Matthew Stuckey here from Verity Baptist Church Philippines and I wanted to make a quick
introductory video on a new video series we're going to be having here on traits of psychopaths.
Traits of psychopaths. Now you know some people might have this idea well you know why even talk
about psychopaths you know what does this have to do with the Bible. The Bible never speaks about
psychopaths but the Bible actually speaks about all subjects and psychopaths are actually mentioned
throughout the Bible and so some people think well since the word point number one that some
people think that since the word psychopath is not in the Bible that the Bible never speaks about it
but actually the Bible uses a different word called reprobate and so there's a lot of times
that the Bible uses a different word than what our modern day would actually use. For example the word
pregnant is not in our King James Bible but the Bible does speak about over and over again women
that are with child and so just because it does not use the word psychopath does not mean that
it's not reference it actually refers to them as reprobates and when it comes to this series the
main person that we're gonna be using in order to you know work on this series is we're gonna use
the work of a man by the name of Robert D. Hare and so he's considered by most people to be the
expert on the topic of psychopathy. If you have seen the movie psychopath reprobates the documentary
which our church actually produced in the United States in California you know Robert D. Hare was
was kind of the main person used because he's considered the expert in the field and so he
wrote a book called without conscience that talks about psychopaths and he's a Canadian psychologist
in his 80s but in addition to that he also has a psychopathy checklist which is basically the
industry standard to determine if someone's a psychopath or not and these 20 characteristics
are actually characteristics that I've I've seen throughout the Bible every single one of them and
so in this video series we're gonna be going through one characteristic per video and just
showing you how psychopaths are guilty of these exact things and so when it comes to the 20
characteristics or traits of a psychopath they're rated as zero if they do not have that trait one
if they kind of have that trait and two if they very much have that trait the cutoff point for
where they determine what a psychopath is based on this checklist is if you add up to 30 points
if you're in the u.s. and 25 points in the UK and so the the reason why they have that is just to
make a determination as they're trying to do studies on what they determined to be a psychopath or
not now obviously the Bible does not give this direct checklist to determine if someone's a
psychopath or not you do see psychopaths guilty of these 20 characteristics that are reprobates
guilty these 20 characteristics that Robert D Hare actually identified in the psychopathy checklist
however the determination of if somebody is a psychopath or not is if you've been rejected by
God and what the Bible says in Jeremiah 6 verse 30 is reprobate silver shall men call them because
the Lord hath rejected them and so reprobate the Lord hath rejected them so the definition of
reprobate is found there in Jeremiah 6 verse 30 where reprobate is someone who's been rejected by
God and that is what a psychopath is someone who has been rejected by God and at that time they
are now without conscience when they had a conscience before and they are no longer able
to believe on Jesus Christ they've actually lost that ability they become a child of the devil and
they will always be a reprobate and nothing will ever change that there is no medicine or anything
that you can do to actually change it at that point they're actually rejected and they are now
a child of the devil and just like somebody who gets saved is a child of God forever when someone
becomes a child of the devil that is forever as well and it can never actually be changed so point
number one the Bible does talk about psychopaths with the word reprobate point number two we talked
about Robert D Hare point three we talked about the determination of a psychopath is if you are
rejected point four what about nature versus nurture this is a big discussion in the field
of psychopathy and I want you to understand that we're gonna be using this checklist and we're
gonna be using a lot of studies that that people have done in the field of psychopathy and there's
a lot of great information however of course at the end of the day they're not looking at this
perfectly through the lens of the Bible so there are some things that are slightly inaccurate or
some things that are not complete like I talked about you know the determination of somebody's a
psychopath or not they basically add up these characteristics and traits and if you're above
a certain amount they determine your psychopath and if you're not above it then you're not a
psychopath or you might be but they're not sure if you're near that line and so that's not actually
what the Bible teaches though and so there's this discussion of nature versus nurture are people
psychopaths because they're born psychopaths is it biological and genetic or is it because of the
way they're raised is it because of the environment that causes them to become psychopaths generally
accepted in the field of psychopathy is that some people are born psychopaths and determined based
on how you are raised that can make you more or less likely to commit certain crimes or not but
it is primarily nature that determines whether or not your psychopath or not and nurture determines
on whether or not you're gonna act in a good way or a bad way as a psychopath or whether or not
you're gonna be able to be a functioning person of society as a psychopath based on how you were
raised well this is not what the Bible teaches and so the reason why they come to this conclusion I
believe is because when they look at the frontal lobe which is where they believe the the conscience
is located it appears to be damaged when it comes to psychopaths as opposed to non psychopaths and
there is no denying that when they do brain scans there is a difference that you can actually see
between a psychopath and a non psychopath and they take that information and they assume that means
somebody must have been a psychopath from birth this is not actually what the Bible teaches and
I'll talk about that the brain scan here more in a second but it says in Romans 2 verses 14 to 15
for when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law these
having not the law are a law unto themselves which show the work of the law written in their hearts
their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing
one another the Bible talks about people that inside of their heart the law is actually written
and it says that they have a conscience and it said in verse 14 by nature they do the things
contained in the law and what that means is that even if people do not have the Word of God and
don't know any Bible verses they still know that it's wrong to murder they still know that it's
wrong to lie and their conscience will proclaim that to them and they will feel wrong about it
and feel guilty if they commit certain sins because they know it's wrong even though they
know why or they don't necessarily know a Bible verse but they just know it because the law is
written inside of their hearts and so the Bible says that people are born with a conscience and
if you go back to Romans 1 it talks about how people are without excuse and so everybody in
this world is without excuse when it comes to believing on Jesus Christ and I want you to
understand this that people are born with a conscience but yet people can actually lose
that conscience so by nature people are not psychopaths now nurture can greatly affect
whether or not someone ends up becoming a psychopath or not whenever you look at people
that are psychopaths I believe it's Henry Lee Lucas is the person whose mom was a prostitute
and she forced him to dress in in women's clothing and as a young boy sleep with both men and women
and he ended up growing up and hating God and that is oftentimes the case that these psychopaths
and serial killers and serial rapists and these really bad people they grow up in a really bad
environment and the result ends up being that they end up hating God and being mad at God and
eventually that means God will at some point reject them if they reject God for so long now
here's the thing people still have a free will and people can have a bad environment and become
normal people and people can end up getting saved there are many people that are believers
on Jesus Christ that when they were a kid they were molested or they had a terrible upbringing
but they did not choose to hate God so it is still a free will choice that these people make
to end up getting mad at God and blaming God but the Bible talks about how people are born as a
normal person God hath made man upright and he hath sought out many inventions but nurture the
environment in which you're raised nurture can greatly affect whether or not you become a
psychopath or not and so the Bible says in 1st Timothy 4 verse 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy
having their conscience seared with a hot iron so the Bible speaks about how people are born with a
conscience according to Romans 2 however that conscience can be seared with a hot iron and when
it comes to the frontal lobe what it honestly looks like to me is that the conscience of these
psychopaths has been actually seared with a hot iron now whether or not God actually makes a
physical change to a person when they actually become a reprobate when they actually become a
psychopath when they're actually rejected by God you know what I am not for sure on that but I do
think it's possible that it's not merely being symbolic but there's actually a physical change
that takes place when someone becomes a psychopath another option could be that it's just inactive so
it appears to be damaged but the bottom line is people are born as normal people they're not born
psychopaths that does not come by nature that comes by nurture but also their own free will
choice so that's point number four nature versus nurture and that's something that you know the
study of psychopathy they're not they're not correct on that in general they believe that
someone's born a psychopath it's not actually what the Bible teaches and they have a cutoff point if
you're above a certain amount of points on the psychopathy checklist then you're a psychopath
but the Bible says you're either rejected or not rejected and the bottom line is this though if
someone is not rejected whether they're saved or unsaved as long as they are not a psychopath the
bottom line is non reprobates can do some pretty bad things you see that King Saul is trying to
kill King David over and over again and he even has the priests of the Lord put to death at one
point and no man is willing to do it but doag is willing to do it for King Saul and you look at
King Saul doing wicked things and you might think man this guy's a psychopath but he's actually not
a psychopath but he's actually just doing some pretty bad things then later on King David not
only does he commit adultery with Bathsheba and have Uriah put to death but he's very callous and
completely lacks empathy for Uriah and when you look at the things that he says you know that the
sword devoureth one as well as another if somebody did that in your modern day you would think that
they're psychopath or you think of Amnon raping Tamar and I don't believe Amnon was a psychopath
David certainly didn't because David was comforted concerning Amnon when he was dead which is
something he did not have when Absalom died indicating King David believed that Absalom was
in hell whereas he believed that Amnon was in heaven so I presume Amnon was probably a believer
but he does something pretty bad now when somebody becomes a psychopath they are filled with
some unnatural desires and when you look at the atrocities done by people such as the the Catholic
priests that molest little children these are things that are not normal they're not natural
when you think of serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer or I mean any serial killer that they enjoy
killing and they just have you know lack empathy you know what these are people that are reprobates
however someone who's not a reprobate could lack empathy from time to time someone who's not a
reprobate could be manipulative and lie and and do these things that you would assume would make
them a psychopath and are things that are certainly evident within psychopaths however as long as they
still have a conscience then they are not a psychopath and the Bible does talk about people
that proclaim to know God but by works they deny him and being abominable and disobedient on in
on to every good work reprobate so I certainly do believe that we can look at the works of people
that are doing really bad things and you could certainly question with some people if they are
a psychopath or not based on just not appearing to have any guilt for wrong things that they do
however I do want you to realize that in the Bible there are people that are not reprobates
that are not psychopaths that do some pretty bad things and so just some closing things I want you
to understand psychopaths exist in all areas of life so you know if this series scares you and
you say man I want to avoid psychopaths I'm just gonna avoid church I'm gonna avoid the grocery
store you're gonna have to avoid everything because psychopaths exist in all areas oftentimes we
assume that people that are serial killers those are the psychopaths but the Bible also speaks
about psychopaths being people that are in the corporate world and they don't necessarily murder
anybody but they're willing to manipulate and lie in order to get to the top and they are very
dangerous to us dangerous to society as well because they do not have a conscience and they
only care about themselves and so I want you to realize whether or not you know it or not there
are psychopaths in your personal life whether you realize that or not maybe they're just acquaintances
hopefully they're not friends hopefully they're not family however they do exist in your life and
they are people that you're going to come in contact with and it is important to be ready
and prepared for these types of people because they will use you and abuse you and destroy your
life because they do not care about you so just in closing let me say this that when it comes to
these characteristics and these traits what we're looking at are 20 different traits that are on the
psychopathy checklist developed by Robert D. Hare now we're gonna divide these because I've seen this
division made into factor one in factor two traits we're gonna have one video for each of the 20
points but factor one traits are interpersonal and affective so there's four traits under each
one of these interpersonal and affective characteristics and things that are evident
in psychopaths and not always evident in the normal person in this world there's also factor
two traits which are lifestyle and antisocial which have five in each ones now let me just say
something quickly about being antisocial the word antisocial in our modern day oftentimes means
people that are shy or introverted or against socialization that's not actually what antisocial
means when it comes to the study of psychopathy it's actually people that do not follow socially
accepted protocols they only care about themselves and they do things that a normal person wouldn't
do because they only care about themselves and I'll talk about that more later on in this video
series but being shy does not mean that you're a psychopath and there are also two characteristics
or two traits that do not fit under factor one or factor two in terms of these 20 traits of being a
psychopath and so anyways I hope you're able to watch this video series I do believe that it's
going to be helpful for you and we're gonna base it on the Bible and we're gonna show what the
Bible says about each of these different topics and you're gonna see that this actually comes up
a lot in the Bible whether you've realized that in the past or not and you know as Bible believe
in Christians we do need to be aware of these things because there are bad people that are out
there and maybe they never murder maybe they never do anything maybe they never rape anybody but at
the same time they will use people they will cause problems they will manipulate and they will use
you and abuse you and destroy your life because they only care about themselves anyways thank you
and God bless