PASTORAL THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND POST-NIHILISM

Abstract

As pastoral counselors, we gather wisdom and understanding from working with people. We get insight, understanding and wisdom by thinking and reflecting on what takes place in our counseling encounters. In our reflecting and thinking, we employ theological understanding in order to bring to light how God is at work in the lives of our counselees and in the counseling process. We also employ the social sciences in order to make sense out of what we see in the lives of our counselees and in the counseling process. The end result is that we want to develop cognitive and intuitive insightful wisdom, which will be used to make strategic intervention back into the lives of our counselees. Thus, reflecting on our counseling encounters lends itself to building up a reservoir of cognitive and intuitive wisdom for service to our counselees. Our counselees also benefit directly from the storehouse of wisdom we develop as we reflect on our counseling. From this storehouse of wisdom we are able to fashion strategic interventions, which counselees can use for revising their behavior, and their personal beliefs and convictions about themselves and their relationships with others. The point is that reflecting on our counseling experiences utilizing theology and social science thought is not just an academic exercise that enriches the pastoral counselor. Rather, such reflection leads to practical interventions that transform the lives of our counselees and the counseling process. I want to explore the nature of pastoral theological method as wisdom formation. Toward this end, I want to first examine wisdom formation in pastoral counseling. Second, the role of literature in wisdom formation in pastoral counseling is explicated. Third, a narrative-linguistic approach to wisdom formation in pastoral counseling is presented. Fourth and finally, a novel of an African American author is examined in depth in light of an explicit pastoral theological method.