God and Soul Care

The Therapeutic Resources of the Christian Faith

Eric L. Johnson

• Editore: IVP Academic
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780830891610
• Argomento: Théologie et religion
• Categoria: Ministère chrétien

Christianity, at its heart, is a therapeutic faith—a theocentric form of soul care. God's therapeutic agenda begins in the perfect triune communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who created human beings to flourish by participating in his glory. But they are now alienated from God and subject to different forms of psychopathology—sin, suffering, and biopsychosocial damage. So God intervened in Jesus Christ to manifest even greater glory. Through union with his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and exaltation, Jesus has overcome the soul-disordering consequences of sin and now is bringing about a new creation by the Holy Spirit and faith. The church as the body of Christ is where God's therapy is put into action—where people can learn to flourish in communion with God and each other as God originally intended. Told in this way, the deep connection between Christianity and psychology becomes evident. InGod and Soul Care—a companion to hisFoundations for Soul Care—Eric L. Johnson explores the riches of Christian theology from the heights of the Trinity to the mysteries of eschatology, uncovering ample resources for engaging in dialogue with modern psychology. Each chapter not only serves as an overview of a key doctrine but also highlights its therapeutic implications for Christian counseling and psychology. A groundbreaking achievement in the synthesis of theology and psychology, God and Soul Careis an indispensable resource for students, scholars, pastors, and clinicians.

PART I

The Doxological/
Therapeutic Agenda of the Trinity

ACCORDING TO MOST CHRISTIAN THINKERS, biblical teaching and human reasoning lead to the conclusion that God created the universe ultimately to manifest his glory (doxa), that is, the beauty of his perfections (Aquinas, 1947; Balthasar, 1982–1991; Barth, 1957a; Calvin, 1559/1960; Edwards, 1989; Piper, 1991; 1996). God must be his own highest motive and end, or else that would be God. Having been created in God’s image (Gen 1:28-29), for his glory (Is 43:7; 1 Cor 10:31), and for a relationship of reverence and love with him (Eph 3:16-19), human beings flourish best the more his glory becomes genuinely their highest motive and end. God also constituted human life so that humans have created needs and desires—including a need for a relationship of reverence and love with him—the fulfillment of which are legitimate, secondary goods (Gen 1:26-31; 2:18; Ps 104; 1 Tim 4:3-5). However, Christianity also teaches that humans are fundamentally alienated from God, so that their reason for being has been thwarted and the matrix of their needs, desires, and loves has become fundamentally disordered. Consequently, their greatest need is to be restored to the way of life for which they were created—but that restoration is beyond their own abilities.

God’s glory was further manifested through the revelation that God is a triune communion of persons, who have a unified set of missions to rescue humanity and restore it to the life for which humans were designed, culminating in the Son of God becoming a human being, suffering and dying for sin, rising from the dead, and ascending to heaven, so the Holy Spirit would come to bring about that restoration. As a result, God’s glory is now being manifested through the healing, strengthening, and well-being of human beings in Christ’s name, in which it is their glory to participate. Scripture is structured around this metanarrative and contains the story of the interrelationship between the manifestation of God’s glory and human participation in it.

The dominant forms of psychotherapy and counseling today operate within a naturalistic worldview and naturalistic evolutionary metanarrative, where there is no God, and human well-being is pursued without his help. While Christian psychotherapy and counseling can be enriched by the knowledge modern psychology has discovered by God’s creation grace, the doxological agenda of the triune God involves a radically different therapeutic orientation.

1

The Orbit of the Human Soul

Axiom 1: The triune God is the greatest Being there is, and he made humans in his image, so that reflecting and participating in his glory is their transcendent, final goal.

Corollary: The proper flourishing of humans is therefore an immanent, subordinate goal in God’s design.

Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in! Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.

PSALM 24:9-10

Enjoy GOD, cheer when you see him!

PSALM 68:4 THE MESSAGE

WHAT WOULD IT HAVE BEEN LIKE to gaze up at the sun in the ancient world? At that time, nothing could have seemed more obvious than the sun’s movement across the sky, from east to west, and nothing could have seemed more sure than the fixedness and immovability of the earth on which one stood. It is hard for us now to imagine how the earth and sun were perceived back when humans “knew” the sun and all the planets and stars revolved around the earth and that the earth was the center of the universe. How crazy it must have seemed at first, when certain astronomers began suggesting that it was the earth that was moving around the sun, rather than the reverse.

Even now, the sun does not look that big. From where we are, it is much larger than the stars, but compared to the earth, stretched out all around us, the sun seems relatively small. Yet we now know that the appearance of the sun and the earth is quite the reverse of the reality—over one million earths could fit inside the sun! For centuries we vastly underestimated the size of the sun and overestimated the size of the earth. One’s perspective is so important.

But let us probe this a little deeper. Why might God have created the celestial system we find ourselves in to have an appearance so different from reality? Why would God create it this way, knowing how we would perceive it for thousands of years, and knowing that we would only “catch on” in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries AD, after mathematics and astronomical observation had developed enough to discover the way things actually were? Of course, we can only speculate what God’s reasons might have been, but at least one plausible explanation might be the following. Perhaps this arrangement is itself meaningful—perhaps it is a sign. Maybe God set it up to serve as a profound analogy—at the “center” of creation and of human cultural development—of the radical tendency that we humans have to view ourselves as the ultimate center of the universe, rather than God.1

It seems so natural for us to assume, while hardly being aware of it, that we are supremely important. Our own interests so easily loom larger than anyone else’s (God, the rest of the creation, other humans). To break out of this basic way of life, more was needed than mathematics and careful empirical observation. God himself had to explain it to us directly in Christ and the Scriptures, and perhaps indirectly through his creation. From these sources we find out that he is the greatest being there is: transcendent and supremely majestic, perfectly loving and perfectly righteous, the unlimited, all-knowing, and all-powerful Creator and Redeemer, the unfathomable source of goodness, truth, beauty, and love. The corollary of this revelation is, of course, that we are not this being. We can look pretty important, compared to rocks, trees, and cows. But compared to the greatest being there is—and the source of all that is other than himself—we realize that we are actually profoundly insignificant, situated in one place and time, with extremely limited abilities and skills, and vulnerable to sickness, injury, and eventual death. Perspective is so important. So, perhaps God created the solar system the way he did as a sort of ironic metaphor, intending it to be an illustration of our eventual fallen perspective of ourselves and the rest of reality, which would only be brought to light to humanity in the unfolding of its cultural and scientific development in the 1400s and 1500s.2

In this chapter—and really in the whole book—we will explore the therapeutic significance of what lies at the center of one’s heart and life, one’s relational universe, and one’s worldview. For there is tremendous psychological fallout from one’s orientation with respect to this most important matter of all. Living from anything other than the true center of reality contributes to a great deal of the misery and strife we find in human society and the human heart, and moving toward that center leads toward a resolution of many of one’s greatest psychospiritual problems and ultimately to one’s enduring happiness. Christians believe that being drawn by grace into an orbit around God can bring about the best kind of human flourishing and that that is the best path to greater healing and strengthening and maturing of the human soul. This is the case, according to Christianity, because humans were made for just such an orbit. All our desires—both good and bad—signify, in one way or another, our fundamental need to be in a living, loving relationship with the greatest Good there is, in conscious dependence, worship, communion, and gratitude, and to desire him above all else. Consequently, human flourishing and the fulfillment of all human relationships and activities are found ultimately in their proper relation to God.

Human life itself offers a variety of subtle but compelling evidence of its fundamental, transcendental orientation. Religiousness is ubiquitous, religions have flourished for millennia, and religious people tend to be healthier and happier than less religious people (Masters & Hooker, 2013; Park & Slattery, 2013; Myers, 2000). Prayer and meditation can reduce stress and anxiety (Spilka & Ladd, 2013; Wachholtz & Austin, 2013). Most people believe that morality transcends cultural norms. Finding meaning in life is deeply satisfying (Baumeister & Vohs, 2002). Taking responsibility for ourselves, self-control, and virtue contributes to our well-being (Baumeister & Exline, 2000; Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Wong, 2014). Living beyond self-interest, with others in mind, is part of human nature (Batson, Ahmad, Lishner, & Tsang, 2002). Gratitude is correlated with well-being (Emmons & McCullough, 2004). A Christian account of reality makes the best sense of such findings, on the whole, but such an interpretation is based on the teachings of Scripture, which claims to reveal humanity’s ultimate motivational context according to its Creator.

How is it, then, that religion for many people in the West is a rather peripheral affair? Most of us seem far more concerned with our lives on earth than focused on God. Families, jobs, homes, and entertainment consume far more of most people’s attention and energy today than the quality of their relationship with God. Yet even here, hidden within the pursuit of these legitimate human goods, we can discern a quest for something far greater, underscored by the fact that our best earthly joys possess a fleeting temporality and core insufficiency that signifies there is something more. The satisfaction of our desires and their restlessness both signify a fulfillment to be found in an immeasurable happiness that knows no end.

At the same time, there is a dark side of human desire. In our search for greater happiness on earth, most of us become more or less frustrated when we don’t get what we want. We can become so disappointed with ourselves and ashamed of our limitations. When disappointed by others, some of us get angry, others get hurt; and when we are mistreated, most of us hold nebulous grudges and sometimes become vengeful. And what explains the outright abuse, violence, and domination of others that occur so commonly throughout the world? Trace these problems back to their source, and we find confirmation of an insight on which both Christ and Buddha agree: most (if not all) human suffering (one’s own and that of others around us) is caused by thwarted human desires that flow from a way of life organized around oneself—living as the center of one’s universe is both universal and universally criticized.

The self-defeating nature of self-centeredness is brought out most clearly in those with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Clinically self- absorbed, they expect to be recognized as superior, seek the admiration of others, lack the ability to empathize with others, and can be painfully envious and arrogant. Christianity’s teaching on universal fallenness, however, encourages us to not look down on such people but to see manifested the excesses of our own native tendencies, less restrained by self-awareness and social propriety. What if all humans possess a defective and inordinate self-regard, generally less overt than NPD—indeed, sometimes looking like its opposite—but nonetheless warped and liable to break out in times of duress, for example, with the loss of one’s love, job, or attainments? As long as most things go our way, so long as we feel our desires are being basically satisfied—the world revolving around us, if you will—this tendency remains hidden. According to Christianity, an excessive and unnatural motive of self- centrality can be divined in all of us. Where does it come from?

Most Westerners consider the Bible to be a great religious and ethical text. Yet one of its main themes is the exposure of this excessive self-concern, which is labeled there sin. Indeed, the Bible’s portrayal of humanity is overall so unflattering that much of it is difficult to read, if we are to be honest, without in some way distancing ourselves from it, whether through academic criticism of the Bible or criticizing those who rely on such criticism. But what if the Bible is right on both scores? That God is the true center of the universe, and we are all disposed to be our own center far more than we are aware.

After years of wandering, Augustine (trans. 1958) came to accept the biblical portrayal, and he concluded that fallen humanity is composed of but two basic communities. The first he called the city of humanity, since all humans are born into it. This city, he wrote, is motivated fundamentally by the love of self and the despising of God. The second he called the city of God, and one enters it only by being born of the Spirit (Jn 3:6). The members of the second city are being taught by the Spirit how to distrust themselves, in the right way, love God according to his worth, and find the fulfillment for which they were made. All human history, Augustine thought, can be read Christianly as a conflict between these two communities (and within everyone’s heart) regarding the true spiritual center of the universe.

If Augustine is correct, we would expect each city to be busy working out the implications of its ultimate motives. One place where that would happen is in each city’s soul-healing practices. Every religion and every system of counseling and psychotherapy has a set of assumptions regarding human nature and its flourishing, what’s wrong with it, and how best to care for it and cure its disorders (Roberts, 1987; 1988). Whether well articulated or more implicit, such beliefs constitute its “edification framework” (Johnson & Sandage, 1999). From a Christian standpoint, the most important part of such a framework is what is considered central.

THE CENTER OF MODERN THERAPY

When I was young, I used to look forward every year to the annual television broadcast of The Wizard of Oz. What a great story: the excitement of a quest, the development of character, the joys of friendship, an intense conflict between good and evil, and even a little terror (those monkeys!). So it was quite a shock to watch it as an adult, after becoming a Christian, and realize it is a modernist parable. After the Wicked Witch is finally destroyed, Dorothy and her friends head back to the “wizard,” who had told them earlier he would help them if they brought back...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Analytical Outline
• PART I: The Doxological/Therapeutic Agenda of the Trinity
• PART II: The Goodness of God and the Human Creation
• PART III: The Divine Diagnosis
• PART IV: The Divine Intervention
• PART V: The Divine Therapy
• PART VI: The Divine Cure
• Notes
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Also by Eric L. Johnson
• Praise for God & Soul Care
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright