Jay Adams and the “Catalytic” Use of Extra-Biblical Information
Jay Adams frequently spoke of secular psychology and science as catalysts for his thinking. Adams sought to biblically think through current concepts in the world of science and psychology.
“I read some of Mowrer’s works, including The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, and The New Group Therapy, which he had just published. These books astounded me. Mowrer had gone far beyond my own thinking.”
“Reading Mowrer’s book, The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, as I said, was an earth-shattering experience.”
“I came home deeply indebted to Mowrer for indirectly driving me to a conclusion that I as a Christian minister should have known all along, namely, that many of the ‘mentally ill’ are people who can be helped by the ministry of God’s Word” (Competent to Counsel, xiv-xviii, emphasis added).
Adams was psychology-informed and neuroscience-informed. His copious study of secular thinking prompted him to return to Scripture with more specific questions and a more specific focus.
“I do not wish to disregard science, but rather I welcome it as a useful adjunct for the purposes of illustrating, filling in generalizations with specifics, and challenging wrong human interpretations of Scripture, thereby forcing the student to restudy the Scriptures” (Competent to Counsel, xxi, emphasis added).
David Powlison and the “Catalytic” Use of Extra-Biblical Information
I’ve previously document how David Powlison used extra-biblical information as a catalyst for further robust biblical examination of biblical counseling topics. You can find that research in several places:
David Powlison on Common Grace, Biblical Counseling, and Secular Psychology
Powlison on Biblical Counseling and Secular Psychotherapy: Informed Biblical Counseling
“Cherry-Picking” David Powlison on Secular Psychology and Biblical Counseling
The Modern Biblical Counseling Movement and the Catalytic Impact of Trauma-Informed Care
I believe that God, in His affectionate sovereignty, is using the secular world’s focus on trauma-informed care, plus numerous biblical counselors focusing on caring for the traumatized, as a catalyst to motivate our modern biblical counseling movement to develop a more robust approach to soul care for traumatic suffering.
That catalytic impact could continue. Specifically, a more informed understanding of current thinking on trauma could be a catalyst for the modern biblical counseling movement to examine biblically:
- What it means to be a soul physician of embodied-souls for those who have experience traumatic-suffering.
- How the Bible might distinguish between the broader category of “general suffering” and the more specific category of “trauma/traumatic-suffering.”
Some Sample Catalytic Questions
Some of the catalytic questions that current trauma-informed thinking could elicit for biblical counselors might include:
1. Research Category/Definition Questions: How are modern researchers and thinkers defining “trauma”? How are they distinguishing between the broader category of “suffering” and the more specific category of “trauma”?
2. Biblical Category/Definition Questions: Does the Bible in any way distinguish between the category of “suffering” and the category of “trauma” or “traumatic suffering”? Are these categories the same? Different? Overlapping?
3. Biblical Category/Distinction Questions: If the Bible does make distinctions between the broader category of “suffering” and a more specific category of “trauma,” what are those distinctions? How does the Bible depict them? What are the differing ways the Bible depicts trauma impacting the embodied-soul versus how suffering impacts the embodied-soul? What are the differing ways the Bible encourages sufferers to respond to suffering versus responding to trauma?
4. Biblical Theological Anthropology Questions: There are well over 500 biblical passages on the complex interconnection and interrelationship between the body and soul. How might these passages help create a biblical counseling theological anthropology of the embodied-soul? How might these passages help create a biblical counseling methodology of being soul physicians of embodied-souls?
5. Biblical Theology of Embodied-Souls Questions: The Bible values the body. God created the embodied-soul “very good;” He “fearfully and wonderfully made” the embodied-soul. There are scores of examples in the Bible of God ministering to the body and valuing ministry to the embodied-soul. How might these passages help biblical counselors to think through comprehensive ministry to the whole person? How might these passages help biblical counselors to ponder appropriate physiological interventions?
6. Biblical Theology of the Effect of Suffering Questions: There are hundreds of biblical passages on the lasting/lingering impact of suffering, abuse, and trauma on the body. How might these passages help biblical counselors understand the trauma sufferer? How might these passages help biblical counselors ponder appropriate physiological interventions?
7. Neuroscience Research Questions: What is current (imperfect) neuroscience research on trauma saying about its initial and lingering impact on the embodied-soul?
8. Biblical Assessment of Neuroscience Research Questions: Are there any additional questions that I could bring to the text of Scripture based upon current research and neuroscience thinking about trauma? About trauma’s impact upon the body/brain?
9. Biblical Assessment of Trauma Theory Questions: How can I look at current thinking on trauma through the lens of Scripture? How could the “new eyes” of Scripture enlighten me to see potential errors in modern trauma thinking? Potential common grace insights in modern trauma thinking?
10. Research Assessment Questions: How can I fairly assess current trauma theory? What does it mean for a biblical counselor to examine trauma theory not only using “co-belligerent” research (only using research that is against trauma theory), but also using peer reviewed research that supports trauma theory?
11. Adjunctive Role Question #1: What adjunctive role might there be for neuroscience research into the impact of trauma on the body/brain?
12. Adjunctive Role Question #2: What adjunctive role might there be for physiological interventions when providing soul care for embodied-souls who have experienced traumatic suffering?
The Modern Biblical Counseling Movement Does This All the Time
Some might reply,
“But “trauma” is a worldly word. Why should biblical counselors search the Scriptures for a concept like that?”
Well, “OCD” is a “worldly word,” but biblical counselors have written a great deal on a biblical understanding of OCD. The same is true with other words/concepts like “scrupulosity,” “bi-polar disorder,” “schizophrenia,” etc., that biblical counselors have addressed.
Ever since Jay Adams launched the modern nouthetic counseling movement in the late 1960s, biblical counselors have sought to interact biblically with current issues. We have always sought to relate God’s changeless truth to our changing times. We have always sought to change lives with God’s changeless truth.
The Catalytic Impact of Current Trauma Thinking on My Biblical Counseling: Embodied-Soul Traumatic Suffering
Personally, after spending forty years studying a biblical sufferology, current discussions on trauma recently led me to begin a cover-to-cover, Genesis-to-Revelation, biblical study of trauma, or what I’ve sometimes called, “traumatic suffering.” I am still developing my own “biblical traumatology.” I readily acknowledge that I have much more thinking to do on a biblical counseling theology and methodology of the specific category of trauma.
Here are some collations of my initial thinking on the Bible, embodied-souls, and traumatic-suffering.
- 560 Biblical Passages on Embodied-Souls.
- 128 Resources for Counseling the Whole Person: Being Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls.
- The Gospels, Traumatic-Suffering, and the Embodied-Soul.
- 8 Wisdom Literature Resources for Biblical Counseling, Trauma, and Embodied-Souls.
- 6 Biblical Counseling Convictions.
- 50 Biblical Counseling Resources on Trauma and Trauma Care.
- 15 Resources About Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling (CIBC).
- A Biblical Counseling Evaluation of ACBC’s “A Biblical View of Trauma.”
I have 2,000 pages of biblical and extra-biblical research notes on “embodied-soul traumatic-suffering.” In addition to the above resources, eventually, I would like to write booklets and books on this. First, however, I would like to turn those 2,000 pages into a one page, then a one paragraph, and then one sentence summary distinguishing between “suffering” and “traumatic-suffering,” worded so that “the average person in the pew” and the “average pastor and biblical counselor in a counseling office” would resonate with it.
Join the Conversation
What additional catalytic trauma questions would you suggest the modern biblical counseling movement should be asking?
