The fallowing paper covers the religious theories and positions from the psychological perspectives of famous theorists William James and Viktor Frankl. The theories from each will be compared and in contrast to each other, and will conclude with a personal opinion of who’s position is better.
William James It was the belief of professor, William James, that one’s religious beliefs is the results of one’s temperament. In this case, James is referring to one’s temperament as one’s character or personality. James explains that there are two basic types of temperaments; “the tender minded” and “the tough minded.” He describes tender minded individuals as those who fallow principles (rationalistic), and have a belief in the principle of
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In this view, God is the source and author of saving experiences for the “sick minded” – those who need comfort and assurance. In James’ book, the Varieties, he recognizes the side of human nature that need’s God for both “healthy minded” and “sick minded.” This need is for not only challenges and action, but also comfort and peace. Also in his book, the Varieties, James’ states that there are two different types of religious experiences; both “institutional” and “personal.” He proposed that these religious experiences are the real backbone of religion. Instead of focusing on the institutional experiences that bring theologies, moral teachings, or church life, James’ chooses to focus on personal experiences. He does this because he argues that personal experiences are the fundamental aspects of religious lives in at least two senses. First, ever church exists because of the personal experiences of its original founder. Thus, the tradition of the church was created for its believers to experience the traditions of its founder (e.g. Christ, Mahammad, etc.). James’ then argues that each founder of a church owes its power to a direct personal communication with the divine. The second sense would be that personal experiences are the root for every individual’s religious lives. Believers are not believers because of what they’ve been taught by the church, but rather something much deeper than reason. An experiential, emotional, and intuitive depths of person
In Virtuous Minds, Phillip Dow helps the reader understand what it means to love God with all of their minds. Dow does this by giving the reader a list of seven intellectual virtues, which can be performed in good or bad ways. Some may choose the path of cheating, arrogance, laziness, or cowardice, but Dow hopes this book will provide an option for recovering intellectual character. He splits the book into three separate parts, part one defines the seven intellectual virtues, while part two presents the awards that will come with these virtues, and finally part three provides the reader with a series of steps to reach this character.
No doubt that in the book written by David N. Entwistle Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity, the author leaves the truths embodied in his book. Truths that for many to this day are still trying to accommodate in their vast knowledge they have concerning the psychological science. Many still fail to understand that both psychology and theology when they go hand in hand they can become allies in treating those who for one reason or another have external and internal conflicts.
What does psychology have to do with the Christian faith? In Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, by Myers, Jones, Roberts, Watson, Coe, Hall, and Powlison (2010) is an introductory textbook for Christian psychology that provides sound arguments for an array of positions on psychology and faith. Each author contributed an essay and in return the other essayist respond by either agreeing or disagreeing by pointing out faults and explaining why.
Craig Martin is the Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College. He serves upon the North American Association for the Study of Religion, and is the author of five books that primarily deal with the complex relationship between society and religion and the “religious experience”.
The author provides five models for relating to psychology and theology. These models seek to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the various perspectives about book of God’s word, which reveals the will of God and the book of God’s works which is his expressed power that
At the beginning of the semester, I wrote: “Religion is the institutional manifestation of feeling and believing in something beyond yourself” (Kelley 2016). Twelve weeks later, I consider this definition incomplete and problematic; nevertheless, it reveals how religious thinkers such as James Frazer, Emile Durkheim, William James, Mircea Eliade, Jeffrey Kripal, and Bruce Lincoln infiltrate our quotidian definitions of religion. In this paper, I hope to develop a new conception of religion, recognizing the impact of such historical thinkers on personal conclusions. In other words, I hope to show that we are
Entwistle concludes his book on finding and understanding the truth that is defined in psychology and finding and understanding the truth defined in the Christianity perspective. Entwistle makes a clear observation on understanding the integration of psychology and Christianity, therefore here may have to be a better way to garnish understanding of the human mindset and through research and development and counseling future generations will benefit from the integration of psychology and Christianity.
Religion is constructed on faith and belief of an individual even though it is the individual choice to follow it or not. It has stirred a lot of debates for years; those who are trying to prove that God exists throughout history and follow to modern day. While, those who are atheist are trying to prove their point of God does not exist. There are still more and more theories and debate over the subject of religious view. It is a matter of theism versus atheism; new and old philosophers have joined the debate and all with different sides to another philosopher’s theory or view on the matter. In this paper, I will attempt to illustrate the reasons given by Louis Pojman of why religion is good or bad, as well as evaluating Bertrand Russell argument about religion. This can define the meaning of life and the creation of life as we know it. It can change views or switch sides for there is always another explanation to exactly what religion is all about and having a superior ruler that created all.
The purpose of this research paper is to compare the public view of suffering in the Old Testament with the public view of suffering in the modern world. In order to properly achieve this comparison, I will explain the relationship between God and His believers in the Old Testament. More specifically, I will elaborate on the opinion that God is the cause of everything, including suffering and relate it to the first poetic book in the Old Testament, the Book of Job. However, influenced by the changes in science, upbringing, and multiculturalism this commonly held view changes. Therefore, I will explain the meaning of each of these three factors as well as their negative impact on religion. Finally, I will use three television shows as examples
Due to differences in worldview, speculation of the possibility of integration of Christianity and psychology exists. Although these differences seem to cause conflict, or undermine integration between psychology and Christianity, some scientific data can be complimentary to the Christian worldview and provide us with a better understanding of humans as a whole. Some problems can arise when attempting to integrate theology and science, such as some Christians having contempt for secular science or secular science believing the Christian worldview is based on irrational thought. Rather than throwing out a view over differences, the differences can be examined and good aspects of psychology that align with the Biblical truths can be found.
James taught at several universities including both Brown and Yale where he often had arguments and lengthy discussions with his students about religion. In his introductory comments, he clearly states that a lot of his freethinking students did not believe one should believe in religion if it cannot be rationally proven. This was contradictory to his thoughts and consequently wrote the paper in order to try sway his students view.
In this essay I will be looking at the theories of Edward Burnett Tylor and Émile Durkheim, and comparing them to see which theory I think gives a better explanation about what religion is, or whether religion is actually definable. On the one hand we have Tylor’s theory that tells us that religion is belief in spiritual beings and that religion is just a step on the way to reaching full evolutionary potential. Durkheim’s theory, however, says that religion is very much a social aspect of life, and something can only be religious or “sacred” if it is something public (Durkheim 1965:52). Ultimately these theories do not give us an outright explanation about what ‘religion’ is, but there are aspects of the theory that can be used to gain an understanding or idea.
Finally, we can see how William James takes an objective point of view from a few quotes in his book “The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy”. One of these quotes was, “ That is why I call pessimism an essentially religious disease.”Now although this may seem to go against his view of allowing people to believe their own thoughts, it is actually the contrary. This is because pessimism is essentially the belief of seeing things negatively or viewing things in a negative light. But, I thin this leads to the point in which William James says that religion is personal. Along with this, he stated, “Be not afraid of life. Believe
In Sigmund Freud’s, The Future of an Illusion, he studies religious foundations and the influence of religion on civilization and social principles. As he explores the psychological depths relating to religion, he also portrays a scientific and rational civilization. In turn, he reveals his hope for an ideal world where humans surpass their feelings of helplessness and insignificance to live in an improved civilization based on reason and the increase of knowledge. Through his analysis and ideas, Freud is able to incite feelings of doubt surrounding religious beliefs and their validity.
For example, William James studied religious experience and suggested that the spiritual process works to curtail people's negative behaviors (James, 1936). For James, spirituality helps individuals recognize their own earthly suffering as either a consequence of individual pathology or addictive behavior, or both. When people begin to criticize or consciously reject problematic individual behaviors as a permanent way of being, then they become open to the possibility of rising to a higher awareness. This higher awareness of his or her own behavior is then integrated as a part of the person's psychology. James was already considering the role religion plays in a person's consciousness early in the twentieth century.