LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Psychotherapeutic Drugs and Christians
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
10/2022
Psychotherapeutic Drugs and Christians
One Christian psychologist suggests that the reason many Christians resist taking
psychotherapeutic drugs is that they “believe that drug use is a sign of spiritual weakness.”15
He then asks, “If the Lord has allowed us to discover new chemical tools to counteract the
biological bases for human problems and to help us cope temporarily with the stresses of life,
are these necessarily wrong?…Psychotherapeutic medications can help us relax so that we can
think more clearly.”16
If the problems are genuinely biological in nature, pharmaceuticals may be justified. But if
the problems are caused by wrong actions or thinking, the Bible teaches that we are to learn
new ways of acting and thinking by renewing our minds rather than by anesthetizing them.
Psychotherapeutic medications often “relax” a person so much that they prevent clear thinking.
Psychiatrists do not always explain the potential side effects of psychoactive drugs. Thus I
strongly recommend that before a counselee takes any prescribed psychoactive drugs he
consult with a biblical counselor who is literate about such drugs.17 Counselors should also
inform older people that they are especially vulnerable to misapplied drug therapies. Their
bodies are more sensitive to tranquilizers and psychoactive drugs. Silverman writes:
Increased tissue sensitivity is a particular problem for seniors taking tranquilizers and other
psychoactive drugs. The response to psychoactive medicines is definitely enhanced as the years
pass. This means then, unless the dosages of these medicines are reduced, seniors run the risk
of being overmedicated and developing unwanted side effects.…Some studies have shown that
seniors experience as many as seven times more side effects than do younger adults given the
same medication. Although the numbers vary somewhat, the trend is always the same: the
older we get, the more likely we are to suffer from the medicines that are supposed to cure our
ills.18
I am not suggesting that there is no legitimate purpose whatsoever for psychotherapeutic
drugs. For those mental/emotional problems which have biological causes, there may indeed
be medical and pharmacological solutions. But it would seem that these should be the last
resort rather than the first. And remember, the patient has a right to know what effects a drug
may have before it is administered.
If there is no actual biological or chemical deficiency, Christians should learn how to handle
their feelings of anxiety and depression by renewed thinking (Romans 12:1, 2) and changed
behavior (Ephesians 4:17–32) rather than by dulling those emotions with drugs.
The Pretense of Divine Approval
Integrationists often defend their use of secular psychological concepts by insisting that
psychology is a God-given scientific field of knowledge. This belief assumes two things: 1) that
God has given the information, and 2) that the information is actually scientific. Let us look at
the first assumption.
Gary Collins admits that Jesus would not have needed to use psychology even if it had been
available in His day, because “his knowledge of human behavior was infinite and perfect.”19
And the apostle Paul knew that ultimate truth could not be found in worldly philosophies.
“Instead, he built many of his arguments on Scripture and insisted that the scholars of his time
repent. Surely the apostle would have presented a similar message to psychological scholars if
they had existed when Paul was alive.”20 I agree.
Collins then commits a monumental error in his next paragraph: “Does it follow, however,
that the modern disciple of Christ and reader of Paul’s epistles should throw away psychology
books and reject psychology because it was not used centuries ago?”21 His error is found in the
phrase “because it was not used centuries ago.” That is not the reason psychology should be
discarded. When it was used has no bearing on its validity.
Paul would not have rejected psychology on the grounds that it was modern, but because it
was “another gospel.” Responding to a similar issue, Paul wrote, “I am astonished that you are
so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different
gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion
and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6, 7).
Integrationists defend their position with the logic that if Christians have accepted other
modern advances such as the radio, the microphone, antibiotics, computers, and cars, we s
houldn’t reject the advances of psychology. The error of this apples-and-oranges comparison is
that psychology is not dealing with material objects but spiritual issues. It deals with the very
issues discussed in the Bible, but it does so from an opposing platform. Paul vehemently
denounced Christians who would mix light with darkness. He wrote:
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness
have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?What harmony is there
between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What
agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living
God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and
they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch
no unclean thing, and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:14–17).
An increasing number of informed believers are questioning the mixing of biblical truth
with psychological theory. Unfortunately, these critics of integrationist counseling are
commonly stereotyped as incompetent reactionaries. But the truth is that many are thoughtful
professionals who refuse to buy the party line that psychology and the Scriptures together are
better than the Bible alone.
Integrationists seem to believe that there are counseling issues about which the Bible is
silent and which therefore require psychological insights. It is true that the Bible does not
specifically speak about cocaine addiction, but it deals with the principles of substance abuse
(Proverbs 20:1; 23:21; 26:11; Daniel 1:8; Romans 6:12; 13:13; Ephesians 5:18). The Bible does
not specifically address pornography, but it does deal with mental and spiritual purity (Psalm
119:9, 11; Matthew 5:27, 28; Ephesians 4:19; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3–7). There is no
single mental/spiritual issue upon which the Bible is silent.
Still, the integrationist asks plaintively, “Could it be… that psychology is a God-given field of
knowledge?”22 It could be, but is it? Historical evidence shows that the founders of modern
psychology attempted to define and interpret human behavior in purely natural terms without
reference to God. Wilhelm Wundt, who established the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig
in 1879, divided the mind into three basic structural elements (sensations, images, and
feelings),23 but left out the soul or spirit. He is commonly honored as the founder of modern
psychology, but there is no evidence that he credited God for his “discoveries.”
William James, the founder of the first American psychological laboratory, was “strongly
influenced by the evolutionary principles of Darwin,”24 and saw human behavior in terms of
function, or the interaction between mind and body. He wrote a landmark work entitled
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, which held that an idea is true if it
“works.” Nothing indicates that James was given his theories by God, even though his
relativistic doctrine had major implications for religion.
Behaviorist John B. Watson saw human behavior simply in terms of response to stimuli. He
was not even sure that the mind existed. “An avowed materialist, he objected to concepts such
as mind, consciousness, volition, and emotion, stating that psychology should be the science of
directly observable behavior.”25 B.F. Skinner, another behaviorist, offered “a systematic and
scientific program to alter the nature of Man,”26 though it did not include God.
Psychoanalysis was formulated by Sigmund Freud, who theorized that man is under the
control of unconscious urges that originate in childhood traumas and inner conflicts between
the id, ego, and superego. He had a “profoundly low opinion of human nature…referring, on
several occasions, to the majority of human beings… as ‘worthless.’ [Freud had] two deeply
held sentiments, which were characteristic of the man: a bitter antagonism to religion and all
forms of religious authority, and a hatred of America.”27
In his book The Future of an Illusion, Freud ridicules religion. Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, and
most of Freud’s other successors carried the same fanatical hatred of religion that Freud
revealed in his writings.
These men are fairly representative of the general attitude which psychologists have of
scriptural authority and validity. Literally thousands of branches of psychotherapies have
sprung from these early roots, which grew from the seeds of rebellion toward God.
No, psychological counseling is not a God-given field of knowledge. It is a system of beliefs
that originated in the minds of men who were godless rebels. Romans 1:22 says of such men,
“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”
Psychological counseling is darkness masquerading as light. It is built upon a foundation of
sand, and as the storms of life crash upon it, the psychological system crumbles into ruin.
Notes
1 William T. Kirwan, Biblical Concepts for Christian Counseling (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
House, 1984), p. 24.
2 Gary R. Collins, Can You Trust Psychology? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), p.
65.
3 The Columbia Encyclopedia, 3d ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), s.v.
“Psychoanalysis.”
4 Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Psychotherapy (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987), pp.
195–96.
5 Lee Coleman, The Reign of Error (Boston: Beacon Books, 1984), p. 130.
6 Bernie Zilbergeld, The Shrinking of America (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983), p.
146.
7 Ibid., p. 149.
8 Coleman, Reign of Error, p. 148.
9 Harold M. Silverman, The Pill Book, Guide to Safe Drug Use (New York: Bantam Books,
1989), p. 3.
10 James W. Long, The Essential Guide to Prescription Drugs (New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 3d Edition, 1982), p. 345.
11 Ibid., p. 346.
12 Ibid., p. 348.
13 Ibid., p. 209.
14 Collins, Can You Trust?, pp. 37–38.
15 Ibid., p. 38.
16 Ibid., pp. 38–39.
