Theology Vs Psychology

Theology and Psychology are closely tied together; however each theory has different views on evil. From a Psychology standpoint, we look at how evil is viewed at as ordinary people performing evil actions, and from a Theology standpoint we look at how God created a perfect universe, but yet we live in a world that is surrounded by evil. Psychology today is not biblically based, whereas Theology is. Integrating Theology and Psychology proves to be valuable since it helps us to understand human behavior which is a vital part of our knowledge. Whether we view evil in theological or psychological terms, evil is still looked at as a deep question and a significantly important global issue. The Psychology of evil is talked about in Philip Zimbardo’s …show more content…
Philip’s psychological experiments show the bizarre power of situations to dominate what he refers to as “better angels of our nature” (Brooks). He also outlines the predictability in situational evil situations referring to the effects of deindividuation and dehumanization on “ordinary people.” The point he brings to our attention is that ordinary people can also create evil. For example, Hitler appeared to be an “ordinary person” and look at what evil he created. What we’ve also learned from his book is that it challenges the idea of the “original sin” which is mentioned in the Genesis. He supports free will which gives humans the ability to choose good or evil. Whereas the Genesis mentions evil in a broad sense; referencing the theological contexts such as the root of evil. There is a problem of accounting for evil in a world created by an all-knowing God (Calder). However, many Christians respond similarly to Zimbardo’s view when asked “If God really exists, then why is there evil in the world?” They support the Psychology side on evil and that free will defense comes into play which suggests that although God is all-knowing, and all-good, there are some things that he can’t do which is create a morally good world where no evil occurs (Calvin Beisne). Take Lucifer for example who was one of God’s top angels, having the responsibility of assigning different angels to worship. He didn’t want to be God’s servant any longer, he wanted to be him. Lucifer became evil, went to hell and ended up being Satan and turned good people against God. Lucifer’s free will caused him to turn into the devil. God very well could have prevented Lucifer from persuading Eve but instead he allowed it to happen thereby abiding by the free will