In this perspective, the Scriptures were not generally viewed as sufficient or authoritative for the counseling task.176 As has been mentioned, Oates was guided by a diverse group of counselors, ministers, and academic theologians who made use of the findings of modern psychology. These various influences contributed to Oates’s pastoral counseling and how he viewed and approached it through a psychological lens and framework.177 For Oates, contemporary psychology and the behavioral sciences were