“Cherry-Picking” Powlison 

Recent writings in the modern biblical counseling movement have been using David Powlison’s teachings in a “gate-keeping” way.

“David Powlison taught _____; so anyone who sways from _____ is not really a true biblical counselor.”

These writings “cherry-pick” quotes from Powlison. That is, they focus exclusively on quotes where Powlison highlights the dangers of secular psychology, and exclude the quotes where Powlison discusses the role, value, and use of secular psychology.

Three Concerns 

I have three concerns about this practice of cherry-picking Powlison.

1. Having known David very well, and respecting him deeply, I know that David would not want to be used as the “gate-keeper,” nor as the one to look to for biblical counseling orthodoxy. David would always point to Christ. He never wanted a 1 Corinthians 3:4 attitude of “I am of Paul. I am of Apollos.” Or, “I am of Jay Adams. I am of David Powlison.”

2. David was very nuanced in everything he thought and taught. His foundational document, Affirmations & Denials, is a classic example of this. So to “cherry-pick” or “quote-mine” Powlison only talking about the evils of secular psychology and the dangers of integration, is to speak and write in ways that David himself never spoke or wrote.

3. This use (misuse) of Powlison as the biblical counseling gatekeeper mistakes the modern nouthetic counseling movement for ancient, historic Christian soul care. “Biblical counseling” did not begin with the modern nouthetic counseling movement. We can trace biblical counseling through the Old Testament, the New Testament, and throughout 2,000 years of church history—existing and thriving long before the modern advent of nouthetic counseling. For a few resources on how biblical counseling, pastoral counseling, and Christian soul care pre-date the modern nouthetic counseling movement see: When Did Historical Biblical Counseling Begin, and 12 Top Resources on the History of Biblical Counseling, Pastoral Counseling, & Soul Care, and 6 Biblical Counseling Convictions. We all can be thankful for Jay Adams’s launch of the modern nouthetic counseling movement and for David Powlison’s development of the modern biblical counseling movement without mistaking the modern movement with all that happened for 1,950 years before nouthetic counseling was invented.

 A Tale of Two Powlisons 

David Powlison #1: If I wanted to, I could very easily collate a host of quotes from David’s writing ministry that would clearly reflect his views on the sufficiency of Scripture for building a biblical counseling model. I could easily collect quotes (“quote-mine”) that would document David’s rightful concerns about the syncretistic use of secular psychology in biblical counseling theory-building.

David Powlison #2: However, since others are already doing that, I will do the opposite. I am going to cherry-pick Powlison in a way that highlights and emphasizes the value that David saw in secular psychology, the role he saw for biblical counselors engaging with secular psychology, and the ways that David encouraged biblical counselors to recycle, reinterpret, reshape, reconcile, redeem, and recast secular psychology. Taken alone, the following collated quotes would almost seem to indicate that David Powlison was pro secular psychology and pro integration.

Of course, there is not a David Powlison #1 and #2. And that’s my point. And it will be the point of this exercise in Powlison cherry-picking.

If we are going to quote someone, do not do it the way I’m doing it today! It gives a completely false sense of what Powlison truly believed.

And the broader point is, if we are going to quote Powlison, then let’s not only quote his negatives toward secular psychology; let’s quote his comprehensive teachings.

By the Way… 

If you want to read someone who fairly and honestly, with integrity and accuracy, quotes Powlison in a balanced way, then I would encourage you to read Nate Brooks’s excellent article, What Did David Powlison Teach About Scripture and Psychology? 

Powlison on the Virtues of Secular Psychology 

In a 2012 article, Powlison had much to say about the value of secular psychology. Biblical counselors, according to Powlison, must start by looking for the good in secular psychology. To do otherwise equals “sectarian contentiousness.” Here’s Powlison in his own words:

“Look for the good. To make true sense of the psychologies, our critical thinking must intentionally look for the good. This has to be underlined. Sectarian contentiousness only sees the bad, and does not produce redemption. But as in all the other mixed cases needing redemption, there is good in Psychology:

• • Secular researchers and clinicians know reams of significant facts about people and problems, about strengths and weaknesses. (We may not have noticed or known some or many of those facts. In encountering psychological information, I’m listening, so tell me anything and everything you know about everybody and anybody.)

• • Secular theories seek to answer crucial questions and address hard problems. (We may not have thought to ask those questions or address those problems. I want to take to heart hard questions that need answering.) 

• • Secular therapies often embody helpful skills in knowing, in loving, and in speaking so as to catch the ear of strugglers. (We may be relatively clumsy. O skillful God, make me more probing. Make me more patient and kind. Make me more able to speak constructive words, according to the need of the moment, that I might give grace to those who hear.)” (18)

“We gain much and lose nothing by being appropriately attentive to and appreciative of their strengths.” (19)

“Secular therapists describe troubled people so vividly! Their desire to help is so palpable!” (19)

“We gain a point of contact with non-Christian psychologists when we wed something true and clear to the very things they know, care about, pursue, and do.” (20)

Powlison on the Usefulness of Secular Psychology 

In a 1993 article, Powlison noted how Jay Adams saw the value of secular psychology.

“This is not to say that biblical counselors should ignore or dismiss the various secular psychologies. For example, see Jay Adams’s What About Nouthetic Counseling? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), page 31: Question: ‘Don’t you think that we can learn something from psychologists?’ Answer: ‘Yes, we can learn a lot; I certainly have. That answer surprised you, didn’t it? If it did, you have been led to believe, no doubt, that nouthetic counselors are obscurantists who see no good in psychology.’” (24) 

“Every wise biblical counselor engages in lifelong empirical researches, informally if not formally. In this process psychologists, sociologists, historians, counselees, the non-Christians who live next door, USA Today and Agatha Christie may contribute to our grasp of the styles and how they develop. Often in counseling or reading—and even in our own repentance!” (21).

“Biblical counselors who fail to think through carefully the nature of biblical epistemology run the danger of acting as if Scripture were exhaustive, rather than comprehensive; as if Scripture were an encyclopedic catalogue of all significant facts, rather than God’s revelation of the crucial facts, richly illustrated, that yield a world view sufficient to interpret whatever other facts we encounter; as if Scripture were the whole bag of marbles rather than the eyeglasses through which we interpret all marbles; as if our current grasp of Scripture and people were triumphant and final.” (32)

Powlison (and Adams and Bettler) on the Use of Secular Psychology 

In a 1993 article, 25 Years of Biblical Counseling: An Interview with Jay Adams and John Bettler Conducted by David Powlison, Powlison outlines 6 words descripting what modern nouthetic biblical counseling does with secular psychology (you can read my summary here). According to Adams, the goal of the discussion was:

“To produce a word that adequately and accurately expresses what a biblical Christian does with secular knowledge.”

They use six “R” words. Note that none of these “R” words are “Reject.” Instead, Adams, Bettler, and Powlison explain that biblical counselors should recycle secular knowledge, reinterpret secular knowledge, reshape secular knowledge, reconcile secular knowledge, redeem secular knowledge, and recast secular knowledge.

Bettler suggests that biblical counselors recycle error (in light of the truth). Sounds a bit like “integrating.”

In a 1996 article, Powlison illustrates recycling secular psychological theory using Adler as a specific example.

“Take as an example Alfred Adler’s Understanding Human Nature. He has a seventy-page section that is one of the finest descriptions of total depravity I’ve ever read. What’s interesting is that Alfred Adler doesn’t believe in total depravity; he doesn’t believe in sin. But he dissects things right down to why people pick their noses. He gets into the dirt of life and looks at the tricks and the chaos and the self-centeredness. He cares to help.” (38)

In a 1988 article, Powlison further develops the crucial need for contemporary biblical counselors to appreciate secular psychology.

“Perhaps it seems a paradox, but the final crucial issue for contemporary biblical counseling is the need to define more clearly the nuances in our relationship to secular thinking. The relationship of presuppositional consistent Christianity to secular culture is not simply one of rejection. Half of what biblical presuppositions give us is a way to discern the lie that tries to make people think about themselves as autonomous from God. But the other half of what biblical categories do is give us a way of appreciating, redeeming, and reframing the culture of even the most godless men and women.” (5)

David Powlison on Common Grace and Biblical Counseling 

In 2010, I had the privilege of facilitating over thirty biblical counseling leaders in the development of the Biblical Counseling Coalition’s Confessional Statement. Of those thirty-plus leaders, David Powlison, Sam Williams, and I took the lead. Notice the wording, affirmed by David, on common grace and biblical counseling.

“When we say that Scripture is comprehensive in wisdom, we mean that the Bible makes sense of all things, not that it contains all the information people could ever know about all topics. God’s common grace brings many good things to human life…. We affirm that numerous sources (such as scientific research, organized observations about human behavior, those we counsel, reflection on our own life experience, literature, film, and history) can con­tribute to our knowledge of people, and many sources can contribute some relief for the troubles of life.”

As part of this common grace approach to biblical counseling, David Powlison affirmed the importance of a variety of areas and avenues that biblical counselors follow.

“We recognize the complexity of the relationship between the body and soul (Genesis 2:7). Because of this, we seek to remain sensitive to physical factors and organic issues that affect people’s lives. In our desire to help people comprehensively, we seek to apply God’s Word to people’s lives amid bodily strengths and weaknesses. We encourage a thorough assessment and sound treatment for any suspected physical problems.

“We recognize the complexity of the connection between people and their social environment. Thus we seek to remain sensitive to the impact of suffering and of the great variety of significant social-cultural factors (1 Peter 3:8-22). In our desire to help people comprehensively, we seek to apply God’s Word to people’s lives amid both positive and negative social experiences. We encourage people to seek appropriate practical aid when their problems have a component that involves education, work life, finances, legal matters, criminality (either as a victim or a perpetrator), and other social matters.”

David wanted biblical counselors to learn from secular psychology and from Christian integrative counselors.

“We seek to engage the broad spectrum of counseling models and approaches. We want to affirm what is biblical and wise. We want to listen well to those who disagree with us, and learn from their critiques.”

In David’s Affirmations & Denials, he further develops the role of common grace in biblical counseling.

“We affirm that God’s providential common grace brings many goods to people, both as individual kindnesses and as social blessings: e.g., medical treatment, economic help, political justice, protection for the weak, educational opportunity. Wise counseling will participate in and encourage mercy ministries as part of the call to love.”

“We affirm that numerous disciplines and professions can contribute to an increase in our knowledge of people and how to help them. Scripture teaches a standpoint and gaze by which believers can learn many things from those who do not believe.”

“We deny that secular disciplines and professions are entirely benighted by the intellectual, moral, and aesthetic effects of sin. The operations of God’s common grace can cause unbelievers to be relatively observant, caring, stimulating, and informative.”

“We deny that the Bible intends to serve as an encyclopedia of proof texts containing all facts about people and the diversity of problems in living.”

In a 2018 article, David had even more to say about the benefits of common grace insights for biblical counseling.

“But it is a true common grace that secular theories and practices always retain an instinct for the first word in that definition of human flourishing: love. Like most thoughtful people and most religions, they value human kindness and certain other aspects of person-to-person goodness. They witness and grieve the pain and misery caused by bad behavior, bad feelings, bad thoughts, and bad experiences. They know that caring for others is better than narcissism, arrogance, manipulation, revenge, and self-righteousness. To be cherished is far better than to be despised. Hope is far better than despair. Safety is far better than danger. Sanity and realism are far better than paranoia and delusion. Treating others well and being treated well is far better than all forms of using, misusing, mistreating, abusing, and betraying. A constructively purposeful life is far better than a pointlessly self-destructive lifestyle. To be part of the solution is far better than being part of the problem. And so forth!”

Imagine 

Imagine that you had never heard of David Powlison. Imagine that your only awareness of Powlison’s beliefs about secular psychology and common grace were from this blog post. You might think that David was, dare we say, “an integrationist!”

Why? Because I cherry-picked Powlison.

I left out much that he had to say—that provides the fuller, fair and balanced, perspective on what David Powlison really thought and taught.

Speaking the Truth

And that’s my point. Don’t do what I did in this blog post! Don’t cherry-pick Powlison, or anyone else, in a less-than-truthful effort to support our own view.

That’s disingenuous. It’s not truth-telling. It’s speaking the truth in half-truths in a misguided attempt to guide people to speak the truth in love.