While this book is aimed at a Christian audience, the refutations against behaviorism are done well and are easily understood. Even if you are not a Christian this book adeptly helps strike through the flaws of the behaviorist approach which denies the mind of Man. The mind of Man, or inner personality, is the source of thought, emotions, imagination, will, attention, purpose, responsibility and desire. Behavioral and modern psychiatric theories choose to ignore and deny the existence of a mind, and at best consider it only to be an annoying by-product of chemical reactions in a brain. This has harmful effects on the individual and society because by denying the mind and personal responsibility Man is left with nothing but uncontrollable automatic reactions to controlled environmental forces. Nothing is anyone's "fault" and thus nobody is expected to be responsible for anything. This decadent approach to life and reality only leads towards individual and social degradation. Reviews The publisher, The Trinity Foundation, May 25, 1998 The twentieth century is the century of mechanism, naturalism, and behaviorism. The spirit of the age has affected the churches both subtly and overtly. Overtly, a man can write a behavioristic book and have it published by a major neo-evangelical publisher for sale primarily to Christian college students. But before that could be done, the influence of naturalism had already subtly changed people's thinking. As the twentieth century worn on ("progressed" is certainly the wrong word), Christians heard less and less about heaven, hell, and their souls; and more and more about politics, social action, and how to be a social and ecclesiastical success in ten easy lessons. Today, Christians are largely materialists in the popular sense of the word. Many do not wish their personal peace and affluence to be disturbed or diminished. Most have been so influenced by mechanism and naturalism that they actually believe that brains think. Stomachs digest, livers secrete, lungs breathe, and brains think. To these, the argument in the following pages may come as a shock. It is our hope that the shock will be great enough to wake them from their slumbers, slumbers induced by the deceptive philosophy of naturalism. The Trinity Foundation is proud to offer this fourth in our series of Papers, and we pray that it will be used by God in the cause of God and truth. The modern view of "materialism" and "naturalism" is wrong, whether you are a Christian or not. The flaws of these views of reality are false whether you are a Christian or an atheist. The views of materialism and naturalism deny and ignore any "invisible" factors, including your mind and everything it does. When modern "science" tosses out the notion of a thinking mind, along with it goes everything a mind does - think, choose, decide, value, establish meaning, act responsibly, etc. The human "mind" is what separates the human race from the rest of the animal kingdom, and from all non-sentient matter and energy (the majority of the physical universe). Disregarding the human mind is a major theoretical blunder and is having very negative consequences on the lives and societies of the "modern" folks who accept these notions (which is basically everyone).
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