Anthropology's Effect on Counseling | ACBC Exam #10

1.       What role does anthropology play in counseling theory and practice?

1.

            The foundational anthropological view point is vital in counseling theory and practice.  If you begin with the wrong foundation of who man is you cannot possibly build biblical truth accurately into the counselee’s life.  Secular psychology is based on the evolutionary theory that we developed as humans over millions of years of organic improvement, resulting in human life as we know it today.  With this basis, conclusions are made that people must be improving more and more, are generally good, and most of their problems are caused by outside circumstances, other people, and more.   This leads to conclusions such as; morality is relative, you are not to blame for wrong, and you need to live for your own self-improvement, trusting your own instincts, etc.  The biggest problem is that God is taken out of the equation, each person is made out to their god, and authority; making their own needs as they see it become priority.  

            If we are all trace back to great-great-great grandfather ape then we have no absolute authority, and surely no need to recognize or submit to a Creator God.  So, then each person makes their own relative morality, and method of which to help someone else reach normal/balanced/happy.  So now we have all these theories and experts like Skinner, Freud, Rogers and more dehumanizing man, rationalizing, providing behavioural modification, a neutral listening ear, and justifying words that “If it feels good, do it!”  There are as many views in psychology are there are psychologists, each believing they are right, they don’t agree.  All of which have refused to humbly accept that there is One who rightfully has complete authority and has defined correctly standards of morality.  They reject God.  Our biggest issue of sin is denied. 

             “From the beginning, human change depended upon counseling.  Man was created as a being whose very existence is derived from and dependent upon a Creator whom he must acknowledge as such and from whom he must obtain wisdom and knowledge through revelation.”¹ If counselling is taken from a Biblical perspective of man it changes everything.  “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth… since He gives all life, breath, and all things.  And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him….” (Acts 17:24-27 NKJV)   Biblical counselling offers real solutions at the heart level because it is rooted in the truth of God and His Word; revealing sin (Proverbs 20:9), requiring repentance (1 John 1:9), giving hope (Romans 15:13), and soul rest (Matthew 11:28-30), providing instruction to put off the old man, living new in Christ (Ephesians 4:22-29), and wisdom to live in the midst of the temptations of sin but not give in (1 Corinthians 10:13).    

¹  “A Theology of Christian Counseling”, Jay Adams, page 1