An Analysis of Dallas Willard's Theology of Emotion in Light of Contemporary Neuropsychology

311 Pages·2016·1.35 MB·English

An Analysis of Dallas Willard's Theology of Emotion in
Light of Contemporary Neuropsychology
by
Matthew Robert Green

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Regis College
and the Pastoral Department of the Toronto School of Theology
In partial fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology
awarded by the University of St. Michael's College

© Copyright by Matthew Robert Green 2016
An Analysis of Dallas Willard's Theology of Emotion in Light
of Contemporary Neuropsychology
Matthew Robert Green
Doctor of Philosophy in Theology
Regis College and the University of St. Michael’s College
2016
Abstract
This thesis considers Dr. Dallas Willard’s theological and practical response to late
twentieth century expressions of evangelicalism in America as the through-line of his
pastoral writing. It details the cultural and theological evolution of specific issues against
which Willard took a stance and explicates how his writings sought to counter them. It
then narrows to consider specifically his theological anthropology, focusing on his
psychology of emotion and its role in the Christian spiritual life. This latter piece is
considered in depth, analyzing how he understood emotion’s proper role, the manner in
which it is distorted by sin and misunderstanding, and the means by which one may
gradually restore it to God’s intention for the human person. Dr. Willard’s understanding
of emotion is then examined in light of the research of contemporary neuropsychologists
Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux, and Jaak Panksepp. The scientific research is used as
a means of providing some correction, but also additional specificity and clarity to
Willard’s work, which in turn provides a theological character and teleological
orientation to the neuropsychologists’ work. The result is a revision of Willard’s
spirituality that coincides more closely to contemporary neuropsychological perspectives
on emotion, thought, and volition.
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………………...iii

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………. 1

1 Methodology ...……………………………………………………………………… 3

2 Procedure …………………………………………………………………………… 6

3 Contributions to the Field …………………………………………………………. 12

4 Preliminary Definitions ……………………………………………………………. 14

5 Summary ………………………………………………………………………...… 23

Chapter 1: Historical Development of Elements Critiqued by Willard ………………… 25

1 Conversionism …………………………………………………………………….. 27

2 The Application of the Will ……………………………………………………….. 43

3 Morality: Love Versus Code of Law ……………………………………………… 47

4 Dispensationalism and Objectivism ……………………………………………….. 55

5 Supernaturalism …………………………………………………………………… 62

6 Summary …………………………………………………………………………... 70

Chapter 2: Willard’s Critique of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism ………………….. 73

1 The Gospel as Gradually Transformative …………………………………………. 75

2 The Will as Limited and Dependent ………………………………………………. 91

3 Love as the Apex of the Christian Life ……………………………………………. 97

4 God as Personal and Presently Interactive ……………………………………….. 105

5 Christianity as Relevant to Everyday Life ……………………………………….. 110

Chapter 3: Willard’s Affective Psychology ………………………………………….... 117

1 Willard’s Theological Anthropology …………………………………………….. 119

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2 Willard’s Affective Psychology ……………………………………………….…. 131

3 Willard’s Affective Telos ………………………………………………………… 144

4 Issues with Willard’s Psychology ………………………………………………... 168

Chapter 4: The Affective Neuropsychology of Antonio Damasio and Jaak Panksepp .. 171

1 The Nature of Emotion ………………………………………………………...… 172

2 Emotion and Thought …………………………………………………………….. 183

3 Emotion and Volition …………………………………………………………….. 193

4 Emotion and the Self ……………………………………………………………... 201

5 Regulation and Alteration of Emotion …………………………………………… 205

Chapter 5: A Re-Examination of Willard’s Theology in Light of Affective
Neuropsychology ………………………………………………………………214

1 Categories of Emotion …………………………………………………………… 217

2 Mind, Body, Emotion, and Feeling ………………………………………………. 220

3 Emotion, Will, and Behaviour ………………………………………………….... 225

4 Emotion and Thought …………………………………………………………….. 242

Chapter 6: A Revised Willardian Spirituality and Further Implications
of the Research …………………………………………………………………253

1 Emotion and Spiritual Development ……………………………………………... 253

2 Emotions and Spiritual Disciplines ………………………………………………. 267

3 A Recapitulation of Willard’s Spirituality ……………………………………….. 275

4 Conclusion and Directions for Further Research ………………………………… 281

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………... 287

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Introduction
When neo-evangelicalism blossomed in America in the 1950's, it began to broaden the range
through which American evangelicals could express and expand their spirituality. One of the
more significant expressions of this changing spirituality has loosely coalesced into what is
called the spiritual formation movement, and one of the key figures in this movement was
Dallas Willard (1935 – 2013), a philosopher and pastor whose writings formed the
intellectual foundation for many evangelicals to understand the dynamics of their spirituality.
While his pastoral works are directed primarily at the popular level, the growing influence of
the spiritual formation movement combined with Willard's intellect and academic credentials
has expanded their presence to more professional and academic levels. Numerous seminaries
such as Biola University and training programs such as those of Renovare use them in
courses on spirituality and faith development.1
Willard believed that American evangelicalism has misunderstood the nature and character of
the gospel and sought to correct a number of weaknesses that he believed had become
characteristic of the culture of churches within his tradition. A wrong understanding, he
argued, was hampering the church and robbing Christians of what God intended for them.
“Those who operate on wrong information,” he argued, “are likely never to know the reality
of God's presence ... and will miss the constant divine companionship for which their souls

1 E.g., Mike Brimmage, “SEED570 Introduction to Spiritual Formation,” accessed March 31, 2014,
http://media1.biola.edu/education/downloads/ctc/syllabi/SEED%20570%20Fall%2009
.pdf. “The Renovare Institute for Spiritual Formation,” accessed March 31, 2014,
http://www.renovare.org/what-we-do/institute-for-spiritual-formation.
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were made,”2 and “A lack of understanding does weaken faith and misdirect life – sometimes
disastrously.”3 Much of his work, then, was dedicated to the explication of the gospel as an
invitation to transformation, describing the process that the Christian experiences and
undertakes in order to fulfil God's intention for the individual person.
Because Willard was quite practical and concrete in his theology, such a description was
grounded in and focused at various points on the actual workings of the human person. He
saw the evangelical church as “without a psychology of the spiritual life”4 and part of his role
as developing or at least describing, “a psychologically sound theology of the spiritual
life…”5 His theology, as Gary Black notes, was based in his theological anthropology,6 and
this anthropological and psychological focus necessarily described the function and role of
emotion as well as the process of emotional transformation. Ultimately, his ideal Christian
was characterized primarily by love while he understood anger to be a major root of disorder
in the soul and of spiritual ruination.
However, his discussions of emotion and its relationship to other faculties and the spiritual
life are not always clear and could, at times, contradict one another. Additionally, his views
of emotion seemed to be at times grounded in more popular psychology than in more
scholarly research and study, which, while not necessarily incorrect or unhelpful, offers an

2 Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 10.
3 Ibid, 77.
4 Ibid, 226.
5 Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), xi, 112-3.
6 Gary Black, Jr. The Theology of Dallas Willard: Discovering Protoevangelical Faith (Eugene, Or:
Pickwick Publications, 2013), 98.
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opportunity for analysis, clarification, and adjustment.
In summary, Dallas Willard provided in his writing a robust structure for contemporary
American evangelical spirituality, prescribing a number of correctives to weaknesses in the
milieu. However, his theological anthropology did not incorporate a great deal of current
neurological and psychological research that would have bolstered his thought on emotion
and the spiritual life. This thesis will explore Willard’s interpretation of evangelical
spirituality via comparison with a particular segment of neuropsychological research so as to
produce a psychology of emotion that fits with current knowledge of human functioning and
thereby offers a more accurate basis for Willard’s framework of spirituality for evangelicals.

1 Methodology
In considering Willard's theology and psychology, of greatest significance will be his own
writings in spirituality. This thesis will principally consider his first four theological books as
they provide the broadest and most comprehensive platform to consider his theology and, in
particular, his understanding of emotion. Four additional texts were available at the time of
this writing: The Great Omission,7 Knowing Christ Today8, and two post-humorously
published books, Living in Christ's Presence with John Ortberg9 and The Divine Conspiracy
Continued.with Gary Black.10 While these will be considered as part of his full corpus, The

7 Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus' Essential teachings on Discipleship (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
8 Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (New York:
HarperOne, 2009).
9 Dallas Willard and John Ortberg, Living in Christ's Presence: Final Words on Heaven and the
Kingdom of God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2014).
10 Dallas Willard and Gary Black, Jr., The Divine Conspiracy Continued: Fulfilling God's Kingdom on
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Great Omission and two final books published after his death are either anthologies of
shorter essays or collaborative works aimed at clarification of his practical theology and do
not significantly add to his thought beyond the previous books. The other book, Knowing
Christ Today is primarily an apologetic and therefore contributes to his spirituality only in a
minor fashion.
His first book, Hearing God, formerly titled, In Search of Guidance, describes his philosophy
of personal engagement and communication with God, which he eventually connects to the
development of a holy lifestyle. This sets the stage for The Spirit of the Disciplines, which is
essentially a depiction of Christian virtue ethics and the responsibility of the individual to
actively engage his or her body and mind in active movement toward a lifestyle in which
personal engagement with God is possible. In The Divine Conspiracy11, Willard attempts to
correct what he understands to be the church's faulty conceptualization of the gospel, which
he replaces with an analysis of the Sermon on the Mount. Finally, Renovation of the Heart12
is largely his theological anthropology aimed at describing the process by which the
individual components of the human person may be changed and the final goal of each
transformation.
This research will assay each of these books, and to a lesser extent Willard's other writings,
on two levels. First, it will analyze them in a broad fashion for the purpose of determining
Willard's overall corrective to evangelical theology and spirituality, largely dominated by his

Earth (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014).
11 Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).
12 Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs, CO:
NavPress, 2002).
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focus on spiritual development, resulting in categories of critique and recommendation to
Christians and the evangelical church in particular. Second, it will examine each in detail,
extracting references to emotion and the nature of the will and desire, which he connects
intimately to human emotion. In this, it will highlight potential internal conflicts in his
understanding of emotion with some attempt to reconcile them, though some conflicts must
remain unresolved. This second, more detailed analysis will be performed in light of the first,
Willard's larger project of amending evangelical spirituality, so as to understand his
perspective on emotion in spirituality and development, especially insofar as emotions are
themselves to be developed or act as catalysts for development.
A second set of primary sources will be necessary for the neuropsychological analysis of
emotion in light of which the project will evaluate Willard's thought. First, Antonio
Damasio's first and most recent books, Descartes' Error13 and Self Comes to Mind14 depict a
distinction between instinctive and conscious emotion (emotion vs. feeling) and a description
of the manner in which emotion is connected to social dynamics. The data here will be used
to assess Willard's understanding of will and desire and the process of intentionality toward
transformation. Second, Jaak Panksepp's books, Affective Neuroscience15 and Archaeology of
Mind16, as well as various journal articles, provide neurological bases for specific emotional

13 Antonio Damasio R., Descartes' Error: Emotional, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1994).
14 Antonio Damasio R. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain (New York: Pantheon
Books, 2010).
15 Jaak Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (New
York: Oxford University Pres, 1998).
16 Jaak Panksepp and Lucy Biven. The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human
Emotions (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012).
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systems and, to a lesser extent, describe levels of emotional processing, which give greater
sharpness to Willard's definitions of emotion and the manner in which he sees God having
designed emotion at a fundamental level. The thesis will also incorporate Joseph LeDoux's
book, The Emotional Brain17, as a foundation for and overall depiction of the neurobiology
of emotion and its basis in psychological function. LeDoux's writing provides a broad
understanding of the brain's role in emotion on which the other authors' analyses rest, though
the focus is primarily on Panksepp and Damasio's theories as the framework through which
to assess Willard's thought.

2 Procedure
Given that much of Willard's work was intended as a corrective for American evangelical
spirituality, it is appropriate to begin with an overview of the history and character that led to
the elements of that spiritual culture that needed correction. This employs analysis of
secondary sources18 so as to provide the context out of which Willard arose. Split into two
sections, the first examines the overall progression of evangelical history, though it must be
understood that a complete history is not possible in this short space, while the second
specifically considers the development of those elements that Willard sought to amend. One
element is a strong, perhaps over-emphasis on conversion as integral to the Christian life,
eventually leading to an emphasis on conversion as the only necessary catalyst for personal
change. A second is the development of premillennial dispensationalism as a dominant

17 Joseph LeDoux, The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life (New York:
Touchstone, 1996).
18 Including but not limited to works by Randall Balmer, David Bebbington, Christopher Catherwood,
Stanley Grenz, Barry Hankins, Evan Howard, Mark Noll, and Ian Randall.