It has been a long held belief that academia, intellectualism, reason, and the like are completely at odds with religion, faith, spirituality, and especially Christianity. As a bible believing, God fearing Christian in academia, this presents a major problem. Imagine a job or community where everything that is communicated calls every idea you have into question. We are not talking about random ideas about how the sky became blue, we are talking about the answers to the questions about life that define you, your very self. This is a community you are committed to being in for at least 4 years, probably more, and you value the information as observable science, that is, information acquired by creations of God with the gift God gave them, regardless of their faith. Certainly there are motives to be taken into account and personal bias that must be weeded out of some of the information, but it is information about the reality God created none-the-less. What is a thinking Christian supposed to do with that?
The main conflicts I am facing right now is evolution, big bang theory, archeology (and it’s extensive fossil findings), the development of culture (early on when the kings were made to be Gods to control people), and how all of that interacts with Scripture.
With evolution, things are tricky because of all the various findings and intricacies of the theory. No doubt, there are human-like fossils that seem to gradually change over an extensive length of time. No doubt, there are micro-evolutionary changes occurring within various species… but macro evolution on the whole seems impossible with irreducible complexities and the statistical probability of things (which is just as valid as someone talking about the “culture of humans 200,000 years ago). It just doesn’t seem consistent. However, let us say it is true, is Christianity and evolution mutually exclusive? Maybe through personal bias but I don’t think they have to be… But then we must deal with those people on both sides that refuse to accept the possibility… These issues are really tough.
With the archeological findings, I have a very hard time. How do we know that our dating techniques are legitimate? every century or so we undergo a drastic change in scientific theory and evaluation, how do we know that our technique doesn’t have a hidden factor causing error? Moreover, what if God created the land like he created man? Is it impossible that he created a mature earth with marks of age and fossils in the same way he created Adam and Eve with age? Or what if to God, the days in Genesis are thousands or millions or billions of years? This too causes strife in my heart, and in my life…
The development of culture is a particularly juicy pain. How is it that man became dominant over women? How, historically, has the idea of God developed, and where did it come from. How do these answers in extra-biblical cultures differ from the nation of Israel in the OT, and Gods greater revelation of himself? How could it be that Scripture and the Judeo-Christian God could have been a man-made concoction and yet be so internally consistent, so philosophically reliable? I suppose the end of that last question would be debated by some and I would point you to William Lane Craig.
I realize I am rambling here but that is the very state of my soul right now. As a Jesus following man (kid more like), I want to see his name KNOWN in this place. I do not want to go through the motions to get a degree so I can go on with my life. 1 Corinthians 7 encourages us to REMAIN and I want to remain with him in this place, be a light, and beacon of hope to a dying and suffering world. GOD PLEASE HELP ME AND US ALL TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO PROPERLY INTERPRET AND UNDERSTAND THESE THINGS, that we might honor you in the dark, predominantly atheistic (or otherwise compartmentally inconsistent) world of academia.
To be a true believer in academia and not wrestle with these things in order to communicate with and be a light to your peers is to drop the proverbial ball in a big way. And trust me, these topics presented here are not an exhaustive list of all the seemingly anti-Christian ideas to be grappled with.
Our God is, and all of reality owes itself to him, reality is not inconsistent with God, true reality is subject to God and when man begins to shape reality without God, there are gaps to be bridged.
“Faith is trust or commitment to what you think is true.”
“More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ. This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life.”
“Part of the broader task of Christian scholarship is 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.”
All 3 quotes are William Lane Craig
Malone, seeing that my Master’s from A.W. Tozer Seminary is in Intellectual Leadership, let me assure you there are answers to your questions, and they are good questions.
The problem in the Evangelical church, as you know from studying church history of the 19th/20th century, is she has not been committed to an intellectual pursuit of Truth. Rather than facing head-on the challenges posed by the increasingly secular universities, she chose to bury herself and withdraw from culture. You see a few bright spots here and there: J. Gresham Machen of Princeton Seminary calling for an intellectual defense of the Gospel (1913.The Scientific Preparation of the Minister); Carl Henry, of course, calling for Christians to infiltrate and dominate every field of study (1948 The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism); and Harry Blamires bewailing the lack of Christian thinking in the Church (1963 The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think?). Both Blamires and Karl Barth warned that thinking Christianly and studying Theology are lonely pursuits.
I recommend the above reading for you, and also the more current work by Alister McGrath (Christianity’s Dangerous idea, The Passionate Intellect), and J.P. Moreland (Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason In the Life of the Soul).
As far a the whole age of earth, evolution, intelligent design issues, I recommend Hugh Ross (http://www.reasons.org/). Like Ross (actually I am not like him, is is a freaking brilliant astrophysicist), I hold to an old earth position on creation. I don’t think a literal 6/24 hour day reading of Genesis is reasonable (For ex. how can everything that happened on Day 6 fit into 13 hours of daylight? Seriously). But that is something every thinking Christian needs to wrestle through.
“In the beginning was the Word/Logos/Wisdom/Reason of God.”
Learn from him!
Well this is a super long comment, which just says I care for you and I am excited for you to be wrestling with how to respond to secularism. Many Christians your age lose their faith because they have not been prepared intellectually to battle the assault they face in school. Either that, or they just duck down, hunker in the bunker, and try to get good grades without being eaten alive. Hang in there. BTW I have all those books if you want to borrow any, along with Nancy Pearcey’s new Saving Leonardo. <3 yvonne
By: Yvonne on July 6, 2011
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