Cobb, John B. Jr. “Empirical Theology and Pastoral Care.” In Empirical Theology: A Handbook, edited by R. C. Miller, 247-63. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1992.

Abstract

Most of works on empirical theology written by the practicing pastors but not by professional theologians, and the main concerns are oriented to the problems of faith in a changing intellectual context. Within the relation between pastoral care and a theology, it should appeal to the depths of experience, or so called “radical empiricism.” One feature of empirical theology is particularly supportive of the effort to broaden the notion of wholeness, healedness, or salvation. From this perspective, there are twelve points of light in its implications, such as salvation in a purely individualistic way, recognization of the limitations of individualistic counseling, rejecting the deterministic elements and dualism of personal and social concerns, insisting on the importance of the body and the wholeness of every aspect of the psychic life, emphasizing on the enlargement of community, encouraging to widen our horizons in another way, and supporting the recognition that what makes for true growth for cultural relation. The paper discusses the idea of grace from the point of empirical theology, the pastor as practical theologian, making belief in God relevant, and empiricism and speculation.