GM: First of all, Mike, thank you! I believe that what you have done in your decade-plus-long study of the theology, philosophy, and to a lesser extent, psychology of Dallas Willard is a remarkable contribution to the field. And thank you for working with the Dallas Willard Research Center and Conversatio Divina to make so much of your research available. These are great gifts.
Mike, I know you well and value our friendship. In fact, I value it so much, I’m going to overlook your earlier critique of my “always promoting experience” with a Schleiermacher reference. You know I’m much more of a fan of the ancient faith than liberal theology, and you know that one of the reasons I love Dallas Willard’s emphasis on experience (such as in his quip, “You want to go to heaven, go now. Eternal living starts now.”), is precisely because he grounds that experiential “kite” with strong cords attached to scripture, reason and tradition.
So, you are both off the hook on that one, and I promise not too many curve balls from me. In your book you make the case that Dallas Willard spoke of both the “history of redemption” and the “psychology of redemption.” But, by word count, you were much more focused on the former than the latter. As a recovering psychologist, I was wanting to read even more of the latter. So, with that said, if you were asked to offer a brief summary of the most important input Dallas Willard has to offer to modern psychologists in training, what would you say? Do you believe there are important mental health implications in his “psychology of redemption,” as presented in Renovation of the Heart?
MSR: My father was a Christian psychiatrist – I’m a recovering psychiatrist’s son – and I was proud to take him to a conference where we both heard Dallas live and to give him a copy of Renovation of the Heart. He wasn’t a chatty guy but I remember him saying to me, “I wasn’t sure but then I realized this is pretty important.”
So as a psychologist in training, one would obviously have to read Spirit of the Disciplines and Renovation of the Heart very carefully. Dallas isn’t presenting himself as a psychologist in those but he’s got the field in mind. I know that dysfunction and abnormal psychology were a preoccupation in the early days of modern psychology but most human beings aren’t suffering from that. What most human beings are suffering from are the sort of things Dallas talks about in those two books. In a word, sin. And even if garden variety sin doesn’t rise to the level of needing to see a trained therapist, it is an important and central psychological process which a trained psychologist needs to understand and be able to consult on. Failure to deal with it will lead to much worse things. Obviously.
In my book The Kingdom among Us I talk about the “psychology of redemption” more towards the end because there I’m wrestling with how the one the disciples knew as Jesus of Nazareth participates in YHWH’s grand scheme to rescue humans from psychological brokenness. Thinking of sin as psychological brokenness is not an original contribution of Dallas’s but it is one that he is particularly good at thinking through. His preferred concept, because of its biblical ties, is corruption. He is good at seeing how corruption comes to affect the whole person, not just one or two dimensions. Spirit of the Disciplines is really good at explaining how the body is involved, not only in our brokenness but also in our restoration.
Psychology’s address in the university used to be in the philosophy department. And there are a lot of philosophical issues embedded in the study of psychology which a “trainee” may not have any classes on. One might think of Dallas as an old psychologist who stayed in the philosophy department. Because of that he’s helped and can still help many psychologists navigate issues about the less empirical parts of the person. Personally, I think his greatest contribution to psychology will be his work on intentionality which is a core idea for phenomenology (See here for more on that).
Willard’s philosophical work on these issues is also why I’ve never thought your “kite and string” metaphor for theology helps much. Dallas’s view, which he learned from the early phenomenologists, is that experience can be, if approached rigorously, just as grounding as anything else we might offer as evidence. And that’s a crucial view for budding psychologists to come to terms with.
GM: Thank you, Mike. And just to put a bow on some of what you are saying, if salvation can in part be seen as the healing journey, the transforming friendship along the way back to living in union with God, then it could be said that “sin” is the inclination, or inner disposition, to move away from union with God and to fall into the delusion of self-sufficiency. To that extent, the solution for sin both involves and has the potential to heal the state of separation from God. But, on to another topic.
GM: Dallas was a fan of the early Church. As he might say, that is the church before there were any Baptist or Methodists, Catholics or Orthodox Christians, or even Calvinists, for that matter. Just Christians. In fact, I see Dallas as being focused on the golden thread that runs through all authentic expressions of the Christian faith that lead to real change coming from real interaction with the Trinity—as presented by a variety of devotional masters, across the wide spectrum and “streams of living water,” to coin a phrase (just kidding, Richard). And by golden thread, I mean what was at the heart of each person he introduced, from across the centuries of church history—and even before—in one of his favorite books, Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians.
So, I was a bit surprised to read your repeated classification of Willard’s theology as Calvinist. Now, I’m with you in that I’ve heard him say glowing things about Calvin. But, I’ve also heard him say glowing things about Wesley, the early church fathers and mothers, Ignatius of Loyola, etc. etc. So, from the vast amount of time you’ve spent reading and listing to Dallas, would you mind naming at least 3 other figures Dallas praised repeatedly, outside the Reformed camp? And, if any of your reformed buddies get mad at you, I’ll take the blame.
MSR: I mention a number of those people in the book and I’d be glad to name three figures here but please permit me a word or two about Calvin and Calvinism to prevent misunderstanding.
GM: Oh, I’d just as soon you didn’t.
MWR: Hmmm, so who is being interviewed here?
Calvinism is one of the great theological movements in history and it really is pretty wide (see the conversation with Aaron Preston). Other figures that Dallas read and learned from like William Law don’t represent a huge movement. As a historical researcher, I have to paint in both broad strokes and fine strokes and make my case each time. Calvinism is one of those broad strokes that I discovered in Dallas. It is on a similar level of saying Dallas is a Protestant.
But you raise an important issue because we have in the church visible various cultish followings comprising of people who only read theologians of particular kind and there is one that has developed around Calvin and Calvinism. Dallas wasn’t that kind of Calvinist. His Calvinism was a modified Calvinism and this is where painting with some fine strokes comes in.
The first figure or “fine stroke” I will mention is George Fox, the Quaker founder, and one of those people in the Deeper Experiences book. Dallas once called himself “a King James Baptist with a Quaker twist.” When I started my formal research on Dallas in 2012, George Fox’s Journal was one of the first books I read. (Admittedly the connections between the two didn’t jump out to me.) But here’s one place where Dallas follows Fox instead of Calvin. See Calvin has this idea that we should be zealous for God’s word and Christ’s gospel and he thought that Jesus had taught his apostles to embody God’s own offense at and even vengeance toward those who disregard His truth. In other words, being tough on “wayward thinkers” is Christlike. Calvin’s not alone in this idea. Read, for example, the church father Gregory of Nazianzus.
But Fox disagrees and his approach is characterized by Christ’s quietness and gentleness. Fox doesn’t compromise, he stands his ground, but instead of berating his opponents he is willing to suffer marginalization himself and even persecution. That gentleness is a Quaker twist that Dallas definitely has.
The second figure or “fine stroke” to mention is John Wesley and there’s a lot to say here about how close Wesley is to Calvinism. It was Dallas who pointed out to me that Wesley wrote and published a modification of the Westminster Catechism (he barely changes it!).
Dallas takes a few things from Wesley but one of them is “methodism” in the sense that there is method in spiritual growth. He says he learned about Wesley’s methodism in graduate school but before that time his understanding of spiritual growth was what he called “infusion.” The Deeper Experiences book is actually exemplary of the infusion model. Grad school for Dallas means probably the mid-60’s. Add 20 years of Dallas thinking about method in spiritual growth and teaching others about it and in the mid-80’s he writes Spirit of the Disciplines, his magnum opus on methodism. Now Calvin isn’t anti-method but Dallas couldn’t have learned about method from just reading Calvin. Wesley is his top guide there.
Finally, I want to name a figure who is not one the usual suspects and not someone I mention in my book. This name drop is more for the philosophers and theologians out there, for the figure is the 13th century Franciscan scholastic Duns Scotus. I’ve been learning more about Scotus and how he paved the way for Christian philosophy as Dallas did it. Scotism, for those who don’t know, became a medieval school of theology associated with the Franciscans and with a sibling rivalry with Thomism (the school associated with Thomas Aquinas and the Dominicans). Dallas followed Scotus in a few ways but the most significant is perhaps Scotus’s pioneering work in philosophical realism. Scotus was (maybe) the first to realize that philosophy had its own work to do in realism which was separate from theology’s work. That’s the sort of work Dallas did in his 9-5 job for nearly 50 years.
GM: Okay, Mike, you did it and I’m grateful. I do have to say that I stumble a bit over the statement, “Dallas is a Protestant,” as opposed to something like “Dallas was a fan of the golden thread of authentic, effective, experiential Christianity that runs through all of church history, especially before there were denominations.” But you are so smart and thoughtful, I’ll not push it, or even say that I was hoping a few others might be on your list, at least your top 10 list, such as Ignatius of Loyola, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Athanasius, etc. But, I’ll keep trying to make a case for Christianity before Calvin, and also keep learning from you.
MSR: I’m pretty sure that “a fan of the golden thread of authentic, effective, experiential Christianity that runs through all of church history, especially before there were denominations” is more descriptive of you or someone like Thomas Oden and the Paleo-Orthodoxy folks than it is of Dallas. But give me a break, I did mention Duns Scotus (d. 1308)! Let’s move on.
GM: I’m going to accept that grace. Moving on, you have had a lot of questions coming your way, so, I’ll stop with one final question. Do you think people will still be talking about Dallas Willard in 100 years? Why so?
MSR: I think one of the deciding factors will be if Dallas is ever discovered as a philosopher or not. Currently it doesn’t look good. Reading his 60+ philosophical articles, for example, isn’t a part of the current buzz around Dallas. The “Willard influencers” we have out there don’t get people interested in knowing about what Dallas thinks about, say, the theory of universals.
I realize there’s not ever going to be a big market for that. But the small niche market that is interested is, roughly speaking, the thought leaders of our church and our world. And they will, for good or for worse, determine what people are talking about in 100 years.
GM: I appreciate your candor. And, this is a reason your work and that of Dallas’ philosophy students is so important.
But, back to the final question; can you give us a bit more? What are one or two of Dallas Willard’s key contributions to the field of psychology, in particular, and of theology, if you like, that you hope will be talked about in 100 years. That is, if you were going to shine a light on a few of his thoughts that deserve to stand the test of time, that might become “classic,” what would you be tempted to pick and why?
MSR: OK, here’s one. Dallas had a doctrine of God that spans across all his writing and speaking. His unique view of God doesn’t ever get its own book or even chapter but it undergirds almost everything he writes, from popular books like Hearing God and the talks behind Life Without Lack to the more academic Knowing Christ Today and The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge. I think that’s a key contribution which will have a relevance in 100 years for theology and psychology. Remember, our view of God is a huge element of our psychological condition!
I submit that that doctrine of God is why Dallas’s writing and speaking seems so attractive and inviting to some. And perhaps why it seems so puzzling and detestable to others. The other day I was listening to him joke about those who view God as “a great boring cosmic stare.” He asks, “Do you think God has an interesting life?” And then he adds “When I get done reading some theology books [the audience laughs], I think I’ve got a new proof of his infinity. He would just go out of existence from boredom, if what they said was true.”
Now he’s poking fun but I’ve read those theology books and those theologians are dead serious. Some of them might be piling up wood underneath their backyard stake so that Dallas gets extra crispy. My point is that Dallas was winsomely encouraging Christians everywhere he spoke to consider a different doctrine of God. But he never just spells it out like a philosopher or theologian should. As I’ve dug up the details of that doctrine, it’s amazing how rational, biblical and (you’ll like this last one) experiential it is. But it isn’t traditional. It isn’t a rehearsal of something some other well-respected or “ancient” church figure has said. And that’s why, when he says something like, “God has a soul” or “God doesn’t know where Adam is in the garden (though He could have)” or “Atonement is a fact in the heart of God” or “God wants us to grow to the point that he can empower us to do what we want,” the traditionalists start sharpening their knives.
But there is another Christian response to Dallas’s doctrine of God which is a great sigh of relief. It rings true to a lot of people’s commonsense reading in the Bible and experience with the Bible’s God. I’ll add that it has a lot going for it philosophically as well. I guess time and more examination will tell us if Dallas is on to something or not, whether he’s found something, a new “classic” for theology and psychology. In 100 years, Dallas’s doctrine of God will at least be something still worthy of serious thought. It is that good.
GM: From your lips to God’s ears. And, perhaps my most often quoted sentence from Dallas is: “Don’t ever let anyone tell you anything bad about God.”