Christian Psychology
45
using metaphors, rather than the traditional technical
terminology, Slife, Reber, and Lefevor (2012) acknowl-
edge that divine relationship: “God may be relevant for
some naturalists in the sense of creation (deism) or in
the sense of some supernatural world (dualism), or even
in the sense of an invisible hand that
merely
upholds
and sustains the laws of nature” (p. 219, emphasis
added). Curiously, Reber and Slife (this issue) acknowl-
edge only the first two of these possibilities, describing
the second as “a dualism that limits God’s involvement
to a corner of the universe” and overlooking God’s
upholding and sustaining the laws of nature (p. 6.1). I
take the upholding and sustaining to mean conservation
and concurrence. Evidently, then, to “merely” sustain
the world and its workings does not constitute activity
truly worthy of God because, Slife, Reber, and Lefevor
(2012) continue, “God cannot, however, be actively
involved (in a difference-making way)” (p. 219). That
God makes things exist and function, rather than not
exist at all, this effect they take as making no difference
at all. Moreover, in confusing contrast, Slife, Reber, and
Lefevor approvingly cite Alvin Plantinga to this effect:
“‘God is already and always intimately acting in nature
which depends from moment to moment…upon divine
activity’” (p. 220). At least as I easily read this quota-
tion, Christian philosopher Plantinga simply repeats
the traditional Western theology of conservation and
concurrence according to which God must be unceas-
ingly and ubiquitously active in our universe.
However, this understanding seems insufficient
for the theistic psychologists. What more do they
require to affirm that God makes a difference? One
lonely clue comes from their objection to “naturalistic”
science: It cannot let God be involved after the act of
creation (ever conceived only deistically)—“at least
not in any
unlawful
manner” (Slife, Reber, & Lefevor,
2012, p. 219, emphasis added). Evidently, for God to
be involved in the world in a difference-making way,
in even a universe that we know to be ever unfolding
from the Big Bang until now, God must act in a man-
ner that suspends or contravenes the God-given laws
of nature. In traditional theological terminology, then,
only miracles, strictly defined, count as divine activity
for “thoroughgoing theism.” Indeed, only insistence on
routine, “unlawful” interventions makes sense of the
theistic psychologists’ central thesis that oversight of
God’s activity leaves science with unexplained events
(Richards & Bergin, 2005, pp. 19, 45; Slife & Richards,
2001, pp. 197-198). Direct spoken statements confirm
this claim about miracles (Helminiak, 2010, p. 64), but
I have seen no forthright or lucid admission in print.
Moreover, the theistic psychologists prefer the term
involvement
, not
intervention
, since
intervention
suggests
activity coming from without whereas God is imma-
nent. Still, the standard theological notion of “miracle”
is an extraordinary divine intervention (Cross, 1958;
Merriam-Webster’s, 2005, miracle, q.v.), and the unlaw-
fulness on which Slife, Reber, and Lefevor (2012) insist
justifies this term. It suggests that the divine action
regards something outside of, apart from, or beyond
the standard laws of nature. The contrast is with natural
processes, not with any supposed spatial location of
God. I use the term
intervention
in this standard sense.
THE central issue.
This difficult point must be clear
and affirmed, regardless of how bizarre or imaginative
it rings: The controlling notion of the theistic psy-
chologists relevant to psychology is the affirmation of
routine, extraordinary, supernatural, miraculous, divine
interventions. Such is the added contribution to science
that theism supposedly provides—as if God were a
puppeteer pulling strings to manipulate the universe
and as if that puppeteer needed to be taken into explicit
account to explain the course of cosmogenesis, evolu-
tion, and human history. Granted, such is, indeed, the
understanding that young children first have about
God, and such remains much of the rhetoric of popular
religion (Fowler, 1981); but these facts are no reason for
theorists to take such picture-thinking literally. None-
theless, except for the providential naturalists, to varying
degrees theistic psychologists do take this notion liter-
ally, and those from BYU even deprecate any belief in
God—“soft theism”—that does not include such belief
in routine miracles, strictly defined.
Misunderstandings about the nature of science.
Of
course, one never knows how the theistic psychologists
would define miracle, if at all. While Slife, Reber, and
Lefevor (2012) insist that “strong” theism entails divine
effects unconstrained by the lawfulness of natural pro-
cesses, in direct opposition Reber and Slife (this issue)
object to understanding miracles as “God[’s] suspend-
ing or violating the laws of nature” (p. 9.2). Such an
understanding, they object, is an imposition of a natu-
ralistic worldview on their theism. Yet they provide no
other discussion on miracles (for some, see Helminiak,
1987b, pp. 130-135) or divine involvement. I suspect
they mean to hold that there absolutely are no laws of
nature—pure “supernaturalism” set in opposition to
lawful naturalism. Then they would need no notion of
miracle
. Then, too, of course, their thoroughgoing su-
pernaturalism would preclude any notion of science, as
noted above. The differences in this perduring dualism
are irreconcilable.
Besides, their rhetoric (or actual belief?) also
objects to the naturalistic supposition that “the law of
gravity…is not only true for the natural scientist. It is
also true for theists, as it is true for adherents of other
worldviews as well” (Reber & Slife, this issue, p. 9.2).
The law of gravity is an affront to their theism! How-
ever, in contrast, the theistic psychologists maintain, the
concept of gravity can be “‘useful’ or ‘productive.’” Still,
for these theists this admitted fact does not constitute
“evidence” that the science is any more “objective” (I
think they mean “correct”) than any other opinion (p.
14.1). Here, now, evidence and track record seem no
