As you think of the distinctives between scientific and sacred knowledge,
your own life experience offers an excellent filter to the process, and you
also need to have a sense of your worldview and value system. One’s
worldview (whether ours or our client’s) typically consists of the following
five major elements:
God:$What the person’s has to say about God, His existence, His nature,
and His power.
Reality:$What the person believes about the purpose of the universe, the
nature of the universe, metaphysics, and the concept of eternity.
Knowledge:$What the person believes about the role of reason,
rationality, the scientific method, and the efficacy of our senses.
Morality:$What the person believes about moral judgments, ethics, and
cultural/historical/individual boundaries.
Humankind:$What the person believes about freewill, determinism, and
the view of body/soul/spirit.
As you continue with the Discussion Board, consider how your own
worldview influences your responses as a counselor. While I do believe
that the behavioral sciences have given us many valuable and legitimate
discoveries about human thinking, emotions, and behaviors, God’s Word
still provides us with the necessary foundation.
Here is a wonderful quote from a psychiatrist named James Fischer, made
after 50 years of mental health experience. It was excerpted from his
book,$A Few buttons Missing, (1951, p. 273):
“If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written
by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of
mental hygiene; and if you were to combine them and refine them and
cleave out the excess verbiage; and if you were to take the whole of the
meat and none of the bones; and if you were to have these unadulterated
bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable
of living poets; you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of
the teachings of Christ, particularly the Sermon on the Mount; and it
would suffer immeasurably in comparison.”
