Psychological Method and the Activity of God: Clarifications and Distinctions

We are gratified by the serious and substantive comments on the four-article argument that begins this special issue. We are especially pleased to have Stanton Jones (this issue) involved in this dialogue, whose comment we are to focus upon here. His work has been seminal to the integration project, and, true to form, his comment in this special issue poses intriguing challenges to both our collective argument and our particular part in that argument (Slife & Whoolery, this issue). Specifically, Jones points to several matters that need further elaboration and clarification, which we intend to provide here. Indeed, Jones’s (this issue) comment and, to a lesser degree, Tan’s (this issue) comments have led us to develop and refine some of our first article’s ideas, especially those concerning the activity of God and the need for interpretive methods. Even though we take issue here with a few of Jones’s positions, we want to be clear that we view his comment as not only valuable but also basically complementary to our own perspective. The Activity of God Jones (this issue) is correct when he states that we view the activity of God as a “central omission of secular method” from the theist’s perspective (p. 7). However, he questions this focus for two reasons. First, Jones desires a “thick” presentation of these ideas (p. 13). Theism, from his perspective, is too “abstract,” and we would have to “tip our hand” to truly engage the important issues of integration (p. 13). Second, and perhaps the more important concern, is that he believes our focus should be the “understandings of the human person” rather than the activity of God (p. 7). The latter focus is a bit of a red herring from Jones’s perspective, while the former is vital to the integration project and interpretive methods. We appreciate his role in our published “dialogue” because he allows us to address both of these important issues. Regarding Jones’s first concern, we sympathize with his request for a thick presentation of these ideas, such as a focus on Christianity. Our general hermeneutical approach stresses thick description in conducting interpretive methods. However, descriptions about hermeneutical methods, such as Gadamer’s Truth and Method (1975), not to mention Jones’s (this issue) own article about needing thick description, are typically presented with more general and thus thinner language. Jones suggests focusing on Christianity, but we are hard-pressed to see how this focus is much less abstract than theism. As he well knows, there are many types of particular Christians, with widely varying theologies and beliefs. Describing Christianity in general allows very little truly “thick” description (Dueck, 2001). Of course, if Jones wanted to focus on a particular issue that Christians have in common, then surely such a focus would be permitted. By analogy, a veterinarian who is concerned that all cats get rabies vaccinations should be able to say so. Indeed, a focus on only one cat, no matter how “concrete” or “thick” it may be, would misrepresent this concern. Similarly, we have chosen not to limit the applicability of our ideas to Christianity. We believe that the issue of God’s presence and activity concern other religions, and thus other theistic psychologists. We are aware, for example, of comparable concerns about the activity of God in Islamic science (Iqbal, 2002). Moreover, divine activity is a central topic in integrative efforts between religion and the physical sciences (Lameter, 2006; Saunders, 2002). Jones’s (this issue) second concern is that our focus on divine activity is problematic for integrative efforts in psychology. We should focus, instead, on how we are “made in the image of God” (p. 7). According to Jones, humans cannot be reduced either to natural laws or to a solely “material existence;” they must be capable of “meaningful agency” (p. 7). His position seems to be fairly widely held among conservative Christian psychologists.