In Christian counseling, it is possible to speak often about God while quietly asking counseling to do what only God can do. When theology is thin and psychological categories become primary, counseling can slowly assume functions that belong properly to the doctrine of God—providing ultimate meaning, final assurance, and interpretive authority over suffering. This is rarely intentional, but it is deeply formative.
The doctrine of the Absoluteness of God guards against this drift. By grounding hope, authority, and meaning in who God eternally is—not in techniques, insights, or therapeutic presence—it protects counseling from becoming a functional substitute for God Himself.
This is our final post in the series on divine absoluteness. Here we move beyond direct engagement with Barth to address one of the enduring consequences of the theological trajectory he helped shape. Barth did not write about Christian counseling, but the pastoral and theological instincts flowing from his work—especially his emphasis on divine action over divine being—have profoundly influenced the spiritual frameworks many counselors now inhabit. In these frameworks, counseling can easily begin to carry theological weight it was never meant to bear. When counseling supplies hope, authority, and meaning apart from the absoluteness of God, it does not merely assist faith—it quietly replaces it.
Counseling Without a Theological Center
Counseling exists to help people in crisis find a way forward. In the midst of crisis, however, it can be difficult to hear God’s voice or experience His comforting presence. That silence creates pressure—not only for the sufferer, but for the counselor as well. The sufferer needs hope, meaning, direction, and healing in order to endure and move forward. And the counselor, desiring to help, can begin to feel responsible to supply those very things.
When this happens, counselors can slowly and unintentionally become de facto authorities in the life of the sufferer. Our counsel begins to function as their hope. Without a strong doctrinal foundation, we may quietly redirect counselees away from their true help—God Himself—and toward lesser substitutes: our insight, our presence, a technique, or even their own inner resources. What begins as care can become displacement.
One common example of this displacement can be seen in attachment-informed spiritual counseling, where spiritual disciplines are increasingly framed as tools for emotional regulation rather than acts of worship and obedience. Practices such as prayer, Scripture meditation, or silence are often evaluated by their capacity to produce felt safety or relational soothing. While these practices may indeed bring comfort, the danger lies in redefining their purpose. In this framework prayer “works” if it calms me; Scripture “helps” if it grounds me; God is “near” if I feel regulated. The discipline becomes instrumental, not doxological. When disciplines are ordered primarily toward therapeutic outcomes rather than toward God Himself, they quietly shift the center of gravity away from divine worship and toward psychological effect. God becomes the means by which emotional stability is achieved, rather than the One to whom faithfulness is rendered regardless of emotional state.
In practice, the counselor can unintentionally point his counselee away from the character of God as their hope. The spiritual disciplines become their functional salvation. The problem, of course, is what happens when Bible reading, prayer, and meditation don’t alter my mood? What then do I make of God? How do I move forward with any real hope and help if my source of authority has been robbed of its power? We need something more robust than this approach. We need counseling practices that center theology. We may still encourage the same practices, and we may even speak to ways in which they can help with mood regulation. Yet the center of their hope is in the person of God himself, not in our use of spiritual disciplines. That’s a stark contrast and one that offers better help to our counselees.
This displacement should not surprise us. What we are seeing in contemporary counseling practice is the pastoral outworking of a theological instinct we have already traced in this series. When God’s identity is grounded primarily in how He meets us through action—rather than in who He eternally is—faith becomes tethered to experience. In theology, this takes the form of defining God by His redemptive acts. In counseling, it takes the form of defining God by what “works” emotionally. The logic is the same, even if the context is different. When divine identity is functionally grounded, counseling is quietly pressured to supply what only God can be.
The Absoluteness of God Protects Counseling
The doctrine of God’s absoluteness helps us offer better counsel to those in need by grounding hope, authority, and meaning firmly in the unchanging character of a loving God. Let’s explore each of these points in brief detail.
First, the absoluteness of God grounds hope in divine character. God is our only true source of lasting hope in an ever-changing world. Because God is absolute—self-existent, unchanging, and not conditioned by human response—hope in Him is never provisional or fragile. Conversely, counselors are fallible and counsel can be misleading or false. Counseling theories, likewise, can be proven faulty or in need of refinement. A counselee’s own capacity and skill can falter. Lastly, medications can be a gift of God, but they are rarely sufficient on their own and often require ongoing adjustment. While all of these elements can be helpful parts of change, healing, and help, we should not make any of the ultimate.
The Psalmist warns Israel of this and directs them to place their hope not in “horses and chariots” but in the Lord (Ps. 20:7). The Lord is our rock and fortress (Ps. 18:2), our ever present help in time of need (Ps. 46:1). The one who waits on the Lord, we are told, will not be put to shame (Ps. 25:3). This level of confidence is owing to the unchanging and eternal character of our God. We can place our hope in Him because He does not change—because His being, purposes, and promises are not conditioned by our success, clarity, or progress. As the prophet Malachi records, “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Mal. 3:6). God’s absoluteness is not a cold abstraction; it is the very reason hope survives when circumstances do not change. No counselor, no theory, no technique will ever be as stable or trustworthy as the Lord our God.
Second, the absoluteness of God grounds authority by relativizing all other voices. God’s knowledge and wisdom are absolute. He does not learn new things, gain new insights, or need new studies. When He speaks through His Word He speaks with absolute authority and sufficiency. No other counseling insight, as useful as it might be, can claim that same level of sufficiency and accuracy. This is important for the counselee because their help is rooted and grounded in an unchanging Word of God. God is not like man that he should lie or change His mind (Numbers 23:19). In fact, His counsel stands forever (Ps. 33:11). He already knows all things (Isa. 46:10) and so He speaks with complete knowledge. This means a counselor is not the authority in life, nor the voices of the counselee’s past, nor their own internal self-critic. Their help lies in embracing the authority of God’s voice, especially when other voices sound louder.
This truth also helps the counselor. We do not have to have all the answers. We can speak boldly when we speak God’s Word (though even here we must be conscious of the difference between our interpretations and God’s Word), but we do not speak as the authority. We have a role to play as counselors. We can point to the true authority and the true source of help and hope. We can use various counseling skills, techniques, and theories that enables us to highlight the central truths of God’s Word, but we do not have to be the ultimate source of anyone’s help. This frees us to counsel wisely and humbly, and it helps us to avoid practices that create dependency. God is the authority, we are merely His representatives.
Third, and finally, divine absoluteness grounds meaning in the eternal purposes of God. Counseling often attempts to provide sufferers with meaning. Sometimes that is a meaning for their suffering (a causal explanation), but often it is a meaning beyond their suffering (post-traumatic growth, for example). This can indeed be helpful to people. Having an explanation gives them a sense of power and understanding and can provide avenues to tailor a response or growth plan moving forward. The trouble, however, is when we make these explanations ultimate. These explanations falter because they can never be comprehensive, they can change, and sometimes they can be outright wrong. All explanations are, after all, interpretations of data—sometimes accurate and helpful, sometimes incomplete or mistaken, but always provisional. God’s purposes, however, are eternal and they provide us with secure meaning (Ps. 33:11; Isa. 46:9-10).
Divine absoluteness secures meaning in three ways. First, His purposes precede experience (Prov. 16:9; Eph. 1:11). God’s purposes exist before a painful event in our life, not as a reaction to it. Second, His purposes exceed interpretation (Isa. 55:8-9; Rom. 11:33). God’s purposes are deeper than our finite explanations. Third, His purposes outlast understanding (Job 42:2-3; Ecc. 3:11). God’s purposes remain even when we don’t understand what He is up to.
A counselee in deep suffering often asks: Why did this happen? What am I supposed to learn? How is this good? A functional or therapeutic model feels pressure to answer those questions quickly. Absoluteness gives you permission not to rush meaning, but also not to surrender it. If we center theology in our counseling practice, we can honestly respond with:
“I don’t know why this happened.”
“I can’t yet see what good will come.”
“This may never make sense to us on this side of eternity.”
These are honest, humble statements, and yet we can also say: Your suffering is not meaningless because it is held within the eternal purposes of God. There’s no contradiction.
Conclusion
This is why Christian counseling needs robust doctrine. It is not about being theologically fastidious, nor is it merely about being doctrinally sound—though that is a primary concern. It is more than a matter of accuracy. Christian counseling that does not center theology does not simply lose precision; it forfeits some of its most powerful therapeutic resources. Doctrine is for life, and doctrines like the Absoluteness of God are not abstract ideas but real and sustaining help for suffering souls.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 