Today, Dr. Jenn Chen sits down with Dr. Ernie Baker to discuss one of her classes in The Master’s University’s Master of Biblical Counseling program, Theology and the Psychologies. Her goal is to help students see “the man behind the curtain”, giving them confidence in the sufficiency of God and His Word in their vocation.
At the core of the class is an examination of the major ideas in psychology and the presuppositions behind them. Students are equipped to evaluate these theories from both a secular and biblical worldview, tracing how the psychologies move from data to theory to intervention. Because these theories lack a biblical view, Dr. Chen argues that they are all distorted in some way. As a result, the intervention fails to address the true issue of the heart.
The course is paired with a helpful and in-depth reading load, created by Dr. Chen. Students can be prepared to read the works of David Powlison, whose writing played a key role in Dr. Chen’s own transition from clinical psychology to biblical counseling. Through his work, she came to realize that biblical counseling is not an anti-intellectual approach, but deeply thoughtful and grounded in the sufficiency of Scripture.
In the first half of the course, students work through an introductory psychology text, exposing them to the breadth of secular theologies and the debates surrounding psychology as a science, even within secular circles. They will also look into how the psychologies attempt to assess and measure human behavior.
In the second half, students will encounter a variety of texts that focus on specific psychotherapies, looking at what the psychologists behind them saw as the central problem and the theories that emerge from those assumptions. Dr. Chen acknowledges that these secular theories can be of help to Christians as they highlight different problems that they may otherwise overlook. However, she will also teach her students how to think through the psychotherapies critically, especially when evaluating the underlying “why” behind each theory, where their distortion is most evident.
Ultimately, Dr. Chen’s goal is to equip students to think biblically as they study the psychologies. By giving them the tools to evaluate secular psychology, she prepares them to navigate what can feel like the overwhelming world of secular psychologic theory.
