Introduction
Understanding of the scientific psychology can be better when Christian psychology is put into play. For a long time the secular and Christian views have been antagonistic. Despite the views of Christianity and secularism I believe that these two world views can be brought together in the field of psychology to better what we already. What has made psychology as a doctrine so opposed to Christianity is because many psychology scholars had only the secular view of the world and because of this, the psychology doctrine was secularized and the secular beliefs propagated up to today. Marxism and humanism branches of psychology have inadequacies in explaining the world and human behavior; the inadequacies can be dealt with if Christian psychology is brought in explaining Marxist and humanist phenomena. In this paper I will show how the secular and Christian views intersect in Christianity and how both are not mutually exclusive.
Intersection of Christian faith and scientific psychology
Secular psychology major branches are Marxism and humanism. Marxism affiliate psychologists believe in the materialistic and individualistic natures of the world and human beings. Humanist psychologists believe that phenomena can fully be explained from the view of only human beings and in exclusion of the supernatural. I belief these two views of inconstancies when the supernatural is eliminated. Take Marxism for example, its materialism and capitalism views were only developed in the wake of economic doctrines introduced into the world, but actually no matter how much wealth one garners to him/herself, humans will always remain to be social beings; to explain this, we only feel independent when we are flourishing in life, the independence is only in the physical brains but our inner spiritual minds and souls know this is not the thing.
When we are faced by tragedies, say for example death we lose or the independence and go back to socialism which should be the case. Thus Marxism has inconsistencies which can be addressed through Christian psychology, this not to say however that we should be independent but it is a Christian view of psychology, I believe therefore Marxism combined with Christian psychology can better explain phenomenon with sound deductions.
Humanist view of psychology has its inconsistencies, although many phenomena can be explained in exclusion of supernatural, there are many phenomena which needs to be explained from the supernatural to better understand this branch of psychological. Lets take the Charles Darwin evolution theory which explains the origin of species from a humanistic point of view, take for example the humans, the theory tells us that humans originated from apes and that life started through the fusion of atoms of elements. This humanist view leaves us with many questions to ask, for example if we originated from apes, then why are current apes not evolving into human beings, or else where did the apes come from? The inconsistencies are further amplified by the fact of many human theories which abound in explaining the origin of life. At this point I feel that the supernatural needs to be brought in to better explain this phenomenon. From this example, the humanist view of secular psychology has inadequacies which can be sufficed by integrating it with Christian psychology.
The brain and the mind
Another area that secular and Christian psychologies need to go hand in hand to curb inconsistencies is explaining the human cognitive. Since we are born we undergo a lot of dynamic process which only impact on our brains and not our minds. Although we learn many things, only our brains change but not our spiritual minds. Our individuality remains and this is attributable to the spiritual mind in us.
The physical substance of the brain keep changing but there is still unity of identity. If Consciousness was wholly dependent on the physical brain the unity of identity could not be sustained. We remain the individuals we were born till we die despite the constant changes in our physical brains; this can only be explained by bringing the supernatural into play in the explanation, another reason why Christian and secular psychologies are inseparable in explaining phenomena, Kilpatrick (1983).
Our Christian faith makes us potentially the best psychologists because the faith we have enables us to better explain phenomenon which the secularists can not explain. The secular psychology can thus be better when it uses the Christian faith to explain phenomenon which are apparently almost impossible to explain in the exclusion of the supernatural. Agnostics, atheist’s and other faiths have some blind spots in their beliefs, the atheists belief there is no God blindly, while they can not argue validly on their origin or source of their daily life or their general well beings.
As Christians however we should apply the principles of wisdom and knowledge and avoid contradictions in our faith, we should not be ignorant of the world and knowledge, this way we can be better Christians.
Conclusion
The secular psychology has some flaws and inconsistencies in explaining phenomena, these flaws are removed when Christian faith is applied in the explanation, there is therefore an overlap of Christian faith and psychology and neither the Christian faith nor psychology should be seen as self sufficient.
Reference
Kilpatrick, K.W. (1983). Psychological seduction. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
