Is Psychology A Belief System?

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Welcome to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call with Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael, thanks for tuning in. Coming up in this week’s program in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Book of Acts, and “What did Paul mean by bound in the spirit?” In Religion in the News, “Cops bully Bible distributors.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Will democracy ever work in Iraq ?” We hope you can stay with us. Our ministry, The Berean Call, offers a wide variety of teaching materials, including books, tracts, audio and video disks, and copies of our weekly broadcast on compact disk or DVD. You may also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which we offer free of charge. We’ll let you know how to order later in the program.

Now, this week’s Cover Article. Tom and Dave conclude our series of programs based on their book, Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers . This week we focus on the question, “Is psychology a belief system?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s T. A. McMahon.

Tom:

Thanks, Gary . You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. In this first segment of “Search the Scriptures Daily,” we’ve been addressing the subject of “Psychology and the Church,” based upon our video, Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers . The reasons we’ve spent so much time on this topic are many, but I would say the chief reason is nothing in our modern church times has so undermined the evangelical’s belief in the sufficiency of God’s Word than has psychological counseling. Psychotherapy is a man-made belief system that in antithetical to what the Bible teaches about the nature of man and how he can change. And, as we’ve demonstrated and documented over the many weeks, psychological counseling is not scientific. Dave, you can jump in on any one of these things that we’ve covered in the past. But, I think maybe a little explanation for some who just joined us, maybe on this program or have not followed the whole series. Anyway, psychological counseling is not scientific, but merely the speculations and opinions of men. Now, we’ve established that.

Dave:

Well yes, it’s worse than the speculations of opinions of men. They try to make it scientific, but actually Thomas Szasz said, it’s a religion, but not only a religion, a false religion that tries to destroy true religion. And as we’ve mentioned on the program, there was a lengthy study, I think it lasted about 3 years involving 80 scholars, and it was sponsored by the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation to determine whether psychology is or even could be a science. And they determined it is not a science and it cannot be a science. We’ve explained why; you can’t make a science out of human behavior. If you could, then we are predictable creatures, and you can predict what we’re going to do next. Science has to be predictable, it has to be able to repeat the experiments, and you cannot do that with a human being who is hopping about capriciously with a free will, and you don’t know what he’s going to do next. So, in trying to make a science out of human behavior they have really destroyed man as God created him in His image.

Tom:

And Dave, we’ve stated from the research that no therapy of the more than 500 psychotherapeutic approaches is more effective than any of the others, so what does that say? Does that say they are all effective? No, because they are contradictory to one another. So, how does that work?

Dave:

And they are not effective and, I mean, there are so many statistics on that showing that, in fact they can be harmful, but it’s important to understand—Tom, I don’t want to spend too much time going back because I know you’ve got a place where you want to go—but let’s remind ourselves. Number one, if Christian psychology has anything at all of any value to offer the church today, then the church was without it for 1900 years. Now that’s rather startling! So apparently they got along quite well without it. Number two: I was reading a statement by a Christian psychiatrist in Newsweek, and he admitted, he said, We use the same techniques, the same methods as non-Christian psychiatrists or psychologists except we do it in the context of the Christians. Well, there is no Christian context for psychology because the church was formed 1800 years before psychology was even invented. Okay. It doesn’t come from the Bible, no one ever got it out of the Bible. And we’ve quoted, we’re kind of reviewing now, Bruce Narramore, nephew of Clyde Narramore, and he said it was humanistic psychologists Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers who first made us aware of the need of self love and self esteem. So then they went back to the Bible to see if they could—wow, this is what the Bible has always been saying! Well, maybe we can massage some verses around and make it look like, although nobody knew that, Jesus didn’t know that, Paul didn’t know it, and neither did Wesley, or Whitfield, or Spurgeon, or Moody, anybody else. What do you know, some atheistic secular psychologist, anti Christians to a man, they discovered something that’s really biblical, but we didn’t know it! So, nobody in studying the Bible on their knees in 1900 years ever got that out of there. Furthermore, as we’ve already mentioned it probably a few times, every psychologist or psychiatrist, Christian or non Christian, takes the same courses, they pass the same exams, they get licensed by the same state boards on the same qualifications. Oh, but if I went to a Christian college, then I’d get Christian psychology. Sorry, no you don’t! What you get is the same thing they study everywhere else, furthermore you have to be accredited. Even Fuller Theological Seminary, for example, some time ago, big headlines in their newsletter: “Accredited, an APA on site team has been in here, and they have given us another—I think, three or five years accreditation, and they even said that our Christian orientation did not hinder what we are teaching.” So, we’ve got Satan’s imprimatur, and that’s basically what Christian psychology is. You’re trying to integrate atheistic, humanistic psychology with the Bible as though the Bible needed some help. So, as Tom was saying, the foundation of Christian psychology is, the Bible is insufficient.

Tom:

Dave, just to add to your point, you know, it’s about money. You need accreditation because the number two most popular career choice among university students is psychology. So, if a Christian university or college doesn’t have psychology they are just losing all those students. It’s a bad, bad situation. We have shown, in our past programs, folks, if you have just joined us, we are just sort of reviewing the series that we have been presenting on psychology and the church, and I am just going over some points that we made in prior programs. We’ve shown that the psychotherapies range from the marginally effective to therapies that create more problems than they originally attempted to solve to therapies that are harmful; even dangerous. Dave, the reason that we could say that they are marginally effective, you know, we mentioned just a minute ago that there are more than 500 different approaches, many of them in contradiction to one another, some of these ideas and approaches, and yet they are marginally effective. But to quote one of the psychiatrists or psychologists that we mentioned, psychotherapy works best for those who need it the least. So, what then is effective if these are in contradiction to one another? Well, they are very common sense kind of things, the rapport that a counselor has with a counselee, some common sense that comes in every once in a while, but basically this is dangerous. Well, some of the therapies are dangerous.

Dave:

Well, Tom, you mentioned the profit motive, you remember what Freud said: The clients are good for only one thing, that is to make some money off of them. I was talking with the wife of a psychiatrist, not a Christian, and she was a Christian, and she said: You ought to go to some of the parties where the psychiatrists get together. And that’s what they themselves say, this is a profession, we’re making money off of this. Now that’s not quite the loving, caring relationship that you want to have. The Bible says that we are to care for one another in the church. But the church is referring people out to these psychiatrists and psychologists. It’s not a good deal.

Tom:

Dave, that’s where it becomes not just dangerous, and we could quote studies that show how harmful this has been to people in their lives, but for a Christian, this is spiritually dangerous, this is pulling the rug out from under any basis that they may have with regard to their belief in the Bible, to trusting in the Lord, etc.

Dave:

Tom, let me make it as plain as I can. This is a slap in the face to Jesus Christ. He said, Because I live you will live also. Paul says, When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, he said, I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me. Christ promised to bear our burdens. Come unto me all ye that labor, heavy laden, I’ll give you rest. The Bible has all the promises of any problem you could have. Come to Jesus, He’s called the Counselor, Isaiah:9:6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.. And then, Tom, I really get angry, for people who say, “Christ is living in me. He is my life. Well, yeah, but I can’t make it work, you know, I’ve tried the Bible, etc., I’ve got to get some help somewhere.” Well, you’ve just turned your back on Jesus Christ. You’ve just denied that He is your life. I would venture to say, and no one can contradict me, Jesus Christ does not need psychotherapy. Now, if He is living in you and He is your life, why don’t you rely on Him? Why don’t you trust Him? Because you are turning your back on Him as soon as you go to some other source. That’s to say nothing about the drugs.

Tom:

Dave, we’ve seen that over and over again, pastors giving up their birthright, instead of preaching, teaching, discipling, and all of that, when it comes to any problems they are going to refer people out to secular psychologists, psychiatrists, or so called Christian psychologists. Now, the sad thing about that is we’ve given the studies that tell us that professional training is not a prerequisite for effective counseling. Non professionals are at least as helpful and often much more so.

Dave:

Tom, we’ve even cited some tests where they, I don’t know who’s listening out there, maybe it just sounds like nonsense, we just stepped off of Mars or something—

Tom:

Dave, we’re backed by all the research, it’s the practitioners that are not looking at the research.

Dave:

Exactly, and it is not just research by critics, not by researched by critics at all, it’s researched by the practitioners of this and those who propose and support this. But Tom, we’ve also referred to, there have been a number of tests, but checking the efficiency of psychiatrists, Western psychiatrists against witchdoctors, shamans.

Tom:

Medicine men.

Dave:

Medicine men, yes, and it came out a dead heat, one was as effective as the other, but the difference was that the witch doctors charged less and released their patients sooner. Now Tom, let me cite Michael Harner. Michael Harner wrote, The Way of the Shaman , he’s a practicing shaman himself, he is one of the world’s leading anthropologists, he’s traveled all over the world. He can tell you witchcraft, shamanism is the same everywhere, got to be a common source of inspiration, and he tells you that there are certain basic elements in witchcraft—positive thinking, positive speaking, visualizing your success, and so forth. But one of the things he says—well, hypnotherapy and psychotherapy—he said this has been in witchcraft for thousands of years before Freud ever came along. Now, this man is not a Christian, he’s not a critic of psychotherapy, and we could give you dozens and dozens of such statements. Then why, if you’re listening out there still, you haven’t turned the radio off in disgust, why do you, if you’re a Christian, why do you keep going to this false remedy? Why don’t you go to Jesus and to His Word?

Tom:

Dave, we’ve also seen that no academic curriculum comes close to making psychiatrists and psychologists experts in the areas of life that they only pretend to have authority, but we’re buying it! How is that?

Dave:

Well, Tom, it’s publicity, somebody has done a good job of promotion, and the world and the church has bought into the lie, you need psychological counseling. Now, we can go back to the Bible, Hebrews 11, I mean, these people they were sawn asunder, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, they dwelt in dens and caves of the earth. Talk about people who had trials! They triumphed through faith. What about Paul? Thrice he was beaten with rods, no, 5 times he was beaten with rods, thrice he received 40 stripes save one, that’s, that’s 39 lashes, 40 would kill you. He’s been in prison, he’s rejected and hated, and he got along without a psychologist or psychiatrist! How could he have done that? Well, because he was walking with the Lord, and Christ was his life. Now, that’s what the Bible says, this is what our Lord promises, then why don’t we get back to faith in Him? Well, people say, I tried that but it doesn’t work. Even the secular psychologist or psychiatrist will tell you it’s destructive of their profession, but some of them will still admit it. You know, sometimes you just need to go through a difficult situation, that’s how you are matured, that’s how you learn to overcome things. But if you run to a psychologist every time you get a problem, or you go to drugs—let me quote Peter Breggin, one of the world’s leading experts, a psychiatrist, in drugs, he says they are all harmful, he wouldn’t take any of them. But if you’re on these psychiatric drugs you can’t just walk away from them, you’re going to have to get off of it by consulting your physician. But he himself says, If you think that drugs, you’re going to throw drugs at your brain, you can’t get to the soul and the spirit, that’s where the real problem is, and he’s not a Christian—you’re going to throw drugs at your brain, this is the most complex organ in the universe. We don’t even know how it works, they talk about chemical imbalances—Peter Breggin says, No one has ever analyzed the brain to find out that there was a chemical imbalance. They can’t tell you what chemical is out of balance, or where in the brain is the imbalance. He said the only chemical imbalances we know of are those that are caused by the drugs people take, supposedly, to cure the imbalance. And Peter Breggin, not a Christian, he says, When you think you can give yourself an uplift, make yourself happy, make yourself feel good by drugs, you have just destroyed the human being that you are supposed to be. You’re not supposed to go around hyped up with drugs, you’re supposed to overcome this by your fortitude, your strength of character. Now if there is a medical problem, and there can be a medical problem in the brain, that’s another thing, but we’re talking about psychotherapy.

Tom:

Well, Dave, we have to make that distinction, and we’re not recommending that anybody just get off drugs. All of this, if it’s physiological and drugs deal with the physiological part of man, you need to go through your medical doctor.

Dave:

But not for your brain though, because that’s too complicated.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

But anyway Tom, go ahead.

Tom:

Well, Dave, the other thing that we have been addressing, we’ve been addressing many of these things in our series here, and we want people to take these to heart, we want them to ask questions, be thoughtful, we need some more critical thinking, you know, in the church today. I think that’s gone by the board today.

Dave:

Do a little of your own research, go to Google and ask about some of these, not just your Christian psychologist get his opinion, No, let’s get some other opinions, and we’ve been citing the world renowned experts.

Tom:

Dave, we know, again, from the research that the field of psychology and psychiatry, it’s a tragedy—more suicides, in terms of an occupation, more suicides, more divorces, more drug abuse, and so on and so forth. You know, we’ve been mentioning that the founders and most of the practitioners of psychotherapy, psychological counseling, they are not Christians by any means, they are atheists, and so on. But they promote themselves as having expertise in the areas like, how to raise your children, how to get along with your wife, yet the occupation itself is, they are the worst examples of such things.

Dave:

Tom, your would think that would mean something. But you see, the lie has been so well promoted that psychology is the answer, psychiatry, that’s the answer, the drugs, that’s what we need. It’s a for profit profession that it’s very difficult, Tom, for anyone to believe even what we’re saying, although we could cite expert after expert after expert. Thomas Szasz, we’ve mentioned a few times, one of the world’s leading research psychiatrists. One of his books was titled: The Myth of Mental Illness , and another one was titled: The Myth of Psychotherapy .

Tom:

Dave, I’m reminded of a couple of ladies at a conference where I spoke on this subject, and they had never heard this perspective before. So after the series were over we got to a Q&A, and they were so dismayed they said, well, what have you done? All you’ve left us with, in our minds, is prayer and some Bible verses. I let the audience think about that for a second, and my response was, hey, I’ll take that any day! Now, how then should we go about them ministering to one another?

Dave:

Well, first of all, we’re supposed to love one another, we care for one another, I’m not a professional. Well, you can show some love to your friend. You can show some counsel.

Tom:

Yeah, from God’s Word, a person has the Holy Spirit, they know the Lord and the Word of God.

Dave:

Exactly. First of all, you must have proved it yourself, live it yourself, and then you can speak from experience, but you can also speak from faith in God’s Word. This is what God said, this is what He promises. Now, the church really is supposed to undertake that. There should be couples, older, mature couples who can take younger couples under their wing. They may be having financial problems, all kinds of problems, they don’t get along with one another, who knows? But it should be done by people who love and care for others, we need more love and care in the church. And Tom, I’ll say a word—I don’t know if I have mentioned it, probably have before, but I love to have my wife travel with me. Now she can’t right now because our eldest daughter has some serious problems with cancer, so my wife is taking care of her. But I’ve done this all over the world—if my wife, and here’s a church that is just so recommended to me, and I’m speaking there—if I don’t say, Ruth, would you please stand up,—they don’t know who she is—I think she’s an attractive woman, even now at 80 years of age, she surely looks friendly—she can stand there and no one approaches her! They are all so busy with their little cliché of friends. She could be a woman with deep spiritual problems who just came in from the neighborhood, is seeking God, and nobody even cares! Now, we’ve got to learn to care for others, not just be self centered of ourselves.

Tom:

Dave, Galatians:6:1Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted., we’re admonished by the Lord to bear one another’s burdens, to minister to one another, to encourage one another, and my challenge goes out to pastors, if there are any listening to this, you have a fellowship of people who are not doing what they need to do in terms of ministering. You don’t need to send people out, and so on, this is a function of the body of Christ, particularly within the local fellowship.

Dave:

Tom, I have a very dear friend that I led to the Lord years ago out of cults, and you know him, blind, took a shotgun blast in his face at the age of 18, totally blind, no eyes, nothing. I took him to, what I had been told, what I thought was really a good, friendly church. I’m only saying, the man was going across Los Angeles with his cane, changing buses, walking across busy streets to get there—nobody offered him a ride, nobody phoned him! He stands there alone after the meeting is over, they are all talking to one another, no one invited him into their home, no one had any concern, showed any concern for this blind man. I took him somewhere else, and they did a good job there. But it’s like that, Tom, in many churches because we are absorbed with ourselves, and not willing to serve others, to serve the Lord.

Tom:

Which we get from psychology, you know, we pick it up by osmosis. Well, Dave, I hope our listeners or our viewers will take advantage of this series, not that we’re trying to push something, but this is important information of the body of Christ’s needs. We need to get away from the way the church has been going about things, the psychological way, we need to get back to the spiritual way.

Dave:

Amen.