Christian Psychology
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related? In other words, the denial of theism in the
definition of naturalism does not make theism unrelated
to naturalism, according to Bernstein (1983), because
one has to understand theism
in order to
understand
naturalism. Admittedly this relationship is not one of
similarity, but the lack of similarity relationships doesn’t
preclude
other
types of relationships. Were it not for
the theistic worldview (among others) and its claims
of “supernatural significance” there would be nothing
for naturalists to deny. There would be no distinc-
tion between a natural and supernatural realm and no
demarcation of what should be included and excluded
from a naturalistic field of study. For this reason,
naturalism depends upon theism for its very existence.
The bounds of naturalism are in part defined by theism,
showing that naturalism is comparable to and yes, to
some extent, reliant upon theism.
Theism’s reliance on naturalism is the harder
case to make because theism seems to have an earlier
chronological starting point in history. How could the-
ism rely on naturalism for its being as a worldview when
the naturalistic worldview wasn’t initially present to
participate in the relationship? Our response to this is-
sue is that from the perspective of dialectic relationality,
that which is opposite or other than a given worldview
is implied by the given worldview. That is, if theism is
based on the “conviction that God is active, personal,
and—above all—
present
to us” (Loyola Press, 2014, line
2), then, it is impossible not to be simultaneously aware
of the opposite possibility, that God could be passive,
impersonal, and absent from us. In this sense, theism
may not have been related to naturalism at the time of
its inception, but naturalism and all other worldviews
that conceive of a world in which God is not actively
present are implied by the possibility of theism’s antith-
esis. Moreover, as we will discuss next, once natural-
ism did emerge as a worldview and opposed itself to
theism, theists have had to contend with naturalistic
assumptions and assertions about theism in a number of
significant ways.
Invisible accommodation.
A third illustration
of the blindness that can ensue from the conventional
assumption of worldview separability stems from the
one-way accommodation we described in our paper.
There we discussed how many theists now accept
definitions of many of their key concerns that include
naturalist terms and assumptions. We used miracles
as an illustration of this accommodation, noting that
many theists today would accept a definition of at least
one type of miracle as God suspending or violating
natural laws. The subject of miracles is a key focus of
Helminiak’s critique of our original article and theistic
psychology generally. We address miracles here, both to
respond to Helminiak and to show a good example of
the accommodation we discussed in our article, as well
as the invisibility of accommodation’s violation of the
assumption of worldview separability.
In his reply, Helminiak defines miracles as “an
extraordinary divine intervention” (p. 45) and then
interprets each term of the definition within a naturalis-
tic frame. For him, “extraordinary” means “something
outside of, apart from, or beyond the standard laws of
nature” (ibid). “Divine” connotes that which is “other
worldly” (p. 49) or “supernatural” (ibid) and “interven-
tion” is contrasted with “natural processes” (p. 45) and
therefore is taken to be “unlawful” (ibid), meaning that
miraculous intervention violates or suspends the laws
of nature (see also Helminiak, 2010). Helminiak states
that his definition of miracles and each of these three
terms that constitute it conform to the “standard sense”
(ibid) in which miracles are understood.
Perhaps his meanings are standard for naturalists
and for a naturalistically understood theism, but as we
argued in our initial paper, these meanings “are not
originally theistic” (p. 9). Indeed, they are not the only
meanings available to theists and they certainly are not
the most important meanings. Theists would agree
that miracles are extraordinary divine interventions and
they are fully aware of the meaning of miracles that
Helminiak describes. That awareness is an inevitable
consequence of the dialectic relationship of theism and
naturalism we have described. The meanings of miracle
available to theists have been altered and expanded or
contracted in that relationship. However, theists can
and also do understand other more important meanings
beyond the singular definition Helminiak gives. In-
deed, as we will now illustrate, it is possible to contrast
each of Helminak’s definitional terms with theistic alter-
natives to show his (hidden) naturalistic understanding
of theism.
For example, for the Christian theist, God’s mira-
cles can be understood as “extraordinary”, not because
they are outside or above natural laws, but because it is
extraordinary for a God who is exalted on high to care
about and enter into a redemptive relationship with
fallen and sinful creatures, like ourselves. An expression
of this meaning of “extraordinary” is manifest by the
Psalmist’s query, “What is man that thou art mindful of
him?” (Psalm 8:4). For such theists, the very fact that
a God cares about human beings is a miracle. On this
point, as Kierkegaard (1991) has so ably described, the
voluntary abasement of Christ is particularly apropos.
2
Indeed, a God condescending to our level and allowing
himself to be subjected to the vicissitudes of human
life, including temptation, suffering, and martyrdom,
all because he loves us, constitutes Christianity’s most
“extraordinary” miracle.
As for the meaning of the term “divine,” theists
typically do not frame their understanding of God in
terms of the supernatural over against the natural, but
rather as the holy over against the unholy, the pure
versus the impure, and the exalted above the fallen
(Brichto, 1998). “Intervention” too has a non-nat-
uralistic meaning for theists in regard to this kind of
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