The Theory of Christian Psychology Comes From the Worldview That Sees Humanity as the Object of a Love Relationship with Jesus Christ – Part 1

Gilbert Quarcoopome

Gilbert Ken Quarcoopome is a Masters student with United Graduate College and Seminary International. He is focusing his studies for his Masters Degree on Christian Psychology. He is aspiring to be a person that will help change the world. Gilbert is an online student in Ghana Africa and has already completed his Bachelor Degree with UGCSI.

_______________

Christian Psychology is more commonly called "Biblical Psychology." While it is true that the Bible was not written as a textbook on psychology, and it nowhere sets forth any complete psychology theories, yet we shall see that we are correct in formulating a system of biblical psychology. The Bible no more seeks to set forth a system of psychology than it does of ethics, theology, or any other science. Every subject of the Word of God grows throughout the Bible as the Holy Spirit adds details, here by a type, there by the recounting of some historical dealing of God with sinner or saint, sometimes by explicit command, at others by way of illustration, until the growing picture is complete in ethics, morality, philosophy of life, and, therefore, also in Psychology. 

The Bible, many times in one verse, will reveal to us more true psychology than all the textbooks ever written on psychoanalysis, that is, the hidden reason for all of man's emotional instability, fear complexes, insecurity, evil fixations, immoral, unethical behavior, frustrations, distractions, anxieties and disintegration. We are just as correct, therefore, in studying biblical or Christian Psychology as we are studying Christian Ethics, Christian Theology, and Christian Dogma.

Certainly, since we believe that the Bible is the very Word of God and inspired, fully and infallible as given in the original, then it speaks not with the guesses, suppositions, assumptions and errors as man-made sciences; but it speaks with the very wisdom of the God who made man, "And needs not that any should testify of man for He knew what was in man."

When the Bible speaks of sin as the underlying cause of all maladjustment, and disorganization of personality, it speaks with God's own wisdom and it gives the true cause of our behavior pattern. If Psychology is, both the study of man's mental and emotional makeup as well as the study of human behavior, then there is no other source with any comparable degree of authority as the Word of God to unmask the heart and mind of man and to tell him the why of his darkened mind and evil hardened heart.

Where else can the real permanent total cure be found, psychologically, for all the personality ills of mankind? The Psychologists say the answer is in psychiatry and psychology. God says the answer is in regeneration, which brings a man back into harmony and fellowship with God.

Francis A. Schaeffer says, “The basic psychological problem is trying to be what we are not, and trying to carry what we cannot carry. Most of all, the basic problem is not being willing to be the creatures we are before the Creator.”