The Gospel and the Mind

Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life

Bradley G. Green

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781433524202
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

History demonstrates that wherever the cross is planted, the academy follows. But history alone cannot demonstrate why this is—and must be—the case. Green engages theology and philosophy to prove that the Christian vision of God, mankind, and the world provides the necessary precondition for and enduring foundation of meaningful intellectual life.

The Gospel and the Mind, deeply rooted in Augustinian and Reformed thought, shows that core principles of the West's Christian inheritance—such as creation and the importance of history, the centrality of a telos to all things, and the logos and the value of words—form the matrix of any promising and sustainable intellectual life.

More than a lament of the state of the evangelical mind or even an argument for the primacy of a Christian worldview, The Gospel and the Mind is a paradigm-shifting declaration that the life of the mind starts at the cross.

Is there anything unique to our time, or more broadly to the modern age in general, that might help to explain the inchoate and stilted life of the mind that characterizes our age? In this chapter I will suggest that much of our modern dilemma—our confusion about the possibility and nature of true knowledge—is rooted in a poor understanding of two interrelated issues: history and creation. These two realities are intricately related as both come to us from outside of us and resist human manipulation. History and creation remind us that some things simply are and have their existence apart from our wills and intellect. I will attempt to show that confused or inadequate understandings of history and creation contribute to the kind of culture and ethos that does not value the intellectual life. I will also try to show that the life of the mind is ultimately dependent on a certain understanding of history and creation, and—in turn—that Christianity provides profound, compelling teaching on the centrality of history and creation. We begin with creation.

The Centrality of Creation

Any genuine affirmation of the importance of education as centered on knowledge of what is truly there must be rooted in a doctrine of creation. Jean Daniélou has written, “Truth consists in the intelligence’s conforming itself to this order . . . . [Intelligence] consists in knowing reality as it is.”¹ Thus Thomas Aquinas speaks similarly of coming into contact with “the truth of things.”² Richard Weaver adds, “Our conception of metaphysical reality finally governs our conception of everything else, and, if we feel that creation does not express purpose, it is impossible to find an authorization for purpose in our lives.”³

Lying behind this whole way of thinking is an understanding of creation. When we see the world as a fundamentally good reality, there is an impetus to understand the world. When the world is seen as fundamentally bad, there is an impetus to ignore it. And I will suggest that a denial of the notion of creation not only discourages sustained attention to the world, but similarly discourages sustained attention to the past—what has come before. It is worth noting that non-Christian intellectuals have at times recognized the possibility that meaning is ultimately rooted in a doctrine of creation. One particularly bold critic of historic Christian orthodoxy, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900),has written:“The presuppositions that things are, at bottom, ordered so morally that human reason must be justified—is an ingenuous presupposition and a piece of naiveté, the after-effect of belief in God’s veracity—God understood as the creator of things.”⁴ Albert Einstein is quoted as saying,“The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science.”⁵ In response to this, Thomas F. Torrance suggests that “somehow there is ‘a pre-established harmony’ between human thought and independent empirical reality, in virtue of which the human mind can discern and grasp the relational structures embedded in nature.”⁶

At the heart of historic Christian orthodoxy is the affirmation that we live in a created world. In identifying the Christian God, the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds speak of “God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” Scripture is clear that God created all things and that he did so out of nothing (Genesis 1–2; Psalm 33; John 1:3; Acts 17:24–25; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:3). This good world was created freely by a good God, who was under no compulsion or necessity. The historic Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) is central to an understanding of the intellectual life for several important reasons. First, there is a “givenness” to things with which the Christian must come to terms. There is indeed a reality outside of the human person, and man finds himself in a world not of his own making.⁷ Thus, while man is certainly given dominion over the world in Genesis 1:26ff., this dominion is over something that already is. He is not called to manipulate things however he wishes. Rather, he is called to work with and shape and rule over things as they are already structured, already constituted in this way and not that. Thus, from the very beginning of his existence man has found himself in relation to the rest of the created order with its built-in structure, which we all must recognize and respect.

Humanity is often at odds with the created order and has articulated this animosity in stunningly clear ways. Karim Rashid is a contemporary designer whose work—from chairs, to garbage cans, to saltshakers—has generated a cult following of sorts. Some museums even feature his creations in their displays. Rashid offers a striking example of man’s desire to kick against the created order. He explains why he disliked being outdoors as a child: “I didn’t like nature because it was already done. It was designed. You couldn’t do anything to it.”⁸

Second, the doctrine of creation implies that there is indeed something that can be known.There is a real world, and what we see around us is not simply a fantasy or an illusion (as some Eastern religions profess). Rather, this world is truly there (or here), and it can be encountered and known. The world is not chaos or a random association of stuff. It is an ordered reality, and when Christians further affirm that God is a speaking God who has created us as knowing creatures, there is powerful theological grounding for the possibility of knowledge.

Richard Weaver suggests that the idea that there is a world of truth “worth knowing and even worth reverencing” ultimately requires a doctrine of creation:

Clearly this [i.e., that there is a body of data worth knowing] presumes a certain respect for the world as creation, a belief in it and a trust in its providence, rather than a view (as if out of ancient Gnosticism) positing its essential incompleteness and badness. The world is there a priori; the learner has the duty of familiarizing himself with its nature and its set of relations.⁹

The psalmist makes this point vividly:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place . . .
(Ps. 8:3)

Consider, as well, Psalm 19:1–2:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.

As Marion Montgomery suggests (borrowing a phrase from Aquinas), education is concerned with coming in contact with “the truth of things.”¹⁰ A Christian view of knowledge is therefore concerned not simply with the world of speculation, but rather with the world as it is. Thus, Josef Pieper, following Aquinas, can say that “the essence of knowing would lie, not in the effort of thought as such, but in the grasp of the being of things, in the discovery of reality.”¹¹

Richard Weaver was a particularly astute critic of modernity, and we will find ourselves benefitting from his insights in these pages. Weaver suggests that much of modern educational theory is ultimately gnostic. He means two things by his charge of gnosticism: (1) creation is inherently evil, the work of a demiurge limited in power; (2) man does not require salvation from outside himself, but is already in a state of “Messianic blessedness.”¹² Gnosticism, according to Weaver, “is a kind of irresponsibility—an irresponsibility to the past and to the structure of reality in the present.”¹³ Gnosticism fails because its advocates, on Weaver’s understanding, “are out of line with what is.”¹⁴Gnosticism errs on several fronts.

First, whereas gnosticism predicates evil of the world itself, Christianity sees a good world that is now caught up in the sin of fallen human beings. Second, whereas gnosticism sees evil and chaos in the world from the beginning, Christianity sees a good, ordered world that has not lost all traces of goodness and order (sin notwithstanding). Third, whereas in gnosticism the world is to be manipulated and transformed by sinless man, in Christianity the world is to be ruled by man (Gen. 1:26ff.), even—apparently—after man’s fall into sin. But this rule is meant to be under and in accord with the ultimate rulership of the triune God. Fourth, whereas gnosticism affirms that man is sinless and can do what he wants, Christianity affirms that man is sinful and must follow standards not of his own making.

The doctrine of creation also affirms that there is a thoroughgoing distinction between Creator and creature. We are simply not God. We receive our being from Someone else who alone is self-existing. As creatures, we must interpret all of reality according to the God who has made us and given us life. Since the Creator God has spoken to us about the world he has created, it is his interpretation of reality that must pervade all of our intellectual and educational endeavors. As Graeme Goldsworthy has said, “God made every fact in the universe and he alone can interpret all things and events.”¹⁵ That is, as created beings, we are not autonomous.¹⁶ Our freedom must always be seen as a created freedom, not a radical, autonomous freedom. Our learning, therefore, must always seek to understand God’s interpretation of reality as revealed in Scripture, and we are always seeking to understand all of reality in light of what the triune God has spoken.¹⁷

Justin Martyr (ca. 100–165) is helpful when we try to construe a Christian approach to the intellectual life. Long before Nietzsche, Justin grounded our reasoning abilities in the doctrine of creation: “In the beginning He made the human race with the power of thought and of choosing the truth and of acting rightly, so that all people are without excuse before God.”¹⁸ Note that our reasoning capacity itself is rooted in being created, in the fact that—as created beings—we receive our being from outside of ourselves. The notion that there is a created order and thus there is a foundation for our reasoning capacities is what Nietzsche opposes when he disparagingly traces the appeal to reason to a more basic appeal to creation.

We will find ourselves coming back again and again to the importance of the truth that we live in a created reality. Without a doctrine of creation, it is hard to account for the idea that there is something there to know. As we try to discover how the Christian vision of God, man, and the world is the necessary foundation for the intellectual life, the reality of creation will continue to assert itself.

The Centrality of History

The Christian faith takes the past seriously. At the heart of that faith is the gospel. For the Christian it is a past event that shapes the future. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus—a past series of events—radically shape reality now.¹⁹Thus, while the Christian faith has a radically future orientation, in that it looks forward to the completion of salvation and the ultimate establishment of the kingdom of God, the Christian faith also has a past orientation, in that certain first-century events—i.e., the gospel—form the axis of history and determine the trajectory of current and future events.²⁰

In one sense, the whole book of Deuteronomy is a lesson to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land: Do not forget the past! Do not forget what the Lord has commanded you and what he has done for you. Even at the very end of the Old Testament, in Malachi, the last of the prophets before John and his announcement of the Messiah’s coming, Scripture admonishes the Israelites to look back: “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel” (Mal. 4:4). Indeed the very last verse of Malachi speaks not simply of something new, but of a restoration: “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children . . .” (Mal. 4:6 NASB).

Biblically, the failure to remember is not always a minor oversight or inconvenience. It is often a sin. While this might sound odd to our ears, one of the chief sins of Israel was that they so often forgot God. For example, Deuteronomy 4:9–10 says:

Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, “Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.”

A little later in Deuteronomy, Moses says:

And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. (Deut. 8:19–20)

As we will see throughout this study, the life of the mind is never really neutral. C. S. Lewis has observed that in every thought or action we are becoming either more heavenly or more hellish.²¹ Our remembering (or lack thereof) “counts,” in that our faithfulness (or lack thereof) is reflected by our remembering and not forgetting the Lord. See, for example, Jeremiah 2, where a sign of a decadent culture is the fact that the priests—in the midst of God’s judgment on their land and culture—fail to ask a basic question, where is God?

Since the Christian faith is fundamentally incarnational—in that God’s Son, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became a man in space and time—there is additional reason to emphasize the importance of history. God chose to reveal himself through a flesh-and-blood person. This person—Jesus—was born, grew up, and lived a real life with real responsibilities in a real geographical location. He got up in the morning, worked with his hands, interacted with everyday people, ate his meals, slept at night, and even grew “in wisdom and in stature and in f...