Christian Psychology
61
rability is “unfounded” (ibid). Johnson, on the other
hand, states unequivocally that, “this ‘conventional’ idea
seems self-evidently true” (p. 33), adding that “if any
worldviews are fundamentally incompatible and even
incommensurable surely naturalism and theism fit the
bill” (ibid). Freeman echoes Johnson’s argument that
the “’non-overlapping magisteria’ perspective put forth
by Gould (1997, 2002) and others. . . is the ‘conven-
tional view’” (p. 23), and also argues that an alternative
understanding of the relationship of these two world-
views and a reconceptualization of science is needed.
Like Freeman and Johnson, but contrary to Col-
licutt, Nelson affirms the separability assumption of the
conventional view and uses Helminiak’s (2010) article
to illustrate the point. He then criticizes the separability
assumption in a manner similar to ours and Freeman’s.
Nelson’s position is also directly opposed to Johnson’s
view of fundamental incompatibility and incommensu-
rability, as illustrated by Nelson’s statement that “there is
no transcendentally-given distinction between theology
and science” (p. 36). Helminiak takes a similar position
to Johnson, asserting that naturalism and theism are
“incompatible worldviews” (p. 40). For his part, Snow-
don, again seemingly dissatisfied with our explication
of conventional worldview separability, despite other
commentators showing a clear understanding of it, asks
for further clarification of our position on separability.
Understanding the Inconsistencies.
The differ-
ing replies to our assertion that the conventional view
takes naturalism and theism to be separable, indepen-
dent worldviews are dizzying, but they are not wholly
surprising to us. On the contrary, the responses clearly
represent two different perspectives on relationship that
characterize the discipline (Reber & Osbeck, 2005).
Slife and Wiggins (2009) have described these two ma-
jor approaches to relationship. The first approach,
weak
relationality
, is the more mainstream psychological per-
spective of the two. Those who assume weak relational-
ity, view worldviews as being self-contained first and
then interacting with other worldviews. Describing this
weaker form of relationship between the disciplines of
theology and psychology specifically, Shults (2003) uses
the term
ab extra relationality
. In
ab extra
relationality
one “begins with the disciplines as separate, and then
tries to work out the relation between them” (p. 50).
Strong or ontological relationality
, by contrast, as-
sumes that worldviews “are
first
relationships—already
and always related to one another” (Slife & Wiggins,
2009, p. 18). Shults (2003) uses the term
ab intra
relationality
to describe a strong relationship of disci-
plines.
Ab intra
relationality “operates out of a prior
awareness of the tensive bipolar relational unity of the
disciplines that hermeneutically precedes the description
of disciplines as separate poles” (p. 50). For the strong
relationist, then, “disciplinary identities are dialectically
related and so mediated (even if negatively) by their
embeddedness in a broader relationality” (ibid). This
means that disciplines “can be fully explained only by
accounting for their being-in-relation” (p. 51).
In our initial paper, we did not use the terms weak
and strong relationality. However, we clearly indicated
that the conventional frame of the relationship be-
tween theism and naturalism treats the worldviews as
if they are self-contained. Our definition of worldview
separability provides a good example of Shults’ (2003)
ab extra relationality: “Separability is the idea that
theism and naturalism constitute radically different
worldviews that can be understood and exist apart from
one another” (Reber & Slife, p. 7). We also made it
clear that our alternative framing of worldviews assumes
a strong relationality, as indicated by the following
quotation: “Whether the relationship has been marked
more by conflict or harmony at any given time, these
two worldviews have always informed and shaped one
another, through both their relational similarities and
their relational differences” (p. 11). In both cases, we
then described the implications of each conception of
relationship, with separability and superiority follow-
ing from a weak relationality and interdependence and
difference following from a strong relational approach.
We are strong relationists and we see the relationship
between naturalism and theism as one of difference and
interdependence, not self-containment and hierarchy.
Clarifying the Commenters’ Assumptions: Weak vs. Strong
Relationality
With this background understanding in place, we can
now organize the replies according to their weak or
strong approach to relationships, and we can examine
the different implications that follow from each rela-
tional approach.
Weak relationality.
Collicutt appears to argue
against the conventional assumption of worldview sepa-
rability on the basis of there being “a degree of overlap
in the phenomena addressed” (p. 22) by faith traditions
and psychology. However the overlap she describes is
only topical, meaning that “several world views may be
brought to bear on a particular field of interest” (ibid),
but she makes no mention of the worldviews having
any bearing on one another, which was the argument
we made in our article. In this sense, the “complemen-
tary dialogical approaches” (ibid) Collicutt references
are ways of relating worldviews that are taken to be
separate and self-contained first, and are then brought
into relation by virtue of their shared interest in a phe-
nomenon (
ab extra
relationship). A strong relationist,
on the other hand, sees the worldviews as always and
already in relation (
ab intra
relationship). Thus, as we
stated in our original article, naturalism and theism are
“interdependent, varied frameworks of meaning that
participate in different interpretations (i.e., integra-
tion of meanings) of the phenomena studied
while also
mutually constituting each other
” (Reber & Slife, p. 14;
italics added).
REBER AND SLIFE
