How Can Psychology Undermine Christians?

Tom: You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.

Our topic for this first segment of our program is Psychology and the Church. We’ve committed a number of programs to addressing this subject because of, really, Dave, the disastrous impact this pseudo-science psychotherapy has had on Christianity, particularly the evangelical church. And the most, in my mind at least, the most serious consequences—it has undermined the faith of believers in the sufficiency of the Word of God.

Dave: Right.

Tom: What do you think?

Dave: Well, Tom, I put it like this. If Christian psychology has anything of any value to offer, then the Bible is lacking.

Tom: And you said Christian psychology?

Dave: Yeah, right, Christian psychology. Of course, it comes from secular psychology, but now we’re talking about in the church. Now…“Oh, well yeah, you have a Christian psychology—well, that’s got to be good.”

If Christian psychology has anything of any value to offer, then the church was without it for 1900 years. Jesus didn’t know about it. Paul didn’t know about it. The heroes of the faith they talk about in Hebrews 11, who triumphed over all kinds of adversity, they didn’t have it either, so that doesn’t make too much sense. In other words, we used to rely on the Bible, because Peter, 2 Peter 1, he says it very clearly: “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him, who has called us to glory and virtue…” and so forth.

Tom: So, the Bible does make that claim, there and in other places—2 Timothy.

Dave: Oh, it does. Jesus said, “I am the true vine, you’re the branches. Abide in me and I in you.” Freud never knew anything about that. Psychology has nothing to do with abiding in the vine and bearing fruit.

Tom, all through the Bible…Galatians:2:20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
See All...—probably most of the people out there listening know that verse by heart. Paul says: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” I think we quoted that last week. Well then, if Christ is living in me, I don’t think He needs help from psychology.

And when I referred to Christian psychology, you can go into any library, any university or a city library, and pull the books off the shelf, all the books about psychology, textbooks and so forth. They’re not written by Christians. And look in the index—you will not find one listing for Christian psychology. Why? Because there is no such thing! There is no Christian who is the founder of a school of psychology known as Christian psychology. You’ll have Freudian, Jungian, Rogerian, Trans-personal, you know, humanistic, all kinds of psychologies—not a listing for Christian psychology. Then what is it? It’s simply trying to get from the world what the Bible, apparently, lacks. And that is not biblical. It denies…

So, Tom, as you began (and I have pontificated for too long on this), you said, “What does it do? It undermines the confidence of Christians in the Bible!” If the Bible is sufficient, why don’t we go to the Bible? Well, because it doesn’t have all the answers; that was back then you know, and this is modern society…. So, you’re exactly right, Tom, that’s what it does.

Tom: Dave, it’s a reflection, I think, of Satan’s grand scheme, which we find in Genesis:3:1Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
See All..., right there: “Yea, hath God said…?” I mean, his whole program, it seems to me, is to undermine not only the sufficiency of God’s Word, but God’s Word itself. Because, in [Genesis] 3:4, he rejects what God has said: “No, you shall surely not die.”

Dave: Right. Tom, you put your finger on it: that is the strategy. I’m writing a book now where I have to deal with atheists, and I deal with people who claim to be Christians but who are still evolutionists. These are top scientists—they believe in theistic evolution, and so forth. It doesn’t fit the Bible. But why do they do this? Because they…“Oh, well, science—we need some help from science.” You need help from science about the universe? I thought God created it! He probably knows more about the universe than anybody else does.

But psychology came in under the banner of science. And you know, you’ve mentioned in the past programs, a detailed study—a three-year study with 80 scholars to determine whether psychology is a science or not. And they determined—these are not Christians—they determined it was not and could not be.

But anyway, so we get the idea: “Well, but we got to be scientific.” And you remember what the pope said…when was it, about five years ago? John Paul II, he challenged (or chastened) his theologians because they had a real big mess on their hands from Galileo when they had an aged and ill (practically dying) Galileo on his knees in front of the inquisition, saying, “You will either say that the sun does go around the earth or you’re going to the gallows or the stake,” or whatever! And so he says it with his lips, but he doesn’t mean it in his heart. It wasn’t until 1992 that John Paul II, in the Vatican admitted, “Yeah, Galileo was right after all.” So he doesn’t want that embarrassment again. So he says, “From now on, we want our theologians to check with the scientists first.”

No, this is what happened to bring psychology into the church. It’s a fraud; it’s not science, but, well, the Bible needs some help. So they’ve gone into psychologies, PhDs…. I remember Jerry Falwell put out a newsletter announcing: They’re going to have a psychological head, psychological counseling, and become curers of the soul, and get a degree in psychology from Liberty University…

Tom: They have clubs there, Dave, psychology clubs, and so on. Well, you know, we’ve mentioned this before, but that’s one of the most attractive items for drawing students to your university. It’s basically an easy subject. I mean, it’s all about talk. It’s hardly a rocket science—I mean, it’s not science at all. And the more students you get, the more money you get. Accreditation, you need psychology to be accredited, and so on. You know, you can follow the money trail certainly on that.

But, Dave, I want to go back to sufficiency.

Dave: We’ve said this before, Tom, but just a quick quote from J. Vernon McGee, you remember. If this trend, you know…it’s kind of beginning, and we were talking to him—if this trend continues in the church, Christian psychology will be the destruction of the evangelical church. And that’s what’s happening.

And yet, Tom, it’s like Christian schools—I try to tell Christian schools, “Do not take the accreditation route!” Who is accrediting you? Well, it’s not Christians. These are godless people. “Yeah, but we’ve got to meet the state’s standards.” I don’t think you do! We’ll meet the Lord’s standards, and our students will be better than anyone else, just like Daniel.

So now we’ve got to get the imprimatur of science on this. And, Tom, as you know, and I don’t think we have mentioned it (or we certainly haven’t emphasized it), every Christian (so-called) psychologist, or psychiatrist, they must take the same courses in school, give the same answers, they must pass the same exams for their state license, and there’s no difference!

Tom: Right.

Dave: They say, “Oh, well, we’re applying the Bible.” You don’t need this to apply to the Bible, otherwise somehow there was something in the Bible.

Tom: Dave, there’s an analogy—I think you’ve used it. You don’t remember this, but I certainly use it as I’ve been out and about speaking about psychology in the church, and I had the privilege of doing it throughout Southern Europe last summer. But here’s the analogy: Most evangelicals believe in the inerrancy of God’s Word, right? They wouldn’t have any problem with that. It’s like a three-legged stool…

Dave: Well, it’s getting worse; they don’t even believe in that anymore.

Tom: Well, but most of them would…

Dave: Not the Renováre Bible, right. But then…okay.

Tom: But think of it as a three-legged stool.

Dave: Good evangelicals.

Tom: Right. One leg would stand for inerrancy, and they would believe that. Now, many would also say that they believe—this is the second leg of the stool—they would believe in the authority of God’s Word for faith and practice and so on.

Dave: Of course.

Tom: But it’s the third leg that few—and we’re talking about even conservative evangelical churches, because they are going elsewhere for this—they do not believe in the sufficiency of God’s Word. So without that leg, what happens to the stool? It goes over because—well, actually, it makes the stool ridiculous, because if I don’t believe in the sufficiency of God’s Word, then it’s not my authority, right? Because I’m looking elsewhere for information for ways to solve my problems, and so on.

Dave: Of course.

Tom: Well, if authority is missing and sufficiency is missing, what’s the point of inerrancy? It’s nonsense!

Dave: Absolutely!

Tom: So, it’s a major problem and the church—many people in the church don’t see this.

Dave: Tom, you know how I facetiously put it—I don’t know that we’ve said it on this program. Let’s go to John:8:31Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
See All.... Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Now, let me give you the Christian psychologist’s new translation of this verse. Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed, and you will know part of the truth, and you will be set partially free.” But you wouldn’t be set completely free, because the Holy Spirit, through ignorance or oversight, has left out some essential parts of counseling, and the need that people have to live a satisfied, fulfilled, Christ-exalting life, a happy life, and so forth. But one glad day—oh, those great prophets of truth, the truth that’s missing from the Bible—Freud and Jung and Rogers and Maslow, atheists to a man, anti-God, but they will be inspired to put before us those things that the Holy Spirit was ignorant of, or by oversight left out of the Bible. And then, when you integrate Bible and psychology that counsel this world, at last we will have what the church didn’t have for 1900 years, and it’s going to be glorious because people will really be living wonderful lives!

Tom: Dave, I think one of the clearest verses in the Bible—you know, people have said to me…. We’ve been looking at this for almost 25 years—you’ve longer, certainly. Although I do remember when we were working on The Seduction of Christianity, and I used to bring books from Christian bookstores, Christian psychologists. Dave, you used to pull your hair out. You’d say, “Wait a minute!” It was absurd, it was ludicrous.

Now, this clearest verse, one of the clearest verses in the Bible addressing this—because people say, “Well, wait a minute, give me your scriptures,” and so on. That’s good.

Dave: Well, I gave them a few, I gave them to you.

Tom: Right, but this one, Psalm 1, okay: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.” Now, you just alluded to this. I could give, and maybe we should do this, let’s give them a litany of these individuals, and they can decide (our audience can decide) whether or not they are ungodly. Let’s start with Sigmund Freud, his concepts, his ideas. I mean, you’re talking about a man who started out on morphine, and then moved up to cocaine to get that peace that he needed, and so on.

Dave: He used to prescribe it for his patients, cocaine!

Tom: And his associates for their patients, and so on. Now, talk about his perversions! Most of his concepts and theories were based on his own perversion. He lusted after his own mother. Okay, the whole idea of the Oedipus complex, that’s ridiculous. I mean, he didn’t even get that right with regard to Greek drama!

Dave: Tom, the letters that we now have going back and forth between Freud and Jung…see, they used to think Freud was scientific. They find out that he plugged his experiments; they were not honest. But now we’ve got letters going back between Freud and Jung. “Oh, I’ve got a patient and she has, or he has, this sexual problem.” No, now we know they were talking about themselves. They were trying to get counsel from one another for their own problems. And you want to look at the history of Freud’s disciples up to today, these people are really messed up.

Tom: Well, Dave, as you know, I was just at the Freud museum in Vienna, Austria last summer, and it was a fascinating place to go through. I mean, scary in a sense, because to see this individual, and to see the influence he has had on the world, it just defies description. I’m looking at—they have along the walls their photographs, Freud and his life. And one of the photographs that’s really interesting is his desk.

Now, Dave, remember supposedly the problem between Freud and Jung was Jung got too spiritual. Okay? And of course, Freud is the materialist, and all of this was a guy that…

Dave: The guy is actually…

Tom: No, but it was a kind of a ruse to make sure that he was accepted in the academic community. But what does he have ringed around, lined up around his desk, are all of these idols that he had collected from all over the world! And he said that he used to sit there and get information from these entities. This is seducing spirits; this is “walking in the counsel of the ungodly.”

Dave: Right. Well, he was certainly ungodly, and the Christian psychologists today who follow his theories, they are walking in the counsel of the ungodly.

But let me quote Thomas Szasz. He also is Jewish, a non-practicing Jew. Freud was a Jew. Freud needed Jung, this WASP, this White Anglo-Saxon Protestant—well he wasn’t Anglo-Saxon, he was Swiss—but he needed him to help get acceptance for his theories.

Tom: He needed a Gentile.

Dave: Right, thank you, for his theories. And Thomas Szasz, I think, is qualified as one of the world’s leading research psychiatrists, and as a Jew, to address Freud. Thomas Szasz said Sigmund Freud had one motive in life: revenge against Christianity. Okay? These people are anti-Christians to a man, and we’re going to go to them for help?

Tom: Dave, what about some of his concepts? I mean, the issue of infantile sex, psychic determinism, the unconscious, these are all out of his imagination—worse, they are out of his depravity at least.

Dave: Right. Well, then let’s go Jung, okay?

Tom: Okay, let’s move down the list, right? The reason, you said, that you allude to the fact that many so-called Christian psychologists, they’re into psychic determinism, they’re into some of the concepts of Freud. But the real hero for them today is Carl Jung, Carl Gustaf Jung.

Dave: Right. Well, Tom, you know Jung. I’ve read Memories, Dreams, Reflections and so forth and all this kind of stuff…

Tom: His autobiography, okay, which is continually updated by his disciples. Go ahead.

Dave: I remember…you remember when he rented that place over in England for a little vacation and it was haunted, and got all these noises and scuffling and things running around in the room? And then he’s lying on the pillow, and he wakes up in the middle of the night and there is the face of an elderly woman staring right at him, on the pillow, with her head half blown off! And he jumps out of bed and gets a light and so forth.

The psychic experiences (actually demonic experiences that he had), he was what we call a poltergeist person. These things, you know—poltergeist, noisy spirit—these things happened around him. And the…

Tom: But of course, he had his terminology to dismiss it as being a reality. These were “exteriorizations”; these things came out of his unconscious.

Dave: He tried. On the other hand, the first time he and Freud met (Freud was hoping that Jung would become his disciple), they had a quarrel about this sort of thing. And they were standing by a bookcase arguing about this, and Jung said, “No, this is real! You’re going to hear a loud shot like a gun right out of that bookcase.” And boom! And Freud fainted dead away. And when he came to, he accused Jung of harboring an unconscious death wish against him.

Now, they met again and similar things happened (I won’t go into details), and that sort of brought about a split in their relationship. But then Freud, he begins to believe in these demonic things.

Tom: Well, at the end of his life he said if he had to do it all over again, he would have gotten into psychic phenomena, studying physic phenomena. Again, this is a litany of individuals who were the pillars, the foundation of psychotherapy, and again, the Scripture says we are not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

Dave: Carl Jung, you remember—you went to his house, I presume. I’ve been there, outside of Zurich. One night, he says a screaming chorus of ghosts, fresh from Jerusalem, came in.

Tom: These were crusaders, he said.

Dave: But these are ghosts now, because he believed that he was the pastor to the dead. He traveled with the dead, and they were there three days and three nights, and it was under…

Tom: Their complaint to him was that they thought that Christianity—that their redemption would be in Christianity, but it didn’t work out, and they needed information from him in order to pass on. This was their story.

Dave: And many of his theories came right out of that from the demonic world. Then of course he had his own spirit guide: Philemon, “Philemon the demon,” I call it.

Tom: This is one, Dave. He had at least half a dozen.

Dave: Yeah, but Philemon was his favorite. He said, “We walked up and…” Well, in fact, Tom, he said he was as real as a person: “We walked up and down the garden together arm in arm.” He said that he—for how long was it? He was teetering on the brink of a total psychotic breakdown for about at least six months, and he would have to repeat to himself to keep in touch with reality, “My name is Carl Gustaf Jung. I am a psychiatrist.”

Tom: Wait a minute—let me finish that, Dave, and finish this off. He said the way he could hold to reality he would repeat this: “My name is Carl Gustaf Jung. I live at [228] Seestrasse Küsnacht.” That’s how he found his house. Unbelievable! You know, we laugh, but at the same time, it is so tragic that these are the individuals that the church, many in the church, are looking to for help.

Dave: And they hold up as the great masters, and they have abandoned the Bible—or at least they are trying to give the Bible some help from these guys’ theories.

Tom: Exactly, against what the Bible says. Again, Psalm 1: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.” And these men, by any measure, are ungodly.

Dave: And so the Christian psychologists today are teaching the church to look for blessings somewhere other than from the Word of God, where we are promised to find them.