Definitions and Descriptions
Premature closure is a cognitive error that occurs when someone accepts or rejects an idea before even investigating it.
Premature closure maintains a bias toward ideas I already accept and a bias against ideas that differ from my own thinking (or the thinking of my group).
Premature closure is the premature closure of the mind and of the ears.
Premise
The modern biblical counseling movement habitually engages in premature closure.
First Generation Biblical Counseling Example
Jay Adams, often communicated, “Let’s keep developing this approach to counseling.” In More Than Redemption, Adams specifically encouraged such ongoing development.
However, he often strongly reacted against such development, even by fellow biblical counselors—seeing such developments not as advancements, but as items for refutation. For instance, when Ed Welch presented a contrary view of “the flesh” in the Journal of Biblical Counseling, Spring 2002, Adams wrote a lengthy letter of refutation. The JBC editorial team only published one small section of the letter, and then stated:
[Editorial note: We have shortened Adams’s letter at this point. Welch had presented a list of 20 items (pp. 22-23 of JBC, Spring 2002) that he thought “seem to follow” from Adams’s proposition that “flesh” refers to the body, which physically encodes sinful habits prior to regeneration. The change process would then be fundamentally a dehabituation/rehabituation process. Adams takes this list and refutes each item in turn as a false understanding of nouthetic counseling.]
Then Adams states,
“Now, it is fortunate that Ed admits that I might “disavow” some of his conclusions. I certainly do! In fact, I disavow most, if not every one, of them.”
In many other places, both in his books and blog site, Adams (and Donn Arms) resisted and reacted against developments in his model, which they often saw as unbiblical surrender to worldly psychology and secular thought. For instance, Arms criticizes Heath Lambert’s criticism of Jay Adams, labeling Lambert more like Carl Rogers than the Bible!
“While Lambert believes these differences are the result of growth and maturity in the movement, a careful examination of Lambert’s evidence often reveals a departure from what is biblical and helpful and is a retreat back to the mindset of the pre-nouthetic Rogerian practices of our forefathers which Adams inveighed against over 40 years ago.” (See additional similar quotes here.)
Second Generation Biblical Counseling Example
Current second generation biblical counselors, such as Heath Lambert, who were chastised as unbiblical by Donn Arms for changing and criticizing Adams’s model, now chastise third generation biblical counselors for daring to continue to think through the Bible’s teaching on people, problems, and solutions. These second generation biblical counselors claim that these third generation biblical counselors are—you guessed it—involved in an unbiblical surrender to worldly psychology and secular thought.
If these second generation fundamentalist biblical counselors truly wanted to learn from their brothers and sisters in Christ, you would hear much more of:
“Here are the many specific ways that my fellow biblical counselor is appropriately advancing the biblical counseling conversation.”
“Her rich biblical thinking is motivating me to return to Scripture to examine this issue more fully.”
“After reading your work, I think I was…w…wr…wrong.”
Instead, because of premature closure of the mind and ears, you hear something akin to this:
“I’m sure they are a nice person. However, they are unbiblical here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. In fact, they have surrendered to the instinct to integrate, which clearly shows that they are fascinated by secular psychology and frustrated with the Bible. They are subject to the noetic effect of sin…like an unbeliever. They have surrendered to the fallen, darkened thinking of the unsaved mind. They are infected with worldly thought. Why? Because they have not applied the Bible to their own lives and have not experienced its power in their own souls.”
Tribal-Motivated Premature Closure
Premature closure is a tribal mindset where those in my tribe can say most anything and we will all applaud it as brilliantly biblical and uniquely wise.
However, have someone from another biblical counseling tribe dare to address a biblical topic from a fresh, rich perspective, and they are,
“So-called biblical counselors who reject classic, pure, real, historical biblical counseling.”
Think about that—even those labels scream “premature closure”—“classic biblical counseling,” “historical biblical counseling,” “real biblical counseling,” “pure biblical counseling.”
The Irony
It is ironic that a modern movement that is just 50-years-young thinks that it is the lone classic/historical approach to what the Bible and two-thousand years of Church history say about Christian soul care, one-another ministry, being soul physicians of embodied-souls, and biblical counseling.
The Negative Result of Tribalistic Premature Closure
Recall one of our original descriptions:
Premature closure maintains a bias toward ideas I already accept and a bias against ideas that differ from my own thinking (or the thinking of my group).
So, while we like to claim that our focus is on the purity of the Bible, here’s what actually happens:
We focus on the purity of our group’s interpretation and application of the Bible.
We build walls around our group’s view.
We perceive ourselves as guardians of the galaxy—our galaxy, the galaxy of our tribe’s preferred views. We are heroic defenders!
We imagine those from other tribes as wolves attacking the pristine garden of our group’s understanding of “our truth.”
Our tribe’s view becomes sufficient and authoritative. So we must defend it at all cost. We dare not listen to any imagined false priests from outside our acceptable tribe who present anything that might disrupt the peaceful harmony we feel as we cling to our group’s perspective.
“I’m not listening to you! You are outside my tribe!”
Unfair Characterization and Arrogant Judgment
Perhaps we need to add to the concept of premature closure, the concept of unfair characterization and arrogant judgment. Picture what is happening here.
We claim that we are defending the Scripture’s sufficiency and authority. In reality, we have shrunk the Scripture down to the size of our interpretation and application of Scripture. We claim to be saying, “How dare you not accept the Scripture!” But in reality we are saying, “How dare you not accept and agree with our view of the Scripture!”
The data of our young, modern, human model of counseling controls our thinking, rather than the data of Scripture controlling our thinking.
Our modern, human-size, 50-year-young view of biblical counseling is now the authority, the boundary, the only acceptable norm. Any transgression against our authoritative proclamations about biblical counseling are…heresy.
It is the classic bait-and-switch. While claiming to be defending divine Scriptures, in actuality we are vigorously defending our human interpretations. “Our interpretations are inerrant and disagreement with our views are heretical!” Oh, we’ll deny this vehemently. But the proof is in how we mistreat, mischaracterize, and falsely accuse those outside our epistemological tribe. There is no freedom to think outside the box of our human model of what makes biblical counseling truly biblical.
Take, for instance, current debates on common grace and the sufficiency of Scripture. When a brother or sister in Christ disagrees with us, we could humbly say,
“Your view is different than ours. We respect that you are coming to your view of common grace based upon your honest, committed interpretation of Scripture. You are doing the hard work of biblical theology. We happen to disagree with your interpretation and application. However, we do not question your Christian commitment, biblical convictions, or spiritual maturity. We do not conclude that you have surrendered to or been infected by the world’s thinking. We refuse to conclude that your view is the result of your never having experienced the power of God’s Word in your own life. We refuse to mischaracterize you as a ‘neo-integrationist’ simply because your interpretation of Scripture is not identical to our interpretation of Scripture.”
What Should We Do Instead? Favor Epistemological Humility Over Tribal-Motivated Premature Closure
Our very youthful biblical counseling movement could use a huge dose of epistemological humility: the willingness to humbly listen to and learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ.
We could recognize the historical youthfulness of our modern movement by rejecting premature closure in favor of respectful listening to brothers and sisters who are offering fresh perspectives on what the Bible teaches about people, problems, and solutions.
When we learn from our brothers and sisters—we affirm them, even acknowledging our indebtedness to them. And even more, admitting where we were wrong, or at least where our ideas needed further biblical enrichment.
Where we still disagree after careful listening, we can first reach out to our brothers and sisters in the biblical counseling movement and engage in respectful, iron-sharpening-iron dialogue. And when we still disagree, we can eschew the use of loaded labels and pejorative images, instead, treating one another respectfully and humbly as mature brothers and sisters in Christ.
What Might Epistemological Humility (Humble Listening/Learning) Look Like?
We could replace the fancy phrase “epistemological humility” with the simpler “humble listening/learning.” What would humble listening to those “outside our tribe” look like?
I addressed that specifically in this post, How Biblical Counselors Could Engage Matthew LaPine’s The Logic of the Body. Consider checking it out for practical ways we can learn to listen well and wisely to one another.
