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The Behavioral Sciences
Under The Authority Of Scripture
J. Robertson McQuilkin*
**From
The Journal of the Evangelical Society, March 1977.
As a
basis for interaction and further probing together of a very
important topic, I would like to suggest three questions along
with tentative answers:
I.
What does “under the authority of Scripture” mean for the
behavioral sciences?
II. To
what extent do the behavioral sciences among evangelicals give
evidence of being under the authority of Scripture?
III.
How can the functional authority of Scripture over behavioral
scientific theories be established and maintained?
Before
we consider these questions, it may be helpful to define certain
terms as I use them.
By
“under the authority” I mean that when the teaching of Scripture
conflicts with any other idea, the teaching of Scripture will be
accepted as truth and the other idea will not be accepted as
truth.
By
“functional control” I mean that the principle of Biblical
priority over contrary non-Biblical opinion is not merely a
doctrine to which one swears allegiance but is actually put into
practice thoroughly and consistently.
By
“derived from Scripture” I mean concepts that are determined to
be the meaning of the original author through common-sense
principles of understanding language (scientific, historico-grammatical
interpretation).
By
“the teaching of Scripture” I mean everything the Bible affirms
as true.
Man
created in the image of God is capable of gleaning a great deal
of truth from natural sources altogether apart from written
revelation. But because man is finite and sinful, his
understanding of truth revealed in nature, and in Scripture as
well, is always limited and distorted. Nevertheless, an
infallible written revelation of some of God’s truth makes
accessible to man a clear understanding of the basic truths
concerning God, man, and salvation. Such propositional truth is
somewhat subject to varying interpretations, but the possibility
of variation is often unduly stressed. If Scripture is viewed as
a book with some error, it no longer stands as an independent
authority, and the person who decides what is true and what is
in error becomes the real authority. For such people the
possibility of variation in understanding is enormous. But for
those who place Scripture above human judgment the range of
possible variation in understanding is greatly narrowed.
Of
course, it is quite possible to give assent to the idea of
Biblical infallibility and authority while “interpreting” the
Bible in such a way as to put some other authority above
Scripture. For example, when a theological system is
superimposed on Scripture in such a way as to disallow the plain
meaning of the text, that system of thought is in functional
control. Again, when the historian or biologist “interprets”
Biblical data in such a way as to violate the normal canons for
understanding the meaning of language, we say that he has
allowed his historical data or scientific theory to overrule
Scripture just as surely as though he let the categories stand
separately and chose “science” or “history” over Scripture. The
same must be said of psychological or cultural “interpretation.”
But in the case of the behavioral sciences the danger is even
greater, because the data are never “hard” and “value-free
judgment” is a myth.
Therefore when I use the term “the teaching of Scripture” I
refer to everything the Bible affirms as true in the meaning
understood in terms of the normal use of language.
With
these definitions and presuppositions in mind let us turn to the
questions proposed for our consideration.
I. What Does “Under
The Authority Of Scripture” Mean For The Behavioral Sciences?
My
thesis is that the functional control of Scripture over any
discipline will vary in direct proportion to the overlap of that
discipline with the substance of Biblical revelation. This
means that there should be a graded continuum of all subject
matter from that which would require a direct and pervasive
functional control to those disciplines that may have no
relationship to Scriptural truth at all, other than that the
practitioners ought to be people of integrity. The continuum
might be structured this way:
Highest level of functional control: Subject matter completely
overlaps with revelation, so that control will mean the ideas
should be derived from Scripture exclusively.
Second
level: Overlap with revelation is great though not complete, so
that subject matter should be derived from Scripture but
extended by empirical research and experimentation.
Third
level: Overlap with revelation is slight, so that subject matter
should be derived from natural sources but remain under the
judgment of Scripture for its interpretation and application.
Fourth
level: There is no direct overlap with revelation, so that
subject matter may be derived wholly from natural sources but
should be compatible with Scriptural truth.
Fifth
level: Subject matter may be unrelated to Scripture.
To
illustrate the thesis, I suggest that theology and Christian
philosophy are in the highest category, derived from Scripture
exclusively. The authority or functional control of Scripture is
direct and totally pervasive.
The
behavioral sciences—psychology, sociology and anthropology—in
their basic substance extensively overlap the basic substance of
Biblical revelation, the nature of man and his relationships.
The overlap is so fundamental that the functional control of
Scripture means that the basic ideas about the nature of man and
his interrelationships should be derived from Scripture. But
inasmuch as Scripture does not profess to be a textbook on
psychology, sociology or anthropology, the understanding of man
and his relationships may be extended by empirical research and
experimentation. In these disciplines, then, the functional
control of Scripture is direct but not totally pervasive.
At the
third level, subjects such as history and the arts are not
derived from revealed truth, but inasmuch as the basis for
selecting data, the interpretation of data and the application
clearly overlap the purposes of Scripture, these must be under
the judgment of Biblical revelation concerning God’s sovereignty
over history, revealed truth concerning human existence, and so
forth.
The
physical sciences might be examples of disciplines in which
truth is derived wholly from natural sources but compatible with
Scriptural truth at any point at which the subject matter
intersects. Typing or other skills subjects could be in a fifth
category, unrelated to Scriptural truth except in the person of
the practitioner.
These
illustrations are not intended to be precise. Not all behavioral
sciences are equally overlapping with Scripture, and the bounds
of each are not easily defined. Assignment to any category is
not to be taken as rigid. My purpose is simply to make specific
the implications of the thesis that the functional control of
Scripture over any discipline should vary in direct proportion
to the overlap of that discipline with the substance of Biblical
revelation.
If
“control” means that an idea from one source must yield its
validity to a contrary idea from another source, it is clear
that such control will only be necessary or, for that matter,
will only be possible when the ideas are on the same subject. By
definition, then, control is more pervasive the more subject
matter the two sources have in common.
It is
also evident that not all the subjects considered by men are of
.equal concern to Scriptural revelation. A gradation of applied
control is, in the nature of things, inevitable. Since the
behavioral sciences deal with human behavior and Scripture is
given to change human behavior (2
Tim 3: 15–17), the potential area of conflict is much
greater than in the case of medicine or agriculture, for
example, areas to which revelation is not primarily devoted.
Since science derives ideas from rational observation,
experimentation and theorizing and excludes the supernatural
from data considered, it would not be surprising to find that
conflict with revealed truth would be more in evidence since the
higher one goes in the continuum, the more overlap there is.
Thus the necessity of the Scriptures’ functioning as the
controlling or final authority in the arena of human thought
varies in direct proportion to the overlap of any discipline
with the substance of Biblical revelation.
Therefore greater effort and greater care is necessary if
Scripture is to control the presuppositions, methods and
conclusions in the fields of psychology, anthropology or
sociology. And since man is finite and sinful, Scripture teaches
it is inevitable that his thinking will be wrong to some extent.
Thinking that deliberately excludes the divine dimension from
the outset will inevitably be at least partially wrong in its
understanding of man’s nature and his relationships.
It is
interesting to note that behavioral scientists themselves
perceive this acute conflict.
During
the 1968–69 academic year, a survey of more than 60,000 college
and university professors in the United States was conducted
under the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education by
sociologists from Harvard and Berkeley and a political science
professor from the University of Connecticut.
These
60,000 teachers were raised in religious homes. Only 3.9 percent
said they were raised in no religion at all. Although there is a
variation from 0.9 percent raised in non-religious homes
(professors of religion) to 8.7 percent (professors of
anthropology), the variation is not significant inasmuch as the
vast majority had a religious upbringing. Other studies indicate
that this is typical of American society. In other words,
college teachers come from typical American homes. But how many
hold to a religious faith today? More than 90 percent of
teachers in the following fields are adherents of some faith:
religion, physical education, home economics, nursing and
agriculture. Eighty percent or more in the following additional
fields are religious adherents: medicine, education, business,
engineering and library science. In these fields there is a
higher degree of religious faith than is average for college
teachers as a whole (75 percent). Typical of those fields which
have a lower-than-average number of religious people are:
English, history, biology and physics. The humanities, then, and
certain sciences would be less religious, though some
(chemistry, geography) are about average. But the most
irreligious, apart from teachers of philosophy (40.8 percent
with no religious affiliation), are all in the behavioral
science group, climaxing with the anthropologists, 56 percent of
whom have no religious affiliation. For whatever reason, there
is a distinct graded continuum of willingness to accept
religious input if not religious authority. This seems related
generally to the degree of overlap with the teaching of
Scripture. Of course, these statistical data do not indicate any
of the reasons for the variation.1
A more
recent study by Fred Thalheimer of the California State
University, San Francisco, does give evidence of direct
correlation even if a causal relationship cannot be proved. He
summarized the results of his very thorough study financed by
several universities, the Social Science Research Council and
the National Institute of Mental Health: There are also distinct
differences between academic fields, as well as within broad
fields, in how directly and how closely their areas of knowledge
and the questions to which they seek or claim to have answers
overlap with those that have been the traditional concerns of
religious systems … In this connection, it seems plausible to
hypothesize the greatest prevalence of concern about the
relationships between religious convictions and academic
pursuits among academicians in fields whose scope of inquiry
overlaps most directly with those questions for which religious
doctrines have historically provided answers,
specifically—the humanities and the social sciences. The same
should hold for the perceived conflict between religious
convictions and academic pursuits and for attempts to keep these
two spheres separate from each other.2
In
point of fact, this is exactly what these investigations
demonstrate. Thalheimer’s research indicates that up to early
adolescence the religious socialization, as well as the
religious beliefs and practices of future academicians, probably
is fairly similar to that found among other persons of
comparable age and socio-economic background.
A rank
ordering—necessarily rough—of the six separate major fields on
the five measures of religiosity reveals the following general
pattern: the fine and applied arts are highest in religiosity,
followed by the medical sciences and the professional schools
with sometimes only minor differences between the latter two.
The natural sciences and the humanities shift back and forth
between rank four and five. Here again variations are sometimes
quite small. The social sciences are consistently in last place,
that is, lowest in religiosity.3
The
vast majority of respondents were thoroughly traditional in
their early beliefs and practices and … there were only minor
differences between the early beliefs and practices of
individuals who later on became active in the various major
academic fields.4
By
“religiosity” Thalheimer means affiliation, church attendance
and private prayer. He couples this with beliefs about the Bible
and beliefs about God. Church affiliation, for example, ranges
from 72 percent among professors in medicine to 35 percent in
the social sciences. However, weekly church attendance ranges
from 28 percent among the medical professors to 6 percent in
social scientists. Seventy percent of social scientists attend
church less than once a year or never, and a similar percent
never pray. This same continuum is manifest in the area of
beliefs, from the professional schools where belief in the Bible
as the revealed Word of God claims 32 percent, in the humanities
21 percent and in the social sciences 7 percent. Again, 54
percent of the medical teachers believe God is the Creator,
while only 19 percent in the social sciences still believe this
fundamental Biblical teaching.
How
does religious orientation affect one’s professional work?
Thalheimer gives some answers:
The
natural sciences and the social sciences include a higher
proportion of individuals who view their religious convictions
and their work as unrelated to each other, than do any of the
other academic fields. It would appear, in general, that if
dissonance or conflict were at one time pervasive some
resolution has by now been achieved. But the resolution takes
different forms, compartmentalization in the case of
non-believers and redefinition in the case of believers.5
Curious that those working in fields in which the subject matter
is most related to Scripture should be the very ones who
perceive their work to be least related! Note that for
the small minority of social scientists who still maintain any
religious faith at all, the conflict is resolved by
“redefinition”—that is, by reinterpreting Scripture in the light
of their science. The irreligious resolve conflict, of course,
by treating revelation as if it did not exist as a legitimate
part of the data (“compartmentalization”).
The
evidence seems to be that conflict resulting from and resulting
in the loss of the authority of Scripture is increasingly
evident as the substance of the discipline increases in its
overlap with Biblical teaching. Therefore if the revealed truth
of Scripture is indeed the ultimate authority for our thinking,
to be functionally in control of the behavioral sciences, ideas
about man and his proper relationships must be derived from
Scripture and extended by empirical research and experimentation
only when methods and conclusions are compatible with Scripture.
Otherwise, for non-believer and believer the pressure will be
for naturalistically derived data to control one’s understanding
of Scripture—either to disallow it altogether or to reinterpret
it.
What
does “under the authority of Scripture” mean for the behavioral
scientist? It means that all the basic data about the nature of
man, the way he should relate to other men, to his Creator and
to the creation must be derived from Scripture. Areas to which
Scripture does not speak may legitimately be investigated and
tentative theories postulated and put to use. However, methods
and conclusions must both bow to revealed truth whenever there
is conflict. But if the hermeneutics of Scripture, the basis of
interpreting Scripture, is from the perspective of cultural
anthropology or naturalistic psychology, for example, Scripture
is no longer the final authority. Cultural relativism,
environmental determinism and other anti-Biblical concepts seep
in and gradually take control.
This
paper is not the place to exhaustively examine the correct
hermeneutic for dealing with cultural elements of Scripture, but
in order to give some substance to an elusive concept let me
suggest an approach. Authority of revelation stands above
culture—ancient or current—just as it stands above other
historical sources and scientific theory. Therefore the plain
teaching of Scripture cannot be altered by information
concerning ancient culture or because of incompatibility with
current culture. When a Scriptural passage is not clear because
of inadequate background information or because of apparent
incompatibility with other passages, information from
extra-Biblical sources may be used to clarify the meaning. If
the behavior enjoined is a cultural application of a moral or
spiritual law, the Church should reapply the law to current
culture. But one must clearly establish from Scripture that the
commanded behavior is a cultural application and not
intrinsically the revealed will of God. If the clear teaching of
Scripture is not modified by Scripture itself, it may not be
reinterpreted by current cultural or psychological
understanding. If it is, Scripture has bowed to human authority.
II. To What Extent Do
The Behavioral Sciences Among Evangelicals Give Evidence Of
Being Under
The Authority Of Scripture?
Of
course, many evangelicals are working at integration with the
intention of maintaining the authority of Scripture.
Furthermore, a great deal of new understanding of the Bible, men
and societies has come through the behavioral sciences.
Evangelicals rightly put these disciplines to the service of
God’s kingdom.
Furthermore, the range of success in integrating truth derived
empirically and truth revealed in Scripture (and, indeed, the
interest in making such an integration) varies so widely in
evangelical circles that no precise answer to my question is
possible. Nevertheless it is very important to raise the
question because the potential for good or evil is so great. A
resounding affirmative should be possible: “The great majority
of evangelical scholars in the behavioral sciences give
consistent evidence of thorough integration with Scripture in
control.” If such an affirmation cannot be made with confidence,
we are in great danger because of the pervasive power of
humanistic thinking in our society and because of the subtlety
with which Scripture’s authority is eroded.
My
thesis is that in the next two decades the greatest threat to
Biblical authority is the behavioral scientist who would in all
good conscience man the barricades to defend the front door
against any theologian who would attack the inspiration and
authority of Scripture while all the while himself smuggling the
content of Scripture out the back door through cultural or
psychological interpretation. Let me give a few examples.
In a
recent meeting of the Christian Association of Psychological
Studies (a group of professedly Bible-believing Christians,
mostly of Dutch Reformed background), views were expressed that
put the presuppositions of a naturalistic psychology in a
position of authority over the clear teaching of Scripture.
Christianity Today reports: Dr. J. Harold Ellens, an
articulate clinician and pastor of a Christian Reformed
congregation in Farmington, Michigan, averred that Scripture
must be taken as conditioned by its historical and cultural
context. Ellens expressed his doubts about the uncritical
acceptance of a literal and unseen demonic realm, suggesting
that the psychological scientists must bind themselves to
empirical investigation and findings rather than to the
assumptions concerning demons that were current in Bible times.6
This
not only strikes a heavy blow at the authority of Scripture but
also calls in question the intelligence or integrity of Jesus
himself.
In a
similar vein at the same meeting, a panel ran directly in the
face of strong, repeated teaching in both OT and NT concerning
homosexual behavior:
In
addressing themselves to the biblical-exegetical question of the
sinfulness of homosexual behavior, the majority of panelists
rejected the standard evangelical view that all homosexual
behavior is sinful. They offered an alternative exegesis of the
biblical passages relating to the subject: that God condemns
promiscuity, fornication, adultery, and sexual permissiveness,
whether heterosexual or homosexual, but that Scripture does not
condemn homosexual behavior between committed Christians in a
covenant relationship of love and loyalty.
Dr.
Phyllis Peters Hart, a clinical psychologist from Chicago,
declared that she had long held to the standard exegesis on the
subject but that the realities of her clinical practice led her
to take a second look at the exegetical question. The upshot was
that a strong case was made for thinking through again the
meaning of the scriptural texts without compromise and without
the imposition of exegetical or emotional preconceptions.
The
symposium included a candid testimony by a minister of the
Metropolitan Community Church, a gay-church movement. He said he
was both homosexual and a follower of Christ.7
A more
subtle encroachment of naturalism into Christian conduct can be
seen in the whole new genre of literature on how to live a
successful Christian life. A generation ago such books talked of
the deeper life or the higher life, the victorious life, or the
Spirit-filled life. Now the market is dominated by psychological
or pseudo-psychological treatises on the subject of successful
Christian living. I believe that many culturally-induced
misunderstandings of Bible teaching concerning Christian living
have been challenged and exposed by insights from the field of
psychology. These certainly should be corrected through a fresh
look at Scripture. However, a great deal of teaching is simply
reprocessed naturalistic theory. For example, the problems of
guilt feelings and self-rejection certainly need the word of
release. All too often the new approach, however, stresses
non-Biblical reasons for self-acceptance and a sense of worth
and neglects to emphasize the Biblical reasons. This is not only
untrue to the authority of Scripture, but it can be devastating
in its results since the assuaging of guilt feelings cannot be
permanently successful without dealing with the problem of real
guilt. To assign responsibility to parents or society or to
redefine sin or reduce the Biblical evaluation of its hideous
nature will not set a man free truly and permanently. To be
assured that one is important or worthwhile on any other basis
than that he is important to God who created him on purpose and
redeemed him at awful cost will ultimately lead to frustration
and possibly despair. For one will learn from others not so
benevolent as his Christian counselor that he is not all that
important in their estimation.
Another example is the borrowing of psychological theory
concerning catharsis. To “be honest” and to spell out one’s
negative feelings, “telling it like it is,” may have a
pragmatically good effect for a time, but it is not always
Biblical and does not provide a permanent solution. God wants us
to be very honest with ourselves and with him. But the next
Biblical step is not to tell mother that you hate her or to spit
in your neighbor’s eye, but to believe God for a transformation
of those feelings. Honesty in the Biblical context is not
limited to self-expression of all one’s feelings, but includes
honesty with one’s intelligent understanding, one’s commitment,
one’s relationships—the whole man. The integrity of the whole
man may—and often should—speak and act contrary to one’s
feelings.
But those
who study human nature speak differently (from the traditional
interpretation of Christ’s condemnation of anger against a
brother in Mt. 5:22).
Anger is a basic emotion … an automatic response to frustration.
The sin is not in the anger itself but in letting anger build up
and cause us to hate or despise another person … Anger repressed
is as dangerous as anger that is uncontrolled in its expression.8
The
failure to deal with the Biblical teaching of self-control and a
Biblical distinction between legitimate and illegitimate anger
is not so serious as the way the interpretation of Scripture is
based wholly on psychological theory.
These
examples could be multiplied. It seems to me that much of
current evangelical Christian counseling evidences a strong
admixture, and often a controlling overdose, of a non-Biblical
understanding of man.
A
similar problem is much in evidence in the current evangelical
approach to man in his relationships (anthropology and
sociology).
For
example, Charles Kraft, missions anthropologist at the School of
World Mission of Fuller Theological Seminary, in 1974 spoke to a
group of mission leaders gathered in Marseille for a
consultation concerning reaching Muslims. Said Kraft: What is
necessary to faith, apparently, is some feeling of need or
inadequacy that stimulates a person to turn in faith to God.
(Likewise) meaninglessness in American culture too is a
manifestation of the sin problem, the alienation problem. How do
we get people who experience meaninglessness to feel guilty so
they can repent and be saved? Well, what I’m saying is, we don’t
have to. God can save directly …9
Similarly, he doesn’t have to be convinced of the death of
Christ. He simply has to pledge allegiance and faith to the God
who worked out the details to make it possible for his faith
response to take the place of a righteousness requirement. He
may not, in fact, be able to believe in the death of Christ,
especially if he knowingly places his faith in God through
Christ, for within his frame of reference, if Christ died, God
was defeated by men, and this, of course, is unthinkable … Thus,
if he is required to accept a historical and doctrinal truth as
a precondition to salvation, he may reject that salvation for a
reason which should be very intelligible, even to us outsiders …
He doesn’t have to know the details, for knowledge does not
save. He simply has to pledge in faith as much of himself as he
can to as much of God as he understands, even the Muslim
“Allah”… The concept of the Trinity can also in most cases be
avoided … It is interesting and discouraging to look back at the
development of the Trinity, and to find out that this is a
development that comes out of the application of Greek ways of
thinking to the Scriptures … The deity of Christ is a more
difficult concept to handle. Since this doctrine is intimately
related, in the informed Muslim’s mind, to the doctrine of the
Trinity on the one hand and the relative position of Christ and
Mohammed on the other, we again cannot answer, “Yes” if he asks
us if we believe in the doctrine. But we assuredly cannot answer
“No” either … The principle here is that a fraction of the truth
well communicated is preferable to the antagonism engendered
when a whole truth is totally rejected … But we can, I believe,
without denying Christ as we know Him, start with his Arabic
concept of the Judeo-Christian God as the proper object of
saving faith.10
Kraft
goes on to quote several scholars, who are considered
evangelical, to the effect that people can be saved without a
knowledge of Christ. Although Kraft’s emphasis is on the initial
approach to the Muslim and as such might be justified, he
clearly indicates that a Muslim can be saved without a
conviction of sin and without accepting the death of Christ as
historically true. It would almost seem that for a Muslim to be
saved all he would need was a consciousness of inadequacy and a
sincere calling upon Allah to save him.
Although this is not the position commonly held by evangdlical
cultural anthropologists, it does illustrate graphically what
happens when Scripture is not dynamically, functionally,
pervasively in control.
Examples from anthropologists could be multiplied. “The Holy
Spirit does not give gifts like magic. Methods of persuasion are
the same for the Communist, Jehovah’s Witness, or Christian.”
Separately, a case might be made for the validity of each of
these sentences, but together we have another example of the
undermining of the supernatural. Given in the context of serious
wrestling with cultural problems and rejoicing in the insights
of anthropology, the evangelical can be so mesmerized that he
fails to see the total divergence of such thinking from the
teaching of Acts and the epistles about the supernatural
enabling of the Holy Spirit. When you leave God out you may get
a residue of truth, but the residue is poison.
One of
the most pervasive ideas from the sociologists was articulated
earlier by Rousseau who held that man is basically good (which
all evangelicals deny) and that restrictions make him bad (which
increasing numbers of evangelicals affirm). Many evangelicals
are simply not wrestling with the Biblical data on the subject
of authority. We assume, because of saturation distribution of
the theories of certain psychologists, that externally imposed
authority is, indeed, not good. We have been sold the idea that
maturity comes in proportion to the degree of freedom of
self-determination. There is an element of Biblical truth in the
idea. Man is responsible for the choices he makes. A just and
benevolent society is God’s will. But whatever happened to
Biblical teaching on authority? Scripture is full of teaching
concerning God’s authority mediated through human beings in the
structures established by him. God is strongly on the side of
human authority, even sinful and stupid human authority. This
authority of husband, parents, rulers, elders is not merely to
give benign counsel or to listen sympathetically, but authority
to legislate and control.
But we
have been so influenced by the theories of naturalistic,
relativistic, humanistic educational theorists that even
educational institutions that continue to impose external
authority on the lives of students do so almost apologetically.
Certainly they tend to do so defensively, because the authority
has shifted from what Scripture says on the subject to what the
sociologist has said.
I have
chosen examples for their clear visibility. In the scope of this
paper it would not be possible to examine the Biblical basis for
the issues raised, so I have tried to choose issues about which
the Biblical data would be known to Bible scholars and not
subject to easy contradiction. However, the more subtle issues
may actually prove as dangerous. At any rate, my purpose is
simply to validate the thesis that we are in great danger of the
wide-scale subversion of Biblical authority by those who are
committed to that authority on the conscious and theoretical
level, but who through uncritical use of behavioral scientific
methodology have unwittingly come under its control.
(In
any given instance it may be argued that the misinterpretation
of Scripture is due to one’s theology or to some other cause
rather than to psychological, sociological or anthropological
theories. This may be so, but the idea that prevails in
each case is advocated by practitioners of a behavioral science,
not by theologians or automobile mechanics in general. It is the
idea that is not under the authority of Scripture, not
necessarily the person. And since many such ideas are coming in
from behavioral scientific sources, it is quite legitimate to
attend to the apparent source with great care.)
What
hope is there for solving this problem?
III.
How Can The Functional Authority Of Scripture Over Behavioral
Scientific Theories Be Established And Maintained?
My
thesis is that the functional control of Scripture over any
discipline must be achieved through the integration of Biblical
and extra-Biblical ideas in one person’s mind.
A
committee of scientists and theologians can never do this
integration. To house the anthropology department next door to
the Bible department will not do it either. Functional authority
of one idea over another can take place only in one mind. To put
a school of psychology next to a school of theology does not
mean the Bible will actually control the work of the
psychologists. The theologians may theorize with amateurish
ideas about psychology and the psychologists select theological
input on the basis of their own expertise in psychology. Even
though working closely with Bible scholars—indeed perhaps
because working together—the behavioral scientists may tend
to use Scripture texts to tack a Bible-colored veneer over stuff
built wholly from the categories of naturalistic empiricism.
Continuing interaction between theologians and behavioral
scientists is very desirable and will result in good things for
God’s people. But my contention is that true integration, as
distinct from helpful interaction, must be accomplished by
individuals with dual competence.
How
can this integration take place in a person’s mind with
revelation coming out on top rather than being subordinated?
First
of all, there must be commitment to the proposition that
Scripture must be in functional control. This attitude is
not just mental assent to the thesis, which would make for
theoretical or constitutional control, but acute awareness of
the danger involved and a jealous commitment to the Bible first
and last as the originating and controlling source of ideas
about man and his relationships. However, this mind-set or
approach by itself will not assure the functional control of
Scripture.
There
must also be effort commensurate with the weight of controlling
authority. In a discipline in which there is great overlap in
the basic substance under study it will not do for the
behavioral scientist to be a giant in his empirical research and
theorization and a pigmy in his knowledge of Scripture. Because
he is dealing with basic theological ideas when he delves into
the nature of man and tinkers with the implications of these
ideas, he certainly must give as much time and energy to knowing
thoroughly what God says on the subject as he does to what man
says on the subject. It would be mechanical and naive to hold
that the Ph.D. in sociology must have a Th. D. in Biblical
studies in order to qualify for this work of integration. On the
other hand, it would be equally naive to suppose that one with
graduate credentials in a behavioral science coupled with an
undergraduate minor in Bible could make any sort of integration
in which Scriptural truth sits at the controls.
Again,
the application of time, energy and thought does not apply
merely to one’s formal training. After initial training in both
Bible/theology and the behavioral sciences, it is highly
unlikely that the behavioral scientist will find the Bible
actually controlling his thinking if he spends his entire
professional life studying the latest research based on
naturalistic presuppositions, supplemented by a personal early
morning encounter with Scripture for twenty minutes. There is no
way that Scripture can be in functional control under these
circumstances. It may not be practical in many educational
institutions, but for those who are thoroughly committed to the
authority of Scripture it might be a saving innovation to
require each behavioral scientist on the faculty of a seminary,
Bible college, or Christian liberal arts college to teach at
least one Bible book study or course in Christian doctrine each
year. If he does not have the knowledge and credentials to do
so, I am calling into question his credentials to make the
integration of Scriptural truth and empirically derived truth
with the Bible in functional control.
Who
can become expert in two disciplines simultaneously? Will such a
scientist not so dissipate his energies as to become
sub-professional in his scientific field? Certainly the demands
of such a dual disciplinary expertise are formidable. Few will
have the mental capacity for this sort of integrating work. But
full competence in two disciplines is not uncommon in the
scientific world and, in fact, it is the brilliant master of two
disciplines who often makes the creative breakthrough. I firmly
believe we will be further along in our search for ultimate
truth in these areas if we produce a few who are adequately
gifted for this demanding task and refuse to be led astray by
multitudes of earnest Christian psychologists, sociologists and
anthropologists with varying degrees of competence in
naturalistically-based ideas but superficial in the
understanding of God’s revealed truth.
May
God give us a giant or two in each of the behavioral sciences
who is simultaneously a giant in Scripture. In the meantime, may
the Lord give us theologians who take the time to read and
understand what the behavioral scientists are saying and to
respond with Biblical insight. And may he also give us
behavioral scientists humble enough to take seriously the
criticism of those who seek to speak from a Biblical
perspective.
*J.
Robertson McQuilkin is president of Columbia Bible College,
Columbia, South Carolina.
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