Psychology and Spirituality: A House Divided

The relationship between psychology and spirituality is divided within itself. On the one hand there is the psychology of religion, which has recently broadened to become ‘the psychology of religion and spirituality’. On the other hand there is ‘transpersonal psychology’, which largely eschews religion and often seeks to integrate psychology and spirituality.

On the face of things you would expect the psychology of religion and spirituality to be quite close to transpersonal psychology, but in fact there is little connection between them, even some mutual distrust. It is worth examining the reasons for this. There seem to be several factors that make any integration between them quite hard to achieve.

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Laws of Nature, Laws of God

Up until the time of Newton, scientists regarded the understandings of the physical world, at which they were arriving, as glimpses of the working of the Creator’s mind. Thus, the generalisations being formulated about the behaviour of matter – the “Laws of Nature” – were seen as the Creator's injunctions, to created matter, as to how it was to act.

They were “laws” in the same sense as laws, Divine or human, about how people should behave: that is why the same word was used for both. And even now, scientific laws are occasionally spoken of as being “obeyed”.

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Handbook of Chaplaincy Studies: Understanding Spiritual Care in Public Places

This Handbook of Chaplaincy Studies explores fundamental issues and critical questions in chaplaincy, spanning key areas of health care, the prison service, education and military chaplaincy.

Leading authors and practitioners in the field present critical insight into the challenges and opportunities facing those providing professional spiritual care. From young men and women in the military and in custody, to the bedside of those experiencing life’s greatest traumas, this critical examination of the role played by the chaplain offers a fresh and informed understanding about faith and diversity in an increasingly secular society.

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The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion

The relations between science and religion have been the subject of renewed attention, in recent years.

Developments in physics, biology and the neurosciences have reinvigorated discussions about the nature of life and ultimate reality. At the same time, the growth of anti-evolutionary and intelligent design movements has led many to the view that science and religion are necessarily in conflict.

Read the article in full on my blog.

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology is the first collection to consider the full breadth of natural theology from both historical and contemporary perspectives and to bring together leading scholars to offer accessible high-level accounts of the major themes. The volume embodies and develops the recent revival of interest in natural theology as a topic of serious critical engagement. Frequently misunderstood or polemicized, natural theology is an under-studied yet persistent and pervasive presence throughout the history of thought about ultimate reality – from the classical Greek theology of the philosophers to twenty-first century debates in science and religion.

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What Jesus Accomplished

In my last blog I took a modest line about claims for the divinity of Jesus. In this blog I turn to what Jesus accomplished, and here I take a stronger line. In both cases I believe I am following the New Testament, which is much stronger about the ‘work’ of Christ than about the ‘person’ of Christ.

Strong claims are made for the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament, but it is interesting that the claim is generally that ‘God raised him up’, rather than that Jesus rose of his own accord, because he was God. That way of phrasing it (‘God raise him up’) seems to indicate that it is not being claimed that Jesus is God.

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The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality

The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality is an interdisciplinary reference for a rapidly emerging approach to contemporary science. It reflects the recent broadening of the field of psychology of religion to include the psychology of spirituality, and engages with some of the post-materialistic assumptions associated with contemporary spirituality. The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality codifies the leading empirical evidence in this emerging field This overarching work provides both a foundation and a roadmap for what is truly a new ideological age.

Read about the book in full on my website.