Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

nevertheless to have agreed with Calvin in regarding true repentance as one of the fruits
of faith. Lutherans are wont to stress the fact that repentance is wrought by the law and
faith by the gospel. It should be borne in mind, however, that the two cannot be
separated; they are simply complementary parts of the same process.
E. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONVERSION.
During recent years psychologists have made a special study of the phenomena of
conversion.
1. THE NATURE OF THIS STUDY. The nature of this study can best be learned from such
works as those of Coe, The Spiritual Life; Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion; James,
Varieties of Religious Experience; Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience; Pratt, The
Religious Consciousness; Clark, The Psychology of Religious Awakening; Hughes, The New
Psychology and Religious Experience; and Horton, The Psychological Approach to Theology.
For a long time Psychology neglected the facts of the religious life altogether, but for
more than a quarter of a century now it has taken notice of them. At first the attention
was focussed primarily — not to say exclusively — on what must have appeared to be
the great central fact of religious experience, the fact of conversion. Psychologists have
studied many cases of conversion inductively and have attempted to classify the
various forces at work in conversion, to distinguish the different types of religious
experience, to determine the period of life in which conversion is most apt to occur, and
to discover the laws that control the phenomena of conversion. While they presented
their study as a purely inductive investigation into the phenomena of religion as shown
in individual experience, and in some cases expressed the laudable desire and intention
to keep their own philosophical and religious convictions in the background, they
nevertheless in several instances clearly revealed a tendency to look upon conversion as
a purely natural process, just as amenable to the ordinary laws of psychology as any
other psychical fact; and to overlook, if not to deny explicitly, its supernatural aspect.
The more careful scholars among them ignore, but do not deny, the supernatural in
conversion. They explain their silence respecting the deeper aspects of this central fact
in religious experience by calling attention to their limitations as psychologists. They
can only deal with observed facts and the psychical laws which evidently control them,
but have no right to probe into the possible or probable spiritual background, in which
these facts find their explanation. They have pointed out that conversion is not a
specifically Christian phenomenon, but is also found in other religions; and that it is not
necessarily a religious phenomenon, but also occurs in non-religious spheres. In fact, it
is but one of the many changes that occur in the period of adolescence, “a sudden
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