EVOLUTION, PSYCHOTHERAPY, AND THE CHURCH

THEISTIC EVOLUTION IS A MAJOR PROBLEM: IMPACT OF IDEAS

“Prior to graduation from college, I had not once been shown any of the scientific evidence for creation either in school or in church. Little wonder, that by the time I started my career [as a chemist], God had little relevance in my life. It wasn’t as though I had any animosity toward God or religion. It simply held no relevance to the world around me. This should be no surprise when the subject never came up in school and everything seemed to be explained without reference to a Creator.” Bruce Malone, Search for the Truth

The Power of Ideas: “[Evolutionist] Ernst Haeckel nudged the racism of the Third Reich along its malignant road by suggesting that …”You must draw [a line] between the most highly developed civilized people on the one hand and the crudest primitive people on the other and unite the latter with animals.”( (Karl Giberson, Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution, 76)

“How shocking it is today to acknowledge that virtually every educated person in the Western culture at the time …shared Haeckel’s ideas. Countless atrocities around the globe were rationalized by the belief that superior races were improving the planet by exterminating defective elements…there can be little doubt that such viewpoints muted voices that would otherwise have been raised in protest.” (Giberson)

·       Evolution à Racism

How Darwin Impacts Christianity: “Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science….[Darwin’s] acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred.” (Giberson, 9-10)

Slippery Slop (Once you make Darwin and culture more authoritative than the Bible, the slide will continue): Giberson later: “OT God “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity,” “commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages…but who believes in this [OT] deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God.” http://biologos.org/blog/exposing-the-straw-men-of-new-atheism-part-five/

Can You have Both: Evolution and Scripture?

·           Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

·           Anti Science? 2 Corinthians 10:4–5  For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

·           Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

 

HOW THE EVOLUTIONARY WORLDVIEW IS DIRECTLY OPPOSED TO CHRISTIAN:

How does the TE (theistic evolutionist) reconcile these differences? Figurative/parabolic? Non-Overlapping Magisterium!

1. The Cross

2. NT interpretation of Genesis:

         Matthew 19:4-6 He [Jesus] answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female [Gen. 1:26-27], 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ [Gen. 2:24]! 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has [historically] joined together, let not man separate.”

         2 Peter 2:4-9 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly… 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.

The NT always comments on Genesis 1-11 as actual history:

·           Luke 17:26–27 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

·           Acts 17:26 “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.”

·           Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

·           Romans 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility.

·           1 Corinthians 15:21–22 NKJV For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (No verse that regards Genesis as non-historical)

 

SECULAR PSYCHOLOGY vs. SCRIPTURE

Psychiatrist G. Brock Chisholm, president of the World Federation for Mental Health:

“The re-interpretation and eventually (sic) eradication of the concept of right and wrong which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of intelligent and rational thinking for faith… are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy.  The fact is, that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respectable people have escaped from these moral chains and are able to observe and think freely.” https://www.cchr.org.uk/undermining-morals/

The fact is that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respected people have escaped from moral chains and are able to think freely.” (Chisholm; Psychiatry: Journal of Biology and Pathology of Interpersonal Relations 9, no. 1, February 1946)

Differences between Secular psychotherapy (SP) and Scripture

SP ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS: We are the pathological result of nature and nurture (genetics and environment).

Scripture: SIN: Isaiah 59:2 “but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” (Goal: Plug into God)

LOVE OF THE LIE: John 3:19–20 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

SP: client-centered – reduce symptoms, find fulfillment.

SCRIPTURE: God-centered, plugging us into the Source:  Romans 8:31–32 “…If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Mt 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

SP: have within ourselves the resources for meaningful change.

SCRIPTURE: We are helpless without our Savior: John 15:4–5 “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

SP: build self-trust and self-esteem through positive affirmations and self-forgiveness.

SCRIPTURE: No self-trust; God trust alone: Jeremiah 17:5–7 Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.”

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Psalm 62:5–8 “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” (2 Cor. 3:5)

SP seeks to exalt the client.

SCRIPTURE seeks to humble us: James 4:10 “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

SP is focused on symptomology.

SCRIPTURE is primarily focused on truth and thinking correctly: 2 Peter 1:2–3 “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

SP:  non-judgmental (UPR) and tolerant of just about all behaviors.

SCRIPTURE: Corrects: Titus 1:9-11 [The elder] must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

SP cannot affirm the totality of our experience – suffering.

SCRIPTURE affirms the need for suffering: 2 Corinthians 4:7–12 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” à Heaven

Professor of religion, Philip Jenkins: During the 1970’s and 1980’s, psychological values and assumptions permeated the religious world no less than the secular culture…But an intellectual chasm separates the assumptions of traditional churches from those of mainstream therapy and psychology. The medicalization of wrongdoing sharply circumscribes the areas in which clergy can appropriately exercise their professional jurisdiction, and this loss of acknowledged expertise to therapists and medical authorities at once symbolizes and accelerates a substantial decline in the professional status of priests and ministers. (“Opinion: The Uses of Clerical Scandal,” First Things, 1996, 60.)