I have always liked Far Side cartoons! Let me tell you about one of my favorites. Actually, I am not sure it is a Far Side product—but it certainly is in the spirit of the Far Side. The first panel shows a scraggly-looking ne’er-do-well wearing cut-offs, a wild shirt, and sandals (sort of like me during the summer), and holding a can of spray paint. In the second panel, you can see this figure standing next to his most recent work of graffiti. It reads, “God is dead, signed Fred.” In the third panel there is a charred, blackened spot on the pavement, with a small plume of smoke rising from the burned spot. In the fourth panel, the original message is marked out and there is a new message above it, “Fred is dead, signed God.” Obviously, Fred and God had a different view of the world.
Recently, there has been some discussion in our circles about Christian worldview. Some have expressed concern that Erskine doesn’t do enough to integrate faith and learning. Whether you agree with that concern, I do hope you agree that a Christian worldview is worth striving for. But even if you agree that a Christian worldview is a worthy goal, you might well ask, “But what does faith have to do with genetics? or the Battle of Hastings? or French existentialism?” Others might say, “my education was in Sociology, or Mathematics. At ‘fill-in-the-blank’ state university. The only time I heard the name, ‘Jesus,’ was when someone cursed. How am I supposed to do ‘Christian worldview?’”
These are good questions, and I am fool enough to tackle this—in the ten minutes I have been given! In II Corinthians 10:5, Paul wrote, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” This is not pious advice; this is God’s own methodology! And for those who struggle with “taking captive every thought,” who feel ill-prepared to integrate matters of faith and science, or faith and history, or faith and literature, I have some encouraging words.
The first thing I want to say is this: formulating a Christian worldview is one of the easiest things you will ever attempt. Especially for highly educated, Christian people! I would be pessimistic if I were speaking to faculty, staff, administrators, and board members who were not people of faith. But for Christian folks, this ought to be like falling off a log. And it is! If we believe that God is, it is only a simple step from that belief to a Christian worldview.
Let me illustrate by borrowing from my seminary course on Christian Apologetics. This class provides a defense of the Christian faith against other religions or philosophies of life. In that class, I explain that it is a huge mistake to bog down on trivial arguments over miracles, such as Jesus walking on the water or feeding the five thousand. Arguing over the miracles may be interesting, but the reality of the miracles, though important, is peripheral to the primary question, namely, the existence of God. The existence of God is the big Matzah ball you have to swallow! The existence of God is the great hurdle, the key philosophical and theological problem. It is the great offense to reason and the ultimate challenge to human autonomy. Those who fight over miracles are wasting their gunpowder. They are skirmishing on the edges, oblivious to the main battle that determines the outcome of the great struggle between faith and unbelief.
Let me say again, at some level, the issue of Christian worldview truly is one of the simplest things there is. If there is a God, then surely such a One, “a spirit, infinite, eternal in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth,” has a perspective on everything. And God’s perspective, or point-of-view, ought to be important to us! We can learn much about that perspective by reading God’s revealed Word, the Holy Scriptures. Now, in Scripture, God does not teach us how to do history, though there are many historical references recorded. But God does give us the overarching trajectory of history in four movements or acts: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, when all creation is made new. In these movements, there is “a narrative unity, one story that binds all parts together.” Furthermore, as Peter Leithart tell us, these movements give us a Christian view of history, a “comic” view “in which the characters may face danger . . . but ultimately rise to a happy ending,” unlike the “tragic” or pessimistic views of non-Christian approaches to history.
Likewise, Scripture does not teach us how to do literary criticism, though it contains some of the finest literature in the world, including poetry, narrative, proverb, parable, allegory, and so forth. And, the comic view of history shapes our approach to literature, for all great literature, in some sense, depends upon the one great story of redemption. Think of the distinctively Christian themes in C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy or the Chronicles of Narnia; or in the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. Much of their work borrows themes and plot lines from ancient and medieval literature, sources which themselves reflect the one great story of redemption.
Or, consider this: someone has said that most Hollywood movies can be summarized in three movements: Boy finds Girl; Boy loses Girl; Boy finds Girl again and wins her back. I am “right brain challenged” and lacking in artistic flair; still, even I can see that much of great literature, film, and art are simply other ways of telling the story of the God who creates a people for himself, who loses those people through their rebellion and sin, and who, through the God-Man, Jesus Christ, sacrifices himself to find and win back his bride, the Church.
You see, Christian worldview isn’t that hard, is it? Well, let’s not be too
hasty. That wouldn’t be scholarly. Further reflection on Christian worldview leads to the second thing I want to tell you: formulating a Christian worldview is one of the hardest things you will ever attempt. The fact that God has given us a divine point of view in Scripture does not deliver us from the painstaking, detailed, rigorous, hard work of scholarship. C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, tells us that “meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words ‘God can.’” Likewise, we cannot miracle away difficulties in quantum physics simply by affirming that in Jesus Christ “all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). Such an affirmation is true; it is certainly a good beginning, but it is hardly the end of the matter. And while this affirmation provides essential background noise for the Christian physicist, it does not provide the data that only a particle accelerator and careful experiments can produce.
No, the Christian archeologist must still dig and sweep and brush. The Christian historian must still plow through archived manuscripts, letters, and official records. A belief that God has spoken in Scripture is no substitute for tracking down the footnote, solving for ‘x,’ repeating a chemistry experiment for validation, or memorizing the principle parts of an irregular verb. A Christian worldview does not guarantee we will reach the truth; it does, however, guarantee that there is Truth, with a capital ‘T.’ And, as Calvin has taught us, God makes his Truth available to us in “two books,” in revelation, through the Holy Scripture, and in creation, through the world around us. My colleague, Dr. Terry Eves explains, “it takes a rigorous and nuanced two-books model (and much experience and hard work) to allow us to faithfully distinguish between gold and fool’s gold.”
To summarize: Christian worldview is both one of the easiest—and hardest thing you will ever do! Both the world of God and the Word of God are necessary, and we must be diligent to discover the truth that each offers. Whether we are exploring God’s Truth in the book of creation or in Holy Scripture, all truth is God’s Truth. Theologians deal with the Word of God more directly and the world of God less directly than the scientist or historian. The scientist or historian deals with the world of God more directly and the Word of God less directly than the theologian. Both are essential to developing a Christian worldview.
I have a good friend, Dr. Connie Walker, a Ph.D. and research nuclear physicist at Duke University. She is married to Bill, a Ph.D. as well, and retired research nuclear physicist, also at Duke. Connie discusses Christian worldview and how it affects her discipline, in her booklet, The Heart and Hand of God, a required reading in one of my classes. She writes,
When I’m puzzled by some aspect of my research, it’s a joy to be able to pray about it. God made it all and knows exactly how it works. That doesn’t mean that the answer pops into my head. No, there is still a lot of dogged work involved. But often, very often, I have the sense that God, though his Holy Spirit, has enabled me to see patterns and systematics in complicated data sets that would otherwise have been missed, or to figure out how to describe certain types of nuclear reactions, or even just to decipher why my computer code isn’t working properly. That’s both exciting and humbling.
Long ago, Abraham Kuyper said that “there is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, does not cry out, ‘It is mine, this belongs to me.’” And so as board members, administrators, faculty, staff, and students, there ought not to be one square inch of Erskine that we do not claim for Jesus Christ. No place where the rebel flag of autonomous human thought flies unfurled. No place where apathy or indifference to the Lordship of Jesus finds fertile soil or a hospitable environ. No thoughts that escape the captivity of Christ, which, in reality, is the only true source of liberty! Dr. Connie Walker ends her booklet, The Heart and Hand of God, with the following prayer, which I would like to offer as our closing prayer this morning:
Dear Lord, we thank you that in creation you have shown us your hand, and we thank you that you have allowed those of us who are scientists to gradually uncover some tiny portion of the order and beauty you enfolded into our universe at the moment of creation. But we thank you far more that in redemption you gave us your heart. More than that, you invite us to give you our hearts! May we do that, Lord. May we give you our hearts, fully and without reservation, just as you have given yours to us, and may we be willing to trust you with every aspect of our lives. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment