Christian Psychology
60
to the advancement of psychological knowledge in two
areas of psychological research—God attachment and
implicit attitudes—and has done so without a specified
mechanism of God’s action.
If, as our research has shown (e.g., Reber, Slife, &
Downs, 2012), a theistic approach to psychology can
advance disciplinary knowledge without specifying a
mechanism of action involved, just as other psycho-
logical theories do, is Collicutt justified in holding
our definition hostage until the ransom of a specified
naturalistic mechanism of God’s action in the world is
paid? And, would she treat any psychological theory,
including naturalistic psychological theories in this same
manner? If not, then we would assert that her expecta-
tion of a theistic approach to psychology is not reason-
able. We also remind Collicutt that theistic approaches
to psychology are still in their infancy. Is it reasonable
to expect a burgeoning theory to propose a mechanism
of action when more mature theories, which have been
allowed much more time and space to develop still have
not nailed down the specific mechanisms that inform
their definitions?
1
Is this expectation naturalistic?
Is it reasonable
to expect a theistic approach to psychology to specify
naturalistic, causal mechanisms in the first place? The
coupling of mechanism with psychological explanation
is a naturalistic accommodation put in place early in
psychology’s history with the adoption of the scientific
method (Gantt, Melling, & Reber, 2012). Expecting
advocates of a theistic approach to psychology to define
their approach in terms of naturalistic causal mecha-
nisms would force the accommodation we discussed in
our initial paper and would ultimately undermine the
basic theistic premise guiding the approach, especially
if, as several commenters agreed, naturalism and theism
are incompatible if not incommensurable worldviews.
Such an expectation certainly is not reasonable from the
perspective of the theistic psychologist. Instead, it is
indicative of an implicit prejudice against theism that is
inherent in the conventional framing of naturalism and
theism that we described in the initial article and that
Collicutt appears to represent in her comment (Slife &
Reber, 2009).
Snowdon chose to adopt the naturalistic under-
standing of theism that is used by our exemplar critic,
Daniel Helminiak, in his 2010
Zygon
article (Helmin-
iak, 2010). Despite our significant and obvious dis-
agreements on the topic of theism, Snowdon (this issue)
takes Helminiak’s definition as an indication of “what
it is [we] have in mind” (p. 38). Whether Snowdon
agrees with our argument that Helminiak frames the
worldviews of naturalism and theism conventionally or
not, he cannot expect us to accept Helminiak’s defini-
tion of theism as representative of a theistic approach to
psychology as we understand it, when it is precisely his
conventional worldview definition that we are chal-
lenging in our article. We can only speculate about the
reasons why Snowdon ignored our definition in favor of
Helminiak’s definition, but it does cause us to wonder if
he preferred Helminiak’s definition because it is accom-
modated to naturalism (e.g., Helminiak (2010) refers to
God as a “divine variable” (p. 51)). Whether Snowdon
was biased in this way or not, we do believe that by
following Helminiak’s definition of theism he got off on
the wrong foot and worked only within the conven-
tional framing of worldviews that we criticize. In other
words, we were disappointed that Snowdon ultimately
did not address our argument, but instead reinforced,
without acknowledgment, the conventional view.
Worldview Separability vs. Worldview Interdepen-
dence
In our initial paper we defined worldview as a “constel-
lation of shared assumptions, beliefs, and values that
unite a . . . community” (Okasha, 2002, p. 81). We
then contrasted the conventional treatment of world-
views as being separate and self-contained with a rela-
tional conception of worldviews as different meanings
that mutually constitute each other. In support of the
conventional assumption of separation and self-contain-
ment, we referenced Gould’s (1997) non-overlapping
magisteria principle and we quoted Barbour’s (1997)
statement that for advocates of the independence view,
“there are two jurisdictions and each party must keep
off the other’s turf. Each must tend to its own business
and not meddle in the affairs of the other” (p. 84). We
then quoted the APA council of representatives’ (2007)
resolution on religion and religious prejudice, which
echoes Gould and Barbour almost exactly and clearly
illustrates psychology’s public commitment to this
separability view.
As we will show in the
Inconsistencies in the Com-
ments
section below, some commentators disagreed
with this characterization of the conventional view,
while others completely supported it. We provide an
understanding of these inconsistencies across commen-
tators by discussing two major ways of conceptualizing
relationship in psychology. We also show how one of
these conceptualizations, known as weak relationality,
underlies the separability assumption of the conven-
tional view and informs several of the comments. Then,
in the
Blind Prejudice
section we discuss the implica-
tions of the weak relational conception that informs
the separability assumption of the conventional view
on psychologists’ efforts to avoid prejudice between
naturalism and theism.
Inconsistencies in the Comments
The replies to our article with regard to the separability
assumption of the conventional view were wildly differ-
ing. For example, Collicutt refers to the APA resolu-
tion, as well as our quotes from Gould and Barbour, as
“anecdotal examples” (p. 21) and asserts that our claim
that the conventional view advocates worldview sepa-
A REPLY TO THE COMMENTS
