Cal Thomas, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, did an article recently headed “Clinton’s Last Stand.” Under the header was the headline, “Stopping him before he sins again.” In his article Thomas says, “Clinton needs a man of the couch more than men of the cloth.” The “man of the couch” reference is obviously to a psychologist or psychiatrist, and the designation “men of the cloth” refers to the pastors Clinton has chosen to counsel him. Granted that Clinton’s chosen “men of the cloth” counselors are questionable at best, why even make such a comparison and why even make such a recommendation?
Additionally Thomas uses the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) criteria to demonstrate that Clinton fits the characteristics of a “narcissistic personality.” Thomas ends up saying, “you’d help him [Clinton] more if you persuaded him to see a good shrink.”
The “man of the couch” and the DSM can only provide what God has warned His people about, i.e. the wisdom of men and vain philosophy. God warns us through the Apostle Paul, “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:5), and, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8).
Psychotherapy and the DSM are man-made contrivances that are only guesses about the truth of a man’s heart. God, speaking through Isaiah, reveals, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer. 17:9,10). This is what Clinton and every other person needs to know. Even the best “shrinks” have no biblical answer to Clinton’s problems unless they appeal to Scripture without psychology and without DSM, which Thomas failed to do.
God does not need the help of shrinks to diagnose or treat a man’s propensity to sin, because He has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3,4).
Maybe someone needs to stop Cal Thomas before he, himself, sins again by offering up the false wisdom of men over the true wisdom of God.
(From PAL, V6N6)