In his latest encyclical, Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI addresses the need for the sciences to be guided by something other than itself – something above and beyond that which the sciences alone can comprehend. His Holiness writes:
25. … every generation must also make its own contribution to establishing convincing structures of freedom and of good, which can help the following generation as a guideline for the proper use of human freedom; hence, always within human limits, they provide a certain guarantee also for the future. In other words: good structures help, but of themselves they are not enough. Man can never be redeemed simply from outside. Francis Bacon and those who followed in the intellectual current of modernity that he inspired were wrong to believe that man would be redeemed through science. Such an expectation asks too much of science; this kind of hope is deceptive. Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it. On the other hand, we must also acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering. (Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI, 2008)
As is clear from the text, the role of the sciences should not be neglected or minimized; for indeed, they have proved invaluable in alleviating the numerous problems and improving the various dimensions of daily living. Yet, the sciences alone are not enough. Pure empirical facts are just that – facts: the what-is of things. How the what-is of things operate, especially in terms of the psychological sciences, do not necessarily mean that they ought to be that way. Every person walking into a therapist’s office is seeking change from the what-is into what is perceived as the what-ought-to-be in his or her life.
This, then, is a challenge that the Institute for the Psychological Sciences is answering: The challenge to incorporate what is known, understood, tested, and verified in the most current empirical research endeavors – in other words, the what-is – into a framework in which the what-ought-to-be can be understood and lived out in reality. Through the understanding of the human person by truths discovered in psychology, philosophy, and theology, the IPS undertakes the mission to reflect back His Holiness’ message – to bring HOPE back into clients’ lives.