I will be working very much in response to a sermon by MacArthur on the sufficiency of Scripture. In it he says this (I included the first paragraph because, though it does not directly talk about psychology, marriage and family is an area that falls within the study of psychology. Remember that my dad is a marriage and family therapist):
Further, another category in which we see this kind of abandonment of the belief of biblical sufficiency is in the matter of marriage and family, for one. There was a time when we believed that the Bible gave us adequate insight into marriage and the family. That if we studied the Word of God, we would be able to live life in the family to its fullest, that marriage could be all that God ever intended if lived by biblical principles. Families can be all that God ever intended if lived by biblical principles but now there is a proliferation of tricks and gimmicks and sex techniques and just a plethora of things that are added to the Scripture to try to deal with family problems. And in an underlying and subtle way, they are making the comment that the Bible is to one degree or another insufficient or inadequate...
But perhaps as dominant or more dominant than any of these themes is this area of psychology. Psychology today is making inroads into the church that really are frightening. In fact, there is in the evangelical church what is fast becoming a wholesale exodus from the traditional land of biblical theology into the new promised land of psychology and psychotherapy. Churches that once and for always would hire pastors and evangelists and teachers are now hiring psychologists. Pastors that once would go to seminary and learn the Word of God or Bible college and master the Scripture are now going to schools of psychology to study human wisdom in dealing with the problems of mankind. This again is a subtle way of saying the Bible is insufficient. When coming to grips with these deep seeded emotional anxieties of man, we cannot expect the Bible to speak in any sophisticated way to those problems. Seminaries are changing their curriculum dramatically. For the first time in the history of the church, seminaries are hiring psychologists on their staff to teach, psychiatrists to teach, they're teaching psychology, they're adding more psychology courses in many places, diminishing the biblical content of their curriculum...
The world has been saying the Bible cannot help and now sad to say, the church is chiming in and agreeing that the Bible is inadequate to deal with psychological problems. In fact, I would go so far as to say there are many advocating today a psychological salvation in place of the new birth. There is nothing in this more than a pseudo-evangelical humanism. This preoccupation with self-esteem and self-love and self-fulfillment and self-actualization that psychology has brought into the church knows no biblical counterpart.
What MacArthur is saying here can really be summed up with this statement of his: "But can we go to the Bible and find in it that which is sufficient for all of life and conduct? And the answer, I believe, is a resounding yes."
MacArthur goes on to draw support from Scripture, as is outlined and commentated on (his own words) below:
2 Corinthians 3:5: "Our sufficiency is from God."
- "Our sufficiency is not from men. Our sufficiency is not from human wisdom. Our sufficiency is not from human resources. Our sufficiency is from God...what does that mean? That means our capability of living life in God's plan to the maximum is from Him... Now I want you to understand [...] that I am not saying that there's nothing outside the Bible that has any value. There are many things that have value. God's common grace, that is the grace of God on all men, will create certain things in our human environment that are very helpful. But when it comes to the matters of spiritual life, all we need to know is revealed in the Word of the living God and ministered to us by the Spirit through that Word. And outside the Word of God we do not have to look for a sufficiency that is not provided in the Scripture."
2 Corinthians 9:8: "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work..."
John 17:17, "Sanctify them by the truth; your Word is truth."
1 Corinthians 2:13-16: "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ."
Hebrews 4:12: "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."
Colossians 2:3-10: "...in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority."
The point MacArthur makes here is difficult to refute. Some points of Scripture are stronger (these are the ones I mentioned here; he had many more) at defending his argument than others, but they generally compliment what he is saying.
First though, we must make a clarification. How do we complete the statement, "the Bible is sufficient in..."? In the beginning of MacArthur's sermon, he completes that statement with, "all life and conduct." At the end, he answers it with "the spiritual dimension and the needs of the heart." Are those two answers even the same? Well, no, they aren't. (I don't think MacArthur is being inconsistent, I'm just being picky. It helps to illustrate that point I want to make.)
Is the Bible sufficient in telling us how to swim? How to cook pasta? What chromosomes look like? These seem like silly questions. But these things are parts of life. They are realities.
I think that MacArthur would agree that they are misguided questions. When he says "all life and conduct," he means the things that really matter for eternity. The more frivolous things I listed before are not spiritual issues. The Bible can't literally be used for all of life (like how to make pasta). So when he says that the Bible is sufficient in the spiritual dimension and the needs of the heart, I believe that MacArthur is dead on. His first answer was more vague and we should not make the mistake of misreading what he means.
The Bible is the only thing that really matters. It is the only thing that can bring any lasting joy or peace or wisdom. Scripture is the only thing that holds any eternal value. But other things do hold value too. MacArthur says as much earlier in the sermon: "Now I want you to understand [...] that I am not saying that there's nothing outside the Bible that has any value... But when it comes to the matters of spiritual life, all we need to know is revealed in the Word of the living God and ministered to us by the Spirit through that Word." It's important that we don't take the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture to mean that nothing outside the Bible is good. This is obviously foolish (an apparent example would be that of modern surgery, which saves lives daily). It simply means that nothing outside of the Bible can save a man's soul.
Psychology though, taken in its most "pure" form, does not intrinsically deny the sufficiency of Scripture. It does not contradict the fact that only the Bible meets "the spiritual dimension and the needs of the heart" and it does not claim to "save" people". Remember our definition from my first post: "a diverse field, with a myriad of concentrations and theories, that seeks to describe, predict, explain, and control the mental processes and behaviors of the individual in all aspects of life." Psychology is (or at least strives to be) a scientific discipline. Science helps us discover scientific truth (facts learned by experimentation). But if God is a God of truth, we have nothing to fear from knowledge--scientific or otherwise.
In addition to being the pastor at GCC, MacArthur is also the president of The Master's College, a Christian liberal arts institution. Martin Richards, a well-loved professor at Master's College says, "It's not 'Christianity versus science.' That's like saying, 'Christianity versus... pianos.' They don't contradict" (paraphrase). So if psychology is what it claims to be, (i.e., a scientific field) the next step for the Christian who is interested in psychology is to explore how psychology might be applied in a godly way, as we must with any study.
So then, what's the problem? Why does MacArthur even argue against psychology when it's just a useful science?
But it's not just a useful science that has been misused.Therein lies the problem. In MacArthur's mind, psychology's place among the scientific disciplines is shaky at best. Instead, MacArthur asserts that psychology is a philosophy under the guise of science, a philosophy that promotes a "psychological salvation". He asserts that psychology claims to solve spiritual issues.
If, in fact, psychology is not a science, we have a whole different issue on our hands. That is what I'll be dealing with in my next post: "Is psychology a science?" We'll get into more good stuff then. :)
-Jamie
Links:
- "We conclude then, very obviously, that the full holiness of the believer is the work of the Word of God, it is the work of the Word of God. It is not the Word of God plus something else, that's cultic."
- "The wisdom of God comes to us not through human sources. Our sufficiency is of God. God dispenses His wisdom to us by the Spirit of God, revealing His teaching in the Word of God and it is the wisdom not in the words which man teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches. In fact, it is so comprehensive, it is so effective, it is so complete, he says in verse 15 that by that Word of God through the Holy Spirit, we can judge or appraise and evaluate all things.... marvelous statement... Now is there any insufficiency in the mind of Christ? Is Christ limited? He knows a few things but He's also learning from some people? Not hardly. The mind of Christ is the consummate mind of God. The mind of Christ is omniscient. The mind of Christ is supreme. The mind of Christ knows no insufficiency. All we need to understand is the mind of God about any problem, about any need, about any issue. All we need to understand is how does God see it, how does God think about it, what does God say about it and that suffices us."
- "Listen, the Word of God is living, it's active, it's powerful, it's sharper than any other weapon and it will go deeper and cut cleaner and truer than anything that exists to reveal the deepest thoughts and intentions of the human heart...so that verse 13 says, 'All things are open and laid bare.' It will do what psychoanalysis will never do. The Word of God opens the soul. It penetrates. It breaks up the heart. It reveals. It is sufficient to penetrate the deepest part of a person's soul."
Colossians 2:3-10: "...in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority."
- "That's unqualified. Everything you need to know about wisdom and knowledge, you find in Christ. So no believer should be looking elsewhere.... All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in the Christ who is revealed in the Word. So stay away from human philosophy, it cannot speak to spiritual matters. It can speak to some things and it can be helpful in the practical aspects of living. But when it comes to the spiritual dimension and the needs of the heart and the soul and in the mind of man at their deepest level, for those of us who know God, only God provides our sufficiency through His Word."
The point MacArthur makes here is difficult to refute. Some points of Scripture are stronger (these are the ones I mentioned here; he had many more) at defending his argument than others, but they generally compliment what he is saying.
First though, we must make a clarification. How do we complete the statement, "the Bible is sufficient in..."? In the beginning of MacArthur's sermon, he completes that statement with, "all life and conduct." At the end, he answers it with "the spiritual dimension and the needs of the heart." Are those two answers even the same? Well, no, they aren't. (I don't think MacArthur is being inconsistent, I'm just being picky. It helps to illustrate that point I want to make.)
Is the Bible sufficient in telling us how to swim? How to cook pasta? What chromosomes look like? These seem like silly questions. But these things are parts of life. They are realities.
I think that MacArthur would agree that they are misguided questions. When he says "all life and conduct," he means the things that really matter for eternity. The more frivolous things I listed before are not spiritual issues. The Bible can't literally be used for all of life (like how to make pasta). So when he says that the Bible is sufficient in the spiritual dimension and the needs of the heart, I believe that MacArthur is dead on. His first answer was more vague and we should not make the mistake of misreading what he means.
The Bible is the only thing that really matters. It is the only thing that can bring any lasting joy or peace or wisdom. Scripture is the only thing that holds any eternal value. But other things do hold value too. MacArthur says as much earlier in the sermon: "Now I want you to understand [...] that I am not saying that there's nothing outside the Bible that has any value... But when it comes to the matters of spiritual life, all we need to know is revealed in the Word of the living God and ministered to us by the Spirit through that Word." It's important that we don't take the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture to mean that nothing outside the Bible is good. This is obviously foolish (an apparent example would be that of modern surgery, which saves lives daily). It simply means that nothing outside of the Bible can save a man's soul.
Psychology though, taken in its most "pure" form, does not intrinsically deny the sufficiency of Scripture. It does not contradict the fact that only the Bible meets "the spiritual dimension and the needs of the heart" and it does not claim to "save" people". Remember our definition from my first post: "a diverse field, with a myriad of concentrations and theories, that seeks to describe, predict, explain, and control the mental processes and behaviors of the individual in all aspects of life." Psychology is (or at least strives to be) a scientific discipline. Science helps us discover scientific truth (facts learned by experimentation). But if God is a God of truth, we have nothing to fear from knowledge--scientific or otherwise.
In addition to being the pastor at GCC, MacArthur is also the president of The Master's College, a Christian liberal arts institution. Martin Richards, a well-loved professor at Master's College says, "It's not 'Christianity versus science.' That's like saying, 'Christianity versus... pianos.' They don't contradict" (paraphrase). So if psychology is what it claims to be, (i.e., a scientific field) the next step for the Christian who is interested in psychology is to explore how psychology might be applied in a godly way, as we must with any study.
So then, what's the problem? Why does MacArthur even argue against psychology when it's just a useful science?
But it's not just a useful science that has been misused.Therein lies the problem. In MacArthur's mind, psychology's place among the scientific disciplines is shaky at best. Instead, MacArthur asserts that psychology is a philosophy under the guise of science, a philosophy that promotes a "psychological salvation". He asserts that psychology claims to solve spiritual issues.
If, in fact, psychology is not a science, we have a whole different issue on our hands. That is what I'll be dealing with in my next post: "Is psychology a science?" We'll get into more good stuff then. :)
-Jamie
Links:
- MacArthur's sermon is here
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