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littleroseygirl's review
4.0
I love this series of books that present various viewpoints of different topics. This one was especially interesting, as I didn't realize there were so many diverse views of psychology and Christianity. I hadn't even heard of two of them until I read it. Unfortunately, these authors aren't always as cordial with each other as others are in other books I've read in this series. But overall, the book fulfills its job in the multi-views series.
josiahdegraaf's review
5.0
I came to this book being fairly ignorant of the different sides that were going to be presented. I had read one short book on the Integration View, and had some familiarity with the Biblical Counseling View, and I have read a fair bit of other stuff on Psychology, which is why I wanted to read this book, but otherwise didn't really have an opinion on which side was right coming into the book.
Overall, the structure of the book was fairly good. The opening and closing chapters by the editor of this volume were very helpful in talking about what sort of things to look for and judge the sides by, and during the chapters themselves, the five different viewpoints were each given a good amount of time to explain and defend their views. I would have appreciated it a bit more if, after all the authors gave their rebuttals to each side, if the original side would have been given a couple pages to respond to any major attacks and sum up their position once more, but that is a relatively minor concern in the structure of the book.
My thoughts on each of the five positions after reading:
The levels-of-explanation view made a good bit of sense while reading through it, and had some good thoughts on how well psychology can or can't study prayer and other subjects like it, but the author really shot himself in the foot when he explained why psychological studies mean that Christians ought to change their view on homosexuality and accept them. The rebuttals to his case made some fairly good arguments as well on why Christianity can't just be treated as a set of values, and after hearing the arguments, turned away from this position as being a correct one.
The integration view made a very strong case for its position, and ended up being one of the viewpoints that I agreed with the most. The author's critique of the presuppositions of modern science in this section was phenomenal, and did a fantastic job of showing all the hidden worldview elements that lead to certain false conclusions that science can sometimes make, and hence what presuppositions we ought to have in order to do good science. This chapter seemed to me to do the best job of valuing psychology while within the context of a Christian framework.
The Christian psychology view had a lot of really strong elements, particularly in its brief overview of the history of psychology before the modern era and the importance of learning from medieval and classical authors in this regard. It made some really good points on how fundamental worldview is to correctly using a soft science like psychology, and I appreciated its thoughts on the importance of ontology to epistemology.
The transformative view had some interesting points on the importance of the character of a psychologist, but ultimately seemed to be focusing on too narrow a view of psychology, and also to be rather overly-critical of all the other viewpoints. I probably gained the least from this chapter, but it was a good viewpoint to include in the book.
The biblical counseling view I really wanted to like, since I'm a huge fan of several authors who are in this movement, but ultimately didn't really seem to have a good grasp of psychology as a whole. With regards to the application of psychology with psychotherapy, the author had some really good thoughts, but he was really only focused on this aspect. Given this, I really appreciate this view for application and am fully with it on that end of the spectrum, but it simply does not have the most comprehensive view of psychology that one could have.
In the end, after reading through all these views, I've situated myself somewhere between the Christian Psychology model and the Integration model, appreciating both the strong worldview emphasis of Christian Psychology, and also the strong scientific emphasis of the Integration model. This book did a really good job of laying out the different views and of giving me the opportunity to figure out where I stand on this topic. Great book for Christians who are interested in psychology but are unsure about how to understand it.
Rating: 4.5 Stars (Excellent).
Overall, the structure of the book was fairly good. The opening and closing chapters by the editor of this volume were very helpful in talking about what sort of things to look for and judge the sides by, and during the chapters themselves, the five different viewpoints were each given a good amount of time to explain and defend their views. I would have appreciated it a bit more if, after all the authors gave their rebuttals to each side, if the original side would have been given a couple pages to respond to any major attacks and sum up their position once more, but that is a relatively minor concern in the structure of the book.
My thoughts on each of the five positions after reading:
The levels-of-explanation view made a good bit of sense while reading through it, and had some good thoughts on how well psychology can or can't study prayer and other subjects like it, but the author really shot himself in the foot when he explained why psychological studies mean that Christians ought to change their view on homosexuality and accept them. The rebuttals to his case made some fairly good arguments as well on why Christianity can't just be treated as a set of values, and after hearing the arguments, turned away from this position as being a correct one.
The integration view made a very strong case for its position, and ended up being one of the viewpoints that I agreed with the most. The author's critique of the presuppositions of modern science in this section was phenomenal, and did a fantastic job of showing all the hidden worldview elements that lead to certain false conclusions that science can sometimes make, and hence what presuppositions we ought to have in order to do good science. This chapter seemed to me to do the best job of valuing psychology while within the context of a Christian framework.
The Christian psychology view had a lot of really strong elements, particularly in its brief overview of the history of psychology before the modern era and the importance of learning from medieval and classical authors in this regard. It made some really good points on how fundamental worldview is to correctly using a soft science like psychology, and I appreciated its thoughts on the importance of ontology to epistemology.
The transformative view had some interesting points on the importance of the character of a psychologist, but ultimately seemed to be focusing on too narrow a view of psychology, and also to be rather overly-critical of all the other viewpoints. I probably gained the least from this chapter, but it was a good viewpoint to include in the book.
The biblical counseling view I really wanted to like, since I'm a huge fan of several authors who are in this movement, but ultimately didn't really seem to have a good grasp of psychology as a whole. With regards to the application of psychology with psychotherapy, the author had some really good thoughts, but he was really only focused on this aspect. Given this, I really appreciate this view for application and am fully with it on that end of the spectrum, but it simply does not have the most comprehensive view of psychology that one could have.
In the end, after reading through all these views, I've situated myself somewhere between the Christian Psychology model and the Integration model, appreciating both the strong worldview emphasis of Christian Psychology, and also the strong scientific emphasis of the Integration model. This book did a really good job of laying out the different views and of giving me the opportunity to figure out where I stand on this topic. Great book for Christians who are interested in psychology but are unsure about how to understand it.
Rating: 4.5 Stars (Excellent).
micklz24's review
3.0
This book is heady, and I honestly feel like I need to read it again with the addition of other resources in order to really understand the five views. The critiques helped me understand the views more than the authors presentation of the view did, most of the time. However, Johnson’s conclusion of this book was worth reading to the end - i really appreciated his discussion of meta-systemic thinking and how important varying perspectives are. Overall a good read, just a little confusing and hard to digest at times.
kat_the_bookcat's review
3.0
This is a book I'm going to need to read again in the future. It's definitely something I can use once I've gotten my degree and started counciling!
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