“When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?”
Psalm 8 takes a look at the heavens, moon, and stars but dismisses them in favour of describing humanity as the pinnacle of God’s creation. As a psychology student, I’m sure you’ll be prone to agree!
A psychology course is the perfect place to be for people who are endlessly fascinated by people. Your degree allows you to take a closer look at your fellow image bearers and see in more detail the intricacy of the mind, the beauty of personhood, and the complexity of being a human.
The range of tools you’ll use, and topics you’ll turn them to is vast. You could be using gaze following technology to see how a baby learns to communicate, designing studies to assess how social groups interact with each other, analysing patterns of neuronal activity, or taking a deep dive into qualitative data on a personal aspect of human experience.
Psychology is great. But how might looking at our subject from a Christian perspective make it even better?
Working for the wellbeing of creation
Psychological research and advancements are speedily translated into the real world where they have direct impacts on many people’s lives and wellbeing. Workplaces, mental health practice, education, marketing and many other fields use and apply psychology all the time. As a Christian psychologist, you can contribute fruitfully to these areas, underpinned by the knowledge of each person’s inherent value – that they’re made in the image of an infinite God. However, the skills you’ll pick up doing a psychology degree will also equip you to make a difference in the world in a much broader way too.
Straddling both the arts and the sciences means that psychology is uniquely positioned as a discipline to ask and answer questions about human existence and flourishing. From statistical modelling to thematically analysing longform answers and back again – few other subjects you can study will have you exploring such a variety of types of sources of information.
And in each side of knowledge that psychology draws on, there’s a chance to honour Jesus.
The more artsy end of the discipline will have you decoding the endlessly interesting question of how being a person works and why. Understanding an abstract framework for how we as beings with consciousness represent ourselves in our own thinking and existing is not a simple task. Pondering the ways people can be encouraged to meaningfully connect with those very different from themselves is not an exercise with quickly found answers. As you engage in abstract, almost philosophical discussions, you help join the dots between the realities of felt and lived personhood to those of existential and social ideas.
Simultaneously however, these questions are grounded in the biological matter of the brain and the measurable factors of human behaviour. As you learn how to use scientific practice to answer these fascinating questions, your pursuit of truth can reflect a God of truth. This might look like avoiding shortcuts; designing and utilising methodologies to ensure they are actually assessing what we want them to; being rigorously accurate with data handling, and designing studies and experiments to be balanced and non-biased.
By the time you graduate you’ll be well versed in the mechanisms of both spheres of knowledge and in how to synthesise them coherently. You’ll be well positioned to take these skills and apply them to help the human beings you’re seeking to learn more about, as well as having a wealth of knowledge about how people work and why. So both directly and indirectly, studying psychology will excellently equip you for any occupation that has you interacting with human beings.
Worshipping the God we work for
Often when studying psychology, you are taught things in lectures that make you think “of course – but I already knew that”. Take as an example studies that show how community and social connection combat loneliness but also improve multiple other indicators of wellbeing. As a Christian, you think: “we were made by a relational God for relationship – of course when we live like that’s true it’s good for us!” We shouldn’t be surprised by these discoveries, statistics and hypotheses which align with the Bible’s view of humanity so closely.
And that’s because as followers of Jesus, we study, live in, and enjoy the great gospel story that Scripture paints for us, and in all of those things we’re having our view of people shaped by the best possible person – Yahweh himself. God is not only humanity’s creator, but also its Lord, provider, redeemer, and companion.
When you see the depth of care a two-year-old can exhibit through prosocial behaviours, you cannot help but be struck again by the truth that all humans are made in God’s image. Uniquely in all of creation we are relational, creative, communicative – and so much more.
Yet studying psychology you’ll also see new depths of the deceitfulness of the human heart. As you learn about the average person’s perception of themselves as incredibly moral, and their ability to maintain this belief, while conducting themselves in a blatantly immoral way, you’ll realise that sin is the only way to perfectly describe that. The effects of the fall are writ large across how we as people think, react, and live. As you see the depths of how broken and twisted we really are, let that grow your appreciation for God’s immense grace in wanting to save people like us.
Joining these two together, the human mind is littered with little pointers to the need for restored relationship with God. For example, you may learn about counselling methods necessitating “unconditional positive regard” from the counsellor to the counselee. This is just a glimmer of the underlying reality that we are made to receive divine, unconditional love.
Much of your studies will leave you longing for a fully restored humanity. You’ll glimpse new depths of the glorious beauty of God’s image in people and also more of the tragedy of how significantly it is twisted by sin. Wonderfully, God’s people are a main character in his redemption plan! So as you see humanity in great psychological technicolour, you study those who God is fully committed to winning eternally to himself and can rest fully on the hope we have of our inheritance in Jesus.
Witnessing to the world
Each module, subject, or topic will reveal all sorts of gospel connections and the potential for many conversations that are a mere hair’s breadth from Jesus – the ultimate human.
When I was studying the psychology of music, we were assessing various explanations as to why music is so widespread and so universally appreciated and created – all people, everywhere in history have music. But why? Solely evolutionary explanations of this range from partial at best, through tenuous and creative, all the way through to actually ridiculous. But as someone who believes in a kind Creator, this was a chance to point to God’s goodness and generosity, and to claim that music is a strictly “unnecessary” but wonderfully kind gift from him. That sort of claim not only seemed far more plausible than many of the other “theories” but allowed those who heard it to be presented with God’s involvement with, and deep care for humanity in a way that was brand new to most of them.
You’ll probably find that most of your classmates are people people – just like you! And so the psychology class is often a context where friendships can be formed and maintained really easily. Make the most of sharing your life with people, as you study together.
Not only will your degree provide gospel opportunities – but wonderfully, what you learn in a lecture will often be highly informative for helping you make the most of them.
People are paid to teach you about how human beings form friendships, communicate, listen, understand, change their minds, learn, and find meaning. As we do evangelism we do things like build friendships, communicate the gospel, see people learn about Jesus, listen to their questions and help them understand the good news of Christ. So you’re actually getting taught how to do mission as you learn more about how people work!
We are called to be witnesses to people, not to robots, and so an understanding of people should translate in to being more compelling, engaging, and other-centred witnesses. Your lecturers won’t slot all the details into place for you, but when you think you can see those points of application to mission – keep digging to find them. Why not mull them over with a Christian friend who studies psychology too? Or you could ask someone who’s doing a different degree if their subject has taught them anything about how to share the gospel…
Enjoy it!
Studying psychology as a believer will be intriguing, stretching, exciting, and challenging – sometimes all at once! Soak it all up, and enjoy the variety and depth in your course.
If you let your Christian faith and love for Jesus grow at the same rate as your understanding of people through the lens of psychology then it’s a wonderful combination. Expanding your knowledge of how people work alongside a more concrete conviction of how precious they are is a brilliant goal to set yourself as you study. If you finish your degree with both of those things in place – what a wonderful starting point for the Lord to continue to use and form you for his purposes in your graduate life.
Reflect and discuss
Think: Think back over what you have studied so far in your degree. Where have you seen God's fingerprints? Where have ideas presented to you challenged what you believed to be true?
Live: What do you think your coursemates would know about what is important to you from the way you live? Is there anything you want to change here?
Speak: Are there topics in your subject that are closer to talking about your outlook on life, God or the gospel? Pray for people on your course and for opportunities to share about Jesus with them this term.
Taking it further
- Psychology: a Student's Guide, Stanton L. Jones
- Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith, David G. Myers & Malcolm A. Jeeves
- Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, ed. Eric L. Johnson
- The Character Gap: How Good Are We? Christian B. Miller
- The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt
