We continue our guest series from Richard Hughes on the vocation of Christian scholars. The following post is adapted from Richard’s book, The Vocation of a Christian Scholar: How Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the Mind (Eerdmans, 2005).
In the first post of this series, I made the point that “those of us who are both Christians and scholars will inevitably live in the midst of a deep and inescapable paradox.â€
The paradox is this – that as Christians, we are committed to a highly particularistic notion of truth while, as scholars, we are committed to the life of the mind which calls us to pursue truth wherever it may lead.
So our question today is this: can Christians serve as serious scholars? Put another way, can Christian faith equip us for the life of the mind? Can Christian faith equip us to pursue truth wherever that pursuit may lead? And can Christian faith empower us to engage in a serious way a wide range of conversation partners, even when those partners hold positions that may threaten our most cherished beliefs?
How we answer those questions depends upon two things:
- How we understand the Christian faith, and
- How we understand the nature of the biblical text.
What About Christian Faith?
From the outset, we must admit that Christian faith will invariably stand at odds with the life of the mind if we envision both our faith and the Bible in terms of absolutistic principles, sterile legal codes, or moral imperatives that require from us no reflection, no creativity, and no imagination. [Read more…] about Can Christian Faith Sustain the Life of the Mind?