The same beliefs undergird the integration of psychology and Christianity. The discipline of psychology studies humanity in the natural realm through the light of reason. Moreover, those areas of psychology that lie within the healing arts can be an extension of God’s healing grace.
These connections between psychology and Christianity, however, need to be tempered by several other considerations. My father found that medical practice involves ethical issues that—for the Christian—must be framed by a Christian worldview and beliefs. If this is true of medicine, it is even more applicable to psychology, for the very idea of what it means to be human lies at the core of psychology, and a Christian view of humanity is sometimes startlingly different from the philosophical anthropology offered by rival worldviews. In this chapter, we will explore a final model for relating psychology and Christianity that attempts to take the foregoing observations seriously. I will argue that this model, while imperfect, as all models are, corrects many of the shortcomings of the previous models. [David N Entwistle (2018). (p. 247). Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity: An Introduction to Worldview Issues, Philosophical Foundations, and Models of Integration, , 3rd Edition. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
One of the problems that has plagued faith-learning integration is our collective failure to adequately define the core convictions of Christian faith, and to recognize the insights that can be found in the distinctive expressions of the faith expressed by diverse branches of Christianity. God’s activity in creation, incarnation, and redemption is our starting point. This narrative is expressed in Scripture, reflected in the great creeds of the church, and lived out in various denominational expressions. This starting point frees us to study psychology and all other academic disciplines from a perspective that is informed and sanctified by the story of God’s grace.
If the story of creation, incarnation, and redemption is our starting point, then we must also remember that our destination is to be faithful stewards of all that God has entrusted to us. Christ calls us to serve and praise Him with all of our being. As His servants, we must seek to be agents of reconciliation as we strive to love our neighbor. Thus the relational element that was central to Judaism, and that was affirmed by Jesus in His teaching on the greatest commandments, is integrally tied to the creeds of Christianity. Orthodoxy cannot be “right belief” without orthopraxy, “right action.”
Developing an integrative perspective thus proceeds from a Christocentric framework, with particular ends in mind, but it is cultivated by hard work. It is a challenge, but not an impossibility. In the words of the Jesuit priest and psychoanalyst, William Meissner: “The great challenge to the Christian psychologists . . . is to shape a theory of man’s psychological functioning which incorporates the data and insights of modern psychological understanding, and which is also fully consonant with the penetrating insights of the Christian tradition.”[25]
Those who pursue an integrative viewpoint are not content to reject either of God’s books, and they desire to read both of them competently. Those who embrace the Allies model are convinced that we will read more accurately whe [David N Entwistle (2018). (p. 254). Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity: An Introduction to Worldview Issues, Philosophical Foundations, and Models of Integration, , 3rd Edition. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com]
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