Church Voices

After reading Alvin Plantinga’s Advice to Christian Philosophers, I feel both shamed and greatly motivated. In this article, Plantinga expounds upon what attitude he thinks Christians in all fields of study should reflect in their disciplines. He discusses three points:

First, Christian philosophers and Christian intellectuals generally must display more autonomy—more independence of the rest of philosophical world. Second, Christian philosophers must display more integrity—integrity in the sense of integral wholeness, or oneness, or unity, being all of one piece. Perhaps ‘integrality’ would be the better word here. And necessary to these two is a third: Christian courage, or boldness, or strength, or perhaps Christian self-confidence. We Christian philosophers must display more faith, more trust in the Lord; we must put on the whole armor of God.

Shamed, because all too often I cower from situations that I know might lend themselves toward me defending my faith. For example, how many times I flip a book whose cover may read something apologetically oriented face down to avoid making it seem as if I “dogmatically” affirm/deny various beliefs, having the pressures of both an antisupernatulistic and religiously pluralistic society force me into silent retreat before anyone even draws a sword. Coincidentally, I was just recently enjoying fellowship with a brother who was telling me about how the Lord was giving him a message similar to the one Plantinga is suggesting: we need to be bold with our faith. Passivity simply will not suffice. And motivated, simply because Plantinga’s and my friend’s wise words remind me of what needs to be done in order for an impact to be made today.

Plantinga then gives examples of how we, as Christian philosophers, have in the past failed to take the reins and exercise these qualities when opposing ideas dominated philosophical thought; which, in essence, resulted in primarily secular (if not wholly antisupernatural) presuppositions in most universities and contemporary scholarship. He writes:

…[M]ost of the major philosophy departments in America have next to nothing to offer the student intent on coming to see how to be a Christian in philosophy—how to assess and develop the bearing of Christianity on matters of current philosophical concern, and how to think about those philosophical matters of interest to the Christian community. In the typical graduate philosophy department there will be little more, along these lines, than a course in philosophy of religion in which it is suggested that the evidence for the existence of God—the classical theistic proofs, say—is at least counterbalanced by the evidence against the existence of God—the problem of evil, perhaps; and it may then be added that the wisest course, in view of such maxims as Ockham’s Razor, is to dispense with the whole idea of God, at least for philosophical purposes.

This is so true. I can’t even begin to recount how many college syllabuses of philosophy courses I’ve read that resound exactly these sentiments, not to mention the professors with which I’ve actually had dialogue who parent this attitude (and as I’m sure reflect in the classroom). Further, perhaps the saddest part of this historical blunder is the lack of depth in those who wantonly entertain these presuppositions prima facie. Apologist William Lane Craig agrees, making the following observation regarding the many leaders working under similar notions in the college atmosphere:

As I travel around North America and Europe speaking on university campuses, I think that most of the non-Christian university professors that I meet would probably say [there’s not enough evidence for belief in God]. And this attitude is in turn communicated to their students…[M]ost people aren’t even acquainted with the evidence for Christianity. This is true in particular for university professors. One of the most interesting aspects of my work is the debates I participate in on university campuses. Typically I’ll be invited onto a campus to debate some professor who has a reputation of being especially abusive to Christian students in his classes. We’ll have a public debate on, say, the existence of God, or Christianity vs. humanism, or some such topic. And you know what? I find that while most of these fellows are pretty good at beating up intellectually on an 18 year [old] student, they can’t even hold their own when it comes to going toe to toe with one of their peers. In their first speech they usually trot out the obsolete, 18th century objections of Hume and Kant, and after I answer these, they’re just left with nothing much to say, so they start repeating themselves or making emotional appeals…Most of them turn out to be just big, inflated, intellectual blowhards who have no good reasons for rejecting Christianity and ridiculing their students’ faith. [Both the audio and text version of this can be found here]

While the above observations may be true, and Plantinga’s suggestions definitely worthwhile to consider/practice, I think the best point he made was that just as the secularist presupposes antisupernaturalism in thought, it should be no less justified for the believer to likewise presuppose the fundaments of theism in his:

Many Christian philosophers appear to think of themselves qua philosophers as engaged with the atheist and agnostic philosopher in a common search for the correct philosophical position vis a vis the question whether there is such a person as God. Of course the Christian philosopher will have his own private conviction on the point; he will believe, of course, that indeed there is such a person as God. But he will think, or be inclined to think, or half inclined to think that as a philosopher he has no right to this position unless he is able to show that it follows from, or is probable, or justified with respect to premises accepted by all parties to the discussion—theist, agnostic and atheist alike. Furthermore, he will be half inclined to think he has no right, as a philosopher, to positions that presuppose the existence of God, if he can’t show that belief to be justified in this way. What I want to urge is that the Christian philosophical community ought not think of itself as engaged in this common effort to determine the probability or philosophical plausibility of belief in God. The Christian philosopher quite properly starts from the existence of God, and presupposes it in philosophical work, whether or not he can show it to be probable or plausible with respect to premises accepted by all philosophers, or most philosophers at the great contemporary centers of philosophy. Taking it for granted, for example, that there is such a person as God and that we are indeed within our epistemic rights (are in that sense justified) in believing that there is…

Although already somewhat familiar with Plantinga’s arguments for belief in God to be properly-basic, admittedly, my stance when approaching philosophical endeavors has always been one similar to that given in the example above: feeling wrong to assume God’s existence before rational justification could be granted my positions. I suppose I never thought to apply Plantinga’s good reasoning to my approach in apologetics (perhaps such a starting point is inappropriate in apologetical work, but I don’t think this “epistemic right” of ours should be considered exclusive to any said field(s) of study). The main point I think Plantinga was making is that it’s obvious from various past issues in philosophy that the Christian has failed to speak out with strength, and thus we now have secular overtones in most all of education generally accepted without question. The only way we can reverse this is by demonstrating the autonomy, ‘integrality,’ and boldness now that we lacked in history. After considering the words in this article and those of my friend’s, it has given me a more solid perspective on engaging in apologetics in particular and managing my faith before others in general. I highly suggest this article for anyone with similar interests.