Can Theistic Psychology Exist
in Science
By Jennifer Essig
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic-psychology.htm
1.
Preface
The Generational
Curriculum is an on-going platform for students to post their writings
pertaining to Social Psychology. Dr.
Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl began organizing this
project in the 70’s to assist students with their verbal and written
communication skills and to also help them take more initiative in their own
learning.
I am part of the 20th
generation of social psychology students asked to put out my thoughts and
research for everyone to see. I have no
idea if the content of the report I am about to present will be of any use to a
world already filled with so much information.
Whether or not this report really does make a difference, the experience
I will gain in doing the required assignments will undoubtedly be
valuable. Students before me have shared
their enthusiasm for the way this class was constructed and how they have
learned so much in doing tasks that seemed scary at first.
Generation 20 is a
unique group which gets to take a look at the inclusion of God in the
explanation of science and psychology.
Various other issues in social psychology have been explored. The most frequently covered topic is road
rage and driving, but there are several generations that have dealt with
emotion and motivation. I think that
emotions play a big role in spiritual health and these previous generations
will help me to better understand people’s development of emotions. I will discuss three reports which I believe
to be related to the area of spirituality, the mind, or consciousness.
Generation 16 (http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/459s2002/alohaspirit/report1.html)
explained the concept of the three-fold self.
According to Alohaspirit, “All
humans go through a process of socialization where certain ways of feeling,
thinking, and acting according to the norms of that society are picked up and
internalized. These habits directly
affect the three areas of feeling, thinking, and acting out. While each provides a different
function, all three act together and create what is called the threefold
self.” People are unconsciously adopting
doctrines that may affect their willingness to accept new spiritual ideas that
may be beneficial to them. They are
stuck in a place where they continuously hurt themselves and those around
them. Alohaspirit
also mentioned how schemas (mental maps of the world) are developed in our
unconscious and how they affect our conscious decision-making processes. This is relevant to our course in that it
helps us to understand the underlying motivations of behaviour.
Generation 15 talked
about how we can live a more positive life.
Meagan Anina Reynolds wrote that choosing to
think positively about the world will bring happiness and success and fill a
person with compassion. Furthermore,
positive thinking is emotionally intelligent and allows one to be enthusiastic,
self-confident, and optimistic. On the other hand, negative thinking will
result in unhappiness and cause us to act out in self-destructive
behaviour. To become more of a positive
thinker, one must observe their own behavior and
learn to change by practicing new thought patterns. Nicole Reaves (http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2001/reaves/report1.html)
explained this as self-witnessing—to start being aware of our emotions. One can ask his/herself why they are feeling
a certain way and when they discover the reasons, they can transform. I believe that this is relevant in that when
one is free from emotional bondages, they may also be spiritually more
fulfilled.
Generation 19 (http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409bf2003/naito/report1.htm)
was a bit more indirectly relevant to the topic of spirituality. Shawn Naito described that his assignment was
to record his affective and cognitive information behaviours as he attempted
various tasks. This was an example of
self-witnessing, and allowed him to understand his emotions and thoughts as he
went through trials. This is relevant to
our course in that as each student becomes more aware of their feelings, they
can be more spiritually stable.
2.
Introduction
This class is
aiming to investigate whether or not God can actually be included in the study
of human psychology in a rational way.
We will be using the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg
on spirituality as a reference to explore the possibility of including God in
the explanation of scientific phenomenon. This course is not intended to speak
about religion or doctrine, but to see if God can really be used in science
rationally.
According to Swedenborg, theistic science refers to God as the cause of
everything natural. Swedenborg
was given the special privilege of having dual citizenship, meaning he could be
part of the spiritual world while he was alive in the physical world. No other human has been able to be part of
both worlds. Through this dual citizenship,
Swedenborg was given revelations about God and the
spiritual world. He was able to conduct interviews
with people in heaven and hell and found that people’s true intentions were
revealed in the after-life. They either
floated to the top (heaven) where everyone was altruistic or sunk to the bottom
(hell) where pure selfishness existed.
Neither had a desire to be in the other part of spiritual realm. One’s character while living in the physical
world affected their inner-being which could rot as one led an immoral life.
I believe that once
we understand who God is and his purpose for creating us, we can begin to live
much more meaningful lives and have greater impacts on the world around us. Personally, I am very interested in exploring
how God can be included in the study of science because of my own Christian
faith. It will be very interesting how
the ideas presented to me in Swedenborg’s writings
will conflict with or support my own beliefs.
I hope that in studying Swedenborg, I can
learn to be more articulate and intellectual about my own faith.
3.
Overview
This
assignment is aimed to explore whether or not God can be used to explain
science. I have drawn my conclusions
from reading the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, doing
research on the web, and reflecting on my own personal experiences. I hope that you will read this report with a
critical, but open mind.
The initial
reaction to this assignment was very overwhelming because I never thought I was
capable of putting my thoughts about God in writing. But this has been a very rewarding journey
and I hope that in reading this, your own journey about discovering who God is will
begin. Hopefully, it will spark an
interest in developing your own relationship with God.
4.
Autobiographical
(Part One)
God is real. There has never been an alternative for
me. I remember being very young and
understanding that God heard my prayers.
All through elementary school, I would pray every night before I fell
asleep for God not to let me have nightmares.
And then on the occasions that I fell asleep without praying, I would
have horrific nightmares. But this
experience was very limited to a child’s understanding of who God was. My idea of who God is at this moment of my
life is very different. He is not just
someone who wants to protect me.
I grew up in a
religious home but my family life was far from ideal. I came from a very broken family so the God I
knew was not the God they taught me.
Most of my lessons of God came through Sunday School
or youth group. I attended very
conservative churches and because of this, I became a very narrow-minded and
self-righteous person. All through high
school, I was extremely judgemental and isolated
myself.
In college, I
totally rebelled from anything to do with the church. I started to date an atheist who transformed
my view of the world. He introduced me
to a whole new way of thinking and I became much more tolerant of the world
around me. But I could not run away from
the fact that God was real.
We would have
intense discussions about the possibility of God. One day, while we were driving up to his
place which was high up a mountain ridge, we had another one of these lively
conversations. As we stepped out of the
car, I looked up and was amazed at the gorgeous night sky. There must have been a million stars that night. I asked him, “Look at the stars. How can you believe that they were put there
by accident?” He responded as he always
did. He just shrugged his
shoulders. But then he challenged me. “Well, if God is real, then why doesn’t he
send a shooting star right now?” As soon
as those words left his mouth, a huge shooting star, it could have been a
comet, fell from the sky. He started to
tremble. He could not believe what he
just witnessed.
That was a turning
point for him—and for me. I eventually
made it back to church and began living an entirely new life. By the way, we are getting married next
January.
So who is God to me
right now?
·
He is a
loving God. His love for me does not
change whether I am living my life the right way or not.
·
He has
put passions and desires in me to fulfill the purpose of my life here on earth.
·
He is
just. He cannot let things go
unpunished.
·
He is
compassionate. He grieves as I grieve
and his heart is torn when mine is.
·
He is
faithful. He understands my rebellious
nature and welcomes me no matter what I do.
·
He
cannot stand sin. Sin separates me from
God. There is nothing I can do, no
amount of good deeds, that could ever make me good
enough for him. The standard of goodness
is too high. How would I ever know if I
my character was good enough? The only
true way to be connected to God is to believe that my sins had to be atoned
for. Jesus’ death was a punishment that
I deserved but he took upon himself so that I could be with God.
·
God is
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The
father is whom I pray to and the purpose of my life on earth is to bring glory
to him.
Jesus
Christ the son is whom I can relate with on a human level. He shares in my struggles and knows how I
feel.
The
Holy Spirit is my conscience. He is my
counselor and his duty is to help me to bring glory to God.
·
God has
given me free-will. Because of it, sin
and evil must exist. Therefore, hell
must exist also.
·
God is
all-knowing and all-powerful. But he can
choose to limit his knowledge or power when it serves a greater purpose.
·
The
word of God is in the Bible.
There is so much
more to God than I could ever list. But
this is the foundation of my faith. What
are my beliefs in heaven and hell? I believe
that hell is separation from God. Could
it be the firey pit where people are gnashing their
teeth? I don’t know. I have no clue as to what heaven or hell
looks like. But I don’t really worry
about it because the evidence of God in my life makes me secure enough in
knowing that heaven is greater than my imagination could ever dream of.
5.
Autobiographical (Part Two)
My conceptual
history of science has been quite limited due to the fact that science has been
a really tough and uninteresting subject for me. In elementary school, my only recollections
about science are about animals or the solar system. I do not remember learning anything about God
or how the universe was created. I do
not recall anything from junior high that relates to the creation of the
universe either.
It was probably in
high school where I first started to hear about the Big Bang theory in biology
class. My teacher was a very unemotional
person and she presented the course in a very “matter-of-fact” way. Theories were presented to us, but in such a
cold way that there was not much discussion about it. At this point, there was no real debate in my
mind about the reality of God as the creator.
However, at the
university level there was much more passion coming from my science
instructors. Most professors spoke about
the evolution theory—that through natural selection, man was created. Their passion was a bit startling, because
for the first time, I was facing new ideas about how we came into
existence. Initially it bothered me and
I thought, “Well, there’s gotta be something real
behind their passion.” I had professors
who were overt atheists, to the point that I felt that anyone religious was being
condemned for believing in the existence of God. But still, I was not affected by these
professors in the long run.
It would actually
be through Christian groups that I seriously began doubting the literal account
of creation as told in the Genesis story.
A couple of years ago, my friends and I began to explore the idea of
humans actually evolving from monkeys.
We were attending a theological debate of the origin of man and it was
through a Christian that I started to take a more serious look at how God is at
work, even in what seems like atheist scientific theories. The theories may contradict the story told in
Genesis, but they do not contradict the character of God. I think that it actually shows how perfect God
is in his creation, that there are perfect laws, form,
and order that he created for everything.
6.
Topical Research
Religion and
science are two separate issues.
Religion is a social organization made by humans who have a need to
belong to something. But just because
one has ideas of a divine being does not necessarily mean that the person is
religious. I think of science as having
to do with the creation itself (biology, chemistry, physics)
and religion having to do with the worship of the divine designer of that
creation. I think that one can study
just the creation, and not the creator.
But that should be left to the discretion of the scientist him/herself,
and not the ethics of the science field.
I think that science has put arbitrary limits on its scientists, some
who have personal beliefs which they are not allowed to explore within their
field.
According to the
Discovery website (http://www.discovery.org/csc/),
a new theory is aiming to include the idea of an intelligent designer. Certain areas of science are at a standstill
in coming up with strictly materialistic theories explaining certain
phenomenon. In cosomology,
the theory of the creation of the universe is moving toward a more sudden
existence from a predetermined time, rather than the pre-existing
notion of the universe being eternal and having everything evolved from
nothing. Also, as artificial
intelligence makes new advances, the fact that no one has been able to
replicate “consciousness” is showing the uniqueness of humans. These findings are showing loopholes in
current scientific theory.
Although the
intelligence design does not speak about religion, it credits a supernatural
being as a creator. Interestingly, this
theory angers evolutionists as well as creationists. Personally, I think this is a good
compromise. Evolutionists automatically
assume this is a creation theory when in fact it does not use the Bible as
reference. According to John West
(2002), it is actually attempting to empirically study whether the design was
made intellectually or by chance. At the
same time, creationists are fighting for the intellectual design theory to
credit the Biblical God as the creator, which it will not do.
(Intelligent Design and Creationism Just Aren't the Same, John G. West, Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology,
The separation of
church and state is a very sticky issue.
I think we are living in a very interesting period where this separation
is moving forward so quickly. This
nation was built to provide freedom, including religious freedom. But more and more it seems this freedom wants
to be taken away. In order to please the
ultra liberals who want nothing to do with anything religious, such as
Christmas or Easter, we have certain traditions that we have always taken for
granted in the risk of being abolished.
At the same, ultra conservative Christians want to force Creationism in
our schools or limit sex education.
I do not think it
would be healthy for our nation to totally exclude religion from the
state. I believe that the separation of
church and state served its purpose in the past, but is less revelant for us today because many of us are educated
enough to reject any religious doctrine that we do not agree with.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (http://ffrf.org/nontracts/?t=xian.txt)
explains that
A Christian
organization (http://www.christiananswers.net/q-wall/wal-g004.html)
claims that the separation of church and state has to do with the
interpretation of the term which is in the first amendment of the
constitution. It believes that the
amendment was abused by radical separatist movements to purge anything of
religious significance from public light.
It has not been consistent with historical intent of the amendment. Unless one really understands the historical
and legal background of this issue, it is hard to know if this is true.
7.
Theistic Psychology
Science today is mostly “atheistic” in that God, or any divine or
supernatural force, is not a valid explanation for scientific phenomenon. Although most of the world believes in the
existence of something greater than ourselves, God has
not been a part of science. Psychology
is a branch of science dealing with our brains and behavior. Such things as love, determination and
spirituality cannot fully be explained by current psychological theories that
try to attribute emotions and behaviors to neural impulses. I believe that our behaviors and thoughts are
motivated by something much deeper.
According to Dr. Leon James (http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic-psychology.htm)
theistic psychology proposes to include God in psychological theories in a way
that is rational and scientific.
Theistic psychology does not aim to discuss religion or doctrine, but
rather God and the spiritual world. This
theory of psychology is based on the 17th century writings of Edward
Swedenborg (1688-1772).
Swedenborg was an acclaimed scientist of his
day. Rather than pursuing science, he
dedicated the last 27 years of his life to exploring the spiritual realm . He was given
a divine appointment of being a dual citizen of the natural world as well as
the spiritual world. Because of this
dual citizenship, he was able to write about his experiences with the people he
met in heaven and hell. He was able to
converse with historical figures as well those who recently passed on into the
spiritual world. He described in detail
what he saw and what he heard. These
writings have been documented in 27 volumes.
Swedenborg went into depth about the
properties of the natural and spiritual world.
The natural world is made up of physical and temporary entities. As living human beings, we are somewhat
trapped in this body, oblivious to our co-existence in the spiritual
world. Yet, how we conduct our lives in
this natural world corresponds with what happens in the spiritual world, and
simultaneously, our presence in the spiritual world affects our natural
life. The ultimate key to having an
eternity of purity and goodness (heaven) is to purify our character.
Theistic psychology is based purely on the experiences and experiments
of a single individual. Is it possible
for theistic psychology to be rational or scientific? Dr. James explains that science is considered
rational if it fits the following criterion:
(a) Independent researchers can rationally
criticize each other’s work.
(b) It uses empirical methodology.
(c) Once the events and behaviors have been
identified, one can apply its principles: theoretically and predictively.
Because theistic
psychology fits the criterion, it is assumed that this is a rational and
scientific theory.
8.
Critique on Theistic Psychology
Where do I
begin? I happened to blindly register
for this class, having no idea what the course was about. When I first learned that it was about
spirituality, I was really excited because I want to become a Christian
counselor. Although this class is
turning out to be nothing like I thought it would be, the challenges that I am
faced with every class is helping me to form my identity and I am really
enjoying it. Initially, Swedenborg’s claims of being
chosen by God were very absurd. It was
difficult to even consider anything he had to write to have any validity or
value. But the more I examine his
writings, the more I am beginning to see that I agree with Swedenborg
about heaven and hell.
First, I will
explain the areas of theistic psychology that make sense to me. I am finding that Swedenborg’s
descriptions of God and the spiritual world are very realistic. If we take away some of the terminology, I
think we will find that Swedenborg’s ideas of God are
very similar to a Christian’s. Here are
some areas of Swedenborg’s writings that I agree
with:
·
God is loving and that he has given us free will because of that
love.
·
After
we die, we will face a crucial moment where we will choose between (or
float/sink to) heaven and hell.
·
Heaven
is a place closest to God, whereas hell is separation from God, although not
absolutely absent of him.
·
Those
who are not capable of choosing heaven or hell (children, mentally handicapped)
have a special place and purpose.
·
Our
moral character on earth will affect our decision to choose heaven over
hell.
·
Scriptures
are a sacred revelation from God.
·
We need
to love others as we love ourselves.
While I am trying
my best to stay positively biased, my personal religious beliefs may come into
play in my critique of this theory. I
will not critique whether or not Swedenborg may have
been delusional. There is no way that I
can refute that claim. Hopefully, I can
come up with rational arguments rather than theological or religious ones. I
will argue the following points:
What Determines Our Ultimate Fate in Eternity?
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic-psychology.htm#choosing
Swedenborg offers no standard of good and bad. Yet, our eternity is based on our moral
character. Swedenborg
claims that we have evidence of what we know to be good or bad because of our
conscience. How will we ever know that
our character is good enough? Believing
in something does not make it true. So
if we believe we are altruistic it does not mean we actually are. The majority of humanity will not make it
into heaven. Yet if you ask everyone
know if they are going to heaven (if they believe in heaven), they will most
likely say yes. Who does not want to
believe that they are not going to heaven?
What is the standard which we are to live by? Mother Teresa? Gandhi?
It seems cruel that none of us will ever know the true intentions of our
hearts until we get to heaven.
It
is true that humans have the ability to know right and wrong. This is not my point. Rather, my point is how do we know when we
have chosen to live in the right way?
Where is the line between heaven and hell? Everything is relative and left up our own judgement. I do not
think that relativity can be rational.
Also,
I believe that evil lies in all of us.
Although there are many areas in our lives that we can make adjustments
to and to seek counsel in, there will always be areas of weakness. I will always be motivated by selfishness and
greed no matter what I do. That is the
very nature of being human.
Children and Heaven
In
class, we discussed what happens when children pass on to the spiritual
world. I was very surprised by the
explanation given by Swedenborg because it seems to
contradict the idea of free will. If
this premise is true—that children are educated by angels who protect them from
some of the evilness in the spiritual world, much as a parent does—then where
does free will come in?
Here
is an analogy that I thought up: There are
two teenage boys who have decided that they would never take drugs because of
its devastating effects. One boy is
home-schooled where his exposure to media is limited, experiences tremendous
amount of love by his family, and has no friends who takes drugs. The other boy attends a public high school,
has a brother who experiments with drugs, and has friends who urge him to party
with them on a daily basis. Who is truly
making the choice not to take drugs? The
one faced with temptations everyday is truly exercising his free-will. Of course, one can argue that if the
home-schooled boy really wanted to take drugs, he would find a way. But the probability of it is so much smaller
that it seems the free-will he experiences is limited.
Is
it true that even young adults can be considered to be children if their
rational minds have not developed? It
seems easier to suppress a person’s mind from developing rationally than it is
to reform it after damage has been done.
God of Love
To
me, love exists only in a relationship to another, whether it be a divine being or person.
Yet, in a theory whose foundation is based on God’s love, I do not hear
much of the relationship between God and his creation. What does love mean? I have not come across an adequate definition
(although it may exist and I have not read it) of what God’s love is
about. Maybe love cannot be discussed
rationally.
Mysticism
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic-psychology.htm#mystical
I
may be wrong here, but I cannot help but feel that Swedenborg
discounts each individual’s mystical experiences. By the definition provided by theistic
psychology, I am a mystic. But my personal
experiences may not be validated just because they may seem irrational. I do not think “oneness” with God is the term
I would use to describe the mysticism that I have experienced. It is more of an intense revelation of the
goodness of God. I think that Swedenborg goes too far in generalizing about
mysticism.
Furthermore, I am
not sure if a human being is capable of knowing everything about God and the
spiritual world. Here is a diagram:
The circle represents the amount of
knowledge we possess as individual humans (it is probably actually smaller
than that) This box represents all the knowledge in
the world.
Big question: How much did Swedenborg know?
Here is the thing,
how can an individual know everything?
Even if Swedenborg had access to spiritual
revelations, his knowledge of the world would still be lacking. He would not understand the knowledge and
experiences of each individual. To give
him absolute control over this theory is not rational, unless he himself was
God and knew everything.
I do not doubt that
Swedenborg had revelations from God. Anyone can be used by God to benefit
mankind. However, I do not buy into his
claim that he had sole possession of such a powerful gift. Swedenborg is not
the only person who has been able to come up with a complicated series of
interpretations of the bible. Although I
have not read J.R.R. Tolken’s Lord of the Ring Series
or C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles, I have heard enough
about them to know how ingenious their writings are. Both authors, who were really good friends,
were able to take the bible and turn them into a series of fictitious
stories. Lewis is known for The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe books, but he is also a famous theologian and philosopher. In his books, such as Mere Christianity, he
tries to rationally explain Christianity in a philosophical way.
9.
Bibliography on Theistic Psychology
1. http://www.innercite.com/~tstout/cs/pog_1.shtml
Scientist
and pastor Timothy Stout speaks about nature revealing
the existence of God. Many view Charles
Darwin to be an atheist. However,
2.
http://www.ldolphin.org/bumbulis/
Lambert Dolphin’s Christian Science website claims
that modern science was founded by those influenced by Judeo-Christian
thought. Some of these leading
scientists included Robert Boyle (father of modern chemistry), John Dalton
(father of modern atomic theory), James Joule (discoverer of the first law of
thermodynamics), Louis Pasteur (formulator of the germ theory), among many
others. It also quotes Newton as saying,
“"This most beautiful
system of sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and
dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being...This Being governs all things,
not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his
dominion he is wont to be called Lord God." Just like the article above, I believe this
validates the notion that scientific minds can believe in God and still be considered
to be scientific geniuses.
3.
Inside
Out (Crabb, Larry. Inside Out. NavPress.
This is a
book written by Christian psychologist, Dr. Larry Crabb. He devoted the entire book to
self-examination and exposing those areas in our lives that are damaged and
broken. Some of the chapters are
entitled “Real change requires an inside look” and “What it takes to deeply
change.” Although this book also addresses
our need for Jesus Christ as a healer and the power of the Gospel, I believe
this book is relevant to theistic psychology because it emphasizes
self-witnessing and the need to transform our emotions and behaviors in order
to lives out to our full potential. I
began this paper with the idea that emotions play a big part of our spirituality
and I believe we need to be emotionally healthy in order to be spiritually
fulfilled.
4. http://www.leaderu.com/aip/docs/delaney-goldsmith.html
Scientific Psychology and Christian
Theism describes
man similar to that of Swedenborg. It describes man as a unique being, which is
made in the image of God and shares in many of the qualities of God. He shares in God’s abilities to love and
choose what is good. This is relevant to
theistic psychology because it defines man and God in pretty much the same way.
5. http://www.objectivethought.com/intros.html
This is a webpage devoted to
rational spirituality. However, instead
of basing its theory on theism, it takes an atheist stance. Much like the scientific field, it believes
that God cannot be used as a rational explanation. The author calls his view transcendence: he calls us to
let go of our attachments to worldly thought.
This is the opposite view of theistic psychology. I thought it was interesting to see how
different individuals interpret what is rational and irrational. Reasonable scientists, philosophers,
theologians, seem to disagree on what the definition of rational is.
2. http://mapage.noos.fr/richard.preschel/rs.htm
Rational Spirituality: Website
for Thought is
another website devoted to rational spirituality. This is their definition of rationality: it
is a thought process acquired through scientific education to train people to
discover the facts of life and nature.
Interestingly, this website embraces atheists as well as theisists. This is
another example of how rationality is being defined in a different way.
3. http://www.io.com/~duanev/ars/shaping.htm
This website explains the
character traits that God must have. Rational
Spirituality: searching for truth with
the vision that our world might actually make sense states that God must be creative,
compassionate, respectful, loving, with boundaries, strong, wise, and
faithful. I believe that it is important
to understand the characteristics of God because it will affect how one lives
in this world. If one does not accept
that God is loving or compassionate, I think that
person will have a harder time valuing those traits and pursuing them for
him/herself. Theistic psychology is
based on the premise that God is loving and tries to
inspire people to love one another more than they love themselves.
4. http://www.terramir.net/index2.html
Terramir.net: Peace and
Harmony through Education describes the scientific method specifically in
the psychological field. It lists the
goals of psychology as to: describe (behaviors and mental processes), explain
(behaviors and motivations), predict, and control. One thing that I found interesting about
this page was that it said experimentation needs to be replicated through a
technique called meta-analysis where the findings of various studies can get
combined and reanalyzed. It does not go
into detail about what meta-analysis is, but I think theistic psychology is limited
in this area of validity because the experiments that Swedenborg
conducted are not replicable.
5. http://www.angelfire.com/tx/recoveredmemories/integrate.html
The article on this page is
called Why psychology cannot be integrated
with the bible by a fundamental Christian group. I chose this article not because I agreed
with it at all, but because it held an interesting view. It claims that psychology teaches to love ourselves,
whereas the bible teaches us to love others.
I think that some fundamental Christians are totally missing the boat
because the verse they refer says: Love one another as you love yourself. Well, if you do not have a healthy
self-esteem and do not love love yourself, there is
no way you can love others in a healthy way.
It is not by accident that the second part of the verse is in
there. This is relevant to theistic
psychology because Swedenborg uses the bible as a
reference and decoded it for our practical use.
6. http://scienceandthebible.org/index.cfm?page=rational
The Bible Physics Projects aims
to seek whether or not faith in Jesus Christ is rational. It begins with a rational approach to the
question by looking at the physical evidence in the world. It then goes into the validity of the
scriptures. It concludes that believing
in Jesus Christ is in fact rational. I
believe that this is relevant to theistic psychology because valuing the
Scriptures and Jesus Christ can help us to become morally responsible and help
us to develop altruistic motivations.
10.Conclusion
Honestly, even though I consider myself to be a
spiritual person I have never thought so much about my own philosophical views
until this semester. Coming up with my
own views on who God is and my relationship to him takes so much effort. In that way, I commend Swedenborg’s
27 years of determination. I would have
given up after the first thirty minutes.
I think that our personal philosophies and ideas of
who God is determines the quality of life we live on
earth—not only affecting ourselves, but those around us. At the very least, believing in God will
strengthen our love for one another.
I am very skeptical about allowing science to truly
embrace the notion of God as the creator.
Once God and religion becomes mainstream, it
seems to get corrupted and distorted to serve purposes other than what it was
created for. I hope that science will be
more open to theistic theories, but at the same time remain skeptical and allow
only those truly seeking to find God to find the evidence for Him.
There is much that the field of psychology cannot
explain without attributing it to something higher than ourselves. I am not sure if theistic psychology, based
on the writings of Swedenborg, will be of much use to
psychology in general. Just as Christian
psychology has taken its own path independent from secular psychology, I
believe that theistic psychology should also remain a specialized field studied
by those who embrace the views of Swedenborg.
11. Future
Generations
Theistic psychology is an interesting topic, but as
you can see, not even educated scientists and philosophers can agree to what it
rational or not. Many of our conclusions
about this topic will come not from experiments or controlled observations, but
our own experiences. Because of that,
trying to include God in the explanation of science will always be a sticky
issue. It is too difficult to study this
subject without any biases. But I hope
that as future generations explore this for themselves, they will grow in their
own identity.
Class Homepage
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/459s2004/
My homepage
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/459s2004/essig/home.htm