A Critical Analysis: Integrating Psychology & Christian Faith

This essay critically examines the integration of psychology and Christian faith, addressing the perception of psychology as incomplete or narrow. It explores the concept of Christian psychology, emphasizing its historical roots and alignment with Christian values like peace, love, and forgiveness. The essay discusses how psychology, including positive psychology, contributes to human well-being by fostering essential human skills and helping individuals overcome barriers. While acknowledging the limitations of clinical psychology, the analysis argues against dismissing psychology as incomplete, highlighting its scientific methods and empirical approach to understanding human behavior. The essay concludes that both theology and psychology, though distinct, contribute to the betterment of humanity, promoting a path towards a happier and more peaceful life. Desklib offers more resources for students.

Psychology as incomplete or narrow
According to the Integration Survey my score for “Psychology as incomplete or narrow”
stands at 20.
However, I am not completely satisfied with this score since I believe that Psychology is not
narrow and has a wide horizon of its own. Nor can we term it as “incomplete” since it would
be an injustice on the subject. Like any other subject, psychology still has a lot of potential
for growth. I believe in the concept of Christian Psychology, where a distinguished model is
built based on Christianity to study and understand the human behaviour. However, this
concept has not been converted into a formal field of examination, but it is largely being used
to understand human thought process and behaviour based on Christianity. This concept
endeavours to shift a person from unhealthy traits to healthy ones by understanding their
emotions, desires and behaviours. Christian psychology is a comparatively new movement in
the field of psychology, but the concept itself is embedded in the ancient times since the
Bible was written. In the history of the church, the Christian writers were referred to as
psychologists since days immemorial. It might seem a little casual since the study of
psychology is considered to be of modern times dealing with mental health (Johnson, 2017).
As Eric Johnson, has rightly mentioned, that if psychology is considered to be a meticulous
analysis of human nature and search for remedial solutions for their benefit, then the
Christians have been dealing with psychology for centuries (Palmer).
The spirit of Christianity lies in peace, self control, love, forgiveness, faithfulness, generosity,
kindness. These are the characters which provide happiness and leads the path towards Jesus.
Also, these characteristics help people to stay away from the negativities of stress and trauma.
Psychology does not only help to understand other human beings, but also in developing the
person who is studying the subject (Gordon, 2018). It helps in making you a better
communicator, develop skills in research and analysis and also develop the capability of self
analysis. In the older times, mental health therapists dealt with anger, depression, fear,
anxiety and stress, but they never mentioned the values of compassion, forgiveness and love.
However, with the advent of positive psychology, there has been a significant shift towards
the well being of human beings through “essential human skills”. This is more in concurrence
with the concept of Christian psychology. Psychology helps people in identifying their own
potential and give their best to live. By understanding human behaviour and nature,
psychology helps people defeat the barriers that keep them from moving ahead and also help

them in choosing better alternatives (Davidson, 2016). Thus, we can surmise that psychology,
like Christianity, helps the mankind by showing them the right path for a better living. By
delving deep into human nature, the subject, peeks into the human brain and identifies the
source of stimulation or the source of hinderance and gradually in a scientific way paves the
path for the overcoming the hindrance or exerting the stimulation for the sake of a happy and
peaceful life.
Clinical psychology, has its limitations, though. According to certain experts, it is inadequate
to answer the larger issues of mankind. It is considered to be science, but not medical science,
where if counselling fails, medication takes the ownership. Psychologists cannot prescribe
medicines, if required. Also, they build a case study of patients to work on their mental state.
For the same, one case study cannot be applied to the general population and each patient
needs an individual response from the psychologist. Again, there is a chance of the
psychologist’s own subjective feeling influencing the case of the patient. Patients suffering
and seeking immediate relief are not satisfied with the time consuming methods of
psychology and psychology takes its own course since each case is different and psychologist
need to thoroughly study the case before the remedial actions can be taken (Sun & Vazire,
2019).
However, as the argument proceeds, we can summarize that to call Psychology as
incomplete, is harsh, and like any other field it has its limitations. Positive psychology deals
with the spirits of Christianity and, thus, we can say that both theology and psychology work
for the betterment of the human race, independent of each other but respecting the individual
qualities and contribution to mankind. Psychology however, uses a lot of scientific methods
to deal with the issues of patients. The rationalistic view embraced by Christianity deals with
the reasoning and logical settlement of the issues, however, psychology adopts the empirical
method, which is based on experimentation and more importantly, the relationship between
the functioning of the brain and the human behaviour along with the environmental impacts
on human behaviour.
References
Davidson, D. R. (2016, March 21). The Four Keys to Well-Being. Greater Good Magazine .

Gordon, E. C. (2018). Intellectual Humility, Spirituality, and Counselling. Journal of
Psychology and Theology .
Johnson, E. L. (2017). Towards a Christian positive psychology: Introduction to the special
issue. The Journal of Positive Psychology , 425-426.
Palmer, K. (n.d.). Christian Psychology: An Introduction & Biblical Analysis. Retrieved
March 20, 2019, from Association of Certified Biblical Counselors:
https://biblicalcounseling.com/resources/acbc-essays/christian-psychology-introduction-
biblical-analysis/
Sun, J., & Vazire, S. (2019). Do People Know What They’re Like in the Moment?
Psychological Science , 405-414.