Entwistle Book Review

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Entwistle Book Review Relief from emotional baggage, insight into the inner workings of the human mind, and intuition on human relationships can be ascertained from many different arenas of knowledge with varying degrees of truth. Psychology and Christianity both house extensive truth on life. In Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity: An Introduction to Worldview Issues, Philosophical Foundations, and Models of Integration, Entwistle (2010) argued for the blending of psychology and Christianity, believing that together they can best answer the questions of humanity. God’s great power is proudly depicted throughout Entwistle’s book on integration, calling for this author’s personal contemplation on beliefs and inspiring for further…show more content…
135). Within the “Enemies model”, one side is steadfastly against any kind of psychology, believing that the Bible is the only tool for understanding humanity, the other side believes that empiricism is the proper method for discovering truth about life (Entwistle, 2010, pg. 156). The “Spies model” also has two sides (Entwistle, 2010, pg. 180). On one end, individuals dedicated primarily to science use Christianity or religious practices as a means to an end without having faith themselves. On the other end, individuals claiming to believers use psychology to veer away from deep doctrine and focus in on how a relationship with Christ can make someone feel better and not on Christ’s sacrifice for that relationship. Individuals in the “Colonist model” will use some information from the psychological field, but still hold theological interpretation as the final authority (Entwistle, 2010, pg. 187). Any data that does not agree with theological assumption is thrown out without much investigation. “Neutral Parties” take the position that each side is a wealth of knowledge, vastly important for researchers and Christians, but does not believe that there are truly any areas of convergence (Entwistle, 2010, pg. 190). In the “Allies Model”, individuals recognize that truth can come from God’s special…show more content…
Entwistle (2010) gave the story of a student named Pam who had been questioned by her pastor on how she could study such a subject as psychology and be a true believer. She expressed much frustration at his opinion (Entwistle, 2010). When I decided on psychology as my major in my senior year of high school my father was not wholly supportive. He expressed a view similar to the “Enemies model” Entwistle discussed (Entwistle, 2010, pg. 156). Now this is not surprising as he has shelves upon shelves of books from John MacArthur sitting in his office. While my father is a godly man, he seriously questioned my desire to go into the psychology and counseling field as well as the biblical value of psychology. Since that point, he has come to support me in my academic endeavors, but still expresses a low opinion of psychology. In the past few weeks as I have been working through this course, I brought up the subject of the integration of psychology and Christianity and asked him if he believed that they could in fact be integration. His reply was that he did not think it could be done properly. That was the end of that conversation for him. Although familial support may be limited, I am convinced that full integration of Christianity and psychology is possible and will be developed in time and will continue to study this subject as it is near and dear to
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