ON BEING A CHRISTIAN ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGIST
1.INTRODUCTION:
1.1 On being a Christian
1.2 On being a Christian psychologist: principle or ideal?
1.3 On being a good academic psychologist
2.ON BEING A GOOD RESEARCHER IN PSYCHOLOGY
2.1 To distinguish well and to have a high regard for evidence
2.2 Creation, revelation and the factuality of the world
2.3 Lesson from Luke 24:13-49: the Scientific Method does not exist
2.4 The object should determine the method of investigation
2.5 Naive experience and pre-scientific knowledge
2.6 Scientific abstraction in order to enrich our naive experience
2.7 The need to re-integrate abstractions into naïve experience
2.8 Research with human beings is cooperative research
3.ON BEING A GOOD TEACHER IN PSYCHOLOGY
3.1 Teaching students vs. teaching subject matter: a matter of respect and
sensitivity
3.2 A good teacher needs authority
3.3 The importance of mastering the course material
3.4 The pitfalls of teaching a Christian perspective in psychology: two examples
3.5 A more excellent way: teaching the course content
3.6 The subject matter presents insights within theories
within debates within paradigms ...
3.7 as well as a whole raft of unsolvable problems
3.8 Letting the light of the Gospel shine on the dead ends
in psychology
ON BEING A CHRISTIAN ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGIST
(DISCLAIMER: Northrop Frye: "An open mind is like a digestive system." So, keep what you can use, and eliminate the rest. You may disagree with me, please, disagree with me, so I can learn from you.
1.INTRODUCTION:
How to structure this talk? I intend to analyze the title, and free associate on it, and then quit. I look forward to a lively discussion.
1.1 On Being a Christian
Title implies: am I a Christian psychologist"... What a question! As if I, being a Christian, can be anything but a Christian psychologist. Does anyone ever give talks on being a Christian mechanic, baker, banker? 'Christian' tells who I am. To say it with St.Paul: necessity is upon me, I am compelled to be a Christian, God forbid that I should not be a Christian and that of course comes to expression (somehow) in the way I view and do psychology. So, being a Christian academic psychologist is as unproblematic (and problematic) as being a Christian anywhere.
1.2 On Being a Christian Psychologist: Principle or Ideal?
What you can ask me: What does it mean to be a Christian psychologist? How does your being a Christian influence your being a psychologist? Well, I certainly do not aspire to be a Christian psychologist. Being a Christian is not a value, an ideal I aspire to, as if to say, wouldn't it be nice if I could be, but 'Christian' is a motivation, a principle (= Latin for 'beginning'), more like 'paradigm/world and life view/ way of life, what I live out of, toward something, a ladder on which I climb toward an ideal, a goal. And that goal is for me simply to be a good psychologist, a good academic psychologist. But I recognize that being a good psychologist is something different for me, a Christian than for my colleagues who may be secularists or humanists, or, for that matter they may be psychologists ( =adherents to psychologism). In any case, if they and I agree on what it means to be a good psychologist I think we do so for different reasons.
1.3 On Being a Good Academic Psychologist
What you can ask me is: what does it mean to be a good academic psychologist from a Christian perspective? You want me to tell how my Christianity influences my being a scientist/scholar, or influences that area of my life where the discovery and dissemination of objective psychological knowledge takes centre stage.
The task of being an academic psychologist, it seems to me, has two components, research and teaching.
a) what does it mean to be a good researcher in psychology from a Christian point of view?
b) what does it mean to be a good teacher in psychology from a Christian point of view?
Let me say something about each of these aspects of being a Christian academic psychologist and then quit.
2.ON BEING A GOOD RESEARCHER IN PSYCHOLOGY
What influence does my being a Christian have on the way I view and do research in psychology? Let me say at the outset that I do not view my religion as a problem, but rather as a bonus for my research (and for my teaching) in psychology.
2.1 To distinguish well and To Have a High regard for
Evidence
To be a Christian means to obey God's commandments in al of our life.
If we were to ask a Christian mechanic: what does God require of you in your trade, he would say: to fix cars well. Well, I think God asks of me as a research psychologist to distinguish well. This implies that I am expected to have a high regard for evidence, for the actual diversity and the actual factuality that is there.
2.2 Creation, Revelation and the Factuality of the World
If you are a Christian, you believe in creation and in revelation and for that reason you must have a high regard for evidence. God made the world we inhabit and embody a unity in diversity and He reveals that diversity and unity to us. It is because creation is so diverse and everything was made after its kind that we can make so many this-that, and thus-so distinctions, also in psychology. And we must do that well so as to do justice to the factuality of creation. The Reformation,with its renewed respect for God's word written preceded the natural scientific revolution. I think a good case can be made that it also ushered in /made possible the Natural Science Revolution. My belief that God made the world thus and so, and that he reveals that diversity to us, so that it can be read like a book of nature provided that we put on the glasses of the word of God written safeguards me from becoming relativistic and nihilistic in my research. It is important to have respect for the factuality of creation.
Does that mean that I am a positivist rather than a post-positivist, or does that mean that I believe psychology is a natural science rather than a social science, (since presumably only natural science deals with facts). Does that mean that for me the only acceptable evidence in psychology is that which is obtained through 'the scientific method,' by means of experimentation and via statistical analysis? No, not at all! The fact that we as Christians ought have a high regard for evidence still leaves the question what constitutes the correct method of investigation and what constitutes genuine evidence in psychology from a Christian point of view wide open.
2.3 Lesson from Luke 24:13-49: the Scientific Method does not Exist
Let us look briefly at Luke 24: 13-49. In this bible passage the risen Lord tries to convince his disciples that he is alive and not dead, so that these disciples can be witnesses to his resurrection. How does he do that? How does he present the evidence for his resurrection? In his first attempt, with the disciples on the way to Emmaus, he uses a hermeneutic method, more typical of the social sciences. He tries to convince them by means of narrative, he provides proof via an appeal to the scriptures, he gives evidence from what was written. But when he later appears to the other disciples he uses an entirely different method, the empirical method more typical of the natural sciences:"Look, touch me, see, give me something to eat. Use your senses. Test my resurrection as a hypothesis. Disprove for yourself the 0-hypothesis that I am dead and buried. I am not a phantom of your imagination but I am materially present. Jesus relativizes the method of investigation to the job that needs to be done.
Apart from the fact that this passage was not written with the issue in mind whether psychology is a social or natural science, how can it nevertheless illuminate that problem for us? Well, Luke 24 seems to relativize the natural science, and the social science method. Both seem to be sanctioned. This implies that as far as the bible is concerned, THE scientific method, apparently, does not exist.
So, which method of investigation from a Christian point of view should we use as we do our research in psychology? (Let me offer, parenthetically, my conviction that whether Christianity has anything to say in science/scholarship, is decided not by the kind of theory it provides, but by the kind of research methodology it points us to. How you look at and for a thing is far more important than what you end up calling it, I think)
Luke 24 liberates us from having to choose either a social science or a natural science method. But how to put this positively? What criterion should we use in deciding which of these two methods, or for that matter any other method is the appropriate one?
2.4 The Object should determine the Method of Investigation
In line with another of my rules for good research, to the effect that we should describe the thing to be described well, i.e. in accordance with its nature/character/structure, my view is that the object of investigation should determine the method of investigation. How we look for something is relative to what we are looking at and what we are looking for. That seems like common sense in an empirical science, but it is revolutionary in psychology. Much of psychological theory, perhaps with the exception of phenomenological psychology, states that the method of investigation determines the object of investigation. If we can't see it, it ain't there. Things don't exist until research says they do. Is this true, do we only have knowledge scientifically, or do we also have knowledge of things pre-scientifically?
2.5 Naive Experience and Pre-scientific Knowledge
By virtue of living in this world we are confronted with fellow creatures, and we bump into created realities inside ourselves. We know these created realities by acquaintance. They are revealed to us. They are the object of our 'naive experience', to use a phrase by the Dutch Christian philosopher, Herman Dooyeweerd. God reveals creation to us in our naive experience. But naive experience results in implicit, not-yet-explicated knowledge. It lacks depth and breadth, and detail, and it tweaks our curiosity, we want to know more about something we already know cursorily and science is born. Scientific investigation follows naive experience and must return to it and must serve it by enriching it, not replacing it, but by enriching it.
2.6 Scientific Abstraction in order to Enrich our Naive
Experience
Science finds out more about objects we know by acquaintance by abstracting from everyday, naive experience. If the object of research determines research methodology, then, it seems to me that, whether one uses a natural sc. or a social sc. methodology has more to do with the level of abstraction that is appropriate in whatever research you are doing. For example, research in the psychological functions like sensation, perception, memory, cognition, motivation seems to allow for more abstraction than e.g. research in personality, or abnormal psychology. Thus, in the former kind of research a natural scientific research methodology may be suitable. But in the latter types of research, which stays closer to everyday life, perhaps we should use a less abstract, more social science oriented method of research.
2.7 The need to Re-integrate Abstractions into Naive
Experience
Abstraction allows us to gain a deeper, more detailed insight into phenomena which we already know by acquaintance. However, abstraction also presents us with a problem. For the results of any research to be serviceable to everyday life we must undo the abstraction again that are part of scientific or scholarly discoveries. We must re integrate what we have abstracted from naive experience back into our naive experience. If we do not do this reintegrating and argue that scientific results are directly applicable to everyday life, as the Behaviorist claim, then we contribute to a reductionistic view of human life.
With research that stays close to everyday experience, less abstracting has to be undone to make its results relevant to everyday life, and that is one of its advantages.
2.8 Research with Human Beings is Cooperative Research
Finally, if we wish to do research in human behavior, or human feeling and thought processes, the rule that the methodology must follow the object of investigation means, I believe, that we should involve the subjects of the investigation into the intent of the investigation. Human beings are not objects, but subjects. You can treat them as objects, and in some cases they will oblige and become objects. But a research strategy that turns human beings into objects loses out of sight precisely that which makes human beings human. Human beings think, they have a mind of their own, and they speak and they have something to say, and they have the ability to decide to do something, or not, and they can hide their intent and say or do one thing and intend another. You cannot make human beings do anything. You can only get their cooperation. That is the kind of creatures human beings are. My mentor, Professor Wijngaarden of the Free University of Amsterdam. used to say:"People are the worst material to work with". I have added: " and that is also their glory".
Why not tell the human subjects of your research what you are up to and ask for their cooperation? Psychologists don't like doing that because they believe that human beings can't be objective about their lives. If they knew the intent of the research, this would bias the results.
Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen in The Person In Psychology says if the subjects of research cannot be objective, neither can the psychologists who do the research. And so, she pleads for a psychology of psychologists. I disagree with Mary. I think that I as a psychologist am able to be objective about my research. I think I am genuinely able to let the facts speak for themselves. But I would argue that this is true for the people I study as well.
So, for me, interviewing people about their behavior, thoughts and feelings is the most appropriate method of research when I study human beings. But, more about this in the discussion, because this research section of my talk is becoming much too long.
3.ON BEING A GOOD TEACHER IN PSYCHOLOGY
On to teaching. What is the difference between being a good researcher and being a good teacher in psychology from a Christian point of view? God comes to me as professor of psychology and he does not say, "Harry, distinguish well, but teach well."
3.1 Teaching students vs. Teaching Subject Matter: a Matter of Respect and Sensitivity
There is more to teaching than making clear distinctions in or giving an exhaustive overview of the course material. I teach people, not subjects. That means that whatever course I teach I teach it within an interpersonal relationship with my students. I, on my part, must contribute to this relationship by treating my students with respect. This means telling them exactly what I expect of them, always keeping my word with them, being open and at times vulnerable with them, allowing them to argue with me, respecting their opinion, helping them when they have difficulty with the subject matter, by having an open door policy if they want to talk about a personal problem with me, grading them fairly and discussing their grade if their evaluation of their performance differs from mine, giving praise and encouragement, etc.
Above all, I contribute to our teacher-student relationship when I am sensitive to the difference between my students and myself. Good teaching, in my view is not primarily a matter of knowledge but a matter of sensitivity. I am good teacher when I am sensitive to the fact that what I find easy to do or to know, my students find hard to do or to know. It is my job to make these things easier for them, to help them close the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky) i.e. the distance between what they can do and know with me and without me.
3.2 To be a Good teacher you need Authority
And to be able to teach my students well I need to have authority over them. Teaching is not just dispensing information. (A cynical definition of a lecture is where the course material in the prof's notes is transferred to the students' notes, without it, i.e. the material, going through the minds of either the professor or the students.) A teacher is not a vending machine for interesting facts, she is a mentor. Students must be helped by teachers to wrestle with the material that is presented. And for that a teacher needs authority. I have authority with my students when I do all of the things I have just mentioned, when I mentor them. They give me a hearing and my words stay with them because they know I care and go the extra mile for them, because I love my students.
Jesus, says the bible, taught with authority, and not like the Pharisees. The Pharisees were probably far more educated than Jesus. But they lacked authority because they did not love the ones they taught. Jesus laid down his life for them. That is why he had authority. If you want to teach, you have to have authority, if you want authority, you have to love.
3.3 The Importance of Mastering the Course Material
Having said that I teach people not subjects and I might add that students do not learn from books, but from people they love, I now must say: but it is also very important that our students master the subject matter of a courses we teach. If students are going to learn psychology they have to show respect for the history of psychology. Psychology is not about nothing, but about something. Psychology is 100 years old. It has a history and many psychologists before us have given their life researching and discovering all kinds of interesting insights in the psychological dimension of our experience. Those insights have been compiled into a course text. Students should show respect to those who went before by mastering the contents of the course, by knowing these psychological facts and the lectures of a course should be designed to help them do that.