Mark Noll noted the decline of intellectualism in American Evangelical Christianity:
Evangelical adoption of the didactic Enlightenment was one of the measures that made evangelical Protestantism so dynamically powerful in the early history of the United States.
. . .
The main problem was that so much of the Christianized version of the Enlightenment depended on assumptions, and thus so little actual thought went into developing the philosophical, psychological, and ethical implications of these views.Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1994), 105 [italics mine].
After my experience at the SBL Annual Meeting, I noticed how great an effort was put into thinking about the Christian Bible and Christian thought in general. Of course, American Evangelicals seem to be more of a minority at SBL but that they are there says something about the desire to think more about the Scriptures and about the desire to have the academy as a dialogue partner.
At the Theological Hermeneutics of Christian Scripture Group, one presenter believed that the academy needs to be reformed. As I highlighted in my reflection post, I found a few conclusions in the academy with which I have disagreed. It appears to me there is a distinction between Christian(-ized?) biblical scholarship and academic biblical scholarship. If Christian scholars are to maintain/regain ground and/or respect in academic circles, can this be done without abandoning confessional and essential beliefs? Do confessional beliefs need to be abandoned?
the archives near Emmaus 
I am torn on this issue. For one, if I had to be faithful to either the academy, or the church catholic, I think it would be the church catholic that matters more. The academy is here and there and not the Kingdom of God. That being said, I often find the church forcing its thinkers to make a decision between the church or the academy if there is to be any standing within the church! This is hard. How does one ignore conclusions seriously reached?
In a perfect world the academy would be more open to the ekklesia and the ekklesia to the academy!
When scholarship does not help the confesssional Church of Christ, what good is it? Christian scholarship (so-called) must always be in submission to again classic, confesstional & historic Christianity. But then I am always first a “churchman”. 🙂 The Church first, then the Academy. Sometimes this is sorely missed by non-Catholic minded Christians. Rejection of the Church’s authority often leads into the worst kind of rationalistic spirit, which in the end is an enemy of the Church rather than a helper. Indeed the balance of ‘Word & Spirit’ is much needed, but always the Church first!
Sometimes “scholarship” can be helpful. The church has had a very anti-semitic streak until scholarship forced the Jewishness of Jesus to the forefront. This is not to say the academy was unscathed in this area, but I think they moved first. I am sure there are dozens of other important examples of where the church, without the academy, would be still following misguided ideas.
The best effort for the Academy is within the Church in reality. How can the Academy really not be part of the Church? “The mystery of the Church”, its “invisible dimension”, is “larger than the structure and organization of the Church” (by itself), which are at the service of the mystery.” (Pope John Paul II) But, this invisible place is not beyond the redemptive place and grace of God. Here I think John Paul was speaking of those Christians who are not part of the visible place of God (Roman Catholic or Orthodox), but still the People of God, Protestant..etc. Note even Calvin’s doctrine of the Church…’the Mother of the faithful’. As for Luther, the Church stood beneath the divinity of Christ, and no true academic could stand outside this!
Brian and Fr. Robert,
Yes, the dichotomy that both sides create make this a venture of tension. I agree with you that one should be a scholar of and for the church first. Part of the problem I see is that in the church, the academy is tended to be looked upon as liberal and overly rationalistic (which would imply full of “worldly wisdom”). On the flip side, the problem with the academy is that it tends to dis-acknowledge the Christian worldview as a starting point. I can see the value in trying to start from a “neutral” view and then working to conclusions from there, but coming to a purely neutral view seems to be nearly impossible. The problem, then, is that those in the academy, while denouncing other worldviews for the sake of neutrality and objectivity, still have their own worldviews/presuppositions that are brought to the text. Alvin Plantinga has argued that Christian philosophers should be able to start with set of Christian presuppositions; I don’t know if Plantinga’s argument will still be convincing to me when I reread it, but it seems to be a way forward, provided that the suppositions in one’s worldview are shown to be adequate.
@JohnDave: I think we must start with Christian presuppositions. I am not saying this as an imperative, but merely as a reality. If we are Christians and we believe what we believe it would be disingenuous to act as if we do not believe those things. That does not mean we do not allow these ideas to be tested in the marketplace of ideas, only that we acknowledge our own starting point.
Brian,
I would agree with you. One thing I’d like to get your thoughts on: if we begin with and acknowledge Christian presuppositions as our starting point and our conclusions fit, then we could be accused of circular reasoning. This is what I think the academy is trying to point out: that we are reasoning circularly in some sense. So how do you think we can avoid such circularity or the accusation of it?
John,
We all approach the Judeo-Christian revelation and theology from some place. Mine would be somewhat like Cornelius Van Til’s, and many of the Dutch Reformed. And to quote John Frame, here.. “the sovereignty of God becomes an epistemological, as well as a religious and metaphysical principle. The Trinity becomes the answer to the philosophical problem of the one and the many. Common grace becomes the key to a Christian philosophy of History.” And also the substance of Van Til’s transcendental argument is the doctrine of the ontological Trinity, which is about the corresponding relationships of the persons in the Godhead, to each other without the reference to God’s relationship with/in creation. Thus the whole of VanTil’s theology and writings is given to the development of the ontological Trinity and its philosophical ramifications.
Here also I would follow Van Til’s famous idea and assertion that there is no neutral common ground between the Christian and the non-Christian, because their presuppositions, and their ultimate principles of interpretation are simply different. The Christians only supposition must be the Judeo-Christian presupposition! And as Van Til, there is no real relational reality save the absolute sovereignty of God, even in this great action of mystery and transcendence of God “Himself”!
Finally this is really more than apologetics, but comes from the very heart and centre of the revelation of God, Triune. Which is always biblical and theological. We can find truth in other places, but we can only found revelational truth in God and His Holy Scripture!
This is quick and short, but expresses somewhat the mental place of my belief, etc.
PS..JD, there is no real neutral middle-ground in Christian theology and reasoning, with the depth and reality of the doctrine of both original sin and total depravity. Again, truth is certainly part of the common grace of God, but in itself the only lasting truth comes from both God Triune and His everlasting Word. And only hear is the Word made (become) flesh.
“hear” or hearing on purpose!
Let me also recommend THL Parker’s book: Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. I think it is in pre-print? And then there is also Dowey’s book: The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology. And here there is a later edition, 90’s?
*re-print…me sticky keys and fingers!
“The ontological Trinity will be our interpretative concept everywhere. God is our concrete universal; in Him thought and being are coterminous, in Him the problem of knowledge is solved. If we begin thus with the ontological Trinity as our concrete universal, we frankly differ from every school of philosophy and from every school of science not merely our conclusions, but in our starting-point and in our method as well. For us the facts are what they are, and the universals are what they are, because of the common dependence upon the ontological Trinity.” (Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, p. 64)
Here we go with quotes again…
Listen up Brian, and ya might learn something, rather than ‘your existential doubt’! 🙂
Brian: You said:
I don’t think the “academy” moved first; in fact I’m almost positive that they didn’t. There’s a long line of anti-semitism in German Liberal Protestant scholarship. Kevin Edgecomb wrote a number of posts related to the subject last year while working through Anders Gadmer’s Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann. You can check the posts out here. It’s well worth the read.
Nick,
I am thinking back to E.P. Sanders. There is a reason why he is understood to be a mover and shaker in Pauline and historical Jesus studies. I will check out Edgecomb’s post, but as far as major paradigm shifts are concerned, it’s hard to see anything more impacting than Sanders, Stendahl, and that crew. The Jewishness of Jesus has been a staple concept since those folk.
Good post Nick, now if people would only read & listen? And also theology has existed well before the liberal Germans. And the Jewishness of Jesus is simply biblical data, John 4:22 / Rom. 15:8. And of all the Reformers Calvin was the least anti-Semitic. Now anti-Semitism comes from Christian Churches that are anti-modern Israel!
Brian: I don’t want to get off on a tangent so I’ll just say that it seems we might be missing each other. You said you thought the academy moved away from anti-semitism before the church — I’m saying not so, and this is demonstrable by simply looking at the recent history of anti-semitism in historical-critical scholarship (= the academy). I think I might be misunderstanding your response because it seems to me that you’re saying the church was antisemitic up until (or even after) Sanders starting writing on the historical Jesus and Paul, but I’m almost certain that’s not what you actually mean.
Oh, wait a second, I think I have indeed misread you. You said, “moved first” not “moved away first,” implying that scholarship focused on Jesus’ Jewishness before the church rather than moving away from anti-semitism before the church. That makes more sense. Still wouldn’t say that I agree but at least now I understand you better.
@Nick: I think you’ve got me now. In some sense we could say the church and the academy have both moved and not moved away from antisemitism. And it may be that the church moved before the academy, but that is hard to measure. What seems easy to measure is when it becomes a solid paradigm shift. I think many would see that starting with Sanders, no?
Btw, we should note that Sanders identifies himself as a “liberal, modern, secularized Protestant.” Does this effect his scholarship? How could it not!
Sure it can but that doesn’t prevent there from being accurate insights.
Indeed, but by what standard do we make “accurate insight”? None other but Holy Scripture itself! Again, this is Van Til’s supposition, based on both God and His Own ontology.
Yes, but if we assume we can understand Holy Scripture without trying to understand the context in which is evolved we will inevitably always read it through a limited, modern, contextualized worldview.
Fr. Robert,
Thanks for clarifying. I have something I want to clarify, where you said:
Yes, the presuppositions are different, but in what sense? Might some of the presuppositions on both sides converge in some ways? Is there room to allow that the Holy Spirit might be at work in the non-Christians in the academy as it pertains to their way of interpretation? These are questions that your statement raised for me.