A Word from Bob: A Two-Part Mini-Series 

You’re reading Part 2 of a two-part blog mini-series on CIBC—Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling. You can read Part 1 here: Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling: 3 Reflections and 2 Recommendations. I’d encourage you to read Part 1 before finishing today’s post.

I focused Part 1 on encouraging clinically-informed biblical counselors to continue to build upon two foundational commitments:

• Theologically-saturated biblical counseling must inform clinically-informed biblical counseling.

• God’s Word is the necessary, authoritative, and sufficient foundation for assessing the world’s information.

My New Audience: NCIBCers 

My audience in Part 2 is different. Today I’m writing to NCIBC—Non-Clinically-Informed Biblical Counselors.

This audience includes all persons who describe themselves as a biblical counselor, but eschew (I’ve always wanted to use the word “eschew”) the additional label of “clinically-informed.”

I’m focusing Part 2 on encouraging non-clinically-informed biblical counselors to:

• Honestly recognize and admit that we all are informed by more than just the Bible.

• Honestly and accurately speak about our clinically-informed biblical counseling brothers and sisters.

• Humbly respond to, interact with, and learn from those who choose to call themselves clinically-informed biblical counselors.

• Humbly engage with extra-biblical literature—assessing its potential helpfulness under the lens of Scripture—as the modern nouthetic biblical counseling movement has always done.

Reflection #1: We’re All “Zombie-Infected” to Some Degree 

In Part 1, I sought to support the following assertions:

• Every biblical counselor is susceptible to the possibility of the world’s information forming, conforming, and even deforming the Word’s wisdom.

• Sometimes we may not even be aware of the world’s impact on our interpretation and application of the wisdom of God’s Word. 

None of us are pristine “non-integrationists.” None of us are 100% informed only by the Scriptures.

We are all swimming in the ideological stream of the world—more than we’d like to acknowledged; more than we are even aware.

To borrow the recent language of Heath Lambert,

We’re all zombie-infected counselors to some degree.

In Part 1, I quoted several leading, conservative biblical counselors who saw Adams as more influenced by the behavioral psychology of his day than Adams realized. I won’t repeat all of that here in Part 2, but I’d encourage you to read about it in Part 1, or to read about it from these original sources.

• Greg Gifford, Jay Adams’ Heritage: How Jay Adams Is Connected to the Father of American Psychology

• Heath Lambert, The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams

• George Schwab, Critique of “Habituation” as a Biblical Model of Change

I also quoted from Mike Firmin.

• Mike Firmin, “Behaviorism and the Nouthetic Counseling Model of Jay E. Adams.”

I also linked to a post of mine that traces the influence of O. Hobart Mowrer.

• Meet the Man Who Influenced the Early Nouthetic Counseling Movement: O. Hobart Mowrer

In Part 1, I introduced you to the Church Father, Tertullian, who was “anti-integration” and “anti-philosophy.” Reading Tertullian today, it’s easy to see that his writings are replete (I’ve also always wanted to use the word “replete”) with Neo-Platonic thought. Tertullian was unknowingly, unwittingly, a:

• NPIT—Neo-Platonic-Informed Theologian.

In Part 1, I wondered out loud whether Jay Adams, without his even knowing it, may have been a:

• BINC: A Behaviorism-Informed Nouthetic Counselor.

I’m confident that if any of my writings were to survive a century, and if anyone were to dust them off 100 years from now, they would detect areas where I swam in the sea of secular thought—unbeknownst to me.

I’m confident that if any of Heath Lambert’s writings survive a century, and if anyone were to dust them off 100 years from now, they would detect areas where Heath was zombie-infected by secular psychological theory—unbeknownst to Heath.

Does that mean we all should just give up seeking to be theologically-saturated? Of course not. I wrote Part 1 to encourage us to look at all information with the new eyes of God’s Word and with the fresh eyes of God’s people. Then we can avail ourselves of those aspects of the world’s research that could be helpful complements to our biblical counseling.

Reflection #2: Some Practice CBIBC—“Co-Belligerent-Informed Biblical Counseling” 

So far, we’ve been talking about what we might call “accidental integration” or “unknown integration.” In the current generation of modern biblical counselors there also exists purposeful integration, or at the very least, purposeful use of secular information. We might label this:

• CBIBC: Co-Belligerent-Informed Biblical Counseling. 

What is co-belligerent research? It’s the decision only to use research that agrees with my preconceived notions. In the biblical counseling world, co-belligerent research involves:

• Only using research that denies the viability and value of research.

• Only quoting, using, and accepting researchers who are anti-research, scientists who are anti-science, neuroscientists who are anti-neurosciences, psychologists who are anti-psychology, and psychiatrists who are anti-psychotropic medications, anti-psychiatry, and anti-DSM.

It is inconsistent for those who are against clinically-informed biblical counseling to be co-belligerent-informed biblical counselors. Does the noetic effect of sin fail to occur when a secular researcher agrees with me?

I’ve written about the inconsistency of co-belligerent research in several posts:

1. Biblical Counseling and the “Co-Belligerent” Use of Research

2. Theological Inconsistency in the Biblical Counseling Use of Research?

3. Biblical Counseling and Scientific Research

4. 10 Biblical Counseling Concerns About “Bad Therapy” 

Recommendation #1: Honesty About Ourselves 

So what’s my point?

We’re all “zombie-infected” biblical counselors to some degree.

What’s the point of that point?

• Honesty about ourselves—honestly recognize and admit that we all are informed by more than just the Bible.

Perhaps we could paraphrase Matthew 7:3-5, and apply it to one another in the modern biblical counseling movement.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in the eye of your brother or sister who is a clinically-informed biblical counselor, and yet pay no attention to the plank in your own eye as someone who claims to be a non-clinically-informed biblical counselor? How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me inoculate you against zombie infection,’ when all the time a zombie virus has subtly infected you? First acknowledge and address your own zombie virus, and then you will see clearly to help remove any speck from the eye of your brother or sister who is a clinically-informed biblical counselor.”

Recommendation #2: Honesty About Our CIBC Brothers and Sisters 

I can imagine a “Yes, but” response.

“Yes, but there’s a difference between those who purposefully integrate and those who accidentally or unknowingly integrate!”

That’s an interesting thought containing a couple of fallacies. A primary fallacy is calling clinically-informed biblical counselors “integrationists,” “neo-integrationists,” “anti-sufficiency,” “weak on sufficiency,” or “zombie-infected.” Such accusations assume that our CIBC brothers and sisters do not believe in and put into practice the sufficiency of Scripture for biblical counseling.

As I said in Part 1, as I read leaders in the modern CIBC movement, I see them believing both in the sufficiency of Scripture and in the legitimacy of researched—examined under the lens of Scripture.

• Clinically-informed biblical counselors state that they follow the theological language of John Calvin who saw the Bible as a pair of spectacles that allows us to see the world through the eyes of God’s evaluation.

• Clinically-informed biblical counselors state that they follow the counseling approach of David Powlison who saw the Bible as providing the new eyes, the redeemed lens, through which we assess all information.

• Clinically-informed biblical counselors state that they believe the Scriptures provide them with everything necessary to evaluate common grace tools and to establish their congruity or incongruity with God’s Word.

In May 2024, I wrote, Engaging Publicly with Heath Lambert’s Public Writings: Part 2: Hearing Heath. In that post, I asked Heath Lambert the following:

• Your quotes indicate that zombie-infected biblical counselors say that common grace findings are “necessary,” “critical,” “crucial,” “essential, “need/needed, “required” to do biblical counseling. The faithful biblical counselors I read who talk about common grace use phrases like those used in the Biblical Counseling Coalition’s Confessional Statement and used by David Powlison about common grace such as “helpful,” “brings many good things to human life,” “can contribute to our knowledge of people,” etc. Is it possible that you are putting words into the mouths of these biblical counselors? Or, do you have quotes that demonstrate that biblical counselors are saying common grace findings are “necessary” (etc.)?

I’ve not heard from Heath. I’ve still not read CIBC saying that clinical information is “necessary, critical, crucial, essential, need/needed, required.” In fact, I continue to read the opposite.

Let’s be sure to fairly, accurately, charitably, and honestly characterize clinically-informed biblical counselors. Let’s reject all distortion and mischaracterization of their writings and practice.

Recommendation #3: Humility to Learn from Clinically-Informed Biblical Counselors

As a non-clinically-informed biblical counselor, are you willing to humbly respond to, interact with, and learn from those who choose to call themselves clinically-informed biblical counselors?

As I said in Part 1, David Powlison and others insisted on humbly learning from others. In the last of the twelve statements in the Biblical Counseling Coalition Confessional Statement, David Powlison, Sam Williams, I, and others wrote:

“We want to listen well to those who disagree with us, and learn from their critiques.”

The Introduction to the BCC Confessional Statement humbly emphasizes that we have not arrived; and we will never grow apart from engagement with others in the Body of Christ.

“We confess that we have not arrived. We comfort and counsel others only as we continue to receive ongoing comfort and counsel from Christ and the Body of Christ (2 Corinthians 1:3-11). We admit that we struggle to apply consistently all that we believe. We who counsel live in process, just like those we counsel, so we want to learn and grow in the wisdom and mercies of Christ.”

In summary:

Are we humbly receptive to the feedback of others—including biblical counselors outside our in group, including clinically-informed biblical counselors—for helping us to discern how biblical our biblical counseling truly is?

When we treat clinically-informed biblical counselors as “the other,” then we mischaracterize them as false priests from whom we must separate ourselves.

When we demonize clinically-informed biblical counselors as “zombie-infected,” then we mischaracterize them as diseased counselors from whom we must inoculate ourselves. In our eyes, they become “COVID carriers” from whom we must isolate ourselves and keep our distance.

On the other hand, when we see clinically informed biblical counselors as our brothers and sisters in Christ—with whom we often agree on 99% of theology and 95% of biblical counseling, then we can humbly respond to, interact with, and learn from those who choose to call themselves clinically-informed biblical counselors.

Let’s stop seeing clinically-informed biblical counselors as low on sufficiency. Let’s start seeing them as committed to sufficiency and well-read in the world’s research, well-informed in neuroscience and science, and beneficial to the body of Christ and to the modern biblical counseling movement.

Recommendation #4: Humility to Learn from Common Grace Resources

Before jumping right into our 4^th recommendation, enjoy a brief parenthesis about Inside Out 2.

Inside Out 2 

Shirley and I just returned from watching and enjoy Inside Out 2. It’s a movie about emotions. In fact, this sequel is about emotions, beliefs, one’s sense of self, the role of others in one’s sense of self, the interaction between various emotions, the interactions between emotions and beliefs, the danger of suppressing emotions, the benefits of emotions, etc., etc., etc.

I do not agree with everything in this movie.

I do not think this movie is necessary for me to understand the interaction between emotions and cognitions.

I do think this movie is an intriguing example of some common grace insights into the complexity of our inner life, and into the interaction between emotions, beliefs, and our sense of self.

Sadly, I do think this movie has a more robust approach to the inner life than some Christian sermons I’ve heard and some Christian books I’ve read.

I left the movie stimulated to think more deeply, more richly, more robustly, more comprehensively, more biblically about emotions and the interplay between our emotions and our beliefs. Inside Out 2 had a catalytic impact upon my biblical counseling—motivating me to return to Scripture for a more robust theological anthropology of emotions.

Back to Recommendation #4: Humility to Learn from Common Grace Resources

How does Inside Out 2 related to Recommendation #4?

Historically, the modern biblical counseling movement has denied that extra-biblical sources are “necessary” or “sufficient” for building a model of soul care.

Historically, the modern nouthetic biblical counseling movement has affirmed a legitimate catalytic role for descriptive research, for science, for neuroscience, and other fields (including, but not limited to cinema—see the David Powlison quote below on the vast array of common grace areas that can be helpful to us).

Here’s how I said this earlier in today’s post:

• Humbly engage with extra-biblical literature—assessing its potential helpfulness under the lens of Scripture—as the modern nouthetic biblical counseling movement has always done.

Assessing Our Assessments

As I’ve thought about recent interactions in the modern biblical counseling movement, I’ve wondered:

• When it comes to extra-biblical resources, are we more conservative, more “fundamentalist,” more “separatistic” than Jay Adams and the first generation of nouthetic biblical counselors?

• When it comes to extra-biblical resources, are we in danger of becoming “legalistic” and “pharisaical” in how we eschew (there’s that word again) research and information from the world?

• When it comes to extra-biblical resources, do we so emphasize the doctrine of the noetic effect of sin, that we then minimize, neglect, ignore, distort, or demonize the doctrine of common grace?

To answer those questions, I want us to briefly address another question:

• How have other Christians responded to and interacted with extra-biblical literature?

Here’s a brief listing of some of those responses:

1. 6 Words Describing What Jay Adams and Nouthetic Counseling Do with Secular Psychology

This is a very eye-opening post. In it, Jay Adams, John Bettler, and David Powlison suggest that nouthetic counselors should recycle, reinterpret, reshape, reconcile, redeem, and recast secular psychology. Note that none of those “R” words are “reject.”

2. How Does Scripture Teach Us to Redeem Psychology

Here’s a brief excerpt from David Powlison’s perspective on biblical counseling and secular psychology.

“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 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.)

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

That sounds like PIBC: “Psychology-Informed Biblical Counseling.”

3. 9 Reformed Theologians on Common Grace

Are we more conservative than Calvin on the use of common grace information?

“But if the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. For if we neglect God’s gift freely offered in these arts, we ought to suffer just punishment for our sloths” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.ii.16). 

“When we so condemn human understanding for its perpetual blindness as to leave it no perception of any object whatever, we not only go against God’s Word, but also run counter to the experience of common sense” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.ii.12).

Calvin sounds like he would be a CGIBC: Common Grace-Informed Biblical Counselor.

4. Affirmations and Denials: A Proposed Definition of Biblical Counseling

David Powlison clearly affirmed the sufficiency of Scripture for biblical counseling. He also clearly affirmed the potential usefulness of extra-biblical literature.

“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.

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.”

5. Critiquing Modern Integrationists

In this 1993 article, David 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) 

In the same article, Powlison notes:

“Every wise biblical counselor engages in lifelong empirical research, 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)

6. Cherry-Picking David Powlison

In this post, I collate quotes of note from Powlison where he affirms the usefulness of extra-biblical literature.

7. Jay Adams, Nouthetic Counseling, and Neuroscience

In this post, I quote from Jay Adams’s first book. In these quotes, Adams shares what he has learned from Mowrer about neuroscience (“the nervous system”) to build a case for the legitimacy of nouthetic counseling. We might call this NINC:

Neuroscience-Informed Nouthetic-Counseling.

Or, MININC:

Mowrer-Informed Neuroscience-Informed Nouthetic Counseling.

8. The Biblical Counseling Coalition’s Confessional Statement

The BCC’s Confessional Statement was unafraid to “nuance” this issue—promoting both the sufficiency of Scripture and the usefulness of common grace insights.

“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. However, common grace cannot save us from our struggles with sin or from the troubles that beset us. Common grace cannot sanctify or cure the soul of all that ails the human condition. 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. However, none can constitute a comprehensive system of counseling principles and practices.

I could go on and on and on.

Historically, the church has always seen a role—under the authority of Scripture—for common grace information.

Historically, the early nouthetic biblical counseling movement saw a role—under the authority of Scripture—for descriptive research, secular psychological thinking, science, neuroscience.

Which brings me back to my earlier question.

• When it comes to extra-biblical resources, are we more conservative, more “fundamentalist,” more “separatistic” than Jay Adams and the first generation of nouthetic biblical counselors?

I might add some questions.

• Might the current reactions against informed biblical counseling be evidence of “neo-fundamentalism” in the current generation of the modern biblical counseling movement?

• Regarding the use of extra-biblical resources, in a desire to be comprehensively biblical, have some in the current generation of the modern biblical counseling movement become less comprehensive than the Bible, more narrow than the Bible?

• In a desire to comprehensively care for the soul, have some in the current generation of the modern biblical counseling movement become soul physicians only of the soul, rather than being biblical soul physicians of the embodied-soul? For more on this, see: Of Spirituality and Ice Cubes: A Psalm and a Palm.

Let’s be comprehensive, holistic, robust biblical counselors who:

• Humbly engage with extra-biblical literature—assessing its potential helpfulness under the lens of Scripture—as the modern nouthetic biblical counseling movement has always done.

Let’s trust God’s sufficient Scriptures to:

• Provide us with everything necessary to evaluate common grace tools and to establish their congruity or incongruity with God’s Word.

Join the Conversation

Which of these four recommendations do you think is most important for non-clinically-informed biblical counselors to apply? Why? How?

1. Honestly recognize and admit that we all are informed by more than just the Bible.

2. Honestly and accurately speak about our clinically-informed biblical counseling brothers and sisters.

3. Humbly respond to, interact with, and learn from those who choose to call themselves clinically-informed biblical counselors.

4. Humbly engage with extra-biblical literature—assessing its potential helpfulness under the lens of Scripture—as the modern nouthetic biblical counseling movement has always done.