I looked up and the dog was covered in horse manure!

Your beliefs about the nature of Man are fundamental to your worldview and your study of psychology. Are we the creation of a purposeful and relational God, or the product of evolutionary forces? Or both? Are we born “good?” Do we have a mind that is greater than the sum of our brain activity? Do we have a soul that survives the death of the body?

Your worldview of the nature of Man builds on your beliefs about God and the accuracy of the Bible. A Christian view of Man, or Biblical Anthropology, describes us as the purposeful creation of God, made in His image and likeness, and as sinners in rebellion against Him by nature and by choice. We were made from the dust of the earth and are part of the natural order. As such, we have much in common with the animals. We are born, we grow old, and our bodies eventually die. However, like God, we are spiritual beings. Unlike the animals, we have moral discernment, freedom to choose, and responsibility for our behavior. We experience guilt, grace, and love. We are relational beings. We have consciousness, a mind, and a soul.

Christians have an interesting debate about whether we are one, two, or three-part beings. As we will see in chapter 3, modern naturalistic psychology is united in its worldview. In that worldview, all mental life is nothing more than complex brain activity. There is no mind or soul.

Christians believe that Man is material, made from the dust of the earth. But we believe we are something more. The Bible in Genesis 1:26-26 and elsewhere is clear that there is something about us that makes us distinct from the animals. But what is the nature of our God-likeness?

God created us to be in relationship with Him. Dualism, the traditional Christian worldview, reasons that because God is spiritual (non-material), we must have a non-material nature in order to have that relationship. Dualists believe that our brains and our minds are distinct in essence, but operate in interaction. Some Christians have a trichotomous worldview, which describes Man in terms of body, mind, and soul. A Christian monist sees us as "one" in essence, as embodied souls in an irreducible unity of mind, body and soul.

It all has nothing to do with the dog. That's the chapter on Pavlov.