yet it is triggered, interestingly enough, by moral behavior. Or he wouldn't call it moral behavior, anger he would consider probably to be a symptom of a mental disorder, not a matter of sin.

And therefore, you need to learn how to ventilate your anger, which is not at all biblical. And basically this is just a hodgepodge of psychological, psychiatric mumbo-jumbo mixed together with one scripture, which is barely used at all, and certainly is not exegeted. The irony about this whole thing is that Dr. Paul Meyer, I've heard him say on several occasions in interviews, that he carries in his shirt pocket a bunch of index cards with Bible verses on them, and he says that he meditates on scripture four hours every day.

Now maybe the problem is that he hasn't done enough meditating on scripture, we're supposed to do it day and night, and he limits it to four hours a day, I don't know what he's thinking about the rest of the day, but it isn't scripture apparently. But if it is scripture, it certainly is scripture filtered through his grid of psychological understanding. And let me just clarify something, a person can be a good Christian and love the scripture and think a lot about the scripture, and still totally miss the truth because of the grid through which they see things.

Everyone sees things through a grid, and one of the best things we can do is recognize our own prejudices so that we can overcome them in the sense of saying, okay, I tend to ignore this aspect of the truth, I better pay closer attention to it. But the grid of a psychologist many times, and of Paul Meyer in particular, as comes out in his books, is for example, to accept the Freudian concept of the unconscious, and then whenever you find the word heart in scripture, at least in many of the places in the scripture, you find the word heart, to assume that is a reference to the Freudian unconscious. Now, you can see immediately that this man could meditate four hours a day for years and years on all the scriptures that talk about the heart of man, and miss the point altogether if he is assuming the word heart means the Freudian unconscious, especially if that's not true.

He's got a grid that prevents him from getting past his psychological mindset, and unfortunately, when he gives counsel of this sort to people who are schizophrenics, people who are bipolar, people who have anger problems, his answers do not come out of the word of God, they come out of this mental health professions where the answers have been found by persons who are not Christians, and by the way, we want to examine whether those answers even really work. Now, the question we need to ask is whether there's a valid enterprise in seeking the best of psychology and mixing it with Christianity. Now, psychology, as I said, is not a neutral science.

It is the application of a therapist's belief system, which is, of course, in many cases, religious in nature. He may be an atheist, he may be a New Ager, he may be a Christian, he may be a Muslim, he may be a Jehovah's Witness, he may be any number of things, but his belief system will be applied to his therapy, of course. And to mix psychology, which comes from the belief systems of non-Christians, with Christianity is to synchrotize two belief systems.

It's like a mixture of two religions, one that comes from God and one that comes from man. Now, when God told the Israelites that they were going into the land of Canaan and they would there encounter people of another religion, he warned them strongly and repeatedly, do not inquire into the religious practices of the people in whose land you are going. It is for those religious practices that I am judging them.

Do not learn from them. Do not bring them in. Do not say, how do these people worship their gods that we may worship Jehovah in the same way.

He did not want a mixture of his revealed, divinely spawned understanding of things, divinely revealed religion. He didn't want that mixed up with pagan ideas. Such a mixture, when you mix two religions together, you have a phenomenon that is called syncretism.

And the integration of psychology with Christianity is simply a form of syncretism. Now, it says in 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 through 18, God obviously calls his people to separate themselves from darkness, from idolatry, from belial, and not mix these things, not unequally yoke them together. Certainly to take the revealed truth of God from scripture and mix that with the theoretical assumed truths which come from the pagan world, from the imaginations of corrupt men, to mix those together is to unequally yoke things that are unlike each other.

And it is a marriage that is not legitimate. In Proverbs 30, verses 5 and 6, it says, Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to them that put their trust in him.

Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Proverbs 30, verses 5 and 6. Now, many Christian ministers and writers have added to God's words, and unfortunately what they've added is psychological theory. And many of them, maybe have not been adequately reproved, but when they are, they should be found to be liars.

As the Bible warns, if you add to God's word, you'll be reproved and you'll be found a liar. I would like to use the time that we have here to offer reproof to persons who have done that very illegitimate joining of two things, Christianity and psychology. Carl Jung, whom you know from my previous lecture, was an occultist and who is one of the more popular thinkers as far as modern popularity goes, people who like to jump on the bandwagon with one or another psychological guru.

Carl Jung certainly is a very popular one at this point in time. Carl Jung made this observation in his book, or in the book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul. He wrote the chapter Psychotherapists or the Clergy.

And he said, quote, religions are systems of healing for psychic illness. That is why patients force the psychotherapist into the role of a priest and expect and demand of him that he shall free them from their distress. That is why we psychotherapists must occupy ourselves with problems which, strictly speaking, belong to the theologian.

Unquote. Now that's a very true observation that he makes, that he is doing the work that really belongs to the theologian. The psychotherapist has been cast in the role of the priesthood of the new humanistic religion.

And what people used to go to their religious leaders to find help in, they now go to the psychotherapist and seek the same kind of help that they once sought from their religion. And therefore, psychology and those who practice it are religious practitioners. Unfortunately, generally speaking, the religion that they practice is not agreeable to the religion of Christ.

Two Christians who wrote in Christianity Today an article called The Generic Disease, which is about codependency. They are Christian experts on the subject of codependency. They made this statement, showing that they are very thoroughgoing integrationists.

They said, quote, the goal of recovery from codependency and Christianity are the same. Healthy human behavior that works. Now, this is the problem with people who can't see why we shouldn't mix the best elements of psychology with Christianity.

They think that the goal of psychological therapy and recovery is the same thing as the goal of Christianity. And what is that goal? Well, they say the goal is healthy human behavior that works. Now, that may very well be the goal of therapy and recovery, but is that in fact the goal of Christianity? Did God send his son so that people could have healthy human behavior that works? And if so, then we would argue that people who already have healthy human behavior that works don't need Christianity.

And there are people whose lives are working out. There are people who are not in crisis. There are people who are emotionally stable, whose relationships are in reasonably good repair.

And they they don't go around breaking laws and hurting people and so forth. If healthy human behavior that works is the goal of Christianity, then Christianity must be only for certain people and not for all people. Those who are dysfunctional need Christianity, just like those who are dysfunctional need recovery or therapy or some other psychological solution.

The fact is the Bible does not support the notion that the purpose of Christianity is healthy human behavior that works. The very addition of the word that works suggests very strongly a pragmatic approach to religion. If something works, if something gets results, if something is getting the satisfactory results that we're seeking in life, then it is all is well.

All is well and this is what Christianity aims at, that we get the results in our life that we're looking for, that works. And our behavior is healthy and well adjusted and so forth. But as I understand the scripture, the purpose of Christianity is for the glory of God.

And to exalt Jesus Christ and the grace of God. So that God is all in all and Christ is all in all. And that certainly is not the goal of psychology.

It is the goal of true Christianity, but unfortunately, true Christianity is not the same animal as the Christianity, apparently, of the Christian psychologist, because the Christian psychologist doesn't seem to know what Christianity is for. He has a Christianity or a theory about Christianity, but it is not the same as the Christianity that is presented in scripture. You see, so long as people can be alleviated of their anguish, of their crises, of their suffering, it is thought that all is well.

But actually in the Bible, we read that God often puts people in anguish and puts people in sufferings and puts people through trials that he expects them to handle with grace. In fact, even when they pray to be removed, sometimes God will say, no, my grace is sufficient for you. I'm not going to take this thorn away.

I'm not going to take this messenger of Satan's buffeting you away. According to Christianity, the goal of Christianity is not that we have trouble free, well adjusted psyches. Now, what is the goal of Christianity is that we live a life that pleases God and there are many things in our mental and outward behavior that are displeasing to God.

Many of them are immoral behaviors and other things that might be the kinds of things that psychological theorists would also be trying to address, but giving the wrong answers for. But the point of the matter is a person doesn't become a Christian because he wants his life to work out. A person does go to a therapist because he wants his life to work out.

A person becomes a Christian if he really becomes one and not only if he's not a false conversion, if he's a true conversion, he becomes Christian because he repents of having lived a life seeking to make his life work out without bringing glory to God and without acknowledging Christ's lordship. Christianity has very different goals than psychology and therapy and recovery have. To suggest that recovery has the same goal as Christianity would suggest that a person who went to a 12-step program and got mastery over his drug or alcohol habit or pornography habit or whatever, that that person has reached the goal, the same goal Christianity would have had for him, namely that he stop drinking, that he stop abusing himself and others, that he stop being maladjusted.

But is that really true? Is it really the case that what the church has for the alcoholic is simply to get him free from his alcohol so that his life is not being ruined by alcohol anymore? If that's all we give him, we have simply made him more comfortable in his rebellion against God. His very addiction, as they would call it, to alcohol may very well be God's way of keeping him uncomfortable in his sin. And deliverance from alcohol is what God hopes for him to receive through becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ who said that if you become my disciple you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free.

But to make people free, short of giving them the truth, short of them acknowledging Jesus Christ, is simply to alleviate the burden that their sin has put upon them or that maybe even God himself is putting upon them in order to get them to come to Christ. There are negative consequences of sin. There are wages of sin.

And if we say, oh, you poor thing, look how your finances are destroyed, look at your family is destroyed, look at your liver, my goodness, we need to get you off alcohol because we're loving, caring people. And so we take him through a 12-step program but never impress the demands of Christ upon him because our goal in recovery is the same as the goal of Christianity. What? To get this guy off drugs.

Well, that is not the goal of Christianity. The goal of Christianity is not to get a man off drugs. It is not to get a man who continues to be a rebel against God to be a more comfortable rebel against God who is not suffering the consequences of his sin in his life so much.

The purpose of Christianity is to bring that man to total brokenness, to total repentance for his sinful rebellion against God and to total submission to Jesus Christ. And recovery does not even suggest this. Even the Christian versions of 12-step programs often are very flabby on this.

And they say, well, Jesus is the higher power that we recommend. But if you don't come to Jesus, we still want to help you out of your problems. Well, Jesus didn't come to help people out of their problems.

He came to bring them to repentance, to salvation, and their problems would be handled by God as a consequence but not as a first priority. Problems Christians can live with. Rebellion against God is the real problem that no one can live with for very long, not for eternity anyway.

So here are these Christian experts on codependency writing in Christianity Today on December 1988 indicated that they didn't understand what Christianity is even about. They just think that Christianity is another road to the same goal as recovery, which is a psychological therapy. Martin and Deidre Bobgan in their book Psychoheresy said, quote, unquote.

In other words, it is, of course, syncretism. It is an illegitimate merger. William Kirk Kilpatrick is a, I believe he's Roman Catholic.

He's not what we call an evangelical. He's not a right wing fundamentalist, you know, anti intellectual. In fact, he happens to be a professor of educational psychology at where Boston College is, I think.

He wrote a book. He wrote several books, good ones, too. But he wrote one called The Emperor's New Clothes, The Naked Truth About the New Psychology.

And on pages 19 and 20, he made this observation. William Kirk Kilpatrick wrote this, quote, calls for blending it with psychology. This mix has become extremely popular with Christian educators since it seems to add a dash of relevance to the ancient faith.

They think of it, of course, not in terms of a dilution, but in terms of the improved product that results when one metal is alloyed with another. Attempts to reconcile Christianity with psychology will actually have the effect of undermining the Christian point of view, unquote. You see, the idea that if you add psychology, you're alloying two strong metals, Christianity and psychology, to make a stronger product is to downplay the nature of what Christianity really is.

Christianity is God supernaturally intervening in the affairs of men to deliver from sin. That is Christianity. Psychology is simply a whole bunch of theorists groping around in the dark trying to figure out what's wrong and what to do about it.

To suggest that if you took the finer points of psychology and merge them with the finer points of Christianity, oh, what a fine thing we would have then. Well, first of all, let me tell you this. There are no finer points of Christianity.

Christianity is all excellent. Christianity does not have weak points. In fact, Paul said in First Corinthians that the foolishness of God, which is what some people consider the gospel to be.

He said the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. Now, if we would call psychology the wisdom of men, although I'd be more inclined to call it the folly of men, but if we try to acknowledge that some very brilliant men have believed in psychology and we call that the wisdom of men, still the foolishness of God is wiser than man. You do not improve.

You dilute. You corrupt. Christianity, when you try to import views from sinful men and try to give them some kind of an equal status or a partnership with the truth that God has revealed, Hilton P. Terrell, whose PhD is in psychology, but he's a medical doctor in family practice, he's also the editor of what's called the Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine.

He wrote the following, quoted by the Bobgans. Quote, the fondness of Christians for the prolific spawn of popular psychotherapies should be a cause for embarrassment and admonition from church leaders. Instead, Christian psychiatrists and psychologists who rework alien dogmas into facsimiles of biblical truth are immunized against needed criticism.

The vaccine with which they're immunized is composed of their undeniable personal zeal for Christ, a generous use of Bible passages, albeit of dubious relevance to their desired points, and the church's ignorance of the true nature of psychotherapy. A Trojan horse full of dangerous psycho fantasies has been professionally prepared for us by Christian psychiatrists and psychologists. In our early post-Christian culture, Christians are increasingly required to stand apart.

It is uncomfortable. We want someone to lower our profile by Christianizing competing secular doctrines the way Darwinism was managed. We tell ourselves that Christians should use the best knowledge available in Christ's service, whereas observational sciences can build upon biblical presuppositions to our aid, observation offers no brief on issues of the inner man.

Only the trappings, the lingo, the aura of science attend psychoanalytic practices. At base, such therapies stand upon dogma, not scientific observations, and the dogma is the odious doctrine of Freud and his followers, who were some of the century's most anti-Christian teachers. No amount of well-intentioned refinement of deadly doctrines will make them clean for use by Christians.

Though gems are occasionally found in coal mines, Christians who go fossicking for gems of God's truth in psychoanalytic coal mines will usually emerge empty-handed and filthy. Professional and non-professional Christians of discernment should avoid the dangerous system completely." This is from a man whose PhD is in psychology, but is now a Christian medical doctor. You wonder why he didn't go into psychology as a field, since he's got his PhD in it.

Obviously, he has no respect for it whatsoever, and he believes that Christians have no business borrowing from it, and I agree with him. Now, you might say, what about this Christian psychology? I mean, isn't there a field of psychology called Christian psychology? After all, people are continually built on the backs of their books as Christian psychologists, and they're writing Christian books published by Christian publishers for Christian readership. They're clearly Christians, and they're psychologists.

Is there not some room for maybe a variation of psychology, such as Christian psychology? Well, there is no such thing as Christian psychology. And the very fact that they want to argue that there is proves that no one can really claim that psychology is a science, Whoever heard of Christian chemistry, or Christian physics, or Christian aerodynamics? Those are sciences, and Christians don't have a different version of biology, or chemistry, or aerodynamics, or physics than the world does, because those are objective sciences. The very fact that someone can talk about a brand of psychology called Christian psychology proves that psychology is not in the realm of science at all.

It's just a philosophy, and Christians think that they can baptize that philosophy with Christianized philosophical notions and foundations, and come up with a Christian version of psychology. Well, if they can, they haven't managed it yet. Let's put it that way.

Because the psychologists who are Christians, who are writing books on the subject, and selling lots of copies, and being pursued by many, many Christians with unhappiness in their life, seeking solutions, those men are not teaching a distinctively Christian psychology. They are teaching secular psychology, with the addition of a few Bible verses of nebulous or dubious relevance to their desired points. Now, a couple of Christian psychologists named Sutherland and Poelstra, they presented a paper called Aspects of Integration.

They presented this paper at the meeting of the Western Association of Christians for Psychological Studies in Santa Barbara, California, June 1976. Now, this was a conference of Christian psychologists, and these men presented this paper called Aspects of Integration. Our integrationists are Christian psychologists.

They want Christianity and psychology to be mixed. In their paper, they made this observation, this statement. Quote, we are often asked if we are Christian psychologists, and find it difficult to answer since we don't know what the question implies.

We are Christians who are psychologists, but at the present time there is no acceptable Christian psychology that is markedly different from non-Christian psychology. It is difficult to imply that we function in a manner that is fundamentally distinct from our non-Christian colleagues. As yet, there is not an acceptable theory, mode of research, or treatment methodology that is distinctly Christian.

Unquote. Now, these are Christian psychologists who want to give credence to the idea that Christianity and psychology can be mixed. They say there is no such thing as a Christian psychology.

We are just Christians and we are psychologists, but there is no essential difference between the way we apply our trade and the way our non-Christian colleagues apply their trade. We just follow the psychological theories, the same ones that our non-Christian counterparts follow. We just happen to be privately Christians.

It makes a difference in our lives. It may not make a difference in their practice or their counsel, however. Martin and Dieter Bobgan, who are of course Christian researchers, I've quoted several times, they said in their book, Prophets of Psychoheresy, book one, quote, To determine methodological systems used by Christians who practice psychotherapy, we conducted a survey with the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, also known as CAPS, a national Christian organization composed of numerous practicing therapists.

In our survey, we used a simple questionnaire in which we asked the psychotherapists to list in order the psychotherapeutic approaches that most influenced their private practices. The results indicated that client-centered therapy, that's Carl Rogers, and reality therapy, that's William Glasser, were the two top choices, and that psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and rational emotive therapy, Albert Ellis, followed closely behind, unquote. In other words, when surveying the leading organization, national organization of Christian psychology, asking, well, what therapies most influence you? They didn't say, you know, Jesus Christ or the Apostle Paul or the Book of Proverbs even, or the Law of Moses even, all of which give much better counsel than any of the men that they did name.

They named as their leading gurus Carl Rogers, William Glasser, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Ellis. To me, that suggests that when you're talking to a Christian therapist, he is not practicing anything that could be called Christian psychology. He's just practicing pagan psychology and baptizing it with maybe a few Christian ideas and maybe limiting some of the more objectionable aspects based on his Christian conscience or whatever.

I'm not saying there would be absolutely no difference between talking to a Christian who is a psychologist and talking to a non-Christian who is a psychologist. At least a Christian might have some Christian ethics appearing in his psychology, probably would. But as far as his theories about what is your problem and how should it be fixed, his answers are the same as those of the world.

They're not different. They're not Christian answers. There's a couple of Christian psychologists I'd like to quote here because of the particular way in which they demonstrate the mentality of most integrationists.

Most integrationists who want to add psychology to Christianity would hold, whether they call it that or not, a view that we should call the inadequacy of scripture view. And that is to say that no one could expect the Bible to really give answers for all of our personal problems. We need to get outside help.

The Bible is not adequate. We need additional insights from the realm of psychology to know how to solve some of our problems. And this is an argument made by many Christian psychologists.

I call it the inadequacy of scripture view. And one of those guys, I'm going to give you two examples, very important examples because they're well read, often read. One is Larry Crabb.

Now, Larry Crabb is the director of the Institute of Biblical Counseling in Morrison, Colorado. He's the author of many bestselling books on psychological counseling subjects. Some of them were effective biblical counseling, understanding people.

Inside Out was one of his best sellers. He's come out with many more books since then, including I read an article in Christianity Today a year or two ago, it seems like, that was saying Larry Crabb is trashing psychology. And it was an interview in which they were saying that he was acknowledging that psychology was not good.

Christianity is better and so forth. But then he wrote a letter to the editor in the next issue saying, I didn't want to give the impression that I'm not still using psychology. And so, I mean, this guy is talking out of both sides of his mouth in a way, or maybe he's just being misquoted or misunderstood.

But letting him speak for himself. I have some quotes here from his books, Inside Out and Understanding People, to demonstrate that he is certainly a proponent of this inadequacy of scripture view. He said in Inside Out on page 161, it is wrong to handle a text like an authorized Ouija board.

We are not to read a passage and expect the spirit of God to mystically impress on our consciousness whatever self-knowledge he wants us to have. Now, what he's actually saying is, to solve our problems, we need to have more self-knowledge. We need to know about what's in the unconscious, because he believes in the unconscious and he teaches that.

So, his belief is that until we understand the unconscious mind, we will never get over our problems and we won't learn anything about that from the scriptures, he says. Now, on the other hand, if you suppress him, you say, well, everything that Freud taught about the unconscious, everything I teach about the unconscious is agreeable with scripture. Agreeable with scripture? Then why couldn't you just read the text and find it there? Why is it that we are not supposed to just expect the spirit of God, mystically, to impress upon our consciousness the self-knowledge necessary for us to change by reading a text of scripture? He says we're not supposed to.

He says it's wrong to handle a text like an authorized Ouija board. Well, what is a Ouija board? It's a means by which people who have no convictions against the occult, it is an occult methodology for obtaining guidance and information that would not be available elsewhere. And he says, you know, some people would use a Ouija board, other people apparently use a text of scripture as an authorized Ouija board.

He thinks that's wrong. What would he use as his authorized Ouija board? The theories of Carl Rogers and Jung and Freud? I mean, it's interesting. He notes that people look for supernatural guidance from Ouija boards.

And he says it's wrong to give the scripture that place in your life that you seek supernatural guidance from the scripture. Now, what he's saying is not that we can't get such guidance. We just have to add to the scripture the insights from Freud and others.

In other words, his Ouija board is psychology. And it's a good analogy because psychology, much of it comes out of the occult. Anyway, he apparently thinks that the spirit of God and the text of scripture is not adequate for Christians to find help.

Although Jesus said the truth will make you free and thy word is truth. And Paul said that if you walk in the spirit, you'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh. It sounds like Paul and Jesus believe that the truth of the scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit are indeed adequate.

Larry Crabb does not believe that, obviously. In his book Inside Out on page 194, he said, Reminders of God's love and exhortations to meditate on Jesus' care sometimes provide about as much help as handing out recipes to people waiting in a food line. Now, think of this analogy.

People are waiting in a food line. Obviously, they're hungry. They need food.

You hand them a recipe. Well, obviously, if they had food such as could be used to fulfill the terms of the recipe, they wouldn't be waiting in a food line. So he says it's like you're handing out paper that describes food to people who really need the real food.

That's what he's saying. Now, what is it that is like handing out recipes to people in a food line, reminding them of God's love and of Christ's care for them? When they're in crisis, when they're depressed, when they're anxious, to remind them about God, to remind them that the solution is in God and in Jesus. That is like handing out pieces of paper that describe food to people who really want food.

In other words, there is no reality. In trusting simply in God, meditating on the truth of God, there's no reality there. That's just theology.

That's just talk about God. The reality comes from where? Well, in his opinion, comes from psychological theory. So the food to him is psychological theory.

If we give them only God, we're giving them something much inferior. If we give them only scriptural truth, which, by the way, if they would live by it, would solve their problems. But he doesn't know that.

He doesn't believe that. He believes you just give them recipes. The psychologist, obviously, is the one with the food in his analogy.

Larry Crabb contends that counsel limited to answering questions addressed in the Bible. Let me make this clear. That if you give counsel that is limited only to answering questions addressed in the Bible, he says this results in a shallow, quote, shallow understanding of problems and solutions.

That sounds biblical, but helps very few, unquote. What that means is if you've got problems, let's say you're struggling with anxiety, fears, panic, depression, anger, relational problems. If you go to somebody and all they have for you is biblical truth.

Oh, my goodness, all you're getting is a shallow, he says, very shallow answers that sound biblical that help very few people. Well, I'm afraid he has exposed more about himself than about anyone else. Apparently, he has gotten very little help from the Bible himself, and he judges that that is the case with everyone.

I would like to say, if I left it to my experience, I would say I've gotten nothing of value from psychology. My life has been happy, satisfied, full, not without trials, not without sufferings, not without stress, not without aggravations. My life has had as many as his has, I would imagine, but I've found all that I need in God and in the truth that God has revealed in his word.

And when I've applied that, I would dare say it helps a great deal. To him, it only sounds biblical, but helps few people. It's shallow.

Why does he think it's shallow? Well, because people who use the Bible don't ever address issues of the unconscious mind. Why? Because it's not there in the Bible. That's why people who use only the Bible can't talk about the unconscious mind because it's not there.

That's why we need Freud to supplement God. Even though Freud determined to destroy Christianity from his youth and went about to do so and has successfully done so to a large extent, yet we need him to help us understand ourselves and how to live the life that a Christian should be living. That, by the way, that quote comes from Understanding People.

Also in the same book, Understanding People, Larry Crabb said, No passage literally exegeted directly responds to certain legitimate questions like, and he gives three examples, Why does a transvestite have the urge to cross-dress? Why does the anorexic feel fat when in fact she's very underweight? Why does a woman panic at the thought of sex with her loving patient and considerate husband? Now, these are the kinds of things, obviously, sometimes psychologists try to delve into and patients want to know the answers. Larry Crabb says, No passage of Scripture literally exegeted directly responds to certain legitimate questions like these. The first thing I'd like to say is, who says these are legitimate questions? If you know somebody who's a transvestite and he says, Well, I won't change until you tell me why I have this urge to cross-dress.

Now, see, this is supposed to be a legitimate question. Why does the transvestite have an urge to cross-dress? I don't care. And I don't think the transvestite even has to know why.

What he has to do is repent. Cross-dressing is not something that people do, you know, someone forces them into those clothes. They do that by choice.

They put them on by their choice. They may have to deal with the fact that they've got a very perverted urge. They may or may not know where that came from or why they have it.

But why they have it is not the essential issue. I'll tell you why they have it. Because people are perverted.

People are sick with sin. Morally sick, not medically sick. And because people do things that are not glorifying to God.

And the devil takes delight in that and encourages that a great deal. And the flesh and the world and the devil all impose pressures on people to do kinky, weird, reckless, wicked, perverted things. That's why a transvestite wants to cross-dress.

But now that we know that, the real issue is what is the transvestite expected to do? To say it is a legitimate question that the Bible can't answer. By the way, I just gave you a biblical answer. The Bible does answer that question.

Why does a transvestite have an urge to cross-dress? Or why does an anorexic feel fat? Because she's very underweight. Actually, I don't know that an anorexic needs to know the answer to that question. It may be nice to know.

But she can start eating again without knowing why she feels fat. I had to deal with it. Well, when I was in Honolulu, a while ago, several years ago, there was a student there that was very anorexic, is the term they gave it.

And she was starving herself to death. And she was just really a bag of bones, really, really the skinniest girl I ever saw. And, of course, the leaders of the DTS were within, knowing what to do for her, since inner healing didn't work and deliverance didn't work and all the psychological things didn't work.

And she was still probably approaching death. Eventually, they had to kick her out. She did not get help.

But they did ask me if I would talk to her. And I did. And I says, I don't remember what her name was, but I said, let's say her name was Mary.

Mary, I understand that you feel this compulsion to starve yourself. You feel that you're fat. But let me tell you something.

The truth will make you free. You are not fat. And even if you were fat, it is a sin to destroy your body because you are not your own.

You've been bought with a price and you're to glorify God in your body. And it is, even if you believe yourself to be fatter than you want to be, you cannot destroy the body that you are destroying without incurring guilt before God. And you need to repent of your self-infatuation.

You need to repent of your obsession with what you look like. And you need to concentrate on living a life obedient and pleasing to God. And whether you eat or drink, to do all in to the glory of God, as the Bible says.

That's the easy biblical answer. Now, some might say, well, she didn't get help, did she, from your counsel? No, she didn't. As far as I know, she didn't.

She had to go to school. But that doesn't prove that the counsel wasn't right. You know the old question, how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

And it's the same thing with Christian counsel. I think that psychology and Christian have that in common, that if people do not accept the counsel, the person who gives the counsel cannot do anything more than give the counsel. It remains with the so-called patient to decide.

She did not respond to my counsel, but I guarantee you, had she done so, she wouldn't have continued to start herself, because I told her what the Bible says. And if she's begun to do what the Bible says, and there's no reason to believe that she couldn't, then that would solve her problem. Why does she need to have this legitimate question answered by a psychologist, why does the anorexic feel fat when in fact she's very underweight? Or why does a woman panic at the thought of sex with her loving, patient, considerate husband? Now I realize that there may be an issue there where panic is called forth by some earlier experience in life, and addressing that earlier experience in her life, whatever it may have been, may very well help her overcome the problem.

I mean, there may be something there where she needs to forgive someone in the past, there may be something she needs to repent of in the past, it's hard to say. I mean, it depends. I don't know why she panics.

And if I were counseling a woman who had that problem, I probably would do at least a little exploration to find out if there's any discernible reason behind this, because there may be some spiritual problem there that requires repentance or forgiveness or some other thing. But what Larry Crabb is suggesting is the Bible itself would never give you the answer to that problem. Biblical texts will never help you.

What you need to understand is that she was probably molested when she was a baby, and it's repressed in her unconscious mind, and the Bible will never tell you anything about what's in the unconscious mind, and therefore you can't use the Bible to help her. Wrong. I don't believe the Bible does support an unconscious mind, and I don't believe people's problems are rooted there or are solved by appeal to that theory.

I've seen people of every conceivable kind of mental, emotional, behavioral problem, over the years I've seen everything change. You can name it, whether it's heroin addiction, whether it is total sexual perversion, homosexuality or whatever, I've seen people change 100%, just like Paul had. He says, such were some of you, but you are washed.

You are justified. You are sanctified. Not by psychology, but by the power of God through the Holy Spirit and through Jesus Christ.

That's what Paul said, and that's what I've seen. As a matter of fact, we'll see a little later in this lecture, psychology very rarely helps these people at all. There are statistics to prove that.

But when Larry Crabb gives these examples of questions that cannot be answered from the Bible alone for patients, he says to answer such questions we need to consider the teachings of psychologists. He gives a list of 20 secular psychologists that he recommends that the Christians should read to become better equipped to counsel. These on his list include Freud, Adler, Maslow, Rogers, and the rest of the pagan bunch.

And Larry Crabb says, in order to become better equipped to counsel, Christians ought to read these guys. Well, this is a very classic example of the inadequacy of scripture view. Another good example of that same view is from Gary Collins, who is professor of psychology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.

He's the author of various books. One of them, the one I got this illustration from, is called Can You Trust Psychology? Obviously, since he's a professor of psychology at a Christian divinity school, he does come out in favor of psychology. Of course, he mentions some bad things in some psychological theories, but in general, psychology is our friend, not our enemy.

And the best thing to do is to mix the best of psychology with the best of Christianity. This would be his solution. Now, in trying to prove the inadequacy of scripture to solve people's problems and the need to import psychology, he lists several questions that he says counselors face on a regular basis, which you could never answer using the Bible alone.

And it's implied you need, therefore, to use psychology to answer these questions. Let me give you a quote from Gary Collins on this, from his book Can You Trust Psychology? Christian author, Christian professor of psychology. Quote, some human problems are never mentioned in scriptures.

They are not discussed specifically, and neither are there examples to show how others dealt with these issues in a way pleasing to God. The Bible is not written as a self-help question and answer book covering every possible human problem. It does not claim to be a textbook of counseling techniques or personal problem solving.

Surely we would not force it to be something that it does not claim to be. Think of the kinds of problems people bring to counselors. Here he gives some samples.

I've been accepted by two Christian colleges. I can't decide which one to attend. Should I get married now or wait until I'm well launched on my career? I know God has forgiven me for my past sins, but what do I do now that I'm pregnant? How can I stop eating so much? I am really depressed.

The doctor says that there's nothing physically causing this, and I can't think of any sin in my life that might be pulling me down. What should I do? Can you help me? I've got AIDS. I keep failing math.

How can I get through the course so I can graduate? My father abused me when I was a child. I have asked the Lord to help me forget. I have forgiven my father, but we can't discuss it because he's no longer alive.

Still I can't shake the hurt, and it is adversely affecting my marriage. What do I do? I'm anxious all the time. I've asked the Lord to give me peace, but I still panic frequently.

And after giving this list of questions, Gary Collins says, Many, perhaps most, of the problems people bring to modern counselors are never discussed in the Bible. Which means, of course, you need to not trust the Bible to give answers to these kinds of questions. You need to trust psychology.

Well, let me say this. There are several things about the quote I just gave you that I take strong exception to, and I want to respond to. He said, The Bible is not written as a self-help question and answer book covering every possible human problem.

This is true. The Bible does not indicate that you can help yourself. It's not a self-help book.

It's a book about God as the Savior and Rescuer from sin. The one who delivers from sin. It's not a self-help book, and it doesn't address every problem known to man.

It does not tell us very much, for example, about how to fill out your income tax forms. Except it does give principles that would govern that and all other behavior. It would, of course, tell us to be honest.

There are specific problems that sometimes we could use a little human education or advice from others to help us with. And the Bible doesn't address them. Although that does not mean that the Bible has left out some important information about how to live our lives.

The Bible addresses all things necessary for life and godliness, according to 2 Peter 1, verse 3. All things necessary for life and godliness are there. Not all things, but all things necessary for life and godliness are there. Of course, the Bible doesn't teach us how to read and write.

We have to go to school to learn that. The Bible doesn't tell us how to fix a broken water pipe. These are problems that people face.

But I dare say that none of those things are things that psychologists help with either. In fact, let me give you, again, that list of questions that counselors frequently hear, which he says, he's implying, well, how could you answer these questions if you only use the Bible? I might ask, how could you answer them using psychology? Look at these questions. The first one, I've been accepted by two Christian colleges.

I can't decide which one to attend. Is this a psychological problem? Do you need a therapist to answer which Christian college to attend? Isn't that just an ordinary kind of divine guidance kind of issue? I mean, decision making in the will of God? Isn't it possible that a person armed only with a Bible could talk that person further and say, well, first of all, why are you even going to college? What is it you want to do? Is this something God has really told you to do or are you doing it because someone expects you to do it? Are your goals Christian goals? Are they selfish? Are they materialistic? Are you just following the pagan track? I mean, why go to college? Oh, you want to go to college to become a minister? Well, have you considered that you might become a minister without going to college? Okay, well, maybe the place you want to minister needs a college education. Okay, let's say you're going to go to a Christian college.

Notice he says, I've been accepted by two Christian colleges. I assume many counselors might just come and say, I've been accepted by two colleges, and I'm going to go to the Christian colleges to make us know we're talking about a Christian here. Christian, looking for Christian answers.

Okay, two Christian colleges, which one should I attend? Well, you know, basically it'll come down to which one really, you know, basically has what it takes to fulfill the will of God for your life. And the will of God is not something discerned by a psychotherapist. I dare say that a psychotherapist would not be any more equipped than anyone else to answer which Christian college you should go to unless he thinks that you're going to have certain trauma at one of them that you would not have at the other because he knows some deep secret about your inner life that ordinary people can't know.

But I dare say that parents, pastors, Christian friends would be every bit as equipped to answer the question as a psychologist would. In fact, I can't see how psychological sophistication would enhance the counsel given to this question in one bit, in one way. Next question, should I get married now or wait until I'm well launched on my career? Once again, this is not a psychological problem.

This is a life guidance problem. Are you supposed to get married? Does God want you to get married right now? Does he want you to have a career? Is your career such a thing as would be in conflict with marriage? Now, see, I think most people give counsel about, you know, from a financial basis. Well, you know, you really want to get your career launched so that you can get a home and you can get set up so that when you get married you can have a stable income and so forth.

Frankly, that's not the counsel I would give because I didn't follow that counsel and never would. I never have allowed finances to determine whether I was supposed to get married or not. And I've never regretted not consulting the financial picture.

And the reason is because my whole adult life I've never let finances really hinder me from doing anything I thought was the will of God. I've launched on many very expensive enterprises without any money. But I've always done what I believe God wanted and I believe what Christians should do is do what they believe God wants and let God provide the money.

I would want to talk to this person about why they're interested in getting married. I mean, do they have the impression that God has led them to somebody or are they going to start looking now from scratch or what? I mean, what is their career? What is it about their career that would conflict with marriage? If a career would conflict with marriage, maybe then either the career or marriage is not for you. And if it doesn't conflict with marriage, then why would you wait to get married? I mean, there would be many considerations.

Once again, I think Christian parents, Christian pastors, counselors, friends could easily give good counsel in this matter that would be every bit as good as someone who's trained in psychology since the question does not deal with psychological type problems. It just deals with the question of making a choice in life. How about this one? This one gets a little bit more toward issues that psychologists would concern themselves with.

I know God has forgiven me for my past sins, but what do I do now that I'm pregnant? Do you need a psychological degree to answer the question, what do you do now that you're pregnant? It's a real no-brainer. You have a baby. What are the options? An abortion? You need a psychologist to tell you whether you get an abortion or not? What do I do now that I'm pregnant? What are the choices? Abortion or have a baby? Okay, what does a psychologist have to offer to this that the Bible doesn't itself have to offer to the answer? She says, I know God has forgiven my past sins, I just happen to be pregnant.

Okay, well God's forgiven your sins, all is well. You're pregnant, yeah, you're living with the consequences of your sin. The Bible says a lot about that.

I don't know if psychology does or not, but it probably doesn't say the same things. I mean, if the question is how do I tell my dad, because he doesn't know I'm pregnant yet, or something like that, well, I don't think psychology is going to give better answers than the Bible would give. I personally believe that these are issues of moral choice, and psychology does not have a corner on the market of moral choices.

Psychology is, in fact, an inferior counsel of morality from that of the Bible. And I dare say that a person having nothing more than the Bible would have very little difficulty answering this girl's question every bit as easily and effectively and authoritatively as would a psychologist who is trained to talk to people. How about this one? How can I stop eating so much? Well, this doesn't have a pat answer.

I'd want to look at, you know, first of all, why is it you feel like you're eating too much? You're overweight? Does the Bible say it's wrong to be overweight? I mean, there's nothing necessarily sinful about being overweight. I don't read anything in the Bible that, in fact, I read frequently that the righteous will rejoice in fatness. The righteous will be made fat.

Those measurements, I'm not very righteous, apparently, because I'm not very fat. But certainly obesity and opulence and self-indulgence and lack of self-control are sins. Gluttony is a sin.

I just want to make clear that I don't believe that everyone who doesn't fit the American fashion model image of normal body shapes, I don't think everyone is in sin because they have a little extra spare tire they're carrying around. I don't believe that. That's a cultural no-no.

It's not moral. But if a person is indeed a slave of food, a glutton, a person who has no self-control, then the answer to that is not a psychological one. The answer is in the Bible.

Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. It's that easy. Do you believe it? Apparently, Gary Collins doesn't believe it.

He thinks that she needs a psychologist to talk about it. Now, there may be some practical steps about what it means to walk in the Spirit that we need to go further into. I'm not trying to be glib about this, but certainly the answer does not come from psychology.

The answer comes from walking in the Spirit. And walking in the Spirit, of course, is not a term that immediately is fully understood when we say it. So a Christian who is armed with the Bible would have to probably give some explanation of how one walks in the Spirit.

But a psychologist would not be better equipped than a Christian to answer that question. How about this one? I'm really depressed. The doctor says there's nothing physically causing this.

And I can't think of any sin in my life that might be pulling me down. What should I do? Well, I'll say this. You've checked the doctor.

There's no physical problem to address. There's no sin in your life, so there's no spiritual problem. So what's the problem? Oh, I'm depressed.

Depressed. Okay. Well, that's your problem.

Anything in crisis here? I mean, depressed? I think Elijah was depressed at times. I think John the Baptist was depressed in prison sometimes. Frankly, I think a lot of godly people have had struggles with depression.

Where in the Bible does it say that we are not supposed to ever experience depression? So long as you've checked your heart and you know you have no sin that's causing it. Now, depression can be a result of sin. But if that's not the case, you've checked with God and he hasn't convicted you of any sin, you've checked with the doctor and he says there's no physical cause, then I dare say this is something to bear.

This is a cross to bear. Everybody's got one. It's just that people in America, Christians in America, don't have very big ones.

And so when they get one that resembles anything like the normal cross that Christians throughout history have had to bear, who weren't pampered, we feel like somehow this is a crisis. We've got to take a drug or something to get it. And by the way, Gary Collins, who wrote this, if you asked him, well, what should you do for this person who's depressed? His answer is give him a drug.

You read the rest of his book and that's very clear. He doesn't think a psychologist can help them. He thinks a drug can help them.

He's into psychiatric solutions to some of these things. Now, here's another question. Can you help me? I've got AIDS.

Well, it depends on what kind of help you're looking for. If you're hoping to get over your AIDS, probably not, and neither can a psychologist. To suggest that someone coming to a psychologist saying, can you help me? I've got AIDS.

Well, it's a good thing he came to a psychologist with that one. Really? And what is a psychologist going to do for an AIDS patient? Well, obviously, neither a psychologist nor a pastor nor a medical doctor, for that matter, can do anything about the condition of AIDS. Therefore, I assume that the question implies, how can I cope with the fact that I'm dying? Now, I'm shocked that a professing Christian writer would suggest that a psychologist would be better equipped to tell a dying patient how to cope with the prospect of death than a person armed with the Bible would be.

That is the principal subject of the Bible. And if Gary Collins is not aware of it, he's been spending too much time reading psychology and hasn't spent very much time reading his Bible. This question is not a question for psychologists.

This is a job for God. This is a job for the truth of God to get this person clean and his heart clean and prepare him to rejoice at the prospect of meeting his maker, because that's what he's going to have to do. Unless, of course, you want to pray for him to be healed, and God can do that.

I've heard of very few cases of people with AIDS actually being miraculously healed, but I've heard of a few cases alleged. And while I don't know if it's ever happened through prayer that a person really has been cured of AIDS, I know it hasn't happened any other way, so the psychologist doesn't have a better help than the Christian on that. At least the Christian can pray for the person, but can also give them counsel that is what they really need.

Imagine thinking that a psychologist should be consulted to help someone know how to face death. If the psychologist is not depending 100% on the Bible, what light does the psychologist himself have? He doesn't know how to face death. Anything he has to say would just be misleading.

He's the blind leading the blind. Here's this one. I keep failing in math.

How can I get through the course so I can graduate? Well, this gets into what we call educational psychology, and there is certainly a field there where some research has been done that might help people learn, but I don't know what's involved in educational psychology. If they came to me, I'd ask, first of all, how do you know you're supposed to graduate? If it requires passing your math course, are you doing everything you can to learn to pass? Are you doing your homework? Are you talking to older students who are better at math and asking them what you're getting tripped up on? Are you using all of your educational resources available to you to pass and still failing? Then maybe math is not something God wants you to pass. But I can't graduate without it.

Well, then maybe graduation is something God doesn't want you to do. Has it ever crossed anyone's mind that if God hasn't given you the mental resources to reach certain goals, He doesn't want you to reach those goals? Those goals may be worldly goals. They may have nothing to do with the will of God for your life.

Where is trust in God and belief that God has sovereignly gifted us with all things necessary to fulfill His purpose for our life? Where has that belief gone? Instead, we have a standardized idea. Everyone ought to get a college degree. Everyone ought to have the same kinds of skills, the same kind of gifts, the same kinds of aptitudes.

And if they don't, by golly, we're going to go to a psychologist and find out what's wrong with them. Well, where in the Bible does it say that we're all supposed to be the same and have the same strengths? I'm not very strong in math. I'm not sure I could graduate from college.

I couldn't care less. How about this one? My father abused me when I was a child. I've asked the Lord to help me forget.

I have forgiven my father, but we can't discuss it because he is no longer alive. Still, I can't shake the hurt and it is adversely affecting my marriage. What do I do? Now, I cannot in the few minutes we have here give the kind of counsel I would give in this kind of situation.

It would be too complex. There are too many things to explore. She says she's forgiven her father, but she can't forget.

I wonder what then her forgiveness means. I wonder why this continues to bother her. Now, the psychologist would say, well, there's some deep repressed hurts there.

We've got to go through some therapy. I don't believe that therapists will help this any more than good old Christian counseling, bringing biblical principle into bear, the truth of God into the life, about forgiveness and healing and overcoming and obedience and the desire to fulfill God's purpose in marriage and so forth. There are many issues involved here too complex for me to give a pat answer for.

I would never give a pat answer, but I would certainly feel comfortable. I would say I would feel more comfortable talking to this woman about her problem if I was equipped with knowledge of the Bible than I would equipped with knowledge of Sigmund Freud, who had sexual problems of his own that he never got over. He may have been molested too.

I don't know. Or he may have molested his mother for all we know, knowing his views. How about this one? I'm anxious all the time.

I have asked the Lord to give me peace, but I still panic frequently. You've asked the Lord to give you peace, therefore it should have just gone away. What does the Bible say about anxiety? Is there a biblical answer? I know there are psychological answers.

They have anti-anxiety drugs. It's in fact the health crisis of the 90's is anxiety, they say. And they have anti-anxiety drugs to fix everything.

It doesn't fix anything, of course. It just kind of deadens part of your mind, or your brain, that experiences anxiety. The Bible, however, says this in Philippians chapter 4, verse 6, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

So, don't be anxious. What are you supposed to do instead of be anxious? In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. The promise of God is if you do that, the peace of God will keep your heart and mind.

She says, I've prayed, I've asked God to take it away, but I still feel anxious. Well, does asking God to give you peace, does that constitute in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God? If a person is praying, they are unburdening themselves to God. The Bible says, casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.

To give a perfunctory prayer and say, well, I've said my prayer now, and they've still got the problem, let's go to the drugs now, is to give up too soon on a spiritual problem. Anxiety is a sin. You are commanded not to be anxious for anything.

If you are experiencing anxiety, there is a spiritual struggle you've got to overcome. To take a drug for it is to miss the whole point. There is a spiritual remedy, and you are not availing yourself of that spiritual remedy.

Let us explore the spiritual remedy. Let us explore the biblical remedy. I live, essentially, without anxiety.

And it is only because my mind is saturated with biblical truth. Otherwise, I'd be as anxious as anyone could be. I've got much to be anxious about.

But the truth of Scripture sets you free, according to Jesus, and according to the testimony of everyone who has ever really availed themselves of it. I want to, in contrast to this view of the inadequacy of the Bible, which many Christian psychologists teach, I'd like to affirm the adequacy of the Bible and of Christ alone. Back in the... about 1980, a long time ago now, I was living in a Christian house with several people.

One of the people, it was an older lady, probably not very old, she probably wasn't any older than I am now, but she seemed really old then. Not only because she was that much older than me, but because she was really old before her time. She was a worried, anxious, troubled woman.

And she spent a lot of time going to counselors. I think she probably went to some of the state finance counseling clinics, but she also kept several pastors busy on the circuit, you know, with her regular visits. And she was almost like a professional counselee, and very troubled.

And she wasn't getting much help. And I remember once she was living in the same house we were living in, and we were in the kitchen once, and she said, Steve, where do you go when you want counseling? And at first I wasn't sure how to answer, because I'd never thought of it. It had never crossed my mind.

Where do I go when I want counseling? It occurred to me I must go somewhere, because I thought it would seem very arrogant and very independent, which I thought was a bad word in those days, to say I don't go to anyone for counseling. I just go to God. I had been taught that this was an independent spirit of a wrong sort, and that you really need to acknowledge your dependency on other people and so forth.

So I was almost ashamed to say, well, you know, I've never gone to anyone in my life for counseling. For counsel, that's another thing. Counsel is advice.

In the multitude of counselors, there's safety. If people give you a lot of advice, you've got a lot of options to weigh, and you're more likely to make a wise decision if you consider all the options. Counsel is one thing.

Counseling is another. I've never been to anyone for counseling, and I've never needed anyone for counseling. Now, it's not because I haven't had any trials.

I've had a few. I've had some real heartbreaks. I've had some real crises in my life, but they were not spiritual crises.

They were outward crises. The thing that kept them from being spiritual crises is because I availed myself of the resources available to every Christian. The Word of God, prayer, the Holy Spirit.

And I hadn't thought of this verse at the time, but if she had asked me today, I would say, well, my counselors are the same as those of the psalmist. In Psalm 119 and verse 24, the psalmist said, Thy testimonies, that means the Word of God, God's testimonies, are also my delight and my counselors. God's Word is my counselor.

And I have never been disappointed with the counsel I've gotten there. It's sometimes been opposite of what I would have preferred to hear, but when followed, I found that it was true and liberating. Remember, we read the other day, 1 Corinthians 6, 9-11, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. Paul knew nothing about psychotherapy for these kinds of people, but he saw them cleansed. He saw them changed.

He saw them able to say, that's what I was, not what I am. Because I've been washed, I've been sanctified, I've been justified. Not by therapy, but by God, by the Spirit of God.

In the name of Jesus Christ. In 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verses 23 and 24, Paul said, And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. Will do what? Preserve your whole spirit and soul and body blameless. Now that doesn't mean painless.

It does not mean that God will deliver you from all of your uncomfortable mental states or physical states. But it does say he will preserve you blameless, and apparently that is the concern of the Christian. The concern of the Christian is not to be always avoiding trauma and depression and low moods and fears.

The Christian's concern is to glorify God and be blameless before him in all aspects of my personality. It says that God will do that. He's faithful, he will do that.

Now you might say, well, what? I'm not supposed to be happy too? Well, if that's what God wants for you, then yes. There is certainly a joy whether you're happy or not. And believe me, there is a difference between joy and happiness.

But in a very sad circumstance, you can still rejoice in the Lord and have all... You can be happier than a person who's happy. Jesus said, happy are those who mourn. It seems like a contradiction in terms, but Jesus was talking about a kind of joy, a kind of happiness, a blessedness.

That's deep seated, that's even... I won't say it's not emotional, but it seems almost to be below the emotions, deeper. It's satisfaction. It's a sense of security and peace and joy that comes... that is not dependent on the more obvious emotions and the passage of moods.

And it is the case that sometimes we simply have to endure certain moods. But when those moods are sinful by biblical definition, then we have to repent of them. But the point is that God has promised that he is faithful who has called us to be a certain way, and he will do it.

It is the power of God, not the power of human wisdom, that will accomplish the results necessary. Questions of the heart are discerned by scripture. According to Hebrews 4, 12, the word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

No man, including trained psychotherapists, knows the evil heart of man. Jeremiah 17, 9 through 10, says the heart is wicked above all things, or deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know the deceitful heart? Well, only God can.

The psychologist can't, and his training doesn't equip him to know what's in your heart. But God searches and knows the heart, according to Psalm 139 and Proverbs 21, 2. To suggest that anything more than scripture and the God of scriptures is needed to perfect the believer is to contradict 2 Timothy 3 and 2 Peter 1. Let me read those verses, and I'm afraid we're going to be probably out of time by the time I do so. 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17, says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable.

What's it profitable for? Scripture is profitable for doctrine, that's teaching, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Paul said that God gave us the scriptures so that we would be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work. And these scriptures are, because they are inspired by God, are profitable to us for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction.

What else do you need a counselor for? God is our counselor. God has given his counsel in his word. I mentioned earlier 2 Peter 1, verses 3 and 4. 2 Peter 1, verses 3 and 4, says, As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him, not through the knowledge of ourselves, it's not self-knowledge that fixes us, but through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, those are in the scripture, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

People who go to counselors are trying to escape the corruption of their lives, and sometimes just to escape the misery of their lives. But all things necessary for life and godliness have been given to us through the promises of God and through the divine power of God. And to say otherwise is to simply disagree with what the scripture says.

And people, of course, are certainly free to disagree with what the scripture says, but they should not wear the label Christian counselor if they don't agree with the Christian revelation from the Christian God. We have only a few minutes left here. I'm not sure if I want to go into the rest of the material I wanted to give.

I might want to save this for the next lecture, give a totally separate lecture, because there's so much left here. I've got far more than you know, because the notes I've given you don't have it all. I think probably what I'll have to do is just break off here and call this part A of integration, and we'll finish up talking about the integration of psychology and Christianity in the next lecture.

Thank you.