The Bible's View of Man Alone Holds Things Together

David Powlison:

How are we—and those we counsel—simultaneously socially conditioned, self-deceived, and responsible for our behavior without any factor canceling out the others?! That is the question of the social and behavioral sciences (and it is the place they all fail when they excise God). It is also the question that any Christian counselor must attempt to answer both in theory and practise in a way that reflects Christ's mind. The Bible's view of man—both individual and social life—alone holds these things together.

—David Powlison, "Idols of the Heart and 'Vanity Fair,'" Journal of Biblical Counseling 13, no. 2 (Winter 1995): 38.