From: richard@biblewheel.com
Date: Fri Jul 18 2003 - 12:47:43 EDT
Re post http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200307/0364.html:
The question "how did things end up this way?" really touches my soul. Here are a few root reasons for the schism between Church and Academy as I see it:
1) Anti-intellectualism. This can arise from a number of causes:
a) Inappropriately opposing Faith and Reason as contradictory, rather than complimentory, modes of cognition.
b) Deemphasising passages like Matthew 22.37 (Love the Lord with all your MIND ...)
c) Intellectual laziness (extremely common vice!)
d) Overemphasising passages like Proverbs 3.5 (Lean not on your own understanding ...)
e) The deliberate dumbing down of the sheep and appeal to their anti-intellectual bias by wicked shepherds so they can fleece the flock. This is by far the gravest danger to the church. It is painfully obvious that the "get rich quick by giving me all your money" scheme of the prosperity teachers would be utterly ineffective if the intellectual integrity of the congegration were properly encouraged and nurished.
2) The Nature of Scholasticism. The schism between Church and Academy is largely an historical anomoly. Christians were the primary movers and shakers in scholastic endeavours, founding universities, propogating literacy and science. But the nature of the scholastic quest made it naturally vulnerable to an athiest conquest, especially in light of the simultaneous rise of anti-intellectualism in the Church and materialism in the Academy (19th century). Various aspects of the scholastic quest naturally cause a tension with the Gospel, such as:
a) Knowledge puffeth up.
b) From the beginning, Knowledge, Pride, and Sin have been entangled (Gen 3).
c) Mockery, the Devil's Tool. The one thing scholars can not abide is mockery, since their only currency is their reputation amongst other scholars. Of course, we all know (from this very listserver!) that mockery slips from the lips of man like vapours from a sewer. Athiests have used this tool of the Devil to intimidate Christians for centuries now. It is their most effective tool in their efforts to silence Chirstian scholars who simply refuse to risk their reputation.
So now the question is - how do we heal the breach? I for one am not interested in appeasing atheistic materialistic scholarship that denies a priori the reality of God and the supernatural. Unfortunately, nearly the entire academy of biblical scholars, in their efforts to mimic skeptical, atheistic, materialistic and naturalistic methodologies, seems to have sold its birthright for a bowl of sop that won't even fill the belly. And this leads me to question what are the heumeneutical methods we should use in the study of the Holy Bible? Here are a few questions:
1) The Grammatical/Historical Method: While this is obviously a necessary and important way to study Scripture, it has one major shortcoming. It fails to address what God, the ultimate Author, intended in His Word! E.g. the G/H method can not move beyond the "young woman" of Isaiah 7.14, and can not not see (i.e. is BLIND) to the crucifixion of Christ in Psalm 22.
2) The Documentary Hypothesis (JEPD): How many on this list believe this? I have heard that it has failed. Is this valid?
3) Form Criticism/Higher Criticism/etc.: Can these methodologies, which address only the *natural* history of the Bible, be sufficient for a Christian scholar's study of Scripture?
4) Traditionally, the Church, following the text itself, has used extensive typology in the study of the Bible. Do *serious* scholars still engage in this form of exegesis? If not, why not? Is it invalid? If so, why is it used by God in Scripture? Or have the skeptics won this battle and forced the Christians off the field (with the threat of Mockery)?
Richard Amiel McGough
Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at http://www.BibleWheel.com
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