Definition
Premature closure is a cognitive error that occurs when someone accepts or rejects an idea before even investigating it. Premature closure maintains a bias toward ideas I already accept and a bias against ideas that differ from my own thinking.
Premature closure is the premature closure of the mind and of the ears.
Premise
The modern biblical counseling movement habitually engages in premature closure.
First Generation Biblical Counseling Example
Jay Adams, often communicated, “Let’s keep developing this approach to counseling.” In More Than Redemption, Adams specifically encouraged such ongoing development.
However, he often strongly reacted against such development, even by fellow biblical counselors—seeing such developments not as advancements, but as items for refutation. For instance, when Ed Welch presented a contrary view of “the flesh” in the Journal of Biblical Counseling, Spring 2002, Adams wrote a lengthy letter of refutation. The JBC editorial team only published one small section of the letter, and then stated:
[Editorial note: We have shortened Adams’s letter at this point. Welch had presented a list of 20 items (pp. 22-23 of JBC, Spring 2002) that he thought “seem to follow” from Adams’s proposition that “flesh” refers to the body, which physically encodes sinful habits prior to
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