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Pastoral Counselling and Traditional Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Extract

Is there a conflict between the principles of pastoral counselling and traditional Christian theology?

In discussing this question, I shall consider Carroll A. Wise' Pastoral Counselling as a representative statement of counselling principles. What I mean by ‘traditional’ theology will, I hope, become reasonably clear in the course of the essay.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1958

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References

page 172 note 1 Wise, Carroll A., Pastoral Counselling, Its Theory and Practice, Harper and Bros., New York, 1951. Unless otherwise indicated, all footnotes refer to pages in this book.Google Scholar

page 172 note 2 In a later book, Psychiatry and the Bible (Harper and Bros., N.Y., 1956), Wise reveals a somewhat modified theology, which I shall indicate in footnotes.Google Scholar

page 172 note 3 p. 82.

page 172 note 4 p.90.

page 172 note 5 6p. 167.

page 173 note 1 E.g. Dodd, C. H., Romans, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1932, pp. 21ff.Google Scholar

page 173 note 2 E.g. Jer. 7.13; Matt. 21.13; Rev. 3.16

page 173 note 3 p. 11.

page 173 note 4 Concerning this, see Snygg, D. and Combs, A. W., Individual Behaviour, Harper and Bros., New York, 1949, pp. 311314.Google Scholar

page 173 note 5 p. 45. In Psychiatry and the Bible, however, he rejects excessive ‘permissiveness’ in child training, since the child needs to learn what patterns of behaviour are ‘acceptable’ (p. 97).

page 174 note 1 Cf. Walters, O. S., ‘The Minister and the New Counselling’, Journal of Pastoral Care, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 199200.mxGoogle Scholar

page 175 note 1 pp. 117–18.

page 175 note 2 p. 160.

page 175 note 3 p. 199.

page 175 note 4 p. 119.

page 175 note 5 p. 219–20.

page 175 note 6 p. 115.

page 175 note 7 In Psychiatry and the Bible, Wise stresses the fact that both human and divine actions are involved in revelation. But he does not consider the question of divine authority which then arises (pp. 5, 15, 16).

page 175 note 8 Thornton, L. S., Revelation and the Modern World, Dacre Press, A. & C. Black, London, 1950, p. 147.Google Scholar

page 175 note 9 See Hunter, A. M., The Work and Words of Jesus, S.C.M., London, 1950.Google Scholar

page 176 note 1 Dodd, C. H., in According to the Scriptures (Nisbet and Co., London, 1952, pp. 133135Google Scholar), argues that St. Paul did not base his doctrine primarily on his own personal religious experience, however sublime, but on the historical tradition which he had received concerning Jesus, and the biblical framework of interpretation suggested by Jesus.

page 176 note 2 p. 220: ‘Religious experience produces the interpretation; the interpretation never produces the experience.’

page 177 note 1 Cf. Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, tr. by C. E. M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1953.Google Scholar

page 177 note 2 Cf. Wise, p. 141: ‘Interpretation must come after the experience. For example, after a person has worked through feelings of guilt and found release, the pastor may point out that the Christian faith has talked about such experiences as confession and forgiveness.’

page 178 note 1 Roberts, David E., Psychotherapy and the Christian View of Man, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1950, p. 153.Google Scholar

page 178 note 2 p. 220.