(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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