Society for Christian Psychology

“Human and Christian Agency”

September 2010

INTRODUCTION – ERIC JOHNSON

  • Challenge we face in Christian community is the fragmentation of knowledge ... the divorce of the first principles
  • Interdisciplinary is the term usually used in dialogue ... but this leaves them separate ... this is why we are using the term ‘transdisciplinary’ ... trying to understand human nature better via means of different methods and disciplines coming from a common source (in light of Scripture)
  • We want the knowledge of the specialists ... but we want them to talk in such a way that all of us can understand and unify what is said under the authority of Christian theology
  • Modern psychology was founded on the assumption of naturalism (everything is composed of natural entities) ... result was that notions of human agency and freedom were ignored
  • Recent research shows all human activity is correlated with brain activity and can be comprised by brain dysfunction and poor socialization
  • This seem to prove that agency is an illusion ...
  • However, last 30 years has led to things like creativity, agency, moral engagement, willpower, etc. ... i.e. a top-down causation
  • Positive psychology has opened up many new areas as well
  • Western philosophy and theology has a long history on agency ... Barth and Balthasar made divine agency central to their theology on human agency
  • Definitions ... see handout
  • Determinism ... biological and social
  • Libertarianism ... total free will
  • Compatibilism ... ability to choose and act according to one’s nature or wishes
  • Agency ... ‘capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of one’s life’ (Albert Bandura) ... ‘deliberative, reflective activity of a human being in framing, choosing, and executing actions in a way that is not fully determined by factors and conditions other than his own understanding’
  • Key Issue ... in light of the abundant evidence that human activity is grounded in biological activity and shaped by social influence, hwo are we to understand the sense humans have that they are agents, free, and morally responsible for the actions
  • Christian interests in this ... we are interested in both human and divine agency ... for example, how does sin impair human agency beyond the effects of negative biological and social influences ... how is the triune God involved in human agency ... is there a distinctive kind of agency that characterizes the virtuous actions of Christians?

SESSION #1 – C. STEPHEN EVANS: “WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A BODILY SOUL?”

  • Note: See his transcript
  • Response by Betty Fratzke, chairperson at Indiana Weslyan ... presentation is a solid defense of dualism, yet an unanswered question ... how does the soul communicate with God after death? ... also, must develop a way of dealing with neuro-science ... e.g. what does my brain chemistry show when I try to apply Romans 12:1-2?
  • Existential philosophy’s attempt to overcome dualism? ... Poteez is behaviorism ... continental philosophy is allergic to metaphysics
  • Difference between Murphy/Brown and your view? ... mine is more coherent though both views come to the same place ... yet among these writers Jeeves is in a different category (neutral monism)
  • Reference to Thomas Reid ... where did he come from in your thinking? ... my epistemology comes from Reid
  • Why don’t want to be classified as Thomistic? ... can say the body is part of self but not an essential part of myself ... Descarte is completely wrong in his distinction between human and animal souls (Aquinas has a continuum on soul)

SESSION #2 – PETER HAMPSON: “’BY KNOWLEDGE AND LOVE’: THE INTEGRATIVE ROLE OF HABITUS IN CHRISTIAN PYSCHOLOGY, AND SOME APPLICATIONS”

  • Can get his paper via email
  • History is written by the victors it is said ... Augustine and Aquinas were victors ... but both leaders have been misunderstood
  • Focus of talk is on issues in moral theology and psychology ... specifically, how to communicate the riches of Christian theology to secular psychology in a way that is understood and effective
  • Two Ladders for Christian Psychology ... from ground level with its problems in moral psychology ... 1) Augustine ladder and 2) Aquinas ladder
  • MacIntyre After Virtue ... After Justice ... Three Rival Versions
  • Related issues in moral theology and moral psychology ... moral theology had an approach of following the rules and propositions ... focused on sin, law, right behavior, etc. without much of focus on love
  • After You Believe (Tom Wright) ... talks about the difference between the above and contemporary culture and its moral expressivism ... Kohlberg (moral understanding) and Hoffman (moral emotion) and Haidt (moral intuitionism)
  • Point: separation of reason and love
  • Thomas Summa (QQ 49-54, 59-70) ... God, Creation and Humanity, Christ ... can be read as Aristotelian (act potency) or Platonic (participation)
  • Habitus (QQ 49-89) ... can be understood as underpinning the virtues ... it can be understood as skill which becomes part of our ‘second’ nature (with its non-identical repetition) ... one’s own personhood changes with these repetitions ... they are not automatic but ‘flexible expertise’
  • Habitus includes repetition but still has a purposeful action ... it is a movement from moral potential to actuality (actualized moral goods)
  • We can have both intellectual and moral virtues (Haldane, 2004, p 193) ... intellect toward truth directed away from falsity ... affective and volitional virtues toward feeling and choice directed away from bad
  • Cognition (intellect) and Desire/wants (will) combine to produce actions which are directed toward (in pursuit of) goals
  • Effects of Habitus ... interconnecting of virtues ... forms beliefs, shapes emotions, underpins ‘routinised’ moral actions ... love and knowledge reconnected ... intellect has priority in specification (formal cause) but will has priority in exercise (efficient cause) ... also provides theological virtues as well as cardinal virtues
  • Formation of character through creation of ‘second nature’ dispositions ... from habit to character through ‘behavioral mastery’ and use and elaboration of self-narratives in autobiographical memory which form part of self-identity ... identity comes at least in part through a reflection on our actions
  • What are the causal links between moral identity and behavior? ... How does moral identity connect with more ‘automatic’ and routinissed moral behavior? ... How does moral identity develop? ... How do the virtues and vices relate to these issues? (questions from Hardy and Carlos)
  • Habitus (in summary) ... knits together the key components of the system, namely our knowledge (including self knowledge), desires and action ... is better thought of as the development of moral expertise rather than ‘automatic’ behavior ... shapes character and moral identity through the creation of second order dispositions and supports the creation of self beliefts/autobiographical narratives ... underpins all repeated acts (there are moral as well as intellectual virtues and vices) ... emotions a well as beliefs and behaviors can be shaped
  • Moral psychology is a unifier
  • Beliefs ... desires ... actions ... these are impacted by triggers, autobiographical narrative, ideals, comparisons, cultural and social moral networks
  • What about God and grace? ... Thomas makes a distinction between moral virtues and cardinal virtues and theological virtues on the other hand
  • He says all virtues involve habitus ... all virtues involve increasing degrees of ‘participation’ (faith is both a habitus and is infused) ... theological virtues involve deeper participation in God’s nature and are invitations into friendship with God
  • Thus ... cannot do secular psychology on some virtues and Christian psychology on other virtues
  • Creation allows us to participate in being ... grace allows us to participate in Trinitarian life
  • Christianity is not the icing on top of the moral cake ... all is a gift ... grace enables us to participate in creation and redemption
  • Intellect (faith, prudence, wisdom/knowledge) ... will (hope, justice, temperance/fortitude) ... caritas and habitus
  • Bottom line ... God does matter in psychology because we act and acts change the way we are
  • Eg. a soldier can have classic virtues of bravery, etc ... but he is different from a Christian martyr
  • Applications ... education (it is both intellectual and moral formation which sees truth as good and beautiful) ... ‘Green’ virtues (sustainability as a moral endeavor requiring application and practice, temperance and fortitude, prudence, justice) ... therapy (at a basic level it should be practiced in a virtue context ... e.g. imago dei therapy)
  • Waiting for Godot ... they have some good virtues (patience, perseverance, etc.) ... their waiting changed their character ... we wait in the joy of the Lord
  • Response by Jonathan Pennington (associate prof of NT at SBTS) ... positive psychology makes a big deal on hope but doesn’t treat virtue in a fully orbed way which takes eschatology seriously ... grace (in Aquinas) is critical and appreciated ... discipleship must take into account moral identity and desire (well-formed moral habits which demonstrate expertise ... this is wisdom)
  • Peter’s response ... positive psychology has no category for sin (thus Pelagian) ... rules have a point of letting you know what game you are playing, but it is practice that makes a good player
  • Rules/Principles and divine commands/law ... virtue ethics are not opposed to these

SESSION #3 – MICHAEL HAYKIM: “RIVERS OF DRAGONS AND MOUTHS OF LIONS AND DARK FORCES: THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE FOR HOLINESS IN MACARIUS”

  • See transcript
  • Holy Spirit is necessary, but not sufficient! There must be the work of the human being in sanctification
  • Is the redeemed person more free than the unredeemed? Yes. But unredeemed does have an element of freedom (was arguing against Manicheism who were determinists) ... sinner has possibilities but is not living into actualities
  • Macarius does not come at things from a dualistic approach
  • He is a contemporary of Augustine ... there are significant similarities between the two though Augustine is a much more sophisticated theologian
  • Purves ... “as I get older things get messier!” (when it comes to the interaction and mathematical amount of Spirit versus human agency) ... reflection on Christian experience as one gets older results in the conclusion that things are not as neat and tidy as one thought earlier
  • Greek tradition had an overwhelming emphasis on freedom of the will (because they were arguing against Gnostics who were deterministic)
  • Western tradition developed an overwhelming emphasis on the depravity of man and power of sin
  • Macarius seemed to steer a middle way ... but he was not a theologian ... had a simple faith ... just recognize the experience of saints is both a great blessing and, at the same time, a great battle ... yet he thinks the building of habit the likelihood of walking away from the faith less likely ... but he still has a starkness to him
  • Wrestled with what does it mean to be a Christian ... answer was monasticism because of the state making Trinitarian Christianity the only recognized religion and many were coming into the church without any ‘evidence’ of change
  • Redemption rebuilds creation
  • Sin is serious, very serious ... Macarius spoke of the heart as the center of who we are and the place where warfare takes place ... he had a very positive view of the body
  • Humans have enough freedom to walk away even from the Spirit and faith

SESSION #4 – WILLIAM HATHAWAY: “RESPONSIBILITY AND AGENCY: SIMILARITIES IN BIBLICAL THOUGHT, COMMON LAW, AND FOLK PSYCHOLOGY”

  • Thesis: Ordinary notions of moral responsibility requires robust moral agency (but does this require free will)
  • James Child ... two pre-conditions for crime ... guilty deed and guilty mind/intent ... without both one cannot have a crime
  • What does the law mean by an ‘act’ ... defined as ‘a bodily movement whether voluntary or involuntary’ (note: act does not mean a crime)
  • But this standard legal view does not work ... e.g. negligence (guilty without bodily movement) ... thus ‘doings that are purposeful under some description’ works better for culpability
  • To be held accountability one must have certain capacities and abilities necessary to be an appropriate subject of punishment
  • Competence requires “a reasonable degree of rational understanding” ... thus there is a place for an insanity plea (Daniel M’Naghten case in Britain) ... M’Naghten rule became that every man is to be presumed to be sane ... and that to have an insanity defense one must prove one’s insanity (around cognitive standards)
  • Volitional standards were articulated in 1887 in case of Parsons v. State of Alabama ... “his free agency was at the time destroyed” ... mental disease produces the act
  • ALI standard (1962) established in the Model Penal Code both a cognitive and volitional component ... again, sanity is presumed
  • Thus in legal terms ... If don’t know what doing OR cannot prevent one’s self = not responsible and thus not culpable
  • If I could have acted otherwise then I can be held to be morally responsible
  • POINT – can a hard determinism be allowed to enter the legal system
  • FOLK PSYCHOLOGY ... dominant folk view is causalism which assumes that beliefs, intentions, and desires are legitimate causal factors
  • Does the Bible assume that humans have or can have ‘robust agency’ to include free will? ... Galatians 5:1 ... Science and Christian Belief 16:139-156 Richmond
  • Bible seems to incorporate the folk psychology and concepts ... we are capable of reasoning (Isa 1), can be deprived of reason (Job 12), responsible for the light we have (Romans 2), we are to make choices (Joshua 24) , we are morally accountable (Romans 1), etc.
  • But ... Bible doesn’t present a systematic theology of the person ... the discussion of freedom in Scripture does not focus at the issue of the ontological status of our will, not clear ‘free will’ vs. predestination’ has any direct bearing on the extent to which we are free
  • Plato’s Chariot analogy for the soul ... two horses ... good horse is the spirit ... bad horse is the passion (?)
  • Research suggests there may be something in the brain which starts reviving up before we are aware of a willful state of wanting
  • Rubicon Model (Motivation and Action) ... goal striving and goal selection are two different thing ... deliberation results in goal selection ... then volitional planning (preaction) and this is a crossing of the rubicon ... then volitional action ... then evaluation (deactivation)
  • Mirror neuron’s activate when watching others do something (Cognitive Neuroscience) ... pathways going from mirror neurons to empathetic neurons (same emotions in me as in you even though I’m not doing what you are doing)
  • Mental simulation of action ... through imagination vs. simulating actions of others through anticipation ... imagination activates certain areas in the brain ... but if I’m watching there are other areas activated (figure 7.47)
  • Point – activation toward an action comes before volition ... but we are volitional when it comes to inhibiting responses (not the freedom to will but the freedom to ‘won’t)
  • Gazzinga, Ivry, Mangun (2009)
  • ADHD ... cannot disengage because this requires an inhibition response (which is impaired)
  • Michael Bratman on agency Structures of Agency: Essays ... belief/desire/intention model of human practical reasoning
  • To be morally responsible we must be in some sense causally responsible for our morally significant actions ... that we should have been able to do otherwise ... such self-regulation’ would require our providential design to allow for rational self-governance, at least with regard to things that we are prepared ...
  • Mimesis (imitation)
  • What Spiritual Formation things are needed at the deliberative stage, volitional stage, evaluative stage, etc.
  • How free are we moment to moment? To be maximally free we need to have a well integrated telic structure, discipline behavioral habits comporting to these goals
  • Emmons The Psycholgoy of Ultimate Concerns ... people who have spiritual strivings are mentally healthier ... provide an all-encompassing framework to sustain motivation
  • Must work against addiction to have better agency
  • Response by Dr. Warren Kinghorn (Assistant Prof at Duke School of Medicine and Divinity) ... 1) can folk psychology avoid palagianism; 2) can folk psychology give us a robust form of freedom (which comes from progressive participation in the good); 3) is culpability under civil law the same as culpability under divine law?
  • Response from Hathaway ... law has assumed a level of freedom that theology probably does not (but don’t know how divine law will be different from civil law ... Anthony Flew found it difficult to embrace Christianity because of loss of freedom ... father of positive psychology says western Christianity is too Augustinian and needs to be more Pelagian)
  • Action plan sequences
  • Free WON’T is a very positive factor ... conscience is an inhibitor ...
  • Chariot illustration ... one horse is reason, prudence is the charioteer, other horse is passion/eros (?) ... neuroscience is pointing toward virtue as central to our motivation (lured by them)
  • Evans ... cautioned against using folk psychology because it is misunderstood ... the things you listed are very clear to us and we don’t want them thrown out ... also try to pull out agency from Pelagianism

SESSION #5 – ERIC JONES: “INTENTIONAL SLAVERY: SOCIAL INFLUENCE, AUTOMATICITY, AND FREE WILL”

  • Choice about Agency ... which narrative do we choose? ... naturalism (world lacking purpose or intended meaning ... survival oriented) or Christianity (world full of transcendent purpose and meaning, representative of our Creator)
  • Divine origin of agency ... Johnson ... agency has a divine origin
  • Scripture points out the need for self-control (Gal 5:23; 2 Pet 1:6) and the problems associated with lack of self-control (1 Cor ) ... if we are to do this we must have agency
  • Must have self-control for sake of community (helping and being with others) ... love is our goal ... this is a long-term, life-long goal
  • Social cognitive literature has shorter term goals
  • Me and My TheoSocial Context ... Self (agentic, fallen condition, created as interdependent, intended for Trinitarian theology-based community) ... TheoSocial context (Trinitarian, fallen, multiple goals and goal levels, hierarchy of goals, contains both pro-Christian and anti-Christian influences)
  • Gist of it All ... agency, free will, volition, intention, self-control, self-regulation, self-reflexivity, metacognition, choice
  • Role of Psychological Science ... to what degree does humanity possess agency? ... is this question outside the boundaries of the scientific method? ... basically ‘yes’ ... but Libet’s study speaks of beginning of action as pre-volitional, simple vs. complex tasks, Dan Wegner’s views of cognitive reporting (Illusion of Will ... when we report the reports are clouded)
  • What starts behavior? ... silly question ... behavior is a stream that is always going ... conscience just tries to redirect the stream
  • Science and Christianity do not conflict ... but cannot swallow uncritically
  • Guiding Questions ...