A Christian Psychologist Looks At Virtue

By Everett L. Worthington Jr.

[This is the first article in a four-part series, “Virtue in Positive Psychology and Practical Theology,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectureship, February 7-10, 2012, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

Everett L. Worthington Jr. is Professor of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.]

In the four articles in this series I look at Christian virtue and four specific virtues from a psychological point of view. Psychologists do not look at topics as theologians do. Theologians tend to try to capture the richness, complexity, and depth of concepts in a nuanced definition, explanation, and exposition. They use the Bible, community tradition, personal experience, and theological tradition, and a variety of disciplines (such as historical, anthropological, sociological, psychological, and cultural research) to inform their understanding. In contrast, psychologists try to define terms clearly and simply, investigate them systematically and in great detail, and to nuance the antecedents, consequences, moderators (that is, the conditions that affect relationships), and mediators (that is, the causal mechanisms that connect relationships).

Theologians, in principle, tend to privilege their theological understandings of Scripture (and perhaps tradition) over psychological data if an apparent conflict occurs. Psychologists, in principle, tend to privilege their observations over their interpretations if an apparent conflict develops. In practice things often differ from principle. Both theologians and psychologists can become more attracted to their theories than to their basic data—the biblical text for theologians and observations for psychologists.

In principle Christian psychologists try to walk the tightrope that values both biblical text and observation. They vary along the spectrum of privileging biblical text or observation, though they are committed to both. In practice, though, Christian psychologists are human and can become more committed to their theories—no matter how theological or psychological they sound—than to the data. Yet with both theology and psychology the data remain—biblical words and human behavior. Aspects can be ignored or distorted by determined theorizing. But if one retains a commitment to the data, the data cannot be explained away, and theologians and psychologists, in another time or culture, can provide correctives.

Virtue Makes A Comeback

Virtue is making a resurgence in public interest. It is being studied these days by theologians and psychologists. Tom Wright wrote Virtue Reborn,[1] and Ellen Charry wrote God and the Art of Happiness.[2] These theological writings parallel the rise in Positive Psychology, which is a major development in psychology. Introduced by then-president of the American Psychological Association, Martin E. P. Seligman, as his 1998 presidential initiative, and by his collaborator Mihayli Csizksentmihayli[3] in 2000, Positive Psychology has its own society and its own psychological journals.[4] Positive Psychology has been defined in many ways (see Table 1 near the end of this article),[5] but I define it as a psychology of virtue for self and others. I view Positive Psychology as the positive half of the discipline of psychology. First, psychology includes psychological science, an empirical basic human science that embodies neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental psychological science, social psychology, personality psychology, sensation and perception, motivation and emotion, learning and memory, and behavior disorders. Second, psychology includes applied psychological science, which has been called clinical science, and which includes clinical psychology, counseling psychology, couple and family enrichment and therapy, group psychoeducation and therapy, community psychology, organizational psychology, and intergroup and political psychology.

In these four articles I will discuss how I, as a Christian psychological scientist and applied scientist, look at virtue. The first two articles will discuss several virtues, and the third and fourth articles will discuss how a Christian clinical psychologist helps people forgive others and forgive themselves.

Three Foundational Stories

Obedience

First, though, I want to start with three basic stories. The first is the often-talked-about study in obedience by Stanley Milgram.[6] He deceived his participants so that he could assess their true reactions. He ostensibly invited participants in pairs, but in reality one “participant” was a confederate of the experimenter. Milgram’s cover story went something like this:

I am studying the role of punishment in learning. One of you will be the teacher and the other one will be the learner. The learner will learn a list of word pairs and, if he makes a memory error, the teacher will deliver a strong electric shock to punish the error. Learning psychologists have said that people cannot learn new things by being punished; punishment can only stop or decrease people’s doing things they already know how to do. However, parents punish their children all the time, and the children learn from it. So we are out to prove the learning theorists wrong.

Imagine how you would feel being one of Milgram’s participants. I know I would be thinking, “No offense, Dr. Milgram, but I hope I’m the teacher, not the learner.” When the study starts—what a relief—you draw, yes, the teacher. The other poor subject, an older returning student, is the learner. He is taken to an adjacent room and strapped into a chair. Electrodes are attached to his arm. As you watch, he says to the experimenter, “These shocks aren’t dangerous, are they? ‘Cause I have a heart condition.”

The experimenter assures the man, “The shocks may be painful, but they aren’t dangerous.” In fact to reassure you that the shocks you will be delivering are painful but not dangerous, before starting the learning trials, the experimenter administers a 45-volt shock to you, the “teacher.” It hurts a lot. In fact your arm hurts for minutes afterwards. The toggle switches are labeled from 15 volts to 450 volts in 15-volt increments. Once you start the learning trials, you will deliver increasingly strong shocks to the learner when he makes a mistake, saying, “Wrong. The correct answer is xx.” Then you will shock him. You will continue to give stronger shocks until the learner gets all the words correct. You notice that beneath 450 volts is the label, xxx, which is beyond the label beneath the 420-volt toggle switch, which reads “Danger: Severe Shock.” The little 45-volt shock that you received was very painful. And you think uneasily about a shock of 450 volts—ten times as strong. It is frankly too painful to imagine.

Of course the real participant is you, not the “learner,” who receives no painful shocks at all. But with each 15-volt stronger shock that you deliver, you can hear through the thin wall pre-recorded grunts, ouches, yells, and screams until, after 150 volts, if you are still delivering shocks, there is nothing but silence. No answers given. No screams for mercy. Just silence.

The experiment is about whether you the “teacher” will obey a white-coated authority who says such intimidating things as “The experiment requires that you continue,” or “I’ll take responsibility,” or the terribly threatening words, “Although the shocks may be painful, they are not harmful.” When listening to a description of this experiment, over 95 percent of the listeners say they would refuse to continue when the confederate begins to grunt or maybe says, “Ouch.” A few say they would hold out until the learner yells or screams. Almost everyone says he or she would stop at or before 150 volts, when there is silence.

In one series of experiments almost two-thirds of the participants blasted the confederate all the way to 450 volts, and almost no one quit before 150 volts. This was true of college students. But Milgram also found it to be true for dock workers and doctors, seminary students and pastors, and even jailers, lawyers, judges, and parole officers. It was true of Christians and atheists. The participants were terribly upset about delivering the shocks. But they still delivered 450 volts to someone who had been screaming loudly for mercy and then suddenly did not make any response after 150 volts—twenty shocks before!

How can this be? Are people evil and love to inflict pain to such a degree that a person might even have died, but they continue to blast the body? Or is this just part of the fall? Are people just wolves who delight in hurting others? Are they hypocrites, pretending to be upset about shocking people but taking secret pleasure. No. None of these. Milgram found that it is little things, such as how close the experimenter was to the participant/teacher or how close the learner was to the teacher, that made big differences in how long a teacher continued to deliver shocks. The internal characteristics and personal training of the people made little difference in the face of this strong situation. When interviewed, the participants said things like this: “I didn’t want to ruin the experiment.” “I wanted to be a good subject.” “The experimenter is the expert; he said the shocks wouldn’t be harmful, and I didn’t want to disrespect his expertise.” “This is terrible for me, but it is for the benefit of many parents who have to discipline their children even though it hurts the parents more than the child.”

In other words people justified their acts not by thinking, “I must do good rather than evil.” They justified their acts by focusing on one set of goods—on their responsibility to be good participants, their duty as participants, or their self-sacrifice by suffering because they cared about science, the experimenter’s study, or future parents. Almost all wanted to do good, to be virtuous. Also the participants put out of their minds the other virtues, like relieving the suffering of the learner.

Think about wars, insurrections, or even family squabbles, child abuse, and sexual abuse. Most people do wrong, but they justify their wrongdoing by pointing to noble virtuous intentions. Some quote Scripture to justify harming others. This is sad, but true.

Truth And Reconciliation

A second story is the life of South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu.[7] He was a leader in the South African Dutch Reformed Church. For years he opposed apartheid. Finally, the protests against the apartheid regime of the South Africans became so strident that Tutu led protests in Soweto, a large black township outside of Johannesburg. Then in the early 1990s apartheid ended when Prime Minister deKlerk announced its demise and announced the release of Nelson Mandela, who had been imprisoned for twenty-seven years. When Mandela was elected president in 1994, he appointed the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the TRC). The TRC was charged with holding three sets of hearings: one on human rights violations, one on amnesty, and one on restitution. Tutu was called on to lead that TRC. He was put to the test. Would he be vengeful? Would he focus on righting wrongs and punishing wrongdoers? Would he try to teach lessons to his fellow citizens by delivering strong punishments?

But Tutu had lived a long life of practicing Christian-based forgiveness. Suddenly he was placed in a strong situation. The black 90 percent of the population of South Africa demanded payback. His Christian virtue of forgiveness was tested. He did not succumb to the virtue of retributive justice that they advocated. He did not redress suffering by taking everything from the former perpetrators and distributing it to those oppressed people who had suffered. Instead, he attended to the virtues he had practiced all his life. Forgiveness. Mercy. Humility. Reconciliation. Restorative justice.

Meeting The Test

Tom Wright begins his book Virtue Reborn by recounting the flight on January 15, 2009, of US Airways 1549, at 3:46 p.m., eastern standard time, bound from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina. The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger III (Sully), had to react when birds fouled the engines and the plane was going down in New York City. Sully landed the plane in the Hudson River—an extremely dangerous and delicate operation. Yet he did it successfully without any deaths or injuries to crew members or passengers. Why? Because he had practiced staying calm in emergencies. He had practiced doing mundane landings repeatedly. He had practiced and rehearsed what might happen if. . . . And when the test came, he met the test, and passed it. He behaved with virtue when the test came because he had practiced virtue. He had built virtue within and practiced accessing the right virtues in the times of trial.

A Model Of Virtue

In these three stories I have created two models. One is a classic model of virtue, depicted in Figure 1. In it, people glimpse a distant goal. Tutu saw a peaceful South Africa that would be perhaps more Christian in the future if he practiced forgiveness, reconciliation, and restorative justice rather than retributive justice. Virtue is built by practice until virtue becomes second nature. One could say that it is one’s new nature. Sully built virtues of courage and self-control. Tutu built forgiveness. Some of Milgram’s participants had built strong virtues of mercy and compassion, and others had built strong virtues of responsibility and duty. Also, virtues require testing. Milgram’s participants, Tutu, and Sully were all tested. Fruits of virtue were experienced by self and others. This virtue process has been called eudaimonia, virtue for self and others.

Secular And Christian Telos

The necessity of a telos. In the practice of virtue we must have a telos, that is, a goal, a vision, or an endpoint. That telos differs between the secular and Christian approaches in three major ways. First, God is left out of secular telos, whereas He is central to Christian telos. Second, the role one has in the community is different. Third, the role the community plays in society is different.

First, the centrality of God and Jesus. In the secular world the telos might be the perfection, maturity, or flourishing of individuals and society. God is largely left out of the causal flow. But for Christians the telos is Jesus Christ—Priest and King. Followers of Christ are transformed to the extent that they identify with Jesus’ saving death. Jesus’ disciples take up their cross and follow Him as priests to God for the needy and ministers to the needy.

Second, secular versus Christian eudaimonia and the role of the virtuous person in the community. There is, of course, another major difference. In Greece eudaimonia was about raising up great leaders of the polis—military and political exemplars of goodness for oneself and to inspire and lead others by developing justice, courage, self-control, and prudent wisdom. But Christian eudaimonia—virtue for self and others—is not about great leaders but is about great participators in a life of community. Those nine cardinal Christian virtues—justice, courage, self-control, and prudent wisdom (which are the Greek virtues), plus love, faith, hope, humility, and forgiveness—are not about standing out front as leaders but about being part of the body of Christ that ministers to others.

Third, the role of the community in society. The Christian community is meant to connect with larger society. Thus the community itself as well as the individuals in it must enact communal virtues. The nine cardinal Christian eudaimonic virtues contribute to the community as individual virtues. Communal virtues emerge from joining individuals together into a whole community. These include emergent communal virtues like, for example, mutual submission and reconciliation. We cannot submit until there are others to submit to, nor can we be reconciled without someone with whom to reconcile. Thus the telos to which Christians are called (a) is God-centered, (b) pursues cardinal virtues that promote Christian communities, and (c) manifests communal virtues in church life. Individual and emergent communal virtues are summarized in Table 2.

A Psychological Model Of The Experience Of Virtue

The three stories I recounted present a second psychological model of the experience of virtue. The model is that we are driven by internal and by external factors.[8]

Internal Forces

Internally we have structures of virtue. They come from our human nature, being formed in the image of God and (for some) in our new nature, being redeemed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Internal structures also come from our experience, from what we engineer and what happens to us. Christians are not merely infused with virtue, but we also have a role—an important role—in what we practice and in the experiences to which we expose ourselves. But our role is not one of self-determination. Things happen to us. Satan is real and tempts, tests, and tricks us. Sin is real, and we succumb to it. Worse, we often seek it. Self is real, and our personal internal structures unconsciously and consciously push and pull us in places we do not necessarily want to go.

External Forces

Externally we are exposed to environmental structures, events, and processes. We experience some of these because we choose to put ourselves in their sights or in their wake. Others happen. They unfold either as we do or do not anticipate. When people attend a public talk, they walk into the external structure of an auditorium and automatically, without thinking, take a seat in the audience instead of reclining center stage. The external structure guided their behavior without their conscious awareness of it. In the three stories I told, you had thoughts and emotional reactions to it. Each sentence is an event. I unfolded a process as you followed my reasoning. You chose—at least to some extent—to read this essay, al-though there might be other environmental and psychological pressures as well as your choice that play a role in your use of time.

Structures of Virtue

I said that we have structures of virtue within us.[9] On one hand, we have an average hierarchy of virtues. For example, one person might, on the average, highly value obedience to authority, another might highly value responsibility, and another might highly value compassion. That average structure is like a stack of DVDs. The ones at the top of the stack are easiest to access. But if you want to watch a DVD, you do not always grab the top one. There are factors that influence which one you play on any particular day. But when you have played one, the chances are that it will remain near the top of the stack and will be visible the next time you seek a favorite video. Over time, the stack sorts into a rough hierarchy in which there are some that you rarely play, and they are near the bottom, and there are others—perhaps Casablanca, Sense and Sensibility, Good-bye, Mr. Chips, or Chariots of Fire[10]—that you play more often, and they sort near the top of the hierarchy. We call this the degree to which we value the virtues.[11]

The Power Of The Situation

But when we enter a particular situation, we might choose any of the virtues in the hierarchy to focus on. If someone creates a strong situation—like Milgram did when he put a scientist with a white coat in front of an experimental participant and the scientist said, “The experiment requires you to continue,” “I’ll take responsibility for what happens,” and “Although the shocks may be painful, they are not harmful”—that strong situation shuffles the choice of particular values selected from the average hierarchy of values. A strong situation directs the attention of many people to the same environmentally prescribed virtues. A weak situation does not captivate the attention of many people. The cues are too weak or too ambiguous. Thus in the weak situation people draw more often from their average hierarchy of values. They act more on their personalities, pasts, and proclivities. In the case of Milgram his strong situation highlighted the virtues of obedience to a legitimate authority, responsibility, empathy for parents who might benefit from the scientific results in the future ahead of compassion for a suffering person (who after all volunteered for the study) who is in the next room stubbornly refusing to answer questions.

Strong environments focus our minds and emotions on key aspects of the situation, focus our minds and emotions on certain events, and set our minds and emotions running down ruts of certain processes. We bring virtues momentarily to the fore. We shove other virtues out of consciousness.

We pursue virtue often, and we do so because that is the way we are made (in God’s image), which is consistent with our redeemed second nature and transformed mind. That is the way we like to see ourselves (i.e., as good people). When we are swept up into a strong situation, but one that has some morally questionable aspects, we focus on doing good, on acting virtuously. The principle of sin within and without, the activities of Satan, and the habitual delusions of self all keep away troublesome and confusing virtues that did not rise to consciousness. And definitely Satan, sin, and self keep away awareness that we might be acting in evil ways.

Our Christian Tasks

In this model of the values of the virtues, we obviously cannot control everything that happens to us. But we do have Christian tasks. We are to (a) glimpse God’s goal and (b) feed the virtues and starve the vices (which also have their own hierarchy within us). We are to study the Scriptures and learn from other Christians in our communities, in history, and in our tradition what God wants. We are to pursue love and forgiveness, the central virtues of Christianity, while not neglecting the other Christian virtues. We are not to seek and indulge the vices, like the pursuit of personal power. We are to exercise the virtues frequently, keeping the ones important to us close to the top. We also are to live in a community that exercises the virtues emergent in Christian communities. And a third task is to (c) focus on the right virtue at the right time—and, while that might happen by luck on rare occasions, it comes reliably only by being tested again and again and rising to the challenge.

Tests

I am reminded of Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings[12] trilogy. The band of the twelve have traveled to Loth Lorien, and Frodo (the bearer of the one ring of power, who is carrying it to a place where it can be destroyed, but is going to find how power corrupts the soul) meets with the lovely elf queen, Galadriel. She, it turns out, has one of the three elf rings of power—the three second-most powerful rings. She meets Frodo late at night in the garden and shows him a hint of his future in the mirror of Galadriel. He recoils when he sees his own human weakness, and in that strong situation, he seeks to avoid the task to which he has been called (internally) at the same time it had been thrust on him (externally). He offers to give Galadriel the One Ring.

Galadriel, the one who sought to test the mettle of Frodo to see whether he was up to the challenge, now faces her own test of virtue. How does Tolkein have her respond?

“You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo now seeming tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. “I pass the test,” she said.[13]

You will face your own tests of virtue—tests from within and from the outside. I pray that you will pass the test. Many of those tests will involve how to order justice, mercy, and forgiveness in strong situations. Your response will be crucial to both the Christian eudaimonic and Christian-community virtues. You can receive great help from Positive Psychology. The next article examines four Christian eudaimonic virtues, noting the importance of humility in the face of the sanctifying nature of grace.

Table 1: Definitions of positive psychology

Source	Definition
Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi	The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and flow and happiness (in the present).
Gable and Haidt	Positive psychology is the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions.
Journal of Positive Psychology	Positive psychology is about scientifically informed perspectives on what makes life worth living. It focuses on aspects of the human condition that lead to happiness, fulfillment, and flourishing. . . . The journal is devoted to basic research and professional application on states of optimal human functioning and fulfillment, and the facilitation and promotion of well-being.
Linley, Joseph, Harrington, and Wood	Positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal human functioning. . . . At the pragmatic level, it is about understanding the wellsprings, processes, and mechanisms that lead to desirable outcomes.
Snyder and Lopez	Positive psychology . . . is the scientific and applied approach to uncovering people’s strengths and promoting their positive functioning.
Seligman	Positive psychology is well-being, that the gold standard for measuring well-being is flourishing, and that the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing . . . Well-being theory has five elements . . . positive emotion, engagement, meaning, positive relationships, and accomplishment.

Table 2: Individual And Emergent Communal Virtues

Individual Christian Virtues	Emergent Communal Christian Virtues
Love	Mutual submission
Faith	Shared gifts
Hope	Shared leadership and participation
Righteousness (justice)	Mission
Self-control (temperance)	Edification
Courage	Evangelism
Wise discernment (prudence)	Worship
Forgiveness	Reconciliation
Humility	Sharing in Christ’s suffering

Notes

1. Tom Wright, Virtue Reborn (London: SBKT, 2010).
2. Ellen Charry, God and the Art of Happiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).
3. Martin E. P. Seligman and Mihayli Csizksentmihayli, “Positive Psychology: An Introduction,” American Psychologist 55 (2000): 5-14.
4. Journal of Positive Psychology, edited by Robert Emmons; and Journal of Happiness Studies, edited by Antonella Delle Fave.
5. Seligman and Csizksentmihayli, “Positive Psychology,” 5; Lee J. Gable and J. Haidt, “What (and Why) Is Positive Psychology?” Review of General Psychology 9 (June 2005): 103-10, 104; Journal of Positive Psychology 1 (2006): inside front cover; P. Alex Linley, Stephen Joseph, Susan Harrington, and Alex M. Wood, “Positive Psychology: Past, Present, and (Possible) Future,” Journal of Positive Psychology 1 (2006): 3-16; C. Rick Snyder and Shane Lopez, Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 2007), 3; and Martin E. P. Seligman, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being (New York: Free, 2011), 13, 16.
6. In this section I draw heavily from Stanley Milgram’s summary of years of his work in Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).
7. Desmond M. Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999).
8. Everett L. Worthington Jr., A Just Forgiveness: Responsible Justice without Excusing Injustice (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009).
9. Everett L. Worthington Jr. and Jack W. Berry, “Virtues, Vices, and Character Education,” in Judeo-Christian Perspectives on Psychology: Human Nature, Motivation, and Change, ed. William R. Miller and Harold D. Delaney (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2005), 145-64.
10. Casablanca, Warner Brothers (producer, Hal B. Wallis; director, Michael Curtiz, 1942); Sense and Sensibility, Colombia Pictures (producer, Lindsay Doran; director, Ang Lee, 1995); Good-bye, Mr. Chips, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (producer Victor Saville; director Sam Wood, 1939); or Chariots of Fire, Warner Brothers, The Ladd Company (producers, David Puttnam and Dodi Fayed; director, Hugh Hudson, 1981).
11. For a discussion of valuing the virtues see Worthington and Berry, “Virtues, Vices, and Character Education.” Valuing is part of declarative knowledge; one can value a virtue without practicing it. Virtue is a habit of the heart, honed through practice; it is part of procedural knowledge. Different systems of cognition govern much of each of these. For example, System 1 thinking (fast thinking) is concerned mostly with procedural knowledge, intuition, second-nature acting, and hence virtue. System 2 thinking (slow, executive system thinking involving planning, thoughtful decision-making, and reflection) is more often concerned with valuing and declarative knowledge. See Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
12. J. R. R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings, vol. 2: The Two Towers, 2nd. ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965).
13. Ibid., 381.