A Word from Bob
In addition to today’s post, here are some other resources I’ve posted lately related to Jay Adams and Nouthetic Counseling:
- Jay Adams, Nouthetic Counseling, and Neuroscience
- A Concise History of Jay Adams’s Launch of the Modern Nouthetic Counseling Movement
- Noutheteo/Nouthesia, Part 1: Caring, Cautionary Communication to Ward Off Wandering
- Noutheteo/Nouthesia, Part 2: What Is Nouthetic Counseling?
- Noutheteo/Nouthesia, Part 3: The Comparative Significance of the Noutheteo/Nouthesia Word Group
- 3 Reasons Why Jay Adams Called His Counseling Model “Nouthetic”
- Meet the Man Who Influenced the Early Nouthetic Counseling Movement: O. Hobart Mowrer
And here’s a related article from 2012 in The Journal of Biblical Counseling by David Powlison on How Does Scripture Teach Us to Redeem Psychology?
Jay Adams and the Relationship Between Nouthetic Counseling and Secular Psychology
This past week I re-read a classic article of The Journal of Biblical Counseling from 1993. The title (with embedded link):
“25 Years of Biblical Counseling: An Interview with Jay Adams and John Bettler Conducted by David Powlison.”[1]
It’s a fascinating interview from a number of perspectives.
About half-way through the interview, John Bettler brings up a difference between him and Jay Adams in how they frame the issue of the relationship between nouthetic counseling and secular psychology.
In the course of the discussion, Adams, Bettler, and Powlison suggest 6 “R” words that could label what nouthetic counselors do with secular psychology:
- Recycle It
- Reinterpret It
- Reshape It
- Reconcile It
- Redeem It
- Recast It
#1: What Does Nouthetic Counseling Do with Secular Psychology? “Recycle It”
Bettler: “Now I do think there is a difference between Jay and me in style and emphasis. Jay emphasizes the antithesis between belief and unbelief. I emphasize more the—you don’t like the word—recycling of error in the light of truth.”
Adams responds with his reaction to this word “recycling.”
Adams: “I think ‘recycling’ gives people the wrong idea. It confuses those who don’t listen closely or understand the background epistemology. I know what you mean, and I agree with you. But ‘recycling’ calls up the image of an old tin can. Why turn an old, rusty can into something when you have the pristine truth in Scripture?”
#2: What Does Nouthetic Counseling Do with Secular Psychology? “Reinterpret It”
To which Bettler shares the following.
Bettler: “I don’t want to argue for the word. Let’s come up with a biblical word instead of ‘recycle,’ something that captures the reformed world and life view: the Christian reinterprets everything out there because all life is under God’s authority.”
#3: What Does Nouthetic Counseling Do with Secular Psychology? “Reshape It”
Adams suggests another image.
Adams: “I go back to Van Til’s view. Go back, dig deep, examine the presuppositions, attack them. Then reshape the whole business in light of Scriptural truth.”
#4-5: What Does Nouthetic Counseling Do with Secular Psychology? “Reconcile or Redeem It”
Bettler suggests two more “R” words.
Bettler: “I agree. Can we come up with a biblical word for what we mean? How about ‘reconcile’? Or ‘redeem’?”
Adams expresses his struggle with those two words. In doing so, he highlights the essence of the conversation:
What does a biblical Christian do with secular knowledge?
This is the age-old issue of deciphering the relationship between biblical truth and secular knowledge. It is the ever-relevant issue of determining the relationship between biblical counseling and secular psychology.
Speaking of “reconcile” and redeem,” Adams shares:
Adams: “They have too much baggage. I’d like to get a biblical label, but I don’t believe biblical labels are always necessary or available. You might have to produce a word that adequately and accurately expresses what a biblical Christian does with secular knowledge.”
#6: What Does Nouthetic Counseling Do with Secular Psychology? “Recast and Reinterpret It”
Powlison: “I used ‘reinterpret’ in my statement a few minutes ago.”
Bettler: “You’ve used ‘recast,’ too. Christians have to reinterpret everything, not just psychology. In almost every counseling session, a biblical counselor has to reinterpret what counselees say. If they were processing life biblically, they usually wouldn’t be in counseling.”
Powlison: “Right. A counselor reinterprets or reframes a counselee’s world and experience from God’s perspective. I continually have to reinterpret my own life experience in the light of truth. I like ‘reinterpret’ because it highlights the content of the belief or theory or system of explanation. A secular psychologist may observe fifty things about people having anxiety attacks. They may all be true and yet fundamentally wrongheaded because his system of interpretation and the goals of his therapy are wrong. I may learn something from that psychologist about what anxious people think or feel or do, things I never knew before. But I need to radically reinterpret it.”
Adams: It’s not merely reinterpret. Like ‘recycle,’ the word seems to give too much credit to what’s there. How can you communicate that you are getting to the fundamental presuppositional level? I like ‘recast,’ because it seems to me to package the whole, rather than just the part. But, no, that word still doesn’t quite capture the process we’re talking about. Maybe the ‘re’ in all these words is the problem.”
Bettler: “It’s clear that ‘recycle’ gives the wrong impression to a lot of people.”
In Summary
Powlison, Adams, and Bettler conclude this part of the interview with these remarks.
Powlison: “The positive statement of rich biblical truth is much more fundamental than interacting with psychology. And a fundamental antithesis runs through how biblical epistemology looks at things secularists say about people and then do to them in the name of help.”
Adams responds that:
“What psychologists see about people might contribute out on the thinner edge of biblical teaching where we have general principles that need to be filled in.”
Here’s his statement in context.
Adams: “I want to make sure we keep those fundamental elements in view. What psychologists see about people might contribute out on the thinner edge of biblical teaching where we have general principles that need to be filled in. The large, central core of fundamental biblical principles is what’s most important. It’s hard to find one word to express what a biblical counselor should do out on that thinner edge. I applaud you in coming up with the word “recycle,” John, but I still think the idea is hard to express in a word.
Bettler: “It’s your word. You gave it to me in Chicago.”
Adams: “I don’t remember that!”
Bettler: “You did. I presented the concept. I read some long sentence about the Christian’s relationship to the behavioral sciences, that it was one of recognizing the antithesis, and then bringing out the distorted truths that must be reinterpreted from the Scriptures. I finished my sentence; and you said, ‘That was great, John. Why don’t you use the word `recycle’?’”
Adams: “I don’t remember that. I must have blocked it out!”
A Reflection
It’s instructive to note that none of these 6 “re” words include the word “reject.” Classic nouthetic counseling, as discussed at the quarter-century mark, by the three main leaders of the modern nouthetic counseling movement at that time, did not reject secular knowledge. Instead, they sought to recycle, reinterpret, reshape, reconcile, redeem, and/or recast secular psychology through the lens of Scripture.
Join the Conversation
What do you think? What does a biblical Christian do with secular knowledge?
What does a biblical counselor do with secular psychology descriptive research?
What does a biblical counselor do with secular psychology theory?
- Recycle It.
- Reinterpret It.
- Reshape It.
- Reconcile It.
- Redeem It.
- Recast It.
- All of the Above?
- None of the Above?
- Some Different Label?
Notes
[1]David Powlison. “25 Years of Biblical Counseling: An Interview with Jay Adams and John Bettler Conducted by David Powlison.” The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Vol XII, Number 1, Fall 1993: 8-13.
Bob, thanks for sharing that! I use the word reframe. In light of God’s Word let’s see what the Scriptures would say about your struggle…. It was in the conversation but did not get much traction.
Language is tricky. Words have nuances that are color products of culture and sub-cultures. I knew and worked daily with both men for approximately five years. Bettler was my internship supervisor (though we did not officially use the term supervisor). If one painstakingly reconciles (oh, there is one of those words) the nuances, the brothers were in practical agreement.
Thanks, Howard, for interacting–with first-hand perspective. Reading the interview, 25-years into the nouthetic BC movement, and then re-reading it now, 25 years later, it offered a first-hand perspective from Adams, Bettler, and Powlison. From this interview, and from other writings of Adams and Bettler, it is obvious they each are “their own man,” and they each framed the relationship between BC and psychology differently, even as Jay and David did.