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About Revolt Against Maturity: A Biblical Psychology of Man (Unabridged)

Revolt Against Maturity is a study of biblical psychology. Biblical psychology contrasts sharply with a science of the mind based on the religious presuppositions of humanism, which regards man as having no constant nature. A science of the mind based on humanism views the mind as a clean slate and man's nature as plastic to be molded by men and institutions in the image of man for the new order he will establish. The biblical view sees psychology as a branch of theology; theology is a study of all that the scriptures declare about God. Theology is essential not only to the study of psychology, but to ethics, anthropology, soteriology, eschatology, etc. Biblical psychology assumes that man is created in the image of God directly, and not indirectly through theistic or any other kind of evolution. Being created directly by God, man is not in the process of defining or determining his ontological qualities. Man has already been determined and defined by God. Thus, it is God who has established the limits and nature of the mind. The mind of regenerate man experiences radically different motives and presuppositions from those of unregenerate man. The author sees the central task of Christian psychology as that of discerning the mind and soul differences that exist between the regenerate and unregenerate. Pastoral counseling should first seek to establish whether or not a person is truly regenerate, and then aid the regenerate to further growth in sanctification. Work was to have provided the joy of fulfillment in God's goal of maturity for man, but because of the curse man is often subject to the frustration of meaningless and degrading work. True work is the exercise of dominion over the creation under God. When man's work is separated from dominion of the created world, he is often subject to moral and religious paralysis and becomes a sick soul. Man suffers similarly when he abstracts God from reality.