My constructs of interest are worldview disruption, spiritual meaning-making, and openness to theistic belief, especially as they relate to religious and spiritual struggle. While the Bible does not use the modern psychological language of “worldview disruption,” it speaks often about people whose assumptions about God, suffering, evil, identity, purpose, and reality are shaken. Using Scripture, cross-references, and Bible study tools such as Bible Gateway and a basic concordance-style search, I examined how the Bible speaks into spiritual struggle, meaning-making, and the unseen realities that shape how people understand life.

One important issue from the course video is the role of empiricism. Empiricism is valuable because it helps researchers observe, measure, and test ideas rather than relying only on opinion or personal experience. In psychology, this is necessary because constructs such as religious/spiritual struggle, meaning-making, anxiety, openness to belief, and worldview disruption must be defined and measured carefully. However, from a biblical worldview, empiricism is useful but not ultimate. It can help describe what people experience, but it cannot fully define what human beings are, what they are made for, or what is ultimately true. A biblical worldview begins with the belief that people are created in the image of God, fallen through sin, capable of suffering deeply, and invited into redemption through Christ.

Johnson’s Psychology & Christianity: Five Views is helpful here because it shows that Christians do not all approach psychology in the same way. The five views are the levels-of-explanation view, integration view, Christian psychology view, transformational psychology view, and biblical counseling view (Johnson, 2009). At this stage, I think I am closest to the integration view, with appreciation for the Christian psychology view. I value empirical research and believe psychology can offer meaningful insight into human suffering, but I also believe Christian theology must shape our interpretation of personhood, truth, healing, sin, suffering, redemption, and hope. I do not want to reject psychological science, but I also do not want to treat psychology as religiously or philosophically neutral.

The Psalms provide some of the clearest biblical examples of religious and spiritual struggle. Psalm 13 begins with the repeated cry, “How long, O LORD?” as David wrestles with feeling forgotten by God (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Ps. 13:1). Psalm 42 also captures spiritual distress when the psalmist asks, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” while still choosing to hope in God (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Ps. 42:5). These passages show that spiritual struggle is not always rebellion or failure. Sometimes, it is a faithful lament, in which a person brings pain, confusion, fear, and longing before God.

Job is another major biblical example. Job’s suffering shattered his assumptive world. He believed he was righteous, yet he experienced devastating loss, grief, and confusion. His friends tried to explain his suffering too quickly, but God eventually revealed that Job’s understanding of reality was too limited. This connects to my interest in worldview disruption because Job had to face the reality that God’s purposes were larger than what he could see or explain. Habakkuk also wrestled with God’s justice when evil seemed to go unanswered. He asked, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Habakkuk 1:2). Yet, by the end of the book, Habakkuk moved toward trust even without full circumstantial resolution.

The Bible also speaks into spiritual meaning-making. Romans 12:2 teaches believers to be transformed by the renewal of the mind, which suggests that how a person interprets reality matters deeply. Second Corinthians 10:5 calls believers to take thoughts captive to obey Christ. From a biblical worldview, meaning-making is not simply finding any interpretation that reduces distress. It involves bringing thoughts, fears, doubts, and experiences under the lordship of Christ. Scripture also affirms that reality is larger than the material world. Colossians 1:16 speaks of things “visible and invisible,” and Ephesians 6:12 reminds believers that human struggle is not only against “flesh and blood” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001). This does not mean Christian researchers should become speculative or sensational, but it does mean Scripture gives room for a worldview bigger than materialism.

When I compare this biblical perspective to the research literature, I see both similarities and differences. Recent research on religious and spiritual struggles recognizes that people can experience distress related to God, doubt, moral failure, ultimate meaning, religious community, and spiritual fear. Salcone et al. (2025) operationalized these struggles using the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale-5, which measures distinct dimensions of spiritual struggle in a concise, clinically useful way. Beeman et al. (2024) showed that religious/spiritual struggles are important in relation to anxiety symptoms among psychiatric outpatients. González-Rivera and Álvarez-Alatorre (2025) similarly found that religious and spiritual struggles were connected to mental health outcomes such as depression, anxiety, and flourishing.

The similarity is that both Scripture and the research literature take spiritual struggle seriously. Neither treats these struggles as imaginary or irrelevant. Both recognize that what people believe about God, meaning, suffering, and ultimate reality can deeply affect how they experience life. The difference is that psychological research usually describes and measures these struggles without making theological claims about what is ultimately true. The Bible, however, does not remain neutral. Scripture acknowledges distress and struggle, but it also points people toward God’s character, truth, repentance, hope, redemption, and worship.

This comparison also helps me think more carefully about measurement. If worldview disruption becomes part of my future research, it will need to be operationally defined in a way that can be studied empirically. Rather than trying to measure the unseen realm itself, I would need to examine measurable experiences such as shattered assumptions, meaning violation, religious/spiritual struggle, anxiety, spiritual curiosity, or openness to theistic belief. The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale provides one helpful anchor because it already measures forms of struggle related to God, doubt, moral concerns, ultimate meaning, and spiritual conflict (Salcone et al., 2025). Spiritual meaning-making could function as a way to examine how people interpret disruptive experiences, while openness to theistic belief could serve as a possible outcome. At this stage, I also recognize that a full model involving mediation and moderation may be too ambitious, so prior religious identity may be better treated first as a sample characteristic rather than as a modeled variable.

Bringing a biblical worldview to my area of research helps me keep the whole person in view. My interest in worldview disruption, spiritual meaning-making, and openness to theistic belief is not about using psychology to prove the existence of the unseen realm or to sensationalize unexplained experiences. It is about studying how people process moments when their assumptions about reality are challenged. Empirical research can help measure whether those moments produce fear, curiosity, anxiety, openness, spiritual struggle, or renewed meaning-making. A biblical worldview helps frame why those questions matter. Human beings are not merely biological or psychological creatures. They are created by God, made for relationship with Him, and designed to seek truth, meaning, and worship. Therefore, studying religious/spiritual struggle and spiritual meaning-making could help psychologists, pastors, chaplains, and counselors better care for people whose suffering is not only emotional, but also spiritual.

References

Beeman, C., Davis, E. B., Voytenko, V. L., McConnell, J. M., Lemke, A. W., Douce, T., Walk, T., Mills, N. D., Phillips, K. P., Marseilles, R., Wolff, R. P., & Pargament, K. I. (2024). The temporal association between religious/spiritual struggles and anxiety symptoms: A longitudinal study of psychiatric outpatients. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 16, Article 100709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100709

English Standard Version Bible. (2001). ESV Online. Crossway. https://www.esv.org/

González-Rivera, J. A., & Álvarez-Alatorre, Y. (2025). Religious and spiritual struggles and mental health outcomes in Puerto Rico. Interacciones, 11, Article e474. https://doi.org/10.24016/2025.v11.474

Johnson, E. L. (Ed.). (2009). Psychology & Christianity: Five views (2nd ed.). IVP Academic.

Salcone, S. G., Currier, J. M., McDermott, R. C., Davis, D. E., Raines, A. M., Lee, Y., Exline, J. J., & Pargament, K. I. (2025). Development and evaluation of the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale-5 (RSS-5). Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 47, Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-024-10182-9