8
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ON THE TWO TASKS OF THE CHARISTIAN SCHOLAR
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG
The Battle
“The contemporary Western intellectual world,” writes the noted philosopher Alvin Plantinga, “is a battleground or arena in which rages a battle for men’s souls.”1Christian academics, especially those who teach at secular institutions, are the church’s front line in this battle.
It is the common conviction of the contributors to this volume that this is a front that is absolutely crucial for the advance of the kingdom of God in our day. Why? Simply because the single most important institution shaping Western culture is the university. It is at the university that our future political leaders, our journalists, our lawyers, our teachers, our business executives, our artists, will be trained. It is at the university that they will formulate or, more likely, simply absorb the worldview that will shape their lives. And since these are the opinion makers and leaders who shape our culture, the worldview that they imbibe at the university will be the one that shapes our culture. If we change the university, we change our culture through those who shape culture. If the Christian worldview can be restored to a place of prominence and respect at the university, it will have a leavening effect throughout society.
Why is this important? Simply because the gospel is never heard in isolation. It is always heard against the background of the cultural milieu in which one lives. A person raised in a cultural milieu in which Christianity is still seen as an intellectually viable option will display an openness to the gospel that a person who is secularized will not. For the secular person you may as well tell him to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ! Or, to give a more realistic illustration, it is like a devotee of the Hare Krishna movement approaching you on the street and inviting you to believe in Krishna. Such an invitation strikes us as bizarre, freakish, even amusing. But to a person on the streets of Delhi, such an invitation would, I assume, appear quite reasonable and be cause for reflection. I fear that evangelicals may appear almost as weird to persons on the streets of Bonn, Stockholm, or New York as do the devotees of Krishna.2
The Need for Christian Scholars
It is part of the task of Christian academics to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women. The great Princeton theologian J. Gresham Machen rightly declared:
False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation to be controlled by ideas which prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root.3
The root of the obstacle is to be found in the university, and it is there that it must be attacked.
We desperately need evangelical scholars who can compete with secular scholars on their own terms of scholarship. Recall Charles Malik’s warning to American Christians of the danger of neglecting the mind. He asked pointedly:
Who among the evangelicals can stand up to the great secular . . . scholars on their own terms of scholarship and research? Who among evangelical scholars is quoted as a normative source by the greatest secular authorities on history or philosophy or psychology or sociology or politics? Does your mode of thinking have the slightest chance of becoming the dominant mode in the great universities of Europe and America which stamp your entire civilization with their spirit and ideas?4
Malik went on to say:
It will take a different spirit altogether to overcome this great danger. . . . As an example only, I say this different spirit, so far as the domain of philosophy alone is concerned, which is the most important domain so far as thought and intellect are concerned, must see the tremendous value of spending a whole year doing nothing except poring intensely over the Republic or the Sophist of Plato, or two years over the Metaphysics or the Ethics of Aristotle, or three years over the City of God of Augustine. Even if you start now on a crash program in this and other domains, it will be a century at least before you catch up with the Harvards and Tübingens and the Sorbonnes, and think of where these universities will be then. For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus Christ himself, as well as for their own sakes, the evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence.5
These words hit like a hammer. Evangelicals have for the most part been living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence. Where are the Christian historians, literary critics, physicists, sociologists? As Christian academics, we need to examine ourselves to see if we are contending effectively for the faith in our area. If the university and, as a consequence, our culture is to be changed, evangelical academics need to exercise a leavening influence for Christ in their respective fields of expertise.
The Transformation of a Discipline
It can be done! For example, over the last forty years there has been an ongoing revolution in the Anglo-American world in the field of philosophy. Since the late 1960s Christian philosophers have been coming out of the closet and defending the truth of the Christian worldview with philosophically sophisticated arguments in the finest secular journals and societies. And the face of AngloAmerican philosophy has been transformed as a result.
Fifty years ago philosophers widely regarded talk about God as literally meaningless, as mere gibberish, but today no informed philosopher could take such a viewpoint. In fact, many of America’s finest philosophers today are outspoken Christians.
To give you a feel for the impact of this revolution, I want to quote at some length from an article that appeared in the fall of 2001 in the journal Philo lamenting what the author called “the desecularization of academia that evolved in philosophy departments since the late 1960s.” The author, himself a prominent atheist philosopher, writes:
By the second half of the twentieth century, universities . . . had been become in the main secularized. The standard . . . position in each field . . . assumed or involved arguments for a naturalist world-view; departments of theology or religion aimed to understand the meaning and origins of religious writings, not to develop arguments against naturalism. Analytic philosophers . . . treated theism as an anti-realist or non-cognitivist world-view, requiring the reality, not of a deity, but merely of emotive expressions or certain “forms of life.” . . .
This is not to say that none of the scholars in the various academic fields were realist theists in their “private lives”; but realist theists, for the most part, excluded their theism from their publications and teaching, in large part because theism . . . was mainly considered to have such a low epistemic status that it did not meet the standards of an “academically respectable” position to hold. The secularization of mainstream academia began to quickly unravel upon the publication of Plantinga’s influential book, God and Other Minds, in 1967. It became apparent to the philosophical profession that this book displayed that realist theists were not outmatched by naturalists in terms of the most valued standards of analytic philosophy: conceptual precision, rigor of argumentation, technical erudition, and an in-depth defense of an original world-view. This book, followed seven years later by Plantinga’s even more impressive book, The Nature of Necessity, made it manifest that a realist theist was writing at the highest qualitative level of analytic philosophy, on the same playing field as Carnap, Russell, Moore, Grünbaum, and other naturalists. . . .
Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism, most influenced by Plantinga’s writings, began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians. Although many theists do not work in the area of the philosophy of religion, so many of them do work in this area that there are now over five philosophy journals devoted to theism or the philosophy of religion, such as Faith and Philosophy, Religious Studies, International Journal of the Philosophy of Religion, Sophia, Philosophia Christi, etc. Philosophia Christi began in the late 1990s and already is overflowing with submissions from leading philosophers. . . . Theists in other fields tend to compartmentalize their theistic beliefs from their scholarly work; they rarely assume and never argue for theism in their scholarly work. If they did, they would be committing academic suicide or, more exactly, their articles would quickly be rejected. . . . But in philosophy, it became, almost overnight, “academically respectable” to argue for theism, making philosophy a favored field of entry for the most intelligent and talented theists entering academia today.6
He concludes:
God is not “dead” in academia; he returned to life in the late 1960s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments.7
This is the testimony of a prominent atheist philosopher to the change that has taken place before his eyes in Anglo-American philosophy. I think that he is probably exaggerating when he estimates that one-quarter to one-third of American philosophers are theists, but what his estimates do reveal is the perceived impact of Christian philosophers upon this field. Like Gideon’s army, a committed minority of activists can have an impact far out of proportion to its numbers. The principal error that he makes is calling philosophy departments God’s “last stronghold” at the university. On the contrary, philosophy departments are a beachhead, from which operations can be launched to impact other disciplines at the university for Christ.
The point is that the task of desecularization is not hopeless or impossible, nor need significant changes take as long to achieve as one might think. It is this sort of Christian scholarship that represents the best hope for the transformation of culture that Malik and Machen envisioned, and its true impact for the cause of Christ will be felt only in the next generation, as it filters down into popular culture.
Advice for Christian Professors
So what positive suggestions might one offer to help Christian academics to be more effective in their battle for the souls of men and women being waged at the university? Let me make three suggestions:
1. Engage intellectually not just with your chosen discipline, but with your Christian faith. It seems strange to have to make this suggestion to Christian academics. You would think that as persons who have chosen the life of the mind as their vocation, they would be naturally intellectually curious and so desirous of understanding and exploring Christian theology and apologetics. Of all people, you would expect them to be intellectually engaged with their faith!
But I have found that this is not at all the case. I am astonished at what a weak grasp many Christian professors seem to have of Christian doctrine and how impotent they are when called upon to give a defense for the hope that is in them (1 Peter 3:15). One would expect non-Christian professors to be largely ignorant of Christian theology. After all, we all specialize in a certain field and as a result are ignorant of things in other fields. For example, I know something about philosophy; but I know absolutely nothing about economics, or chemical engineering, or agriculture, or business. What is shocking to me, however, is how many Christian academics seem content to possess a profound knowledge of their area of specialization and yet have little better than a Sunday school education when it comes to their Christian faith, on which they have staked their lives and eternal destiny.
I have been stunned by conversations with Christian professors that reveal that they have little grasp of basic Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, or the attributes of God. It also surprises me when I see their loss for words when called upon to explain why they believe that Christianity is true. Though brilliant in their chosen fields, they are like uninformed laymen when it comes to their Christian faith.
“My beloved brethren, these things ought not to be,” to quote the apostle Paul. I’m obviously not saying that every Christian academic needs to become a theologian. But I am saying that we need to have a fundamental grasp of basic Christian doctrine, church history, Old and New Testament contents, and apologetics. Really, all this would involve is digesting a few good books on these areas.
To be practical let me recommend a few books to get you started. On New Testament introduction, try Donald Guthrie’s New Testament Introduction or Carson, Moo, and Morris’s Introduction to the New Testament. For Christian doctrine, I recommend Hubert Cunliffe-Jones’s A History of Christian Doctrine or Roger Olson’s The Story of Christian Theology. And for basic apologetics, start with Lee Strobel’s popular Case for a Creator and Case for Christ or my own Reasonable Faith.
There is simply no excuse for Christian academics, who have devoted themselves to the life of the mind, to be lazy and ignorant when it comes to the truth claims of the Christian religion. We shall be far sharper tools in the Lord’s hand if we engage our minds intellectually with our own Christian faith.
2. Strive to integrate your Christian faith with your discipline. As educated Christians our goal should be to have a Christian weltanschauung, a world and life view that provides a Christian perspective on the arts, on physics, on literature, on business, and so on. All truth is God’s truth, so no area of study lies outside the domain of God’s truth. Somehow it is all integrated into the whole, which is perfectly known by God alone. Our goal should be to seek to discover how our field of study fits into the whole scheme of God’s truth.
What that implies is that we must be prepared to think Christianly about our area of specialization. Here it is absolutely crucial to realize in a very self-conscious way that the presuppositions which underlie our chosen discipline will have been very largely shaped by secular, naturalistic worldviews. Therefore, as Christians we shall have to be prepared to re-think our whole discipline from the ground up in line with Christian presuppositions.
For example, I am convinced that virtually the whole of twentieth-century physics has been derouted by the defective epistemology of verificationism, and therefore is drastically in need of being rethought on the basis of different epistemological assumptions. Verificationism was a philosophy popular in the first half of the twentieth century that held that only sentences which are empirically verifiable are meaningful. Notice that the verificationism of which I speak is a theory of meaning, not a test for truth. Empirical verification is vital in testing the truth of scientific theories, but verificationism held that any sentence that cannot be empirically verified is not even false; it is meaningless. Verificationism sprang out of a naturalistic worldview that wants nothing to do with anything metaphysical, or beyond the physical. On this basis statements about non-empirical realities such as God or moral values were dismissed as meaningless nonsense.
The central pillars of twentieth-century physics, relativity theory and quantum theory, are both based on a philosophy of verificationism. It was only on this basis that Einstein could dismiss the reality of absolute time, absolute space, and absolute simultaneity. Since these entities could not be detected empirically, Einstein brushed them aside as meaningless and substituted in their place operational definitions of these key concepts, which issue in a radically different view of the world. Those who rejected the epistemology of verificationsim, such as H. A. Lorentz, took a quite different interpretation of the equations that lie at the heart of special relativity. Lorentz’s interpretation affirmed the reality of absolute simultaneity and of length, even if these quantities are empirically undetectable by us.
Similarly, in quantum physics Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle was predicated on the same verificationist epistemology. Since the position and momentum of a subatomic particle cannot be simultaneously measured, such quantities were said not to exist independently of measurements. Physicists who rejected verificationism, such as Louis de Broglie or David Bohm, offered quite different physical interpretations of the equations of quantum theory than those accepted in the standard Copenhagen interpretation. When Einstein himself protested that our ignorance of such quantities as the position and momentum of a subatomic particle doesn’t imply that they do not exist, Heisenberg rightly replied that he was only employing the same epistemology that lay at the foundations of Einstein’s own theory. Einstein could only retort that a good joke shouldn’t be repeated twice!
Indeed, from a Christian point of view verificationism is a joke. For if God exists, then obviously he isn’t bound by the finite velocity of light signals and so could know what events were occurring absolutely simultaneously with one another throughout the universe. Nor is his knowledge of the subatomic realm mediated by physical measurement procedures, so that it is no problem at all for him to know what position and momentum is possessed by every elementary particle in the whole of his creation.
Thus the twin pillars of contemporary physics as conventionally understood rest on the rotted timbers of verificationism. What is especially ironic about this situation is that verificationism came under such sustained attack by epistemologists and philosophers of science during the latter half of the twentieth century that it has now been virtually universally abandoned. And yet the theories erected upon its foundation continue on as though nothing had changed. The time is ripe for a radical rethinking of physics from a non-verificationist point of view.
I have been scandalized by the lack of integrative thinking on the part of Christian colleagues. For example, I spoke at length with a Christian professor of literature at one of our state universities who told me that she believed that texts have no meaning. Rather, meaning exists only in the mind of the reader. I was astonished that an intelligent Christian could have bought into the relativistic, postmodern view of meaning that is rampant in departments of English and Literature. I asked her what her view implied for the Bible. As a text does it have no meaning? Is anyone free to give whatever meaning he wants to the biblical text? Is it legitimate to take the meaning of the Bible to be that God is hate and will send everyone to hell who believes in Christ? Could the meaning of the Bible be a play-by-play account of the 2002 World Cup final?
She said she exempted the Bible from having no objective meaning because it alone is inspired by God. But I pointed out to her that this move was entirely ad hoc; on the level of text it is just like any other text, regardless of who its author was, and therefore should be objectively meaningless. Thank God that she was enough of a Christian to realize that that conclusion was theologically unacceptable!
She was clearly shaken by our conversation. “I’m going to have to rethink everything,” she said. “You see, I’ve been on the board of a library that was faced with the issue of whether to ban pornographic materials from being available in the library. I argued that since texts have no meaning in themselves and meaning is only in the mind of the reader, nothing is inherently pornographic and that therefore the library should make such materials available. If you’re right, then I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
To think that a Christian academic, infected by postmodernism and insufficiently reflective from a Christian point of view, should have thus been responsible for putting pornography in the hands of children and maybe even predators, brought home to me as never before the importance of developing a Christian world and life view, even if that means rethinking the very foundations of our discipline and reforming them in line with Christian truth.
Integrative thinking for most of us will not involve the nuts-and-bolts of our discipline—I mean the routine, day-to-day activities in our field—so much as the philosophy of our discipline. Now I don’t expect you all to become philosophers. But you really do need to read something on the philosophy of your field. You need to read some philosophy of education or some business ethics or some philosophy of science or some philosophy of history. Virtually every discipline has a philosophical component of which you, as a Christian academic in that field, need to be aware. This isn’t too much to ask; on the contrary, it will make you a better scholar in your field if you understand some of the basic philosophy of your subject.
And what you discover may surprise you! For example, what could be seemingly more neutral than mathematics? How could being a Christian possibly make any difference at all in this field? You’d be surprised. I’m told that most practicing mathematicians are almost unconsciously Platonists. That is to say, they just assume that abstract objects like numbers and sets actually exist as mind-independent realities. But Platonism is, I think, a deeply anti-Christian metaphysic. For such abstract objects are usually conceived to exist necessarily, beyond space and time. These objects exist as uncreated entities, and there are infinities of infinities of infinities of them. But what does this imply for the Christian doctrine of creation and for the divine attribute of aseity? On Platonism God is reduced to but one necessary being among many, an infinitesimal part of reality, most of which exists utterly independently of him. Such a metaphysical pluralism seems incompatible with the Christian doctrine of God who alone exists necessarily and eternally and is the Creator of all reality outside himself. Christian thinkers need to articulate a view of mathematical objects that is consistent with Christian theism.
As Christian academics we cannot afford to be unreflective and simply absorb uncritically the common presuppositions of our discipline, for these may be antithetical to a Christian weltanschauung. Nor should we allow ourselves to be cowed by the prevailing views in our field or afraid to march to the beat of a different drummer. We are to seek the praise of God and not men. And that means thinking integratively as Christians about our chosen field.
3. Be mindful of your personal, spiritual formation. In the end the most important thing is not what you do, but who you are. The academic life is inherently an agonistic life. That is to say, it is combative, involving a struggle of ideas. It tends to promote selfish ambition, arrogance, and competitiveness. I recall one scientist who remarked that science is a field where egotistical motivations and the advance of the discipline happen fortunately to coincide!
But this is not the kind of wisdom that God treasures. On the contrary, he calls it demonic. Look at James 3:13–15: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.” Notice the progression: “earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.” This sort of worldly, demonic wisdom is personally destructive, both to you and to others about you.
I recall meeting a scientist in Germany who was separated from his wife and longed to visit his little son. He told us that early on in his career all he could think about was his research, and he invested the best part of his energy and time in pursuing his career. It led to the destruction of his marriage and the loss of his family. “I was a fool!” he told us.
Some of you are probably making this same mistake. I implore you for the sake of Christ to repent, to go to your spouse and to ask forgiveness, and to ask if you together might begin anew. But this must be a serious offer, involving a readiness to cut back on time at work, to give more attention to personal time together, to be willing to give up academic fame and success for the sake of your spouse.
In general, we as Christian academics are called to the same holiness of life to which all disciples of Christ are called. It is vitally important that, as a public representative of Christ, each of us be a person who goes often to his knees to spend time with God, who depends daily on the filling of the Holy Spirit to live a life pleasing and acceptable to God. We must seek Christ’s glory, not our own. We must be open to criticism and willing to see our own shortcomings, to learn from our critics. We must not place our career or studies ahead of our family, but rather be prepared to give up our studies and even our career if necessary for the sake of those we love. We must guard against sin, especially sexual sin, in thought as well as deed, so as not to dishonor Christ. We must learn what it means, not to merely do things for God, but to be the person God wants us to be.
Unless we learn to be who God wants us to be, all our vaunted academic achievements will be as wood, hay, and stubble. Our spiritual formation is therefore as vitally important as our academic formation as Christian faculty.
Conclusion
In summary, we Christian academics stand on the church’s front line in one of the most important theaters in the culture war, that of the university. Will you be an effective soldier of Jesus Christ, or will you desert his cause? To be as effective as you can, you need to engage intellectually, not just with your chosen discipline, but with your Christian faith; to strive to integrate your Christian faith with your discipline; and to be mindful of your personal, spiritual formation. May God raise up a mighty force of committed men and women to transform the university and, hence, our culture in such a way that the gospel may be heard afresh in all its life-changing power!
Discussion Questions
1. How is your university and academic discipline shaping the worldview and values of the culture?
2. Philosophy, Dr. Craig asserts, has become a “beachhead, from which operations can be launched to impact other disciplines at the university for Christ.”
Have you considered the philosophical underpinnings of your discipline and compared them with a Christian perspective?
How has this helped you understand the relationship between your discipline and a Christian worldview?
How could a transformation happen in your field?
What might that transformation look like?
3. Dr. Craig writes that “many Christian academics seem content to possess a profound knowledge of their area of specialization and yet have little better than a Sunday school education when it comes to their Christian faith, on which they have staked their lives and eternal destiny.”
Rate on a scale of 1–10 your understanding of basic Christian doctrines such as:
the Trinity
the divinity of Christ
the attributes of God
the resurrection
the virgin birth
the authority and inspiration of Scripture
Christ’s substitutionary atonement
Rate on a scale of 1–10:
Your ability to defend these doctrines “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).
Your ability to teach these truths to students, colleagues, family, and church members.
Your ability to clearly and concisely present and explain the gospel, including an invitation to commit one’s life to Jesus Christ.
4. Is a Christian perspective an integral part of your teaching and research? How?
5. Can you discern a naturalistic philosophy in your discipline? If so, contrast it with your Christian worldview and values.
6. “The academic life is inherently an agonistic life. . . . It tends to promote selfish ambition, arrogance, and competitiveness.”
Has academia become your god, or is God first in your life?
What spiritual disciplines and practices do you have that strengthen your relationship with Christ?
How would you rate the quality of your relationship with Jesus Christ right now?
How well would you say you rely on God’s power to live your daily life?
Could you easily and clearly explain to a student, colleague, friend, or church member how to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk daily in his power?
1. Alvin Plantinga, “The Twin Pillars of Christian Scholarship” in Seeking Understanding: The Stob Lectures 1986–1998 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 124.
2. For evidence, see Sam Schulman, “Without God, Gall Is Permitted,”Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2007, W11.
3. Address delivered on September 20, 1912, at the opening of the 101st session of Princeton Theological Seminary. Reprinted in J. Gresham Machen, What Is Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), 162.
4. See page 64 in chapter 2.
5. Ibid.
6. Quentin Smith, “The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism,” Philo 4, no. 2 (2001): 3–4.
7. Ibid., 4.