LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Why Biblical Counsel?
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
Why Biblical Counsel?
In this article I will investigate the distinctives of a biblical orientation to counseling. While
models are numerous in both biblical and nonbiblical traditions, examples from both will be
limited. In particular, a discussion of the nouthetic model of biblical counsel will be addressed
as an example of a well-developed approach. A general discussion of biblical counsel including
distinctives, goals, and the role of the Holy Spirit will also be included.
Of particular interest is the variance of opinion concerning the role of “religion” by some
clearly non-Christian theorists. Where one in particular, Freud, views religion as an enemy to be
defeated, his follower Jung takes a much more positive view of the impact of a religious
outlook.
A Comparison of Views
If there were but one theoretical framework to which all psychiatrists, psychologists,
therapists, and counselors subscribed which was so precisely formulated that it could be
applied to explain all that people felt and did, the lives of those who offer counsel would be
much simpler. Even though this framework does not exist, there have been some theorists who
have written as if the subject were a monolithic whole with a unified body of theory which is at
variance with Christian beliefs. Freud was one who believed not only that a conflict existed, but
that religion must be defeated and replaced by psychology. He proposed that science would be
able to accomplish what religion had failed to do throughout the centuries. In a lecture dealing
with the question of a Weltanschauung, Freud wrote,
Religion is an attempt to master the sensory world in which we are situated by means of
the wishful world which we have developed within us as a result of biological and psychological
necessities. But religion cannot achieve this. Its doctrines bear the imprint of the times in which
they arose, the ignorant times of the childhood of humanity. Its consolations deserve no trust.
Experience teaches us that the world is no nursery. The ethical demands on which religion
seeks to lay stress need, rather, to be given another basis; for they are indispensable to human
society and it is dangerous to link obedience to them with religious faith. If we attempt to
assign the place of religion in the evolution of mankind, it appears not as a permanent
acquisition but as a counterpart to the neurosis which individual civilized men have to go
through in their passage from childhood to maturity.
In the same lecture Freud stated that religion is basically an illusion which gets its strength
from our instinctual desires. For Freud the Weltanschauung was science.
Other writers have not taken such an extreme point of view. Some give the impression that
if aspects of religious behavior can be explained psychologically, they have been explained
away; therefore, talking about the same events in religious language is either superfluous or
false. Concerning this Jeeves wrote,
Some who do this believe that to behave religiously expresses a basic immaturity, and that
once people as individuals, or as groups, grow up, then they will be able to dispense with the
childish beliefs associated with religion and be able to face the world in a more mature fashion.
Confronted by the vast spectrum of humanity’s problems and the numbers of people who
endure the pain, the inability of professional counselors to meet all the needs is obvious. The
two hundred fifty or more different theories of psychotherapeutic treatment currently
practiced serve to compound the problem as well. Professional therapists and counselors seem
to be plentiful, but often people struggle with the expensive and lengthy series of sessions
often involved in traditional psychotherapy. Also, with insurance companies becoming more
reluctant to cover extensive therapies, the cost for many is prohibitive. Moreover, the
questionable success record of contemporary psychotherapeutic technique (with its numerous
and varied theories) may indicate that affordable treatment may still fall short of providing an
answer.
The growing disillusionment of a large segment of the population with professional efforts
to deal with the increase in personal problems has resulted in more openness to other
approaches. Larry Crabb, a popular psychologist and author, has written that “the timing is right
for Christians who take God seriously to develop a biblical approach to counseling which asserts
the authority of Scripture and the necessity and adequacy of Christ.” Many Christians have
suffered spiritual atrophy because of bitterness, guilt, worry, resentment, anger, self-pity, envy,
and lust. A deeper commitment to Christ and dependence upon the power and leading of the
Holy Spirit are believed by many Christians to be the source of healing. Others, however, have
been convinced by the proponents of secular psychology that emotional problems are the
result of psychological dysfunction and can only be successfully treated by the psychological
specialist.
Crabb has written, “I am convinced that the local church should and can successfully
assume responsibility within its ranks for restoring troubled people to full, productive, creative
lives.” Crabb wrote further that one psychiatrist recently stated that the need for love and
acceptance is basic for all. The Christ-centered local church should be the resource for meeting
this basic need.Concerning the importance of an individual’s relationship to his religion or the
expression of his religion in the context of his local church, Carl Jung wrote,
I should like to call attention to the following facts. During the past thirty years, people
from all the civilized countries of the earth have consulted me. I have treated many hundreds of
patients, the larger number being Protestants, a smaller number Jews, and not more than five
or six believing Catholics. Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over
thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a
religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that
which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been
really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.
The degree to which the church implements the Lord’s design that it be a caring
community will determine its ability to meet the deep need for love, which if unmet generates
psychological problems. The need for addressing these problems in other than psychological
terms has become important to many within the church.
