Introduction

Beginning in September of 1887, Charles Spurgeon, pastor of Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, published a series of articles in his monthly magazine, The Sword and the Trowel, concerning the infiltration of liberal theology into the doctrine and practice of contemporary Baptist ministers with whom he had previously partnered.[1] Amid a growing influence of secularization in the church, Spurgeon saw the writing on the wall and recognized that this creeping tide of liberalism must be stayed if the church sought to uphold and defend the historical doctrine of the inerrancy and authority of the Scriptures.[2] Faith and practice derived from any other source Spurgeon declared to be a “downgrade.”[3] Spurgeon despaired that without the inerrancy of the Scriptures and the atonement of Christ presented therein, Christians had nothing unique to offer the world.[4] Though he faced considerable backlash for his position and controversy swelled around his ministry, Spurgeon refused to back down.

Today, biblical counselors are facing a similar Downgrade Controversy. Biblical counseling has long debated its stance against integrative counseling, but a new group of “redemptive counselors” has arisen out of the biblical counseling movement.[5] These counselors claim that a proper understanding of common grace generates an impetus for integrating extrabiblical information and methods with biblical counsel.[6] Nate Brooks, professor of counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS), asserts, “biblical counselors of necessity incorporate material drawn from domains of knowledge outside of Scripture, thereby requiring biblical counseling to establish its own robust theory of integration.”[7] Brooks cites examples of purported integration in the writings of biblical counselors like Jay Adams, Wayne Mack, and Heath Lambert, stating that since these “biblical counselors who have most strongly affirmed a maximalist view of sufficiency” integrate, then all biblical counselors, no matter their views of sufficiency should also recognize their own “inevitable” integration.[8] Brooks and the SEBTS counseling faculty’s view of integration constitutes a modern-day “downgrade.” A rebuff in biblical sufficiency as has been defined by the biblical counseling movement since its inception in the 1970’s echoes Spurgeon’s concern for the invasion of liberal theology in the Baptist Union of Great Britain in the 1870’s. If integration is inevitable, then biblical counseling has nothing unique to offer the world.[9]

Many who claim the mantle of “biblical counseling” today assert that biblically faithful and effective counseling necessarily integrates and commends the use of extrabiblical psychological findings, discovered due to common grace, provided they are scrutinized biblically,[10] but a proper understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture coupled with a presuppositional approach to evaluating counseling systems forces biblical counselors to recognize that secular systems masquerade in the truth, presenting downgraded and anemic facsimiles of the Bible’s God-centered epistemology and methodology, and should ultimately be rejected.

Van Til and Biblical Counseling

Of first importance for understanding why biblical counselors must reject secular systems of counseling is the presuppositional approach to Christian worldview put forward by Cornelius Van Til.[11] Three important concepts from Van Til’s thinking lies beneath biblical counseling.

The first concept is the ontological Trinity as the fundamental assumption for all knowledge.[12] For Van Til, the Triune God provides the lens through which man properly interprets creation.[13] What God says about anything is so. Mankind is not the arbiter of nor authority over knowledge, meaning every fact, every bit of knowledge, every scientific discovery must be interpreted and understood in light of the Triune God and his purposes as revealed to us through special revelation.[14] To attempt to know anything without taking the Triune God (and his revelation to mankind) into account as basic is epistemic suicide.[15] Because all knowledge is directly related to God and the interpretation he provides through both special (Scripture) and general (nature) revelation, one’s relationship to knowledge has a moral component.[16] To say that any fact about the universe is anything other than what God says it to be is to make God a liar (Cf. Heb 6:18). What God reveals to be true is true, regardless of what scientific inquiry or philosophical musings may claim.

This notion leads to the second concept in Van Til’s thinking that is crucial to biblical counseling: the presuppositional method. The assumptions and presuppositions that one brings to the debate table ultimately determine argumentative outcomes.[17] For the Christian, because the Bible is necessary, authoritative, sufficient, and clear, it remains our epistemological source for all matters.[18] For Van Til, these four aspects of Scripture stand or fall together.[19] There was never a state, even before the Fall, where man existed without the special revelation of God given to him in God’s Word (Gen 1:27-28).[20] Special revelation was given to sinless Adam to interpret the world to him. This means that every single aspect of man in his pre-Fall state is still subject to God’s Word, including reason, logic, analysis, and inquiry (Gen 1:26; Ps 36:9; 1 Cor 2:7-16; Heb 11:3).[21] These faculties need God’s Word in order to function and be employed properly for God-glorifying purposes (Cf. 2 Cor 5:9-10; 10:31).[22] Thus, because God created mankind to always interpret the world around him through the lens of special revelation, Van Til asserts that Christian presuppositions are the only ones that actually cohere when taken to their logical conclusions.[23] Anything else is a rejection of creational order, and, more fundamentally, the covenantal Triune God himself, which leads to the third concept.

The third Van Tillian concept important to this discussion is the antithesis, defined for us when Van Til states, “There are two and only two classes of men. There are those who worship and serve the creature, and there are those who worship and serve the Creator. There are covenant breakers and there are covenant keepers. In all of men’s activities, in their philosophical and scientific enterprises as well as in their worship, men are either covenant keepers or covenant breakers.”[24] Van Til draws out this distinction from Romans 1:18-32 where Paul explains that in sinful unrighteousness, men suppress the truth about God in their hearts. Man, created in the image of God, still possesses the ability to use reason and logic coherently, but the noetic effects of sin warp man’s a priori assumptions and/or his conclusions, causing him to distort, suppress, or reject all truth-claims about God.[25] What is crucial to Van Til’s thought is that sin always causes man to misrepresent any truth-claim arrived at through reason when the argument is devoid of Scriptural presuppositions.[26] Because men “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18), they willfully rebel against God. The truth is made plain to them through their innate sense of God’s existence instilled in them through their creation in the image of God, but in their sin, they choose to suppress that truth and shake their fist at God.[27] Non-Christian thinking is totally depraved and absolutely corrupted (Rom 3:9-19).[28] For the nonbeliever, his reasoning is darkened, his affections are turned against God, and his will is enslaved to sin (Rom 6:15-23; 2 Cor 4:3-4; Gal 5:16-17). The noetic effects of sin are comprehensive in their reach. Romans 1:21-22 states that nonbelievers “are futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts [are] darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” Thus, non-Christian reasoning is not neutral or, innocent or naïve. “Their epistemology is informed by their ethical hostility to God.”[29] Because nonbelievers enter every discussion or act of inquiry with presuppositions that are antithetical to God, they can never arrive at real truth. They might come close to the truth, perhaps by describing accurately some physical or biological mechanism at work in the universe. But because they began their search for truth with presuppositions that are antagonistic towards the Triune God, his glory, and what he has revealed to us through special revelation, they can never fully arrive at a concrete, absolute truth that accurately reflects how God presents the world to us.[30] There will always be some distortion of the truth. For Van Til, “it is only when the Holy Spirit gives man a new heart that he will accept the evidence of Scripture about itself and about nature for what it really is. The Holy Spirit’s regenerating power enables man to place all things in true perspective.”[31] At conversion, the Spirit removes antithetical thinking, installs biblical presuppositions, and as a result, man can begin to understand creation aright because he now sees it in proper relationship to the Creator.[32]

For Van Til, the antithesis has a direct, practical effect on man’s ability to reason and arrive at truth.[33] This is relevant to biblical counselors because all counseling systems develop out of a set of presuppositions. Those presuppositions can either be strictly biblical, antithetical, or a mix of the two. But since God requires total obedience and submission of his creatures to his Word (Jas 2:10), a mixture of biblical and antithetical presuppositions is not truly Christian and cannot produce a system of change that honors God since it will inevitably include theories or practices that derive from God-hating presuppositions. Instead, genuine biblical counselors must assume the necessity, authority, sufficiency, and clarity of Scripture and thus seek to draw out these presuppositions to construct their counseling system. This was what Jay Adams sought to do.

The Jay Adams and O. Hobart Mowrer Straw Man

In the history of the biblical counseling movement, one of the more well-known controversies surrounding integration involved the movement’s founder, Jay Adams. Adams spent a significant summer of his life counseling and working alongside secular psychologist, O. Hobart Mowrer, who put forward the notion that many of the mentally ill are actually guilty of previous “sin” and were refusing to take proper responsibility for their wrongdoing.[34] Adams was floored by this shift in thinking — that perhaps there truly is a moral aspect to psychological trouble and problems of living.[35] After witnessing Mowrer’s integrity therapy, which involved confession of moral failures to and seeking absolution from a group of one’s peers, Adams (who at the time had been a pastor for many years) began to reevaluate his understanding of mental illness and its root cause.[36] Adams, compelled by Mowrer’s moral categories for counseling, returned to the Bible to discover what truth may lie in Mowrer’s suggestions. If patients could be cured of mental illness through the removal of guilt, then surely Christianity, a religion revolving around atonement, could integrate well with Mowrer’s methods.

Yet, as Adams began his search, he soon realized Mowrer’s system was lacking, and that integration would prove fruitless.[37] Mowrer’s system was devoid of all notion of a vertical relationship between God and man. Sins, in Mowrer’s thought, were only social misbehaviors, not affronts to a holy Creator. As close as Mowrer’s system approached Christianity in its model of confession, forgiveness, and restitution, it could not offer eternal, lasting hope for the counselee because it failed to address the spiritual realities of sin against God and the need for Christ’s atonement.[38] True guilt still remained in the patient because sin had not been cleansed by the blood of Christ. The ultimate failure of Mowrer’s system drove Adams to search for a Christian model for counseling, which he found in the Scriptures. For this motivation, Adams was thankful for his time spent with Mowrer.

There is much misunderstanding today about Adams’ two mentions of gratitude for his experience with Mowrer in the preface to his landmark book, Competent to Counsel. The first: “I worked under Mowrer during the summer session. That was an unforgettable experience for which I shall always be grateful.”[39] The second is less direct: “I came home deeply indebted to Mowrer for indirectly driving me to a conclusion that I as a Christian minister should have known all along, namely, that many of the ‘mentally ill’ are people who can be helped by the ministry of the God’s Word.”[40] Upon first glance, one can see that Adams was influenced by and thankful for Mowrer. Many counselors throughout the years have sought to shed light more precisely on how secular thinking influenced Adams’ views and practice.[41] Brad Hambrick, a redemptive counselor, has picked up on Adams’ thankfulness to Mowrer and uses Adams’ statements as grounds for integrating, claiming that even the founder of the biblical counseling movement found reason to integrate. Hambrick states, “Jay Adams recognized that a secular psychologist (even one who believed Christianity contributed more to mental illness than it cured) could make accurate and useful observations about people, culture, and paths towards healthiness. Jay Adams was willing to learn from, even study under Mowrer for an extended time, to benefit from his work to such a degree that it merited acknowledgement in his seminal book.”[42] But for what exactly was Adams thankful for in Mowrer? Surely not Mowrer’s counseling system. Hambrick fundamentally misunderstands and misrepresents Adams’ statements concerning Mowrer for three reasons.

First, Adams is extremely critical of Mowrer in every other mention of Mowrer throughout the rest of his major works in the 1970’s.[43] For example, he claims in the paragraph following the one Hambrick cites, “[Mowrer’s] presuppositional stance must be rejected totally. Christians may thank God that in his providence he has used Mowrer and others to awaken us to the fact that the ‘mentally ill’ can be helped. But Christians must turn to the Scriptures to discover how God (not Mowrer) says to do it.”[44] Adams’ criticism was that Mowrer’s system should be rejected in toto; it should not be eclectically cherry-picked. Adams was thankful to Mowrer not because of insights Adams gained about the counseling process, but for exposing the failures of psychology, both of Freudian thinking and of Mowrer’s own system. In reality, Adams came to the conclusion that the Bible sufficiently provided a counseling system and methodology, and he was thankful that Mowrer inadvertently reminded him to open up his copy of the Word.[45]

Second, as already noted in the preceding quotation, Adams himself claims that any system which does not presuppose Christianity from the outset must be rejected outright or held in deep suspicion at best.[46] Adams, who was highly influenced by the presuppositional method of Cornelius Van Til, understood biblical counseling theory and practice to function as a unit.[47] There can be no piecemeal assembly of counseling from various sources other than the Scriptures for counseling to be truly biblical. Van Til argues in his Introduction to Systematic Theology that since man’s rational faculties are so corrupted by sin, “not partly bankrupt but wholly so,” then to deny the sufficiency of Scripture necessarily denies Scripture’s authority.[48] If special revelation was insufficient and required an import of man’s (corrupt) interpretation of Creator or creation, then the authority of the Scriptures must be jettisoned, and man must be established in the autonomous judgment seat. One of Van Til’s chief concerns was to challenge human autonomy at every point.[49] The intertwining of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture demands a total reliance upon the Word to derive both counseling content and methodology or else the doctrines are moot.[50] Revelational authority and sufficiency are timeless, given at the outset of man’s creation (Gen 1:27-28; 2:15). Any intrusion of psychological discovery into the epistemological base provided in the Scriptures relegates thousands of years of pre-psychological human theological reflection to futility. Thus, for Adams, in developing a wholly biblical approach to counseling, all presuppositions must be derived from the Scriptures or be rejected altogether since the Word was from the beginning and never changes (John 1:1-3; Heb 13:8).[51] If a system begins with any antithetical assumption, no matter how closely it comes to approximating biblical truth, the Christian must reject it and begin again with a Christian worldview. This does not mean the immediate rejection of a psychological fact as fact, but a recognition that presuppositional lenses color all observations, interpretations, and presentations of data.[52] The Christian must reinterpret this fact through the grid of the ontological Trinity and special revelation, since God’s interpretation of reality is final, authoritative, and true.[53] Adams echoes this sentiment:

People who study the Bible in-depth develop antithetical mindsets: They think in terms of contrasts or opposites: From Genesis to Revelation, God’s thoughts and ways are set over against all others. The Bible does not teach that there are numerous ways to please God, each of which is as good as the next. Nor does it teach that various opinions are more or less God’s ways. What it teaches – everywhere – is that any thought or way that is not wholly God’s is altogether wrong and must be rejected. According to the Bible, a miss is as good as a mile. There is only one God, and there is only one way of life – His![54]

For Adams, biblical counseling is all-or-nothing. Adams extended and applied the antithetical, presuppositional thinking and methodology of Van Til to the counseling room.[55] The authority and sufficiency of Scripture coupled together necessitate understanding God’s ways of counseling as a unit which can only remain consistent when taken as a whole. Adams asserts, “If there is anything that must be maintained at all costs, it is the integrity of the Scriptures as the authoritative standard for Christian [biblical] counseling… It is only upon biblical presuppositions that counseling may be based, and these are necessarily the same for every Christian counselor. The fundamentals of method, insofar as they inevitably grow out of these presuppositions, again will be the same.”[56]

Finally, Adams himself demonstrates that what he was truly thankful for in Mowrer was not Mowrer’s methodology, but the spectacularity of his system’s failure. Adams quickly saw that Mowrer’s search for absolution was anthropocentric and hollow.[57] While Mowrer’s system of moral responsibility bordered on the truth, it never arrived. It remained asymptotic – approaching, but never intersecting. His secular worldview underlying his thought skewed his understanding of guilt, absolution, and mental health. When examined from its core assumptions, what might appear on the surface as an accurate claim about humanity and counseling is ultimately revealed as antithetical to God and the Bible, as Satan disguised as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14).

What Adams truly meant in his thanksgiving for Mowrer was that Mowrer unwittingly forced Adams to return to the Scriptures to find answers.[58] When he dove into the Scriptures, what he discovered was a complete and sufficient system for counseling by virtue of the fact that the Bible is ultimately about matters related directly to counseling.[59] What redemptive counselors misunderstand in claiming that Adams was integrating when he expressed his appreciation for Mowrer is that Adams’ comments were somewhat backhanded. Failures of secular systems forced Adams to “examin[e] the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Hambrick lifts Adams’ quote out of context and shoehorns his own views of integration into Adams’ mold.[60]

Dismantling Fraudulent Systems

Adams constructed his counseling system through a total rejection of secular counseling thought and a complete rebuilding from the Scriptures of a biblical counseling system based on the understanding that all secular theories and methods fall short of the Bible’s. When one examines Adams’ evaluation of Mowrer (or any secular psychologist for that matter), what one finds is that Adams always seeks to show the superiority and totality of biblical counseling.[61] He presents biblical counseling as an irreducible unit when he states, “Christian methodology, therefore, is conditioned radically by Christian beliefs. Christians insist that counseling methodology necessarily must grow out of and always be appropriate to the biblical view of God, man, and the creation.”[62] To Adams, all of counseling is theological since it relates to man’s telos, problems, and orientation towards God, an enterprise that Scripture alone should control.[63] Because of this mindset, Adams spends many pages exposing and dismantling fraudulent counseling systems that stand outside of and necessarily opposed to Scripture.[64] In doing so, Adams sets an example for biblical counselors today. While the names (Freud, Rogers, Skinner) and methods (psychoanalysis, client-centered therapy, and naturalistic behaviorism) may have changed since Adams’ day, his program of deconstructing secular psychological discoveries remains cogent and effective.[65] Adams works through a three-step system for evaluating counseling techniques and theories.

First, Adams shows that all apparent truth in secular psychology found its way into the secular system by way of thievery from the Bible. If a secular system presents a new discovery or fact and that fact lines up accurately with something that the Scriptures teach (or at least stands up under biblical evaluation), then the secular system stole that truth from the Scriptures.[66] The secularist must assume and use Christian presuppositions to arrive at any epistemological certainty. All truth-claims that coincide with the Scriptures have previously, even if unintentionally, by necessity assumed Christian theism.[67] From this understanding, one can see that the logic of the redemptive counselors’ claims for the discovery of counseling truth outside of Scripture is self-defeating. If one needs the Bible’s propositional truth to evaluate the truthfulness or usefulness of another counseling system or methodology, then that enterprise presupposes the fact that objective truth was already contained in the Scriptures in the first place. Redemptive counselors must assume the sufficiency of the Scriptures, even if unintentionally, in order to make biblically-examined epistemological claims about extrabiblical material! Granted, redemptive counselors do claim to subject all secular discoveries to biblical assessment before integration into biblical counseling theory or practice.[68] But if this is the case, Scripture must have the resources to evaluate the secular system in the first place. The psychological fact subject to questioning must have a reference point in Scripture, but if this reference point exists, then the secular discovery is not new. The Scriptures already spoke a better word about it.[69] In other words, for a redemptive counselor to claim that they always subject a secular finding to the scrutiny of Scripture before integrating, the Bible must have something to say about that secular finding. If this is the case, that means the truth was already present in the Scriptures. But one proof-text is not enough to justify integration.[70] Biblical evaluation must take into account a total, systematic understanding of the Scriptures.[71] Furthermore, the secular system that purports a new discovery will only be shown to approximate a truth claim the Bible revealed millennia ago. “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc 1:9-10). But this means that the redemptive counselor is inconsistent. For if they hold such a view of the sufficiency of Scripture, then the practical application of such a principle places one firmly in the biblical counseling position. But if they do not hold this view of sufficiency, then the Bible cannot remain a final authority under which to subject psychological statements. It must be one or the other. The attempted mediating position of redemptive counseling is untenable.

Second, Adams demonstrates that secular systems diminish biblical potency for change. Not only do “effective” secular systems steal their premises and practices from the Scriptures and distort them by removing the ontological Trinity as their interpretive concept, they also always downgrade the effectiveness of what would be a biblical application. To demonstrate this downgrade, Adams grants Mowrer’s system an approximation of the truth for the sake of argument. Adams notes, “There is some reflection of the truth in Mowrer, dimly perceived. God made us social creatures; we need one another. ‘It is not good for man to be alone’; therefore we must not forsake the ‘assembling of ourselves together…’ Now, not all groups are wrong; not all groups are involved in [various abuses]. Christians must develop the use of the group form properly according to biblical norms.”[72] Mowrer’s methodology called for the use of “integrity groups” in which one confesses sin and plans restitution by means of conversation in a group of other “sinners.”[73] But Adams quickly notes that the biblical purpose of similar groups for Christians is mutual edification and encouragement as a body of believers.[74] He then immediately lays out his critique of Mowrer’s group therapy, claiming that “self-atoning Integrity Groups can never be that; true society exists only among the redeemed community of God – the Church of Jesus Christ. [Integrity Groups] all seem to have a do-it-yourself approach… With Mowrer, [the counselee] does it himself along with others who are doing it themselves, and who will put the pressure on him to do it, and do-it-yourself, their way.”[75] In contrast, Christians can truly reap the benefits of adoption into congregational life because the same Spirit indwells all and brings about sanctification (1 Cor 3:16; Gal 4:6). The downgrade is evident. Christian groups exist because believers have been justified by grace through faith and brought into the church (Eph 2:11-3:6). Mowrer’s groups can never provide atonement, though Mowrer appeared to arrive close to the truth of the need for authentic community generated through forgiveness. But Adams clearly acknowledged that “[b]ecause he has no savior, Mowrer is like the priest that stands daily ministering the same sacrifice that can never take away sin. He must continue to make atonement after atonement. Sin, as such is never forgiven: only sins.”[76] Integrity group counselees never attain biblical unity because their sins create a separation between them and others. Mowrer’s community was a charade. The dividing wall of hostility still remains (Eph 2:14-15). Mowrer saw the need for community but knew not the fuller biblical archetype nor the way into community found only in Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice for sins (Heb 10:10). Therefore, one can see that suggesting that Adams incorporated or endorsed Mowrer’s theory or method is intellectually dishonest.

For a counselor to examine the methods presented by the world and pronounce a so-called biblical validity to their truth claims, they must recognize that not only did the Scriptures provide that validating truth already, but that the secular theory or method is simply a distortion of God’s reality. Redemptive counselors falter at this point. Redemptive counselors argue that we should use every biblically legitimated means available through common grace to help others. Intentional neglect or ignorant failure to incorporate these findings into one’s counseling system is irresponsible, less than excellent, or even wicked. Redemptive counselors view integrating as an ethical imperative.[77] But what this argument fails to see is that it cuts both ways. If it can be shown that a psychological finding is already revealed in the superior, more excellent, more beautiful Scriptures, then the ethical imperative at that point shifts to counseling as the Bible would dictate. Every time the Bible proves that a psychological finding is actually an insipid, pilfering degradation of biblical truth, we are required (what’s more, should desire) to use the Scriptural formulation in our counseling. And there is nowhere the Scriptures do not speak (2 Pet 1:3).[78] Therefore, we are required to forsake the psychological version and find it repulsive and antithetical. Redemptive counselors fall on their own sword.

By coupling this epistemological imperative with the notion that the sufficiency of Scripture presents biblical counseling theory and practice as a unit, we arrive at the position biblical counselors have held for generations. The hope and help offered by integration are always worse than the Spirit-inspired means found in the Scriptures. This is the third step in Adams’ evaluative method: his presentation of the superior biblical alternative, both in presupposition and in method.[79] In the Word of God, Christ provides his people with abundant resources for change.[80] The biblical counseling movement is not lacking in quantity or quality of truth claims; it is lacking in time spent exegeting, excavating, and extracting that truth from the rich mines of the Scriptures. Adams cries,

Just as the Christian counselor knows that there is no unique problem that has not been mentioned plainly in the Scriptures, so also he knows that there is a biblical solution to every problem. He knows, too, that Jesus was tested “in all points as we are” and that He successfully met every test “without sin.” Since Jesus has faced and solved all of life’s basic problems, the counselor knows that in His work and words as recorded in the Scriptures he may discover the needed solutions. Indeed, the Scriptures say that God has revealed to His church “all things pertaining to life and godliness,” and that God has given His Word in written form in order to enable His people to engage in “all good works” by “thoroughly equipping” them for every exigency of life.[81]

Plainly evident in this quotation is Adams’ reliance upon the Scriptures to provide a Christ-oriented solution to the counselee’s problem because Christ faced the same problems and overcame them. The only path forward for truly biblical counseling is to reject the false semblances of truth found in secular psychology. Presuppositions antithetical to Christ result in counseling systems antithetical to Christ, regardless of how similar the practice or methodology might appear.

The Common Refrain of Common Grace

Adoption of secular systems for counseling is necessarily a rejection of biblical sufficiency. And, by definition, a rejection of biblical sufficiency removes one from the historic biblical counseling movement. Lambert has argued redemptive counselors are rather simply a new breed of integrationists and mistakenly believe they hold to the sufficiency of Scripture.[82]

But what about the doctrine of common grace? Does it not provide room for nuance within the doctrine of sufficiency? Redemptive counselors have recently turned to common grace to provide the backdrop for their efforts of integrating extrabiblical material into their counseling practice while still maintaining that they uphold the sufficiency of Scripture.[83] Hambrick and Brooks claim that integration happens through common grace, functionally placing some extrabiblical material useful in counseling outside the bounds of the doctrine of sufficiency.[84] Other counselors formally associated with the biblical counseling movement, such as Jeremy Lelek, have used similar arguments for common grace to justify extrabiblical integration into their practice.[85]

Adams was well aware of the doctrine of common grace. Yet he still rejected it as a legitimate means for integration. Adams notes,

And when compromisers talk about all truth as God’s truth, they call it “common grace.” They abuse this concept too. They mean by such use that God revealed truth through Rogers, Freud, Skinner, etc. God does, of course, restrain sin, allow people to discover facts about His creation, etc. in common grace (help given to saved and unsaved alike), but God never sets up rival systems competitive to the Bible. And God doesn’t duplicate in general revelation (creation) what He gives us by special revelation (the Bible). That is not common grace.[86]

Underlying this notion are Van Til’s antithetical categories. If the foundation is cracked, the whole house falls, no matter how closely the rest of the house resembles the truth (Matt 7:24-27; Jas 2:10). Yet Hambirck argues that Adams does engage and even sees value in extrabiblical information when he says, “Like all of us, Jay Adams learned from his context. Like the wise, he sought guidance from those who had extensive experience where he lacked it. He then repurposed what he learned for his context. In that sense, if we work redemptively with what we learn from the social sciences, we are following the example of Jay Adams.”[87] To be clear, Adams does not deny the existence or helpfulness of extrabiblical information. For example, he states, “It is by the common grace of God, a goodness which He extends to those who do not serve and love Him as well as to His children who do, that such facts as this one [concerning sleep loss and its physiological effects similar to taking LSD] have come to light. We can all be grateful for them and utilize them.”[88] But what he argues is that in every case relevant to the change process for humans, the Bible has provided a principle, if not also a method, that controls our counsel.[89] Again, this reveals the feeble facsimile of so-called common grace discoveries. Adams again: “In the common grace of God, unbelievers stumble over aspects of truth in God’s creation. They always distort these by their sin and from their non-Christian stance toward life. But from the vantage point of his biblical foundation the Christian counselor may take note of, evaluate, and reclaim the truth dimly reflected by the unbeliever so long as he does so in a manner consistent with biblical principles and methodology.”[90] What is key about Adams’ view is that any truth related to counseling that the unbeliever stumbles upon was already previously contained in the Bible. There is no epistemological generation of a new fact, finding, or discovery. The fact was already known, interpreted, and revealed by God.[91] The doctrine of sufficiency only draws out further that God has chosen to reveal sufficiently (comprehensively, not exhaustively) all principles, theory, methodology, and practice for sanctification in the Bible due to the very fact that the Bible is about sanctification.[92] Adams asserts, “Apart from the writers of the Scriptures, who were moved by the Spirit to write revelatory words, no man reveals anything from God to us.”[93] The question for common grace and counseling thus becomes, “Is counseling ultimately about sanctification?” If it is, then the Bible must be, according to Adams, the sole authoritative resource since this is the place that God reveals to his creatures most clearly, perfectly, fully, and methodologically how to pursue holiness in the Christian life (John 17:17).[94]

What the unbeliever has stumbled upon through common grace might be new to a counselor, but that does not mean the discovery is new to the Bible. If under biblical evaluation, a common grace discovery related to counseling holds up, then what should really happen is the humbling of the counselor, for he simply had an area of biblical truth he was previously ignorant of be brought to his knowledge. In his finitude, he knew not all things. But this truth was not new, it was already contained in the sufficient Word.

What redemptive counselors fail to recognize is that there is a hair to split between integration and application. If a biblical principle is present regarding a situation in a counselee’s life (and there will be one for every situation, 2 Pet 1:3), concrete application can take many forms. But these forms must be controlled by a full systematic theology and a biblical goal. Always and everywhere our theology should be applicational since all knowledge of God is ethical.[95] Applying biblical principles and teaching to life using extrabiblical information is different from seeking to epistemologically incorporate discoveries or methods found in the universe into our doctrine.[96] Though an application of a biblical text may look similar to a secular method (for example, the put off/put on methodology of Eph 4:22-24 and the reorientation in thinking that drives behavior in CBT), the difference between the two techniques lies in both the method of discovery (special revelation or common grace) but also in the fundamental presuppositions and teleological ends. This difference is the distinction that must be made more clearly in the current conversation; redemptive counselors leave out the latter. No extrabiblical information or method can be incorporated into biblical counseling wholesale or without a complete Scriptural reframing since the presuppositions of secular sources always and everywhere are antithetical to God.[97] Common grace cannot allow for the facsimile because the facsimile exists in antithesis. All truth claims of secular theories or practices that lead to a biblical facsimile are warped by the rebellious heart that has an “axe to grind” against God.[98] And if we pick up that ax, we are bound to get hurt. Beginning with natural revelation or common grace and then evaluating that truth in light of special revelation puts the cart before the horse and ignores the noetic effects of sin on our thinking.[99] Lambert notes, “Common grace is a remarkable kindness of God to allow human beings the capacity for good, but this kindness neither reverses nor removes the fundamental fallenness of sinful people.”[100] A truly biblical understanding of special revelation recognizes that man, nature, and knowledge have never existed apart from special revelation. Thus, as Adams was at pains to show, we must begin building our system of counseling from the Scriptures, looking to them as a sufficient resource to provide the methodology for holiness in the Christian’s life.[101] All other attempts at construction or evaluation are going to be necessarily looking at a system with a shaky foundation.

Conclusion

Near the end of his life and in the middle of the Downgrade Controversy, Spurgeon addressed his Pastor’s College, claiming, “For my part, I am quite willing to be eaten of dogs for the next fifty years; but the more distant future shall vindicate me.”[102] Spurgeon’s concerns proved accurate. The seeds of accommodating the world’s discoveries into the Christian faith on which Spurgeon shined a light ended up growing into the poison ivy of theological liberalism.[103] As he claimed it would, history eventually vindicated Spurgeon, but at the cost of his own health and relationships with those he had formerly labored beside.[104]

More importantly, the Bible vindicated Spurgeon. The truth he already had present in front of him in the pages of Scripture was sufficient for him to cry foul in the Downgrade Controversy. He needed not the insights of secularism to bolster the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Spurgeon knew his Bible and he knew the truth revealed in God’s Word was sufficient for life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3). Today, the same Scripture still speaks (Isa 40:8), and it tells Christians about the bankruptcy of secular psychology. But biblical counselors do not have to wait for history to vindicate the efforts of the “prophets on the wall.”[105] If biblical counselors continue to stand on the sufficiency of Scripture, rejecting the invasion of secular thinking into their counseling practice, the lives radically changed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ ministered through his sufficient Word will speak louder now than history ever will.

[1] Arnold A. Dallimore, Spurgeon: A Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1984), 205-10.

[2] Dallimore, Spurgeon, 206.

[3] Tom J. Nettles, Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor, 2013), 542.

[4] Dallimore, Spurgeon, 208-209.

[5] Sam Williams et al., “SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable: As It Is and As It Could Be,” Southeastern Theological Review 15, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 74. These professors have historically been known as “biblical counselors” but are moving towards using the language of “redemptive counselors” as they move away from a more conservative view of the sufficiency of Scripture, seeking to “redeem” principles and methodologies discovered in general revelation through common grace. See their own definition of “redemptive counseling” and its particular commitments in Nate Brooks et al., “What Is Redemptive Counseling/Clinically Informed Biblical Counseling?” (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2024), https://www.sebts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/WhatIsRCCIBC-1.pdf. Others, such as Heath Lambert, have named them the New Integrationists: Heath Lambert, “Six Crucial Confusions of the New Integrationists,” First Thoughts (blog), May 20, 2024, https://fbcjax.com/first-thoughts/six-crucial-confusions-of-the-new-integrationists/.

[6] Edward T. Welch, “Common Grace, Knowing People, and the Biblical Counselor,” The Journal of Biblical Soul Care 8, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 26.

[7] Nate Brooks, “Everybody Integrates: Biblical Counseling and the Use of Extrabiblical Material.” Southeastern Theological Review 15, no. 1 (Spring 2024), 9.

[8] Brooks, “Everybody Integrates,” 19. Williams, et al., SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable,” 79.

[9] See Jay Adams’ remark, “[S]eparatism in counseling theory and practice (among other things) is intended to provide a cutting edge for evangelism” in Jay E. Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling: More than Redemption (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 22.

[10] Brooks claims, “In truth, no counselor can consistently hold that the Bible contains all information necessary for counseling because counseling is an inherently anthropocentric discipline. Its focus on human transformation traffics in everything that involves being human, topics that exceed the specific teachings of Scripture. While Scripture helps us evaluate all things, it does not explicitly teach us all things necessary to offer the best form of care for our counselees.” Brooks, “Everybody Integrates,” 19. If this is the case, Brooks functionally argues that God, the Creator of man and Author of special revelation given to man by God (contra-Brooks claims of anthropocentrism), is unable or unwilling to provide his creatures with a methodological foundation sufficient for telic actualization. Man’s chief end is to glorify God (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 1), making the counseling process (i.e., progressive sanctification) an inherently theocentric enterprise (2 Cor 5:9-10). Transformation into what? The image of his Creator (Col 3:10). If God is unable to provide a methodologically sufficient foundation in the Word for counseling, then he is not God, since he would not be omnipotent or omniscient. If he is unwilling, then we are ultimately plunged into the murky depths of agnosticism, for if God will not reveal to us his desires for us and how to materialize them, then how can we presume to be certain of any path we should direct a counselee to take towards holiness or help?

[11] By Adams’ own admission, he considered biblical counseling a pastoral outworking of Van Til’s theology. See Jay E. Adams, Competent to Counsel: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970), xxi, fn 1.

[12] Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology: Prolegomena and the Doctrines of Revelation, Scripture, and God, ed. William Edgar, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2007), 59. Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, ed. William Edgar, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2003), 30.

[13] Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, ed. K. Scott Oliphint, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Prebysterian & Reformed, 2015), 79. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, ed. K. Scott Oliphint, 4th ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2008), 67, 167.

[14] Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 195. Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 140.

[15] Francis A. Schaeffer, The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy: The Three Essential Books in One Volume (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 341.

[16] Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 40.

[17] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 121-127.

[18] Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 224-227.

[19] Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 224-227.

[20] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 128.

[21] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 130; Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 93-94.

[22] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 130.

[23] Elucidating this claim is outside the scope of this essay. But Van Til aptly demonstrates it in Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 125.

[24] Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 62. See also Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 70.

[25] Van Til illustrates this point through his buzz-saw analogy (See Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 93-94). Because man is created in the image of God, his ability to use reason remains intact after the Fall, but the outcomes of reason are “disturbed.” The buzz-saw (cognition) is sharp, and the blade is spinning. But the carpenter’s son tampers with the saw’s alignment (the noetic effects of sin) before the board is cut. Thus, though the carpenter measured the boards and placed them on the saw properly, every cut will still be wrong because the blade had been adjusted prior to cutting.

[26] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 292-293.

[27] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 168.

[28] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 77.

[29] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 192.

[30] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 119-124.

[31] Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 80.

[32] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 72-73.

[33] Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1998), 176.

[34] Mowrer used religious and theological terms in his counseling system, but he stripped them of all Godward focus. Sin, for Mowrer, has a strictly anthropocentric definition. See J.R. Beck, “Mowrer, Orval Hobart,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling, ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1999); Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling, 147.

[35] Adams, Competent to Counsel, xv.

[36] Adams, Competent to Counsel, xiv-xvi.

[37] Adams, Competent to Counsel, xviii.

[38] Jay E. Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual: The Practice of Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1973), 87.

[39] Adams, Competent to Counsel, xv.

[40] Adams. Competent to Counsel, xviii.

[41] This essay cannot nor does it intend to reopen this debate. For the most widely known articles in this debate see Schwab’s critique of Adams’ views of habituation in George M. Schwab, “Critique of ‘Habituation’ as a Biblical Model of Change,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 21, no. 2 (Winter 2003): 67-83. Here, Schwab argues that Adams imported Mowrer’s views of habituation onto biblical exegesis. Ed Welch also questions Adams’ exegesis of Romans 6-8 in Edward Welch, “How Theology Shapes Ministry: Jay Adams’s View of the Flesh and an Alternative,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 20, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 16-25. Adams responded to this article in a letter to the editor of the Journal of Biblical Counseling. His letter was only published in part at the time but has been published in its entirety as an appendix in Heath Lambert, The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012). Others have sought to vindicate Adams’ view of habituation. See, for example, Brian A. Mesimer, “Rehabilitating Habituation,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 34, no. 2 (2020): 53-79; Greg E. Gifford, “Jay Adams’ Teaching of Habituation: Critiqued, Revisited, and Supported,” in Whole Counsel: The Public and Private Ministries of the Word: Essays in Honor Jay E. Adams, ed. Donn R. Arms and Dave Swavely (Memphis, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020). What remains important for this essay is the fact that Adams stringently denies importing any secular methodology into his system. Cf. Adams, Competent to Counsel, xviii. He claims that he sought to construct his paradigm of biblical counseling out of the Scriptures and from the ground up. As often as he noticed, he rejected secular influences. He notes that he is not perfect and that his interpretation of Scripture is open to criticism and expansion, but the key is that his foundational presuppositions determine the trajectory of his system. See Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 92.

[42] Williams et al., “SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable,” 77.

[43] See Adams’ criticism of Mowrer and integrity therapy in Adams, Competent to Counsel, xviii-xix, 19; The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 86-91; A Theology of Christian Counseling, 23, 50, 147. The only other times Adams mentions Mowrer in these books are when he uses Mowrer’s work as a cobelligerent against Freudianism or to confirm an idea already present in the Bible (see Competent to Counsel, 1, 13-19, 30, 152, 180-182; Jay E. Adams, Shepherding God’s Flock: A Handbook on Pastoral Ministry, Counseling, and Leadership [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975], 168-69.).

[44] Adams, Competent to Counsel, xviii.

[45] The doctrine of sufficiency remains central to every debate regarding biblical counseling. Yet, this essay will not attempt to redefine or explicate the definition. This author believes the following articulations are (no pun intended) sufficient for elucidating the doctrine of sufficiency and its basic applications as understood by biblical counselors: Heath Lambert, A Theology of Biblical Counseling: The Doctrinal Foundations of Counseling Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 37-52; Heath Lambert, “Introduction: The Sufficiency of Scripture, the Biblical Counseling Movement, and the Purpose of This Book,” in Counseling the Hard Cases: True Stories Illustrating the Sufficiency of God’s Resources in Scripture, ed. Stuart Scott and Heath Lambert (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2015); Wayne A Mack, “The Sufficiency of Scripture in Counseling,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 9, no. 1 (1998): 63-84; David Powlison, “The Sufficiency of Scripture to Diagnose and Cure Souls,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 23, no. 2 (2005): 2-14; Noel Weeks, The Sufficiency of Scripture: Basic Issues and Points of Contention (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1988), 3-7, 181-196.

[46] Adams, Competent to Counsel, xviii, xxi-xxii.

[47] Adams, Competent to Counsel, xxi, especially fn 1. See Van Til’s thesis that Christian theism must be presented as a unit from presupposition to conclusion in order to be consistent and effective in apologetic argumentation in Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 127.

[48] Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 227.

[49] Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 226.

[50] Van Til notes, “The Scriptures as the finished product of God’s supernatural and saving revelation to man have their own evidence in themselves. The God who speaks in Scripture cannot refer to anything that is not already authoritatively revelational of himself for the evidence of his own existence. There is nothing that does not exist by his creation. All things take their meaning from him. Every witness to him is a “prejudiced” witness. For any fact to be a fact at all, it must be a revelational fact. It is accordingly no easier for sinners to accept God’s revelation in nature than to accept God’s revelation in Scripture.” Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 79. Undermining sufficiency undermines authority. The two must go together. In seeking autonomy, man seeks to undermine God’s authority – the chief sin of Adam in the garden. See also Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 101, 107.

[51] See Adams’ remarks to the Congress on Christian Counseling held in Atlanta, 1988: “Think of the millions of hours, the more than one generation of lives, already spent on [attempting to integrate pagan thought and biblical truth]! Why are there no results? I’ll tell you why: because it just can’t be done. Remember God’s words: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways’ (Isaiah 55:8). What does God tell us to do to resolve this radical antithesis? Integrate? No! In that passage He commands us to forsake our thoughts and our ways and turn to His Word, which He promises will not return void.” Jay Adams, “Response to the Congress on Christian Counseling,” The Journal of Pastoral Practice 10, no. 1 (1989): 3-4.

[52] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 101, 167.

[53] Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 79, 140.

[54] Jay E. Adams, A Call for Discernment: Distinguishing Truth from Error in Today’s Church (Memphis, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 1987), 16.

[55] Jay E. Adams, Update on Christian Counseling, Volumes 1 and 2; Includes Matters of Concern to Christian Counselors (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986), 35-38. See also David A. Powlison, “Which Presuppositions? Secular Psychology and the Categories of Biblical Thought,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 12, no. 4 (December 1984): 270-278. Much of the modern debate involves followers of Powlison questioning Van Til’s influence on Powlison’s (and even Adams’) thinking. This article clearly demonstrates Powlison was firmly Van Tillian in his presuppositional analysis of counseling systems. See also Ernie Baker, “Presuppositionalism, Common Grace, and Trauma Theory,” The Journal of Biblical Soul Care 8, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 64-89. Baker expands a framework established by Powlison for evaluating counseling systems from a presuppositional perspective, providing questions for counselors to consider as they compare any counseling belief or method to Scripture. Again, Adams notes in the first few pages of Competent to Counsel that he views biblical counseling as a pastoral application of Van Til’s presuppositional method. See Adams, Competent to Counsel, xxi.

[56] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 18.

[57] Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling, 50.

[58] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 76 fn 11.

[59] Heath Lambert, A Theology of Biblical Counseling, 13-17, 37.

[60] Williams, et al., “SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable,” 77-79.

[61] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 93.

[62] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 72 (emphasis original).

[63] Adams, What about Nouthetic Counseling? A Question and Answer Book with History, Help and Hope for the Christian Counselor (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1977), 37-39.

[64] For numerous examples, see Adams’ chapter on “Presuppositions and Methodology” in The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 71-97. This essay will focus only on Adams’ critique of Mowrer.

[65] One may apply Adam’s deconstructive approach of analyzing (1) the source of counseling knowledge and (2) the etiological intervention to other secular methodologies and expect similar results. Methods such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), narrative therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) all fail in either proper biblical diagnosis of the human condition or in applying the Bible’s solution of spirit renewal and the put off/put on dynamic. Cf. Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 72-91.

[66] Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling, 8.

[67] Schaeffer, The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy, 326-328.

[68] Williams, et al., “SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable,” 75-76.

[69] Van Til is helpful here in dispelling the myth of rational neutrality: “In spite of this claim to neutrality on the part of the non-Christian the Reformed apologist must point out that every method, the supposedly neutral one no less than any other, presupposes either the truth or the falsity of Christian theism.” Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 129.

[70] Cf. Brooks, “Everybody Integrates,” 19 where Brooks asserts Paul’s mention of self-discipline in 1 Cor 9:27 provides validity for the use of systematic desensitization techniques.

[71] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 29.

[72] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 88, 91. Note Adams’ use of Scriptural quotation from Gen 2:18 and Heb 10:24-25 to drive home the point that the truth was already present in the Scriptures.

[73] D. W. Brokaw, “Integrity Therapy,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling, ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1999).

[74] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 88.

[75] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 89.

[76] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 87.

[77] Williams et al., “SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable,” 81.

[78] Van Til asserts, “The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything on which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc. directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication.” Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 19-20.

[79] Adams was always careful to replace demolished secular systems with the better biblical alternative in his writings. Jay E. Adams, What About Nouthetic Counseling?, 35-36. See two excellent summaries of Adams’ constructive assumptions in David Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2010), 124-130 and Lambert, The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams, 39-43.

[80] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 97.

[81] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 23.

[82] Lambert, “Six Crucial Confusions of the New Integrationists.” For example, leading integrationist Mark McMinn and his daughter Megan Anna Neff show their man-centered cards of true integration in a recent work on updating the definition of integration: “Client-centered therapists focus on self-actualization, third-wave cognitive therapists on psychological flexibility, second-wave cognitive therapists on right thinking, psychoanalytic therapists on restorative relationships, and so on. Each of these approaches contain an implicit view of persons, and so does Christianity. Some have viewed this as evidence that psychology and religion are competing worldviews, but we prefer to think of this as one of the intriguing adventures of integration. How can we bring the anthropology implicit in Christianity together with the anthropology of a particular psychological theory in a way that transforms both? … True integration involves working from theological and psychological anthropology.” Megan Anna Neff and Mark R. McMinn, Embodying Integration: A Fresh Look at Christianity in the Therapy Room (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 123. To these integrationists, psychological theory is elevated to the level of authority that it should have a shaping effect on Christian anthropology. Are redemptive counselors ready to embrace this radical rejection of the Scripture’s supreme authority? For, as shown above, to reject the Scripture’s total sufficiency also rejects its authority. There can be no mediating position between biblical counseling and integration. For a history and critical evaluation of selfist psychology taking on the role of religion, see Paul C. Vitz, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994).

[83] “While nouthetic [traditional biblical] counseling tends to place the exposition of Scripture at the center of counseling and integrationism tends to explicitly use the text of Scripture infrequently in counseling, RC/CIBCers seek to ascertain what method of engagement is most helpful for the client at the moment, following wisdom and discernment given by the Holy Spirit.” Brooks, et al., “What Is Redemptive Counseling/Clinically Informed Biblical Counseling?”, 5. By their own admission, redemptive counselors have placed themselves in the authoritative position to arbitrate counseling approaches depending on the situation rather than submitting to the Scriptures at every point.

[84] Williams, et al., “SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable,” 73-76.

[85] Jeremy Lelek of Metroplex Counseling, which claims on its website to offer biblical counseling, affirms the use of “creation grace” (a term he borrowed from Christian psychologist Eric Johnson) findings in biblical counseling: Jeremy Lelek, “The Sufficiency of Scripture and Holistic Care: A Cursory Introduction,” Journal of Psychology & Theology 49, no. 3 (2021): 278. Lelek, the president of the Association of Biblical Counselors, also offers nonbiblical services such as Micro-Current Neurofeedback Therapy and aromatherapy at his counseling center.

[86] Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling, 8.

[87] Williams, et al., “SEBTS Counseling Professors Roundtable,” 78-79.

[88] Adams, Update on Christian Counseling, 89.

[89] Adams, Update on Christian Counseling, 89.

[90] Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 92 (emphasis original).

[91] Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 27.

[92] Lambert, Biblical Counseling and Common Grace, Critical Issues in Biblical Counseling (Wapwallopen, PA: Shepherd Press, 2023), 68; Lambert, A Theology of Biblical Counseling, 49-52, 100-101.

[93] Jay E. Adams, Maintaining the Delicate Balance in Christian Living (Memphis, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 1998), 97.

[94] Jay E. Adams, Teaching to Observe: The Counselor as Teacher (Memphis, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2000), 55. Adams does nuance his point in this section:“However, since, by God’s common grace, unbelievers have not lost all remnants of reason and logic nor ability to do science, it is possible for unbelievers to uncover facts (always misused and distorted because never related to God and His purposes) that make their lives and the lives of believers more comfortable.” Redemptive counselors argue they can use common grace discoveries to make their counselees’ lives more comfortable, to be sure. See Brooks, et al., “What Is Redemptive Counseling/Clinically Informed Biblical Counseling?”, 8-9. But this begs the question: To what end? (Cf. 2 Cor 5:9-10.) For a further explanation of Adams’ nuance, see Ed Wilde, “Why Common Grace is not Enough for Christians who Counsel,” The Journal of Biblical Soul Care 1, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 58-72.

[95] Adams, Shepherding God’s Flock, 1–3. Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 40.

[96] Lambert, “Six Crucial Confusions of the New Integrationists.” Powlison notes, “Christians should love and convert their enemies. We have answers that are richer, truer, fuller. Our answers incorporate the very insights which non-Christians distort. We make these shine in their proper framework, proportion and balance within the categories of biblical truth… Paul used this strategy in Acts 17:22–31. His evangelistic and apologetic strategy in Athens was based on capturing three particular unbiblical thoughts (verses 23 and 28). He reframed them, making them function in a biblical world-view. Did he ‘integrate’ paganism and the Word of God? No, Paul meant wholly different things from the original authors’ intent. Consistent presuppositional thinking comes to fruition not only in strategies of exposition and negation. Biblical presuppositions also undergird a strategy of capture. David Powlison, “Crucial Issues in Contemporary Biblical Counseling,” The Journal of Pastoral Practice 9, no. 3 (1988): 75.

[97] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 70.

[98] Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 107.

[99] Jay E. Adams, Sanctification and Counseling (Memphis, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 140.

[100] Lambert, Biblical Counseling and Common Grace, 31. In this book, Lambert pushes back against those who hold a view that integration is the logical outworking of the doctrine of common grace. See Nate Brooks review of Lambert’s book for a reply in Nate Brooks, “Book Review: Biblical Counseling and Common Grace,” The London Lyceum (blog), January 22, 2024, https://thelondonlyceum.com/book-review-biblical-counseling-and-common-grace/. Brooks fails to address much of the biblical argument Lambert makes throughout the book, instead focusing on Lambert’s use of historical theology in the Reformed tradition, an area where there is much debate and little consensus. See Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, 38-79 and Abner Chou, “Common Grace and the Sufficiency of Scripture,” The Journal of Biblical Soul Care 8, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 13-21 for a primary and secondary source, respectively, summarizing and interacting with the debate.

[101] Adams, What about Nouthetic Counseling?, 73-75.

[102] C. H. Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry: Direction, Wisdom, and Encouragement for Preachers and Pastors, (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2018), 281.

[103] Nettles, Living by Revealed Truth, 577-578.

[104] Nettles, Living by Revealed Truth, 554-566. Dallimore, Spurgeon, 221-233; C. H. Spurgeon, The Full Harvest, 1860-1892, ed. Susannah Thompson Spurgeon and William Joseph Harrald, rev. ed., vol. 2, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1973), 470.

[105] Lambert, “Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall.”