Psychology and the Bible

September 16, 2007 |

Author Theophilos

GRACE, FAITH and LIFE
A Personal Statement of Christian Faith and Practice

Psychotherapy and Biblical Counseling Concepts:

The psychological problems of man are inherent in the nature of the “heart and soul” of man as they deal with the problems of life. Not all of these problems require “professional” help. In fact, not many do. We all experience the disappointments, frustrations and emotions of life. Discontent, worry and quite desperation seems to be the “normal” experience in our life. When we get behind it is difficult to catch up. When we get down on ourselves it is difficult to get back up. Sometimes we “feel like” we don’t know where to turn. But that doesn’t mean that we are sick and need therapy. We may just need encouragement and instruction in how to evaluate our feelings and control our thoughts. And above all we need to have hope and a proper self-image.

The premise of this essay is that the Bible is a better source for determining the psychodynamics of man and a better basis for counseling than any of the philosophies, theories, methods and models developed and used by secular psychologists.

In Biblical concepts, man is more than just a thinking machine. The Bible says we are body, soul and spirit. Scripture deals with more than just the mind, emotion and will in terms of the “heart”. The heart defines the nature of the individual. It is more than just personality. It is what motivates us, it is our identity and self-image.

In Biblical terms, the “flesh” or “soul” is used to define the nature of the predicament that is common to all men. “Spiritual life in Christ” defines the nature of the person who has been born-again.

Many Christians are defeated in their Christian life and experience the same psychological problems as non-Christians. All of us can benefit from understanding how the Bible relates to psychological processes, how we think and how to control the thoughts and emotions of the heart and improve our self-image and outlook. Many Christians should be competent to counsel others by presenting the Biblical model of the contention between the spirit and the flesh and explaining what that means in terms of the attitudes and desires of the heart.

What I am presenting here as Biblical counseling concepts is not techniques for evaluation. It is not trying to determine causes nor is it trying to determine a particular problem. There are as many problems as there are people. The problems are all the same; we are all human. We are all driven by thoughts and feelings, which we don’t understand and sometimes can’t control. What is being presented is the Biblical solution to the predicament of mankind and how it applies and is corrective in all situations.

I am not advocating the integration of psychology into Biblical counseling. I am saying that there are scriptures, which can be applied to the mental/emotional problems of life in a different way than the traditional Puritanical and Calvinistic homiletics based on the theological hermeneutics taught in seminaries. (“Christianity” lost a lot when its leaders moved away from being a pastor/teacher in a small group and into the seminary.) The expository paraphrasing of scripture in a “this is that” explanation may also be used to refute the psychological way to those who may have been treated by psychology.

On the other hand, there are some Para Christian groups and demagogs which have perverted the gospel into a religious psychology which actually speaks to the lust of the flesh and the pride of life by exploiting the imaginations and superstitions of the mentally destitute and keeping them in bondage to a religious system..

This is not that.

Secular psychology uses terms like id, ego, superego, mind, emotion, volition, consciousness, subconscious, self and self-actualization and above all paying client to define the nature of man.

The Bible uses some of the same words, but significantly does not use many of them and also has other terms which most of psychology will not admit. The Bible uses body, soul and spirit; mind emotion and will; conscience, self, flesh, imagination, sin and heart. The Bible makes a distinction between the soul and the spirit. The words translated heart are …. They are also translated as … Describe other usages…..

It is clear in the Bible, that the “heart” is the key to why a person believes what they believe and does what they do. The heart is more than just rational brain function. It is even more than “mind” and “soul”. It is not the spirit and certainly not the “flesh” or the conscience. It is not our will power because that is impotent. The heart is how we process (evaluate) and use or reject everything, which we experience or imagine. The attitude of our heart is the source of what we rely on for directing our behavior and thoughts.

When the attitude of the heart is self-centered, then …
When the attitude of the heart is toward the world, then …
When the attitude of the heart is toward God, then …

God is not able to help you if your spirit is closed to Him.

The Biblical function of the heart has some parallels in secular psychology, for instance…. But there are no parallels for a spirit, which is regenerated by being born again, or for divine revelation. In psychology, this is simply religion.

Although the goals of some psychological therapy and Biblical counseling are in some ways similar, the methods and the basis are obviously quite different. The secular solution is in self-understanding and self-control while the Biblical basis is in understanding a spiritual relationship in Christ. Possibly the best concise description for what could be the goal of both is a “sound mind”. The Bible also calls this “renewing the mind” which is an ongoing process in a spiritual relationship with God. The Bible tells us in many ways how to have a sound mind. The Bible also advocates nouthetic counseling and we are admonished to edify one another. Nouthetic counseling is admonishing another in right thinking and edification means “instruction and encouragement in moral improvement”. This counseling is toward an understanding of how the heart, mind, emotions and will work with the spirit of God in them, and an understanding of their relationship to and identity in Christ.

Some psychological therapy is toward a reduction in moral standards as apparently a means of reducing guilt feelings. Others reduce guilt feelings by placing blame on something or someone else. Some psych. therapy is toward a change in understanding (thinking) and behavior. This is that “sound mind”, but the Bible says that we are incapable of having this without spiritual insight, instruction and encouragement. In other words, a sound mind comes from our relationship with God and scriptures.

In any counseling situation, it is difficult to explain why some people snap out of it and others don’t. It may be a chemical imbalance or a physical impairment, or it may simply be the lack of hope, lack of confidence and lack of wisdom.

I think the advocates of the integration of psych. and Biblical counseling believe it is necessary because…

Most people’s idea of Biblical counseling is to simply get a person to understand their “identity in Christ”. If we ignore our problems and just remember who we are in Christ, then we will not “experience” our mental/emotional problems. We have “turned them over to God”. This is exactly why many Christians turn to secular counselors for their serious everyday problems of living, because they have not been given any instructions on how to deal with their thoughts and anxieties with wisdom and a sound mind. It doesn’t need to be that way. The Bible is full of instructions for dealing with the problems of living.

There is a variety of what I call “Christian superstitions” which are based on a misapplication of Biblical phrases which tend to give people a false expectation of God.(See paragraph on perpetrators.) Some believe Christianity is simply a principle of life, others believe it is the presence of God. Some believe God directs every step they take by opening and closing doors, others don’t understand that, and others will pretend they believe that even though they don’t. Some believe God saved them from physical harm when they had a close call.

Some live their Christian life expecting rewards and avoidance of problems when they do right and circumstantial punishment if they don’t. In other words God acts (responds) according to what they do. This is the exact opposite of faith.

We all want to seek God’s will in things specific to our life, but we don’t really know whether it is God directing us or just our own mind or Satan tricking us.

Just consider the “sound mind” which I talked about earlier. What are some characteristics of a sound mind? Secular psychology would agree to most of the following as characteristics of a sound mind. Most of these characteristics are expository paraphrases of scripture.

Develop an attitude of being other-centered rather than self-centered. A self-centered mind is not sound. It will be controlled by the lust of the flesh (having things) and the pride of life (winning, being better than someone else). (Most psychological models are self-centered.)
Do not expect others to be perfect.
Be a responsible decision maker rather than impulsive and irresponsible. Learn to recognize temptation for what it is.
Establish a rational and spirit-directed state of mind rather than the irrationality of emotional thinking. Guilt, regrets, enmity, bitterness, hatred, envy, fantasizing (“if only”), jealousy, covetousness, anxiety and fear have no place in a sound mind. Establish your spirit-directed beliefs and relationships so that you will not be easily persuaded by false doctrines and unrealistic desires.
Desire to be competent and reliable rather than always wanting to have a good time and avoiding responsibility. Joy will come from overcoming, in Christ, your challenges and from helping others to overcome theirs.
Do not always expect instant gratification or recognition for what you do.
Make a commitment to learning as the means to fulfilling your goals and responsibilities related to performance, prosperity and relationships.
Be challenged by adversity rather than defeated.
Be the same to yourself and to others and be consistent with your beliefs.
Examine your self frequently in terms of the attitude of your heart and the state of your mind. Don’t try to suppress emotions and fears by thinking about the things, which are causing the emotions and fears. This only makes them worse. We need to think about the things, which oppose these thoughts and try to resolve the issues, which are causing the fear.
Listen to who God says you are rather than what you think or anyone else says.
Look to God for the wisdom and hope to persevere. Allow God to renew your mind by directing your heart toward Him.

These should be used in one part of Bible based nouthetic counseling.

Beliefs and Self-identity:

The efficacy of our self-identity will depend on the reliability of the source of the information on which we are basing our self-identity. Spirit – Flesh – Circumstances. If we are making decisions based on spiritual wisdom, they should be reliable. If we are making them according to the flesh or circumstances, we are in trouble.

If we believe that God has created us for some intelligent purpose, then knowing this purpose is of utmost importance. Without knowing this, we will always be incomplete. Is God’s will for you different than it is for me?

Decisions may be made and beliefs formed, but until they make a change or cause action what difference does it make. Everyone is aware of his or her potential. Not everyone is willing to accept responsibility for it. Sometimes that is really hard to do, because it seems so hopeless. That is when Christian brothers and sisters should be able to help. Only one person is responsible for whom we are, ourselves.

Compartmentalization means we have multiple public and private persona based on the significance of the relationship. In other words, we play different roles with different people. We may also do secret things when we are by ourselves. Secular psychology may call this multiple personalities as if it is something, which has happened to you. That it is who you are and it is not your doing.

Compartmentalization has to do with integrity or being honest with ourselves. If we are honest, then we can be the same to ourselves, to others and to God. When we’re not, we will experience guilt and we will want to hide some of those things, which we are allowing ourselves to be. When we hide things we cannot be at peace. Identity based on Christ should eliminate the need to hide things. If it doesn’t we have even a greater discrepancy between who we are and who we want to be. Denying our potential always produces guilt.

Contentment is when we believe who we think we are and who we want to be are the same. (Abiding in Christ)

There are other considerations of identity;

Who we really are.

Who others think we are.

Who God says we are.

Dissatisfaction without wisdom to choose will produce lack of confidence, anxiety (inability to choose and act, that is the lack of wisdom), and fear of failure. Many of our problems derive from superficial foundations. We become anxious due to fear of the future.

KierKegaard, called this anxiety, “sickness unto death” which is simply an inability to make choices which will produce the change to be who you want to be. This produces neurotic suffering, despair and hopelessness. We live in a period of psychological and spiritual disorientation and confusion. We don’t know the difference between our spirit and our mind. We don’t know how God guides us spiritually. So, we make God responsible for everything in our lives when we ….

A person in this condition needs to see hope and to learn how to deal with the reality of their situation and not just talk about it or continue to use it for self-pity. Many thoughts will crowd in to confuse us and to undermine our beliefs.

Rollo May said, “Only when the person himself has some hope of getting relief from his suffering and despair and of receiving some help in his problems will he undertake the painful process of investigating his illusions and uncovering his defenses and rationalizations.”

This assumes the person no longer wants to be controlled by their thoughts (self-pity/punishment) and admits they need help and wants to be helped. This takes courage to affirm. Realization of self-worth “I am somebody” should be understood in terms of how God sees us.

The following chart can be used to show typical gaps between who we think we are and who we want to be.

SELF-IDENTITY	WHO WE THINK WE ARE	WHO WE WANT TO BE
TO OURSELVES
TO OTHERS
TO GOD

Applying Principles to Reality:

How does this model work? The model is to reveal the gap between whom we think we are and who we want to be. The gap is what we need to know and do to become what we want to be.

Who we think we are is based on our evaluation of ourselves, our beliefs, what we have done and our self-image. We usually make decisions based on who we believe ourselves to be. When we do things inconsistent with who we believe ourselves to be, we experience some form of guilt feelings and we want to hide. The threat of being found out will then keep us in a constant state of fear and anxiety.

Sometimes we develop a problem with self-image by which we make ourselves impotent. Because of a poor self-image, we will tend to limit our responsibility for and interaction with our life. We are angry, anxious and fearful. This is usually brought on by patterns of wrong thinking about some type of failure or undesirable event in our life. There are various levels of anxiety, which take hold of us from just being discouraged, to depressed to serious neurosis. When this happens things seem hopeless and we make ourselves impotent. We have no hope about who we want to be, because we no longer know who we are. Hope is what needs to be restored. Hope based on right thinking and a proper self-image.

Who we want to be should not be just human potential and striving, it is an established and settled identity. It is who I am when everything I try fails. It is whom I am when I encounter difficult circumstances, which are beyond my control.

The difficulty in applying these concepts to reality is in learning to deal with ourselves and others as subjects rather than objects. When applying techniques, we tend to think of it as programming a computer rather than a person’s life. All techniques tend to deal with subjects as objects. We try to make all generalities apply to all specifics. Every person is completely unique in the way they think and apply their thoughts. There are no two people exactly the same. In fact each individual is different at different times. Like raising children, what works for one doesn’t work for another. Our state of mind is constantly changing.

One of the symptoms of a poor self-image is to relate to others as objects. When we relate to others as objects, we want to be an object ourselves. A poor self-image creates an illusion of worthlessness or failure, so we can’t let people get too close to us.

Narrowing this gap, makes us feel better about ourselves. But to narrow the gap we must first be willing and able to see things as they are. (Integrity) Second, dissatisfaction and/or hope should produce a desire for change. Third, beliefs and wisdom should guide the decisions and choices, which we make.

Hope and wisdom produce a confidence, which is the basis for a proper self-image.

The following conditions hinder the process:

Dysfunctional thinking
Lack of purpose (established beliefs, trust, who we want to be)
Lack of hope (motivated desire)
Lack of wisdom (desirable outcomes from reliable decisions, truth builds confidence, confidence builds positive self-image)
Lack of internal integrity (consistency in who we think we are, both public and private, honest sharing of yourself with others)

What is reliable? It is reliable if we can claim it no matter what. Where does reliable wisdom come from? If you could tap into one source for wisdom, what would it be? What are some characteristics of wisdom? (Age, rational, proven reliable, soundness, consistent)

How do we deal with things, which are beyond our control?

It is important to have the various identities in proper order. For instance, what if we believe we are an alcoholic and a child of God? Believing we are alcoholics when we want to be a child of God is not good thinking.

A racecar in a garage is not fulfilling the intelligent purpose for which it was created.

What are things people identify with as meaning and purpose? What is primary for fulfillment or enjoyment? What motivates us?

Christian and counseling:

As Christians we are called on to bear one another’s burdens, to minister to one another in love, and counsel brothers and sisters who go astray. We are encouraged and expected to be evangelistic. We are to tell others about Christ. We are better at this than we are at helping others with problems, especially emotional and family problems. Since psychiatry and counseling are professions we feel inadequate to get involved in these areas, so we refer Christian brothers and sisters to secular counselors, or so-called Christian counselors who use secular techniques. The Bible is the greatest source book for helping people with their problems, which there is. As Christians, we are supposed to already have the caring attitude, which would motivate us to help others in any kind of need. We have the Holy Spirit who is supposed to be our comforter and guide. The actual counseling is not any different than disciplining, which we are also called to do. So we have the commandments, the nature, the scripture and the Holy Spirit, what else do we need?

When we counsel people, we need to be with them in a personal way. We need to get to know them as more than just an object. Don’t just give them a book and say, “here read this”. Nor can we just be rational, explain what their problem is and tell them “to just snap out of it”. The goal of really being there is getting to know them and let them know you, in order to build a trusting relationship. We would do this by edifying them and encouraging them to realize that they are valuable and that there is hope. They need to know that God wants what is best for them.

We all use defense mechanisms to avoid imagined and real threats and feelings. Some of them are not bad in themselves. It is only when they control us and make us impotent that they are bad. Most of the time people simply need caring support and scriptural guidance on knowing how to think, how to evaluate and control their thoughts instead of letting their thoughts control them.

Biblical counseling is the better way.

Psychologists are looking for a cause and effect relationship in a nonphysical environment. The brain is organic and physical in function, but the mind is metaphysical limitless and free in abstract thought and spiritual relationship. Subjectively solving our own dilemmas all of our thoughts are controlled by this rational-irrational process of abstract and creative thinking within the limitations of the particular biological organs ability to store, recall and process. SRP is governed by the system unique to each individual. This subject is neither reliable nor consistent in response for determining cause. It can be sensible or nonsensical. All of it is unpredictable even in a “normal” mode.

A study has shown that personal qualities of the therapist/counselor are more important than techniques.

Current process is a function of previous process, which has been stored.

Bad training:

Early and too often later training gives children the impression that they are not supposed to make decisions and choices. This is a form of rejection, which will cause resentment, rebellion and repression. Children should be taught how to make responsible choices and be allowed the freedom to act on those choices. Parents generally just say no or just tell them what to do, because that is easier than it is to take the time to learn how to train them to make decisions. When parents use this approach they are treating their children as objects.

Adult Christians who grew up in a restricted environment may relate to God in the same way. They are afraid to make choices, afraid they will not be in God’s will.

Repression is fear of freedom and lack of self-respect and confidence.

This page last updated on March 8, 1997.