Posted In: 公開課程
chan tincheung 19 9 月, 2016
Instructors: Dr. Tin-cheung Chan and Dr. Harry Hui
Lectures: Continuing for 13 weeks, each week has two sessions of 90 and 60 min. The first session is for presentation of the psychological theories, and the second for psychology of religion for one hour. The basic assumption is that we have to understand psychology in its own right before we could use it to enhance our understanding of Christian faith.
Psychology is a scientific study of the rules in mental and behavioral processing. In this course, we hope to introduce fundamental theories in the different areas of psychology that are normally studied in fundamental courses in psychology, and the applications of some of them to Christian faith.
After completing this course, students are expected to understand the basic concepts in different areas of psychology, knowing their emphasis and limitations, and to use these theories to explain phenomena in everyday lives particularly in relation to Christian faith. Also, students can evaluate theories and explanations critically.
To those Christians that consider psychology as irrelevant to spirituality, this course shows that psychology and spirituality are closely related. To those that think psychology has explained away Christian faith, this course shows that psychology enriches the understanding of faith. To those that detest psychology as an enemy to Christian faith, this course shows that they could be supplementary.
Main reference books:
Gerrig, R. J., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2010). Psychology and life (19th Ed.). Boston : Allyn & Bacon.
Johnson, E. L. (Ed.). (2010). Psychology & Christianity : five views. Downers Grove, Ill. : IVP Academic
Paloutzian, R. F. (2016). Invitation to the psychology of religion (3rd Ed.). New York: The Guilford.