I want to pass along a rather insightful set of ideas that I've heard a professor of mine speak about a couple of times now. It has helped me to understand and appreciate my own thirst for knowledge in a different light:
Aristotle wrote, "It is the nature of man to know." Christian doctrine affirms this human quest for knowledge and truth, which requires the use of our uniquely human faculty known as "reason." How does Christian doctrine affirm the quest for knowledge and truth? By the Doctrine of Creation. The Nicene Creed confesses, "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." Our God is, we believe and confess, the Creator of all things--including anything that is worth knowing, anything that is true, all knowledge and wisdom. Moreover, we believe that "the Word (Logos) became flesh." Not only that, "through him [the Word of God, Christ] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." Therefore, all that exists in the cosmos--including knowledge itself--is a creation of our God, through Christ, the Word. There is an implicit affirmation here of the human quest for knowledge. We do not bridle our quest to know and to know that which is true, because--as it has been put simply throughout the ages of Christian thought--"all truth is God's truth."
However, if we become overly confident in our knowledge and in our understanding of the truth, we deny the Doctrine of Sin. We not only confess that God is Creator, but we also confess that humanity has been corrupted by the effects of sin. Consequently, even our ability to know--our use of "reason"--is corrupted, deficient. In Christ, we have certainly seen a great Light, but our very ability to see has been corrupted and cannot be fully restored in this world. So we are left with this disadvantage: although we can affirm our quest for knowledge and truth because these things are the creations of our Lord, we also affirm that our grasp of knowledge and truth are, at best, partial. "For now, we see in a mirror dimly...."
So why is this important to note? Well, let me try to explain why it is important to me....
Sometimes I hear from the mouths of prominent Christian leaders comments about "intellectuals," "PhDs" and "university people" (even about college students in general) which are very degrading. I even recently received an email forwarded onto me by a family member, in which a man with a radio Bible ministry was specifically criticizing Nazarene universities as hotbeds of "heresy" in the denomination, and also made specifically derogatory comments about "those with PhDs" simply because of their degrees. But as we have seen, this sort of anti-intellectualism is itself anti-Christian. To criticize people solely because they have pursued knowledge is to deny the Doctrine of Creation.
What is more, it is often from very similar mouths that I hear talk about "objective truth." While I believe, in faith, that some things are absolutely true--i.e. God's Son is Jesus Christ; He has risen from the dead; the Church is His body in the world--I do not believe anything is "objectively true." When someone proposes that something is objectively true, they are saying that this truth can be demonstrated to any rational person and be proved to be a true proposition. Yet this is a denial of the Doctrine of Sin, because we have forgotten that our ability to reason has itself been corrupted. Therefore, if we believe anything to be "objectively true" or "rationally demonstrable" we deny our own sinfulness. Should this keep us from making statements and confessions of faith? Not at all! We ought to desire to make sense of our world because it is the good creation of our Heavenly Father. However, we should be humble enough to realize that while our search for truth is a noble one, it is also one that--in this life--will only ever be partially successful.
Thanks to all who continue to read and grapple with the ideas I myself am wrestling with. May God touch us as he touched Jacob, leaving us forever changed.
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