Christian Psychology
24
one another. (pp. 11).
As Reber and Slife go on to note, “Our sense of our-
selves and our psychology is already deeply influenced
by naturalistic and theistic meanings which are in turn
deeply influenced by each other, so much so that it is
impossible to separate them into two distinct domains”
(p. 12). Appearances notwithstanding, then, there is a
good deal more conceptual “seepage” between natu-
ralism and theism than is generally assumed, and, as
suggested earlier, what flies under the banner of unadul-
terated naturalism may be permeated, even if unknow-
ingly, by the very theism it imagines it has surpassed.
We are moving forward, to be sure. Reber and
Slife are offering more than a back-at-you rejoinder
to their separatist, naturalistically imperialistic critics;
they are offering a way beyond the current impasse by
presenting an alternative frame, one that would both
avow the differences between naturalism and the-
ism and recognize their profound interdependence.
“Okay,” their critics (or at least some of them) might
say. “We buy the historical account and are willing
to concede that these two worldviews have a deeper,
more longstanding and thoroughgoing connection than
our own present-centric commitments might show.
Overlapping, rather than non-overlapping, magisteria.
Thank you for helping us see this.” (And now back to
work.) Can this measure of historical and philosophi-
cal self-consciousness be all Reber and Slife are seeking?
Doubtful. I therefore ask again: What else are they
aiming for? The bottom line for now, in any case: “At
the level of their first premises, naturalists and theists
are no more or less objective. They each accept the first
premise of their respective worldviews as true without
the empirical validation that would supposedly provide
evidence of greater objectivity” (p. 13). As for where
this leaves naturalism, it, “like theism, is a particular
way of looking at the world that is guided by systems of
assumptions, values, and meanings that say at least as
much about the adherents of the worldview as they do
the objects of the world” (p. 13).
This seems true enough. But what
about
the
objects of the world? Even if we reframe the subject/
object relationship in hermeneutical terms, and I agree
we should, there still remains a
phenomenon
that exists
outside the perimeter of the (observing, interpreting,
meaning-making) person. Surely these phenomena
constrain
the interpretations given. But how much?
Strictly speaking, one can never say. But it is vitally
important, I believe, to keep such constraints in mind
– particularly when trying to discern which worldviews,
of the ones available, are most called for. Now, it could
be argued that this idea of being “called for” bespeaks
exactly that form of subject/object thinking that Reber
and Slife want to leave behind. But unless we preserve
some
such notion, the selection of worldview becomes
either arbitrary or a matter of ideologically-driven
prejudice. I say this, I should hasten to add, neither
in the name of naturalism nor of theism but rather in
the name of (dare I say)
truth
– understood here in the
(broadly) Heideggerian sense of
aletheia
, “unconceal-
ment” (e.g., 1971). I can take a purely naturalistic
perspective to the issue of forgiveness (to take Reber
and Slife’s example). But this perspective may well fail
to adequately disclose the phenomenon at hand. If I
am a
diehard
naturalist, I will continue to do whatever I
can to shoehorn this recalcitrant phenomenon into my
worldview. What else could I possibly do? But if I am
hermeneutically open to the possibility that this world-
view may not suffice, I may move on to a better one.
Is it really plausible for the committed naturalist to
suspend his or her naturalistic commitments and truly
entertain the possibility that some other worldview –
perhaps even a theistic one – is a more adequate lens for
understanding what’s going on in some given case? I
believe it is. William James did this very thing in
The
Varieties of Religious Experience
(1982), when, after mov-
ing through just about every conceivable naturalistic
hypothesis, he entertains the possibility that the “higher
energies” that appeared to be operative in certain forms
of religious experience might actually
be
so operative.
As James avows,
I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian sci-
entist’s attitude, and imagine vividly that the world
of sensations and of scientific laws and objects may
be all. But whenever I do this, I hear that inward
monitor of which W.K. Clifford once wrote,
whispering the word ‘bosh!’ Humbug is humbug,
even though it bear the scientific name, and the
total expression of human experience, as I view it
objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow
‘scientific’ bounds. (p. 519).
Much is being said in this wonderful, classically James-
ian, passage. For one, James is reminding us that
scientists can be every bit as “sectarian” in their attitude
as those more explicitly sectarian in outlook. Some
of what masquerades as “objectivity” may therefore
be function of their own limited imaginations, which
mistakes “the world of sensations and of scientific laws
and objects” for the whole of reality (see especially Hei-
degger, 1977). But there is still more in this passage.
For what James is also suggesting is that some of what
“bears the scientific name” really isn’t scientific at all
but merely a shrunken image of it. By moving beyond
the “narrow ‘scientific’ bounds” – which is to say, by
moving beyond the prescribed view of science, dogmati-
cally upheld by its sectarian defenders, he can begin to
practice a version of science truly worthy of the name.
Would Reber and Slife be with me in this read-
ing? Put another way, would they concur with the idea
that the sectarian naturalism James is referring to might
actually be
inadequate
to the phenomena at hand and
that theism might be a better bet? I don’t know. Possi-
bly not: even if implicitly, James is drawing on the idea
