Christian Psychology
43
To exemplify my argument, I challenge Reber
and Slife’s (this issue) contention: “When worldviews
are understood to be different frameworks for mean-
ing and not different labels for objects, they cannot
be differentiated in their objectivity” (p. 12.1). I reject
this contention for the reasons just elaborated and also
because of the consistent ambiguity—operative even in
this quotation—in Reber and Slife’s use of
objectivity.
Note that if “objectivity” refers to “objects,” material
bodies lying “out there” in the world, Reber and Slife
betray their insistence on meaning (not matter) as
determinative of human realities. If, then, “objectivity”
refers to the individuality of realities reasonably affirmed
as distinct from one another—“this is not that”—Reber
and Slife suggest that there are no such distinctions, so
human reality must be one undifferentiated mush. If,
yet again, “objectivity” means “correctness,” they deny
the possibility of determining it, and they take refuge in
that denial. Thus, they cloak their religious beliefs—still
in conflict with science—in invulnerability: They deem
indeterminable whether revealed beliefs and scientific
findings bespeak what is true or false, real or merely
supposed, or material or spiritual.
Ignoring an Alternative Approach
In contrast, I believe that, following Lonergan (1972)
and accepting long-standing Western argument about
God, I have achieved a genuine scholarly and personal
integration of psychology and theology via spirituality
(Helminiak, 1998, 2011). Over decades I have worked
through these issues, distinguishing the spiritual from
the divine and grounding human spirituality on an
inherent, self-transcending dimension of the mind, the
“human spirit.” I carry the personal pain, know the
social disdain, and suffer the ecclesiastical penalties asso-
ciated with transcending cherished religious oversimpli-
fications; but at least I am at peace with myself. Unlike
the unfortunate “theistic” professor who uncomfortably
wears two hats (Reber & Slife, this issue, pp. 8.2, 12.1),
I now comfortably wear many hats and easily change
from one to another, as appropriate, because they all
cover my one head, my one mind, whose reasoned
understanding holds together many perspectives and
viewpoints (not “worldviews”) on one reality (see Loner-
gan, 1972, pp. 257-260, 302-320, on differentiations
of consciousness). Despite the hat, in every task, my
awareness of God’s presence and care regularly abides
with me, as does my gratitude for divine graciousness.
But for me, without particularistic interventions “God
helps those who help themselves.” I understand God to
providentially guide the universe toward a final good
end by creating and sustaining an
overall order,
an intel-
ligible system, within which lawful functioning reigns,
novelties emerge, freedom has its limits, and deviations,
even evil, can go only so far before the system springs
back, as it were, to its equilibrated unfolding: “God
controls each event because he controls all, and he
controls all because he alone is the cause of the order of
the universe on which every event depends” (Lonergan,
1957/1992, p. 668). With ongoing effort, this order can
be understood; such is the task of science. This order
may not be what we would prefer because it unfolds
probabilistically through large numbers over long times
and it entails painful losses and seemingly prodigal
wastefulness, and sometimes we count ourselves and
our loved ones among what was seemingly wasted. But
believing in an ultimately wise and gracious God, we
trust God’s universe, nonetheless. We do not expect
extraordinary interventions to save us from its inherent
processes. Rather, in faith, we suffer “the slings and ar-
rows of outrageous fortune” as we make what contribu-
tion we can. So I reject the presumptuous judgment
that my personally costly God-trusting beliefs are only
a “soft theism”; and knowing the pain of the struggle of
faith, I genuinely feel for the professor whose “hard the-
ism” makes him uncomfortable wearing many hats in a
twenty-first century world.
The theistic psychologists have consistently ignored
my positive suggestions as well as my substantive criti-
cisms. Giving no specific attention to Helminiak (2001)
or Helminiak, Hoffman, and Dodson (2012), Reber
and Slife’s (this issue) “reply” to my work cites 137
words, many two or three times, 75 from one para-
graph (Helminiak, 2010, p. 50), out of a 10,500-word
article. Most citations are adjectives or short phrases
extracted only to be verbally disclaimed or to be used to
fabricate a dualism of naturalism versus theism and to
reject my insistence that human knowledge is necessar-
ily evidence-based. Three of the citations are “adjusted”
without notification to fit a desired point. Context
hardly matters. Reber and Slife (this issue, p. 15.1) fail
to report, for example, that my accusation of relativ-
ism follows this quotation from Richards and Bergin
(2005): All science and research is “culture-bound,
rooted in unproven assumptions” and “the criteria
for judging results [in all areas, including religion and
science] are personal” (p. 105; see Helminiak, 2010, p.
66); yet Reber and Slife’s (this issue) latest theoretical
attempt in free-wheeling hermeneutic meaning-making
rests on this very contention. Their ellipsis in that
most-cited paragraph omits “divine revelation, inspira-
tion, and intuition,” the supposed religious sources of
knowledge, which they seem now reluctant to name up
front and which I criticized (Helminiak, 2010, pp. 63-
65). In no way, then, do I accept their article as a reply
to my criticism. They have never engaged my arguments
but only forced some of my words into pre-fabricated
categories and dismissed them.
The Distinguishing Feature of the Theistic Psycholo-
gists
All those advances evince an increased nuance in the
position of the theistic psychologists and make it more
viable. Nonetheless, a relentless agenda and a style of
