Christian Psychology
11
separate from the other historically, and neither position
implies or involves the other conceptually. If anything,
Bishop is concerned that too many commentators are
“blurring the distinction between methodological and
metaphysical naturalism” (p. 109). Second, method-
ological naturalism is clearly superior to metaphysical
naturalism. Methodological naturalism presupposes
only “common sense,” such as the existence of the world
(p. 109), whereas metaphysical naturalism is a highly
value-laden form of philosophical speculation, involving
a host of questionable assumptions (Griffin, 2000; Slife,
2004; Willard, 2000). Again, from the perspective of
the modern dualist, the common sense of uncovering
facts and regularities is superior to the subjectivity of
metaphysical speculation.
Worldview relations: An alternative frame
If we believed this dualistic framing of naturalism and
theism was correct, we would join with Helminiak
(2010) and others in condemning a theistic approach
to psychology as a dangerous threat to the “evidence-
based research and scholarship” (p. 50) that naturalistic
psychological science has achieved. However, there is
good reason, as we will show, to question the accuracy
of this conventional frame. Indeed, many who work
within the philosophy of science are doubtful of the
objectivity of naturalism, the neutrality of its methods,
and its complete compatibility with theism and other
worldviews (Bernstein, 1983; Griffin, 2000; Plantinga,
2011; Richardson, 2009; Taylor 1971; Willard, 2000).
Closely following their work on the topic we offer an
alternative frame for understanding the relationship
between the worldviews of naturalism and theism, as
inspired by the hermeneutic tradition.
This alternative frame draws upon the work of
hermeneutic philosophers, such as Martin Heidegger
(1962), Hans Gadamer (1997), and Paul Riceour
(1981), who conceptualized our being in the world
non-dualistically. A hermeneutic non-dualism does not
distinguish objects as they exist in themselves (objec-
tivity) from representations of objects in the mind
(subjectivity). A hermeneutic non-dualism does not
conceive of the world as objects in the conventional self-
contained sense at all. It conceives of them as meanings
(Slife & Christensen, in press). From the perspective of
hermeneutics, naturalism is not the natural, or even a
compendium of the natural. It is a framework of mean-
ings “in the Heideggerian sense” (Slife & Reber, 2009a,
p. 67), just as theism is a framework of meanings and
not God per se. We say “in the Heideggerian sense” to
distinguish the conventional, dualistic notion of mean-
ing, which is a distinctly subjective entity, from the
hermeneutic conception, which understands meaning
as constituted by both subjectivity and objectivity in an
interpreted reality that is not merely subjective specu-
lation about an objective world out there (Gadamer,
1997).
From the hermeneutic perspective we live with and
through the world, not as subjects over against objects,
but as participants in a world of co-constituted mean-
ings where ontological distinctions between subjects
and objects are not experienced and consequently a sub-
jectivity/objectivity dualism does not arise (Heidegger,
1962). Without this dualism to separate and arrange
worldviews, disciplines, methods, and theories, as we
will see, the conventional notion of worldview separa-
bility collapses. Worldviews are understood as integral
parts of meaningful wholes, implying that full mean-
ing is not possible for anything, including worldviews,
without some relation to the whole. We also intend to
describe how this alternate view implies that worldviews
like naturalism and theism are not arranged hierarchi-
cally by a subjectivity/objectivity dualism. They are
distinctly different meanings that are nevertheless highly
related to each other and are neither mostly subjective
nor mostly objective.
Worldview Interdependence
We believe the hermeneutic notion of worldview in-
terdependence provides a more accurate interpretation
of the historical relationship between naturalism and
theism than the separability feature of the conventional
view. It is already well known that many of the scholars
of the Middle Ages and of the scientific revolution were
deeply religious, and it was often their theistic convic-
tions that fueled their curiosity about the natural world
(Nelson, 2005). Hannam (2011) shows in careful
detail that theistic beliefs prompted scientists of the
Middle Ages to entertain questions that reached beyond
the limits of Aristotelian rationality and led to the
development of alternative methods, like the empiri-
cal method. The work of these early scientists set an
important foundation for the experimentation practiced
in the scientific revolution and offered a complement to
the methods of reason and revelation that were useful in
studying the supernatural world.
There are many more ways in which naturalism
and theism participate in a relationship in which the
questions, limitations, and concepts of each world-
view have played an important role in the develop-
ment of the questions, limitations, and concepts of
the other (Brooke, 1991; Griffin, 2004; Stenmark,
2004). Whether the relationship has been marked
more by conflict or harmony at any given time, these
two worldviews have always informed and shaped one
another, through both their relational similarities and
their relational differences. Even the demarcation issue
in science, as we described earlier, depends vitally on
non-science to define it. In this same way, the meaning
of naturalism and the meaning of theism have and will
continue to inform and define one another.
The hermeneutic perspective also implies that
psychology and faith traditions are not fully separable,
despite the APA’s (2007) call for distinct knowledge
REBER AND SLIFE
