The Spiritual Life of the Psychologist

"The Spiritual Life of the Psychologist"
Notes for a talk given at the annual conference of the Network of Christian in Psychology

Introduction - the need for a biblical anthropology

In what sense does the spiritual life of the Psychologist differ from the spiritual life of any other Christian? Answer: the psychologist is more likely to have considered or to live with the question of the nature of human existence and experience. Thus the Christian psychologist can end up inhabiting two worlds - the world of question raised by the discipline of psychology and the world of answers provided (or not) within the church.

To deal with this, the Christian psychologist needs, above all, a biblical anthropology. And for this we turn in the first instance to Gen 1:26-27:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

There are a number of lessons here which we enable us to understand our spirituality in the context of our humanity.

The correspondence between humanity and God

First, we learn that there is a correspondence between humanity and God. The exact nature of this correspondence is not immediately obvious from Genesis 1. Nevertheless it is stated in terms which are surprisingly provocative. The terms ‘image' and ‘likeness' are used elsewhere of idolatrous images and visual likeness, eg Isa 40:18.

If we didn't know better, we would assume it simply meant that mankind looks just like God! And this isn't entirely wrong, bearing in mind that an image corresponds to the thing it ‘images'. However, an image also differs significantly from the thing it images. A photo, for example, may be a ‘good likeness'. But it isn't made of flesh and blood, nor does it move or think. Thus to say that humanity ‘images' God needn't mean ‘God looks like us', yet it certainly means that there is a correspondence between us and God. And this has great significance for our internal and external spiritual dialogue.

Specifically, it means that when we speak to or about God, our language is meaningful.

One of the problems when we overemphasize the transcendence of God is that language about God becomes entirely obscure. Thus the Muslim may send greetings "in the name of Allah, the most merciful". But since Allah is expressly not like any creature of Allah, the ‘mercy' of Allah cannot be understood in terms of human mercy. The dialogue about God therefore becomes a dialogue about what is essentially unknowable. Genesis 1:27 prohibits this, by positing an identification between human nature and the divine nature. And in fact, at this point it affirms our instinct, as Paul also notes in his speech at the Areopagus where he quotes with approval the Greek poet Aratus as saying "We are indeed God's offspring".

Thus a biblical anthropology begins by assuring us that God is not at the centre of a ‘cloud of unknowing'. Instead, God is essentially knowable because there a correspondence between our psychology and his nature.

The uniqueness of humanity in the world

But the correspondence between humanity and God introduces a second element of biblical anthropology which puts us at considerable variance with modern thinking, namely that there is a unique status to humanity in the world. Gen 1:26 reads:

The dominion of mankind is, of course, a natural corollary to the correspondence between mankind and God, for as it is God's nature to rule, so it is in our nature to rule as co-regents under his rule, as Psalm 8 says.

This means, however, that we must not denigrate ourselves by speaking as if we were just another animal. Where this happens, we easily fall into pantheism so that we begin to worship the earth or the Universe as greater than ourselves.

Equally, we cannot look to the animals for answers about ourselves. Of course there is also a correspondence between ourselves and the animals. We are clearly made of the same stuff, and exhibit some of the same behaviours. We can learn about ourselves from animal psychology just as we can learn about ourselves from plant biochemistry. But the difference between ourselves and the animals is a yawning gulf which severely limits the usefulness of extrapolating from them to us.

This also means that we are isolated in the world. Genesis 2 makes the same point - no companion suitable for Adam was found amongst the animals. Without a proper spirituality, there is the danger of finding ourselves psychologically adrift. However, we must find the answer to our angst via an acceptance of the high status God has given us.

The bipolarity of human sexuality

The third point to note from Genesis 1 is the sexual bipolarity of human nature. Human beings are created ‘male and female' (1:27). Of course, this is a characteristic they also share with the animals (and, strictly speaking, with the plants). And it is necessary for the propagation of the species - as Genesis 7:3 notes. But the first time sexual differentiation is mentioned in the bible is in relation to human beings rather than animals. We may suggest it is therefore not the animal quality of sexuality, nor its reproductive significance, which are chiefly in view. Instead, (though the point is debated) the structure of the passage seems to relate ‘male and femaleness' to being in the ‘image of God'. In the bible, this is not explored fully until we reach Ephesians 5.

In the meantime, we may note from the psychologist's point of view that whilst we recognize the equality of male and female in Christ, we cannot deny the reality that we experience the world within gendered bodies, and that the gendering of our bodies is a matter not only of outward appearance but of our entire psycho-social experience. Moreover, this gendered structuring of our experience is a matter of theology, not sociology - it is ‘by the decree of God' that we are male and female, though what we make of that difference may involve a wide degree of human determination.

The complementarity of male and female

Genesis 2, however, has more to say on the matter of gender differentiation. There are two particular lessons I'd want to draw out here, the first being the complementarity of male and female. However one interprets the precise background to the earlier chapters of Genesis, the lesson of Genesis 2 is that male and female need one another and experience something from relating to one another that neither can experience alone. This is clear from a careful reading of Gen 2:18 where according to the RSV, God says, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him". Both the notion of a ‘helper' and of being ‘fit for him' need to be understood carefully.

The term for ‘help' used in Genesis 2 is one commonly used in the rest of the Bible to describe the action of God, or if used of human beings describes the ‘help' provided by an ally in warfare. Thus the ‘help' needed by Adam and provided by Eve is not a matter of ‘sharing the washing up' but rather of being an ally in a mutual task.

Second, the term ‘fit for' is something like ‘as before him' or ‘as opposite' him. It is a ‘fit' as in corresponding to him, rather than corresponding to his needs. What Adam and Eve (and by implication all human pairings of male and female) therefore find in one another is a strengthening and a being strengthened.

The Christian psychologist therefore looks on relationships between men and women as more than just social constructs or - even worse, social contracts. There is something here which the apostle Paul is happy to call a ‘mystery'.

The sociability of male and female

And yet the second lesson I want to draw from Genesis 2, is that there clearly is a social dimension to relationships between men and women. Specifically, Genesis 2 ends with male and female finding themselves in one another in the social relationship of marriage. This relationship then creates new relationships with others around them - a man leaves his father and mother as well as cleaving to his wife.

Marriage excludes as well as includes, but it also presumes other forms of inclusion - for example, that a man has a father and mother and in a sense ‘belongs' to them before he leaves them and cleaves to his wife.

This is the first biblical building block of social psychology. And once again the Christian psychologist who can understand and integrate this will be less confused spiritually than the one who cannot.

The false moral autonomy of humanity

There are, however, three other factors we need to take into account in order to complete our picture of biblical anthropology. The first is the result of sinful nature seen in the false moral autonomy of humanity. What do we mean by this?

In Genesis 2 the man is warned that though he may eat of all the trees in the garden, he may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of ‘good and evil'. In themselves, these are simply moral opposites. But generally the knowledge of ‘good and evil' is the attribute of an adult or a ruler, eg Deut 1:39, cf Isa 7:15-16; 2 Sam 14:17, 1 Ki 3:9.

What we see in Genesis 3 is that human beings, having been called to acknowledge God as the arbiter of good and evil, now become like God in abrogating to themselves the decision as to what represents good and evil. In one sense, as Genesis 3:22 observes, our moral autonomy is reliable - we have become like God, knowing good and evil. The adult human can make proper moral choices. Human governments can establish just laws. However, the circumstances in which we acquire this knowledge rightly suggest that it will also be unreliable. Hence there are numerous references in the bible to people returning evil for good, or calling what is evil good.

The psychologist, therefore, must not have too high and expectation of the human material, nor be too disappointed at the appearance of moral ambiguity and uncertainty. More than this, however, the psychologist must accept the sinfulness of sin, both in themselves and in others.

The infirmity of the human psyche

The human moral dilemma also reveals itself in another - and somewhat unexpected way - in Genesis 3. At the end of Genesis 2, we read, "the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed". However, immediately following their eating the fruit in Genesis 3:7 we read, "then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked: and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." With moral autonomy comes the sense of shame. The fall brings not only a shift in moral perception but a shift in psychic self-perception - and it is an uncomfortable shift for the man and woman. They are uncomfortable before one another because they are uncomfortable with themselves.

The antipathy of human experience

And then finally from Genesis 3 we may note what I have called the ‘antipathy' of human experience. There is an antipathy in relation to God, an antipathy between man and woman, and an antipathy in relation to life in general.

The antipathy in relation to God is shown in the way that the man and woman hide from God because of their nakedness. But it is also shown in the way that the man implicates God in his own failure, at the same time as he blames the woman (3:12): "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate."

This antipathy between the man and woman is further underlined in the words of 3:16,

To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

This verse also shows how antipathy extends to life in general in the man and woman's specific spheres of productivity. The woman will experience sorrow (pain) in childbearing, the man will experience sorrow (toil) in the provision of food for himself and his family.

The psychologist, attempting to make sense both of external observations and internal dialogue, must take on board all these anthropological observations if they are not either to become triumphalist or to enter into denial in their own spirituality.

But a biblical spirituality does not end there, for we must also take on board a biblical Christology (our doctrine of Christ) and a biblical soteriology (our doctrine of salvation).

The importance of a biblical Christology

A biblical Christology is essential because ultimately the bible confronts us with Christ as the true image of God and therefore as the true man. To understand ourselves, therefore, we have to understand Christ.

When the Creed declares that Christ ‘became man' it is not simply asserting that he ‘became human' - as distinct from, say becoming a rabbit, but that he became THE man - the first example and source of that which God plans that the human race should become. However, it is vital to recognize what sort of man he became - for the first emphasis in biblical Christology is on Christ emptying himself and taking the form of a servant. A servant, moreover, who entered into the depths of human experience. Thus Isaiah describes the servant of God as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" whose relationship with
God was entirely misunderstood by the world.

Yet in this, we must recognize also that Christ sets the pattern for his followers. If, as the letter to the Hebrews says, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith was made perfect through suffering, should we be surprised when Christians suffer - and in particular when they suffer not just the outward hazards of life or Christian witness, but the inward and often more corrosive distresses of depression or worse?

The incarnate Christ of the scriptures is the Christ who can speak with the voice of the psalmist who calls to God from out of the depths. And supremely, of course, he is the Christ who, on the cross, cried out "My God, why have you forsaken me?"

The Christian in psychology is often acutely aware of this dimension of human existence, but is equally often at variance with a church which fails to recognize how widespread is this experience and how resistant it is to change, even for those who, like the lightbulb in the joke, are actually willing to change. Yet the ability to tolerate the failure of faith to produce desired change is surely the result of a biblical Christology which accepts that the cross is the greatest manifestation of the power and wisdom of God which we see in the life of his Son.

Martin Luther coined the phrase, ‘the theologian of the cross' to describe the person who truly realized that the cross is God's chosen means of manifesting his glory. And he despised as ‘the theologian of glory' the person who could only accept God manifesting himself through success and the avoidance of suffering.

The psychologist who is self-aware or aware of others will avoid a split between the professional and spiritual self by having a truly biblical Christology which is applied to the human situation.

The need for a biblical soteriology

And yet our exploration of biblical anthropology is not quite over, for Christ has not merely shared our burdens but carried them to the cross and thereby achieved salvation for us. We must therefore consider finally the implications for spirituality of a biblical soteriology, or doctrine of salvation. For this we turn to the opening chapter of Colossians, which is itself a great letter on the nature of true and false spirituality. First we note that a biblical soteriology stems from Christ because creation itself stems from him:

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Above all, this should give us a tremendous confidence in what Christ has done for us. Over against the sometimes depressing picture of biblical anthropology based on looking at ourselves, an anthropology derived from Christology is essentially encouraging.

Second, biblical soteriology, and therefore biblical spirituality, is manifested in the church, defined as those who will share Christ's resurrection because of their union with him:

He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.

This church Paul refers to elsewhere (1 Tim 3:15) as the pillar and bulwark of the truth, which it is when it abides in the truth which is in Christ Jesus. Principally, however, this means that spirituality is not a matter of ‘individuality'. True spirituality is ‘spirituality in communion'.

Third, the EFFECT of biblical soteriology is to generate the church by reconciling the world to God through Christ's death on the cross:

For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

True spirituality is therefore based on a Christ-centred gospel and a cross-centred Christ. This is not to say that his death on the cross is the only thing that matters about Christ's work, but it is the definitive thing about his work, and should therefore be at the centre of our understanding of ourselves in relation to God.

Fourth, the effect of this reconciliation is to overcome the effects of sin in us and to SANCTIFY us to God through faith in the gospel:

And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

This sanctification is effected by Christ's death, but it is manifested in our putting off certain wrong things and putting on right things, as 3:1-17 makes clear. The immediate experience of the Christian, however, is suffering for the sake of proclaiming the gospel. This is because at present we live in HOPE, not by sight:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Biblical soteriology concerns the Christ who died to reconcile the world to God in the gospel. True spirituality is therefore found where there is a desire to spread the gospel and a willingness to suffer for it.

There is a need, however, not merely for conversion to Christ but for persistence in Christ, and therefore biblical spirituality focuses on continually enhancing people's awareness and understanding of the gospel and its implications:

Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me.

Biblical soteriology is directed towards a maturity measured by the standard of Christ himself. True spirituality is therefore seen where people grow in maturity through understanding.

All this, as I said implied at the outset, is common to all Christians - it is not the prerogative of the Christian psychologist. But the psychologist is often forced to think more deeply and to confront more directly, the human condition. Hopefully, therefore, a biblical anthropology will inform our understanding of what we are, a biblical Christology will inform our understanding of what we are to become, and a biblical soteriology will ensure that we indeed become this.

John Richardson
March 1999

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