Christian Psychology
48
Yet all human formulation is said to be merely allusive
or inferential; no precise formulation or firm statements
of opinion or truth are acknowledged. This tack depre-
ciates human intelligence and, in postmodern malaise,
despairs of any firm criticism of proposed ideas or grasp
of accurate knowledge. This is the tack on which Ian
Barbour (1974) embarked and which Stanton Jones
(1994) delineated. It is also the tack that Reber and
Slife (this issue) take in their own way: to make “those
conceptions once considered more objective actually
less objective, and those considered more subjective, less
subjective” (p. 15.2).
It is instructive to recall that Jones (2006) objects
to the project of the theistic psychologists of BYU
because they do not adequately represent his own theo-
logical opinions. Evidently, even those who hold that in
all arenas language can only be symbolic or suggestive
still insist on differences of opinion and argue for the
correctness, superiority, or validity of their own opinion
over others. They proffer evidence, they suggest inter-
pretations, they assess the adequacy of the interpreta-
tions against the evidence—that is to say, they “reason”:
They engage the three “levels” or functions of conscious-
ness—experience, understanding, and judgment—that
Lonergan (1957/1992, pp. 299-300; 1972, p. 9)
determined structure human knowing. Being human
beings, they can do no other when engaging serious
discourse. They are bound by “the native spontaneities
and inevitabilities of our consciousness” (p. 18); they are
constrained by “transcendental method” (pp. 13-20),
that way of knowing that is built into the human mind.
It is the fundamental method that informs all others
and, running through them all, affords coherence to all
human knowing. Thus, said popularly and summar-
ily, when even theistic psychologists quibble among
themselves, reason must carry the day; mere insistence
on personal opinion is vacuous. The obscurantist tactics
of Jones and the BYU theistic psychologists and current
postmodern agnosticism, relativism, and even nihilism
(Cahoone, 2010) must eventually fall in self-contradic-
tion because their advocates must at least implicitly use
reason to explicitly question, impugn, delimit, or even
outright reject reason—hence, the ever shifting incon-
sistencies in the position of the BYU theistic psycholo-
gists. Their proffering a purportedly correct opinion and
their deliberately chosen obfuscation invalidate each
other. Their position collapses in incoherence.
Pervasive Ambiguities: Neutrality
More pointed considerations lead to the same conclu-
sion about the most recent offering of Reber and Slife
(this issue). Their pivotal terms are
subjectivity
and
objectivity.
Supposedly, “Subjectivity represent[s] things
as they are known in the mind and objectivity refer[s]
to that which can be known about the thing in itself ”
(p. 6.2). Both definitions involve knowing, and the
implication seems to be a contrast between what is
mistakenly known (“known in the mind”) and what is
accurately known (“known about the thing in itself ”).
So, supposedly, as Reber and Slife repeatedly note,
subjectivity implies being “biased and value-laden” (pp.
10.2; also p. 7.1), “charged with value” (p. 7.1). Thus,
subjective
is taken to mean incorrect, skewed, untrue. In
contrast, objectivity refers to what is “neutral” (p. 7.2),
“unbiased” (p. 7.1), or, at least, less influenced by “bi-
ases” such as “personal and cultural values, assumptions,
and interpretations” (p. 6.2). Then, simply put, in some
sense objectivity implies correctness; and subjectivity,
incorrectness.
However, the usage of these theistic psychologists is
multiply and fatally ambiguous. First, in passing I note
that Reber and Slife’s labored concern about intellectual
neutrality (pp. 7.1-2,10.1, 10.2, 11.1, 13.2, 14.2, 15.2)
still entangles three meanings highlighted early on by
Helminiak (2001, pp. 242-243), namely, neutral as
consensual, neutral as completely non-judgmental, or
neutral as lawful and applying equally to all. Their the-
istic agenda seems to prevent them from acknowledging
the third of these meanings; they reject “laws of nature.”
Subjective as value-laden
Second, the theistic psychologists understand subjectiv-
ity/objectivity in terms of differing values. But values
pertain to ethics while correctness or cognitive trustwor-
thiness pertains to epistemology. Of course, the two are
interactive (Helminiak, 2008b, pp. 143-144), but they
still need to be differentiated, not uncritically lumped
together. To wit, by subjectivity versus objectivity, these
theorists may mean simply value-laden versus value-free.
If so, this point should be stated as such. Then a fallacy
would be evident immediately: No value-free human
enterprise exists. Science, religion, politics, education,
human relationships, all are value-laden; and science
and psychology have been addressing this fact in their
respective fields for decades (Beutler, 1981; Beutler &
Bergan, 1991; Ellis, 1980; Kelly, 2005; Lacey, 1999;
Machamer & Wolters, 2004; Reichenbach, 1938;
Streeten, 1958; Tjeltveit, 1986, 1996). Thus, this mean-
ing of subjective-objective fall outs, for in principle no
true contrast exists, only differing values, which, when
sorted out, could be adjudicated. The theistic psycholo-
gists spotlight this fact of “value-ladenness,” but this
fact still says nothing directly about correct or incorrect
knowing, which is at issue in science versus religion:
Some values might be worth supporting.
Subjective as Incorrect
Third, subjectivity versus objectivity could mean biased
versus unbiased, this time retaining a clear epistemologi-
cal focus. Then the pair would mean incorrect versus
correct. This is one meaning of Reber and Slife’s (this
issue) proposed dualism: Religion or theism is said to be
incorrect whereas science is said to be correct. With this
clarification, other clarifications emerge with the ques-
