Anna Pierce's Archive

Carl Rogers’s view of client centered therapy and unconditional positive regard can be placed into the category of the restoration. Unconditional positive regard is something that I think that is important for therapy. I do not think it is important solely for the client, but also the therapist. Carl Rogers understood that this concept is hard in practice because it is a way of learning for the therapist as well as the client. It’s is not an easy task to accept a person for no matter what they do. But God does that for us everyday. To be reminded what God wants us to do for others is important because we are called to accept not to judge.  Therapy that is centered around acceptance is a perfect place for clients to get the help they need.

I think behaviorism can be put under the category of redemption. I think so because of how the way psychologists have applied the practice to certain disorders. For instance the way that it can be used for children with autism to change their behaviors. It is cool that it can help remedy a disorder that is hard to help with alternative methods.  And also how this practice can be applied to depressive disorders as well is really cool to me because it can help tremendously when other things cannot. The idea that we can change old habits by the way we act regardless of how we were born is one of the main reasons why this practice should be placed under this category. Creating new habits by learning is something that shows how we can evolve from our not so great ways to be better.  Positive Reinforced behavior is one that will more likely be repeated. I don’t believe that all behavior is learned but I think that most of what we do can be changed for the better. The idea that we can change by living the way Jesus wanted us is why I think that this is so applicable.

Religion according to evolutionary psychology is a trait that has evolved to ensure humans survival and corporation with others. I found that interesting how evolutionary psychologist categorized religion as those things. I think that because of this theory, that this aspect of evolutionary psychology can be put into the category of new creation/redemption. As humans we cannot survive without others are created to rely on God. Adam could not live without Eve and that also applies to us as not being able to live without God. In order for our survival we had to have a reason to cooperate with others and religion was reason. It is interesting learning about evolutionary psychology’s view on religion being an adaptive trait. Part of me thinks that it is somewhat adaptive within our human race and individuals. I think that it can be adaptive within individuals. It can be this way because people decide to make religion a priority in order to forgive and/or free themselves from pain. Freeing yourself from pain and being able to forgive is another way of surviving. But overall I think that religion as an adaptive trait falls into new creation because it is redeeming and sets us free.

Herman Von Hemholtz represents the fall in my opinion because he was a materialist who was strongly against vitalism, which is the belief that life could not be explained solely through the chemical and physical processes. Hemholtz believed that life could only be explained in terms of the physical and chemical processes. What he believed was that we as humans are nothing more than complex machines. I do think that much of what he studied and much of ourselves is based on how are brain works and how our body functions, but I don’t think we can be understood through only those things. That theory represents the fall because it shows that we are nothing but our bodies. Although Hemholtz did come up with ground-braking theories that have had a huge influence on modern day psychology, I do not think that his philosophy was the best. If we are nothing more than complex machines than is there such a thing as free will, or can we only be identified through our brain? I believe that we are more than what our body is because we are able to experience things distinctly. Hemholtz was a firm believer that through past experience we convert sensation into perception.  If we are all machines than why are identical twins with the same genes different. I think that even if we understand every aspect of how our mind works we still won’t be able to understand each and every person.

“Man is born free and yet we see him everywhere in chains.”

Rousseau’s ideas that man was born inherently good falls can fall into categories of the creation and the fall. You can attribute the creation part and the fall of man to the idea that Adam and Eve were created perfect, but it was when sin came into the world that they rebelled. Rousseau believed that the absence of being contaminated by society is where people can be truly free; Society is what made us bad because we learn to be unharmonious from it.  Man was born free, All men are equal.  These ideas are basic, but very influential. The idea that sovereign power is found through the people instead of through anything higher is very interesting. I do not agree with the idea that man can be harmonious without some sort of higher standard, but his idea of the “noble savage,” made me think about society in a different way. I love and agree with his ides about how education should be more about developing unique skills that are found in people individually, than learning a structured lesson. That is very forward thinking about education and it would be cool to see something of that nature implemented in the America’s school systems.Overall I think he made some great contributions.

Redemption can be used to describe the renaissance. At the point of the renaissance, the world is coming out of the dark ages which were marked by disease and dogma. Philosophy that was abandoned for years before begins to re-emerge during this time. Also,  Christianity was starting to become more personal with the ideas of Luther and Erasmus. No longer was access to salvation through the church, but through faith. Also, the access to works of Plato, Aristotle, etc had also been more common. You could say that the old knowledge of the Greeks was becoming “resurrected.”  That “resurrected” knowledge was spreading fast and it made a vast impact on every aspect of life.

A philosopher whose ideas can be applied to redemption is Giovanni Pico. His philosophy exemplifies the idea of redemption in the renaissance era because of his emphasis on peace. He believed in objectively studying different viewpoints, which is something, that college students are challenged to do. The ideas of respecting different viewpoints and being able to find similarities between popular thought, I think are relevant to what redemption stands for. His idea of finding commonality between philosophies is something that was unknown. Finding similarities rather than differences is a way of working towards community. His belief in the immortal soul can also be applied to incarnation aspect of redemption.

Protagoras believed that “Man is the measure of all things.” As a Sophist, he believed that truth is relative. He believed that nothing could be false and that all men have their own distinct truth embedded in them. There is no such thing as a code of ethics or universal truth. Protagoras did not discount the belief that there may be a higher power controlling the universe, but he did not rely on truth coming from that entity.

If man is really the “measure of all things,” that does not leave much space for God. This makes me place Protagoras’s ideas and philosophy into the category of the Fall. The reason why we  believe in relative truth is because we have chosen to turn our backs on the real truth that God has given us.  Even though we have advanced in so many different areas, the fact that the most important questions cannot be answered by science and reason is a reason to believe that we are not wise. We still are unsure about where we go after death, or why we have a higher level of intelligence than all other living beings in this world.

Our inability to answer life’s most difficult questions reminds me of an Oscar Wilde quote, “Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” I think this quote can be applied to our most difficult questions about truth in life and how we cannot solve them ourselves. We can only gain truth through God.