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ABSTRACT:Pastors who assume that the insights of psychology have superseded those of the Scriptures, the great philosophers, or classic literary works are shortchanging themselves and their parishioners. These insights may be true and useful on many occasions, but they do not represent the full truth about the human condition. Examples from the novels of Jane Austen illustrate the larger truth of ill that human choices may be willed for the sake of human good or ill and that the human community provides the context for understanding and evaluating those choices.Should psychology replace economics as the dismal science? In spite of some popularizers' attempts to market an upbeat product, the truth of the matter is that psychologists do not bring us good news. To know what they know is to be aware of intrapsychic and interpersonal underworlds in which few things are what they seemed in the light of day: reasons stand revealed as rationalizations; genuine feelings turn out to be clever subterfuges serving unadmitted goals; human will and choice are undermined by hidden and devious motivations. Yet throughout all of this, the individual perpetrating such behavior may remain unaware of what he is effecting, as stymied as anyone else about why things are as they are, or why they have gone wrong.The father of this dour view, of course, is Sigmund Freud. Once he postulated the theory that human personality is built in makeshift Richard C. Eriekson, an ordained Presbyterian minister, is staff psychologist on the inpatient unit at Portland VA Medical Center and an associate professor of Medical Psychology at the Oregon Health Sciences University. Joyce Quiring Erickson is Professor of English at Seattle Pacific University. The Ericksons, who are married, live at 2211 N.E. 30th, Portland, OR 97212.

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