Christian Psychology

A GENERATION ago, when psychology was mentioned in connexion with religion, it was Biblical Psychology that was thought of. It was the time when Biblical Theology — that is, the science of the succession and growth of ideas first in the Old Testament and then in the New — was asserting its right to a place among the theological sciences; and those who were captured by this new study seemed to themselves to discern in the Old Testament, but especially in the New, indications of the presence of a Biblical Psychology. That this should be found in the books of the Bible need occasion no surprise; because, if the first subject about which the Bible speaks is God, the second is undoubtedly man, and it can scarcely speak as much as it does on this theme without bodying forth some connected system of ideas in relation to man’s constitution and destiny. In the very first chapter of the

Bible occurs the great saying: ‘’ God created

(17) 2 man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them,” and in the second chapter appears the equally suggestive statement: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul “. We have not proceeded far when we come upon the great commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might,”’ where “soul,” “heart” and “might” seem to indicate a primitive effort to distinguish the different parts of the inner man; and to distinguish these is always the purpose of psychology. When we come down to the New Testament, writers on Biblical Theology are quite in the way of assuming that certain psychological principles lie at the back of the teaching of Jesus Himself; and they are still more confident that they can discern such in the writings of St. Paul. Delitzsch’s “Biblical Psychology” was a work much read in those days, as was also the smaller but not less penetrative book of Beck on the same subject. A scholar of our own time, Mr. Fletcher, in a work recently published under the same 1 Deut. VI. 5.

title, has admirably reproduced the substance of these older treatises, besides noticing whatever of importance has been contributed by more recent speculation. It is not pretended that there is anywhere in the Bible a doctrine on the constitution of the human mind carrying the same authority as attaches to what is there said on the method of human salvation. When speaking on this subject the writers of the Bible made use of the conceptions and the phraseology current in their own times; and St. Paul especially may have employed such ideas as were taught in the schools where he received his education; but these ideas could not be used as extensively as they are in the sacred text without deriving a colouring from the context; and an acquaintance with them forms a kind of grammar for the comprehension of not a little of the writing in which they occur. This must, in fact, always remain one of the keys for the interpretation of the Scriptures; and we shall regard it as open to ourselves to revert to anything in Biblical Psychology which may help in the attainment of the object of which we are in pursuit.

In times more recent, when psychology and religion have been connected, the object in view has been the Psychology of Religion. This phrase might be supposed to mean an inquiry as to whether there exists a special faculty for religion and, if so, what is its nature — an inquiry much needed to be raised and promising interesting results. But it has been limited to an inquiry into the phenomena of conversion.

This study has been peculiarly congenial to America; and it may be traced back at least as far as Jonathan Edwards, who, in his great work on the Religious Affections, nobly led the way in the discussion of the subject, though I do not remember whether he himself made

Wobbermin, who has played a conspicuous part in introducing the study of the Psychology of Religion into Germany, frankly confesses the indebtedness of this new branch of theological science to America. Thus, in his recent work “Zum Streit um die Religionspsychologie,” pp. 1, 2, he says; “Auf diesem Gebiet ist unsere deutsche Theologie starker als auf irgend einem andern der Arbeit des Auslandes fiir mannigfache Anregung und Befruchtung zu aufrichtigstem Dank verpflichtet. Ganz insonderheit gilt dies letztere gegeniiber der religionspsychologischen Arbeit Nordamerikas. Es ist das in dem Masze der Fall, dass bei uns vielfach die Religionspsychologie ausschliesslich und allein nach den Intentionen der amerikanischen Religionspsychologie beurteilt wird, und dass demgemass der Begriff amerikanische Religionspsychologie zur Bezeichnung des ganzen Forschungszweiges, um den es sich hier handelt, verwandt wird.”

use of the phrase, Psychology of Keligion. Being both a thoroughly trained metaphysician and an ardent revivalist, he submitted the cases coming within the range of his observation in the revivals at Northampton to searching scrutiny, for the practical purpose of discriminating between those features of the movement which were healthy and those which were the reverse; but, as a by-product, he supplied the most interesting psychological observations on what takes place in the mind under religious excitement and under the operation of the Spirit of God. The multitudes of cases which can be studied in a revival tempt the student to close observation; and, as revivals have been very characteristic elements in American Christianity, the best American preaching has been strongly tinged with this kind of philosophy. Not only, for example, will there be found in Henry Ward Beecher’s ‘’Lectures on Preaching,” the shrewdest and most penetrating observations on revivals, but in his sermons there is a constant element which may be called psychological, and this of a massive and realistic order. However lofty and spiritual might be the religious phenomena encountered by Beecher, his first instinctive tendency was always to ask whether they might not have their origin in some mental or even physical peculiarity of the person who was their subject; and he recognised that, in seeking spiritual results, a preacher must begin with bodily conditions, sometimes very remote from the object at which he is aiming. The same realism characterizes the work entitled ‘’ The Psychology of Religion,” by E. D. Starbuck. The author published this book in a ‘’ Contemporary Science Series,” and he accumulated the cases on which his conclusions were based by the issue of circulars, addressed to numbers of persons whom he requested to furnish carefully specified particulars of their own conversion. His most interesting conclusion was, that conversion is essentially a phenomenon of adolescence, closely associated with the peculiarities of puberty; and he believed he could demonstrate that the same tendencies which issued in conversion in persons having a religious turn might manifest themselves in corresponding ethical developments in persons otherwise brought up.^ Professor James’

1 There is a close resemblance between the Christian doctrine of conversion and the conviction to which Eucken so often gives expression — it is, indeed, the ground-idea of all his thinking — that the principle which separates between the sheep and the goats is a decisive and ever-repeated choice between ideal and material ends in life.

Keep reading