Implicit theologies in psychologies: claiming experience as an authoritative source for theologizing.

The beginning of this millennium is an especially appropriate time to consider the relationship between psychology and theology, and more particularly, the role of experience in theologizing, (1) since it marks the centennial of William James's completion of his Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh and their publication in the now classic book The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. (2) James, as a psychologist, stood before a scholarly audience that included many theologians and other religious studies academics and discussed religion utilizing psychological perspectives. In spite of a methodological aversion to doing the work of theology explicitly, he nonetheless argued for "religion's value" and invited religious academics to "treat it with respect." (3)

Psychology as Not-Theology

As one of the first modern psychologists to speak and write about religion, James was cautious about overstepping disciplinary bounds. He states quite clearly in his opening lecture: "I am neither a theologian, nor a scholar learned in the history of religions, nor an anthropologist. Psychology is the only branch of learning in which I am particularly versed." (4) Knowing James, this stance was likely a pragmatic one; he was doing his best not only to be inoffensive to his audience but also to win them over to his belief in the value of the psychology of religion. What better way to do that than by starting out his remarks in a somewhat self-effacing way! He was also, I believe, intentionally creating an alternative disciplinary perspective (viz., psychology of religion as an alternative to theology proper), a process that seems to require some form of distancing or disassociation from other potentially competing perspectives, if only for the sake of clarifying differences. (5)

The articulation of psychology of religion as "not-theology" surfaces in the works of other, more contemporary psychologists addressing issues that are also understood to be religious and theological. Donald Winnicott, the British pediatrician and psychoanalytic object relations theorist, often gave public talks to various groups, some of whom were Christian, yet refused to identify his contributions as formally theological. He acknowledged that his thinking had theological relevance, but ultimately retreated to his identity and commitments as a pediatrician and psychoanalyst. (6) At a conference on family evangelism in the late 1960s sponsored by the Christian Teamwork Institute of Education, Winnicott said:

    I have come to speak at this conference as a human being, a
    children's director, a child psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst....
    You know, I hope, that I have been invited here not as a religious
    teacher, nor even as a Christian, hut as someone with a long
    experience in a limited field, one who is intensely concerned with
    human problems of growth, living and fulfillment. (7)

Although perhaps willing to acknowledge that to make claims about human development is to make theological claims as well (and vice versa), Winnicott denied any implicit theologizing function to his psychoanalytically-informed developmental psychology. A decade later, another psychoanalytic practitioner and author, Ana-Maria Rizzuto, claimed that her groundbreaking book on the psychological function of god images, The Birth of the Living God, "is not a book on religion." (8) She then proceeded to distinguish the functional gods of one's psychic life from the ontological reality of the gods of formal or institutional religion.

I'm intrigued by these "psychology as not-theology" claims. To use Shakespeare's words, they "doth protest too much." Perhaps there is more to these denials than simply a rhetorical strategy to safeguard one's professional identity and territory; perhaps, in fact, James, Winnicott, and Rizzuto did not fully appreciate how their work as psychologists of religion not only bled over into the territory of the theologians, but also contained within it the seeds of implicit theology. In other words, they were not cognizant of the ways in which their psychologies function as theologies, which is to say they were not aware of the ways in which they were "theologians-of-a-kind." (9)

Psychologies as Theologies-of-a-Kind

That there are implicit theologies (philosophies, anthropologies, etc.) embedded within contemporary psychologies may well be a claim that would not be contested by most theologians today. Don Browning, the practical theologian from the University of Chicago, made such a claim fifteen years ago when he published Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies: A Critical Conversation in the Theology of Culture, arguing that "traditional religion and modern psychology stand in a special relation to one another because both of them provide concepts and technologies for the ordering of the interior life." (10) He suggests that modern psychologies are teleological in that they typically contain implicit ideas regarding the essence of human nature and what is "good", that is, they "possess religio-ethical dimensions." (11) Clinical and developmental psychologies in particular contain an implicit vision of what individual persons can and should achieve, leading them to extend into territory properly labeled as theological. (12) Given this situation of disciplinary intermingling and the Christian conviction that, as Alan Jones notes, "mental and spiritual health is really a theological issue, that is, it is about God" (13), should not theologians engage psychology for the purpose of doing theology? The history of the past century would indicate that there is no consensus in theological circles about the status of psychology with respect to theology. Not all agree to engage. (14) Even among those who do engage, there is a further divide over the goal of such an engagement. For some, the goal is to identify and articulate the limits, short-comings, and faults inherent in psychological perspectives. This is appropriate work. Psychologies need to be critiqued from a theological perspective. This posture or attitude, however, often proceeds from an assumption that psychologies always have it fundamentally wrong and therefore need to be corrected by theology, i.e., that theology needs to be rescued from psychology. What if theologians were to approach psychologies with a different assumption--that sometimes psychologies have it right, and that their implicit theologies hold potential for enriching the theological enterprise?

Embracing Psychologies for Theologizing

Consider the potential for psychologies to contribute positively to the work of constructive theology. Theologians--including psychologists doing theology--would do well to engage the task of discerning implicit theologies in psychologies not only to critique them, i.e., affirming what the theologian already knows to be true, but also with an openness to embrace them, i.e., to allow psychology to contribute to the adjusting and developing of what the theologian is learning to be true. This claim can be supported by arguments from two vantage points: first, the historical analysis of academic discourse attempting to explain religious experience; and, second, the Wesleyan theological orientation to experiencing religion.

Historical Analysis of Academic Discourse Explaining Religion

The portrayal of psychology and theology as sharply divided domains may be due, in part, to a failure to appreciate the similarities between the two disciplines when viewed as academic discourses. This is an understandable oversight, for the languages used by psychologists of religion and theologians to describe and/or interpret the same religious experience may seem so disparate that a common modus operandi is not apparent. The division is exacerbated when the psychologist refers only to natural processes while the theologian refers to supernatural or transcendent realities. In such cases it appears that the theologian is remaining faithful to the religious character of the experience while the psychologist is not. What is missed in this analysis is that both theologian and psychologist are one step removed from the religious experience they are attempting to describe and/or interpret. As Ann Taves observes in her important study of Protestant religious experience, Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James, "the experience of religion cannot be separated from the communities of discourse and practice that gave rise to it without becoming something else." (15) Any attempt to describe and/or interpret religious experience systematically from the perspective of an academic discipline--whether psychology or theology--inevitably creates this separation by virtue of the fact that the academic discipline is itself another community of discourse. Re-narrating requires translating which results in re-framing. Taves concludes: "Theories of experience," then, "whether theological, spiritual, philosophical, sociological, or psychological, are the farthest removed [from the narrating of experience] and the most fragmented." (16)

Psychologies of religion are on an equal footing with formal, explicit theologies in relation to actual religious experience. To use a spatial metaphor, they are methodologically equidistant from the subjects of their analysis. (17) In light of this, how then can the implicit theologies in psychologies aid in theologizing? One way is by providing more experience-near perspectives than some formal, explicit theologies. James's phenomenologically oriented approach is one example of a psychology that moved closer to the religious experiences in question than did some of the theologies of the day. (18) Winnicott's psychoanalytic object relations theory is another example of an experience-near psychology--informed as it was by his numerous interactions with mothers and their babies (19)--that is currently popular as a lens for theological reflection. (20)

A second way that the implicit theologies in psychologies can aid in theologizing is by offering interpretive approaches that mediate between the secularizing tendency of those who would reduce religious experience to nothing but natural processes, and the spiritualizing tendency of those who would reduce religious experience to nothing but supernatural processes. Non-radically reductive psychologies of religion like James's and Winnicott's allow for phenomena to be both natural and religions, i.e., capable of being "authentic religious experience" and explainable in terms of "naturalistic theories of religion." (21) This may prove especially helpful to theologians as they participate in the contemporary science and religion dialogue.

Wesleyan Theological Orientation to Experiencing Religion

Wesleyan theology--that stream of Protestant Christian thinking rooted in the eighteenth-century English preacher and practical theologian, John Wesley-and many contemporary psychologies share a common authoritative source for theorizing, viz., experience. Taves selected the Wesleyan tradition as the focus for her analysis of Protestant religious experiencing and theorizing about experience because "Methodists... and their heirs in Adventist, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements embraced religious experience in greater numbers and with greater enthusiasm than most other Protestants." (22) However, in contrast to Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley did not make a strong distinction between "primary causation (effects arising directly from supernatural action) and secondary causation (effects arising naturally as indirect effects of supernatural action)" (23); he believed that the full range of physical and psychological dimensions of religious experience could be expressions of the work of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, compared to Edwards, Wesley was open to a fuller range of religious expression as authentic religious experience. (24)

While the definition of experience in Wesley's theology and his understanding of the role of experience in relation to other sources of authority, especially Scripture, can be debated, (25) this much seems to be clear: Wesley believed that it was "essential ... that individuals have a personal assurance of God's acceptance" and that experience should be "used to test proposed interpretations of Scripture." (26) That the appeal to experience was communal and pragmatic, not simply individual and sensory, is underscored by Maddox:

   ... it was not an individual's instinctive "feeling" about the
   matter, but an analysis of the objective realities of Christian
   life. Wesley's concern was not that the Spirit directly assure
   him of this (or any other) doctrinal claim, but that the claim
   "prove true" in his life and in the lives of his people over
   time.... Wesley's appeal to experience in doctrinal decisions was
   typically to an external, long-term, communal reality: his
   observation of his life, the lives of his Methodist people, and
   human life in general. (27)

In a Wesleyan theology so understood, psychology has a clear, contributing role. Psychologies, with their implicit theologies, can help theologians stay near to the experience, both personal and communal, that mediates God's love and that reflects the fruits of the Holy Spirit in terms of holy living. Further, as John Wesley himself seemed open to believing, theological constructs and interpretations can be informed and shaped by experience. (28) In this light, therefore, theologians can welcome the experiential analysis regularly undertaken by psychologists of religion, especially those utilizing psychologies that attend to experiential realities that were of greatest concern to Wesley, viz., "the positive contribution of the emotions to truly human life and action .... affections [as] motivating dispositions of the person .... habituated into enduring dispositions." (29)

The Way Forward

The implications of this argument include at least the following: First, psychologists of religion need to be open to accepting their identities as theologians-of-a-kind (even if they choose not to engage it explicitly) and position themselves to contribute to the work of theologizing. Second, theologians need to be open to the contributions that psychologies can make to the ongoing work of forging theologies that are authentic to human experience.

What does theology stand to lose by adopting a solely critical posture toward the implicit theologies in psychologies? Among other things, these three: first, a means by which to be self-critical as a discipline; second, an appreciation for the "particular" that keeps one from getting lost in the universal or the abstract; and third, a platform for constructive dialogue with culture, including science. What does theology stand to gain by adopting a posture of openness toward psychologies as legitimate sources for constructive theology?. Among other things, these three: first, a richer theological anthropology upon which to base doctrines of persons; second, a basis for allowing diversity in claims, thereby helping theologians to be more inclusive (and incarnate); and third, a way to move beyond unhealthy dualisms (e.g., the "either-or" options of natural vs. supernatural). In short, utilizing psychologies is one means by which theologians can, in the spirit of William James, "place [themselves] ... inside of the living, moving active thickness of the real, and [find that] all the abstractions and distinctions are given into your hand." (30)

Notes

(1.) This article is based on a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society, Hobe Sound, FL, March 2, 2002.

(2.) William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Penguin, 1982; Original work published 1902).

(3.) Ibid., 50. James's operational definition for religion was "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine" (31).

(4.) Ibid., 2.

(5.) Consider, for example, the early history of modern psychology in the West. Although many of the first psychologists were trained as philosophers, physiologists, or both, they were at pains to articulate their new field of study vis-a-vis the older, more established disciplines, especially psychology as not-philosophy.

(6.) For example, in a lecture to the University of London's Institute of Education Winnicott stated: "So far I have spoken as an amateur theologian, but I have been asked to speak as a professional child psychiatrist" ["Morals and Education" The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1965; Original work published in 1963: 93-105), 95].

(7.) Donald W. Winnicott, "Children Learning" Home is Where We Start From: Essays by a Psychoanalyst, edited by C. Winnicott, R. Shepherd, & M. Davis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986; Original work published in 1968: 142-149), 142.

(8.) Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979), 3, emphasis mine.

(9.) Theologian Colin Gunton coined this term in an interview I conducted with him (May 3, 2001) while covering the Trinity Institute Conference "Who Are We? What Does It Mean to be Human?" for Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology (see Vol. 2, No. 1-4, September-December, 2001 for the interview series).

(10.) Don S. Browning, Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies: A Critical Conversation in the Theology of Culture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 2.

(11.) Ibid., 5. Browning describes three levels at which psychologies can be examined for underlying ontology: 1) Visional/metaphorical: "What kind of world do we live in and what is its most ultimate (in the sense of most determinative) context?." (9); 2) Obligational: "What are we obligated to do?" (10); and 3) Tendency-needs: "What are the various fundamental needs and tendencies that should be morally and justly satisfied?" (11).

(12.) See also Carlo Strenger, "Further Remarks on the Classic and the Romantic Visions in Psychoanalysis: Klein, Winnicott, and Ethics" Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought 20 [1997]: 207-244, who claims that "clinical schools are always based on ideals of accomplished individuality" and proposes that we "accept that these ideals are cultural constructs which try to provide a sense of direction to the formation of the self" (242). Robert Emmons & C. A. Crumpler in "Religion and Spirituality? The Roles of Sanctification and the Concept of God" International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 9, no.1 [1999]: 17-24, argue the reverse: "insomuch as they deal with fundamental questions of human nature and provide prescriptive guidelines for how life should be lived, theologies are also psychologies" (21).

(13.) Alan Jones, Exploring Spiritual Direction:An Essay on Christian Friendship (New York: Seabury, 1982), 35.

(14.) The psychological study of religion, or the psychology of religion, is sometimes viewed as suspect by theologians and scholars of religion who study religion from other, more traditional religious studies disciplines, for example, biblical studies, comparative religions, or religious history. This suspicion is based on a fear that any explanatory framework developed outside of these traditional religious studies disciplines, for example, a psychological theory, and used to account for religious phenomena, will inevitably be reductionistic. See, e.g., Robert C. Neville, The Truth of Broken Symbols (Albany. NY: State University of New York, 1996) and David M. Wulff, Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).

(15.) Ann Tares, Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1999), 353.

(16.) Ibid., 361. Tares explains, "If narratives of experience presuppose certain bodily knowledge that are acquired and assumed in practice, the marks of this knowledge are lost when experiences are abstracted from practice and constituted as 'theory'. Narrating and theorizing, thus, represent two different genres, typically reliant on very different sorts of practices" (10).

(17.) While this is generally true in terms of the potential of all theologies and psychologies, some are more or less removed than others.

(18.) For example, James suggested that traditional Protestantism and Catholicism were unable to account for the diversity of religious temperaments and experiences captured in his descriptions of "the healthy--minded" and "the sick soul" (Varieties, 114).

(19.) During four decades of seeing nearly 60,000 infants, children, mothers, fathers, parents and grandparents while at Paddington Green Children's Hospital and the Queen's Hospital for Children [M. Khan in the introduction to D. W. Winnicott, Through Paediatrics to Psycho-analysis: Collected Papers (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1975; Original work published 1958)], Winnicott developed "the unusual ability to imagine himself in the mother's place. He has deep empathy for what a mother experiences or feels, and can give voice to those feelings in a way that is helpful, understandable, and very reassuring. He does this in a manner that respects, appreciates, and allows for errors, for moments of progress and regression, and for the humanness of all parents" [Klaus in the foreword to D. W. Winnicott, The Child, the Family, and the Outside World [Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987; Original work published 1964), 4-5].

(20.) See, e.g., Charlene Burns-Smith, "Theology and Winnicott's Object Relations Theory: A Conversation" Journal of Psychology and Theology 27, no. 1 [1999]: 3-19; James Jones, Religion and Psychology in Transition: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Theology [New Haven, CT: Yale University. 1996) and "Playing and Believing: The Uses of D. W. Winnicott in the Psychology of Religion" Religion, Society, and Psychoanalysis: Readings in Contemporary Theory, edited by J. L. Jacobs & D. Capps, Eds. [Boulder, CO: Westview Press,1997): 106-126; Ann B. Ulanov, Finding Space: Winnicott, God, and Psychic Reality [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

(21.) Taves, Fits, Trances, and Visions, 6. I further develop this notion of non-radically reductive psychologies of religion in a paper addressed to the International Association for the Psychology of Religion in Soesterberg, The Netherlands (September, 29, 2001) that will soon be published in the Archiv fur Religionspsychologie under the title: "Radical Reductionism in the Psychological Study of Religion: Prospects for an Alternative Critical Methodology".

(22.) Ibid., 5. Taves notes John Wesley, along with Jonathan Edwards, as exemplary persons "who theorized about experience (as Christian theologians), narrated their own experiences, and passed on the narratives of others" (10).

(23.) Ibid., 56.

(24.) For example, Wesley writes in his journal reflections from Sunday services at Everton: "I observed a remarkable difference since I was here before as to the manner of the work. None now were in trances, none cried out, none fell down or were convulsed .... The danger was to regard extraordinary circumstances too much, such as outcries, convulsions, visions, trances, as if these were essential to the inward work, so that it could not go on without them. Perhaps the danger is to regard them too little, to condemn them altogether, to imagine they had nothing of God in them and were an hindrance to his work. Whereas the truth is: (1) God suddenly and strongly convinced many that they were lost sinners, the natural consequence whereof were sudden outcries and strong bodily convulsions. (2) To strengthen and encourage them that believed and to make his work more apparent, he favoured several of them with divine dreams, others with trances and visions. (3) In some of these instances, after a time, nature mixed with grace. (4) Satan likewise mimicked this work of God, in order to discredit the whole work. And yet it is not wise to give up this part, any more than to give up the whole. At first it was doubtless wholly from God" [John Wesley, "An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Journal From June 17, 1758-May 5, 1760" The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 21, 154-256, edited by W. R. Ward & R. P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1992; Original work published 1764), 234.

(25.) See Byron C. Lambert, "'Experience' in Two Church Traditions: Differing Semantic Worlds" Wesleyan Theological Journal 30, no. 1 [1995]: 134-153; Michael E. Lodahl, "'The Witness of the Spirit': Questions of Clarification for Wesley's Doctrine of Assurance" Wesleyan Theological Journal 23, nos. l&2 [1988]: 188-197; Jerry L. Mercer, "Toward a Wesleyan Understanding of Experience" Wesleyan Theological Journal 20, no. 1 [1985]: 78-93; Robert D. Smith, "John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards on Religious Experience: A Comparative Analysis" Wesleyan Theological Journal 25, no. 1 [1990]: 130-146; and Al Truesdale, "Reification of the Experience of Entire Sanctification in the American Holiness Movement" Wesleyan Theological Journal 31, no. 2 [1996]: 95-119. for discussions within the Wesleyan Theological Society on Wesley's theology of experience.

(26.) Randy L. Maddox, Responsible Grace:John Wesley's Practical Theology (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1994), 45, 46.

(27.) Ibid., 46.

(28.) For example, In a letter to his brother Charles, John addresses the question "is justifying faith a sense of pardon?" by referring both to that which is "contrary to Scripture" and that which is "contrary to experience" [John Wesley, "Letter to the Revd. Charles Wesley (July 31, 1747)" The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 26, 254-255, edited by F. Baker, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982; Original work published 1793-1796), 255]. A more developed example can be found in his essay "The Doctrine of Original Sin According to Scripture, Reason, and Experience" The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 9, 191-464 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1958; Original work published 1872), where he appeals to empirical observation of human behavior as a test for confirming the biblically-based doctrine.

(29.) Maddox, Responsible Grace, 69. See Gregory S. Clapper, John Wesley on Religious Affections: His Views on Experience and Emotion and Their Role in the Christian Life and Theology (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow. 1989) and Richard B. Steele, "Gracious Affections" and "True Virtue" according to Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1994) for extensive treatments of Wesley's affectional psychology

(30.) William James, A Pluralistic Universe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1977; Original work published 1909), 116.

Douglas S. Hardy teaches and leads programming in Spiritual Formation at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. His avocations include the psychology of religion and the practice of Christian spiritual direction. Responses to his article are welcome at [e-mail]. Peter Heinegg is CrossCurrents' book editor.