Postmodernism is a worldview that claims to distrust all authorities, certainties and absolute standards. It believes that there is no absolute truth that serves as the final arbiter of knowledge and morality. In its view, truth is relative to cultural, linguistic and power systems. Postmodernism insists that people should construct their own truth subjectively from a blank mind that experiences the world as it is. It encourages people to replace absolutes with points of view, opinions and impressions.

Postmodernism places an emphasis on relativism in intellectual and practical life, suggesting that people should value personal  experience more than objective reason.  It contends that people should not pass judgement on others. Instead,  each individual should pursue non-domineering self-determination—following and obeying his or her feelings, and being tolerant of what other people consider truth and meaning in life.

Intellectual Inconsistencies of Postmodernism
Intellectual inconsistencies in this worldview are clear when you carefully consider its stance on concepts such as absolutes, relativism and tolerance.

Rejection of absolutes
Postmodernism rejects absolutes in the form of truth or any standard. By all indications, this rejection of absolutes in the way that is argued by postmodernism is an intellectual spiral into a bottomless pit of confusion. The truth is that people are made by God to live on the basis of absolutes that are stamped in our nature as human beings. That is why some human behaviour such as lies, deceit, pride and cruelty are wrong in every culture and at all times irrespective of philosophy or ideology. In denying all forms of absolutes, postmodernism destroys its credibility as a serious worldview.  From such a position, it can no longer account for the epistemic status of its own concepts and principles. In effect, postmodernism has no instruments for establishing intellectual rules and communication apart from the very ones it denies.

Stretching relativism
Having rejected absolutes, postmodernism tries to rescue itself from an epistemic chaos by placing an indefensible emphasis on  relativism. This is simply a denial of the world the way God made it. Many students are deceived by the promise of freedom and relativism as presented by postmodernism and its allies. This is until  they step back from the realm of theorizing into practical realities. When they fail their courses on Faulcau and Derrida under a postmodern lecturer, they wake up to the fact that there are good and bad answers to exam question after all.

Absolute tolerance?
Postmodernism projects tolerance as its favoured intellectual and lifestyle principle. It is not at all clear how post-modernism invents the concept of tolerance as one which shouldn’t be relative but universally adopted. Since postmodernism denies all absolutes, on what ground does it place tolerance over and above all other principles? Isn’t postmodernism trying to smuggle an absolute of tolerance through the back door? No straight thinking and honest scholar overlooks this glaring inconsistency in postmodernism.

Conclusion
The brand of postmodernism that you are likely to encounter in your courses claims to debunk all paradigms without offering any credible replacement. It builds on infantile self-centeredness and fails to recognize any objectivity outside what the individual feels and recognizes as such. It sees order in chaos, finesse in crudity and rationality in nonsense.

Tom Th.

Related posts: Encountering non-Christian worldviews: Part 1: Naturalism. Studying from the Christian Worldview. Understanding the Beginning of Knowledge.

Intellectual deceptions of naturalism
Here are some of the more common intellectual deceptions that the worldview of naturalism projects into your courses, textbooks and lectures.

Naturalism denies order in existence
One of the most contradictory beliefs of naturalism is its denial of order in nature. What everybody sees as order by default, naturalism interprets as accidents of chaos. In what should be an embarrassing contradiction, adherents of naturalism expect you to think and behave orderly in learning and in everyday life. Naturalism has no convincing explanation of how it routinely makes intellectual and practical use of order given its fundamental belief in blind chaos.

Naturalism denies purpose and meaning
Naturalism sees no objective meaning in life since everything is a product of random chance. Basic routines of life have no inherent meaning or purpose if we follow the view of naturalism. Your process of thinking, the facts that you are in the university, and that you look for food when hungry— all have no purpose or meaning whatsoever if you accept naturalist viewpoints. If we follow naturalism logically, there is no purpose or meaning in intellectual activities. Naturalism is a straightforward route to practical pessimism and hopelessness.

Naturalism denies free will and responsibility
Naturalism doesn’t allow for free will in an individual. It holds that actions and behaviour of a person are determined by genetic and environmental factors. This is to say that people are not responsible for their actions as individuals. This belief runs contrary to basic human experiences. You only need to ask people with this worldview a simple set of questions, and observe how their belief system runs into trouble. How, in the first place, did they become believers in naturalism? Didn’t they decide that naturalism is true? If they did, was that process (of deciding to accept naturalism) not an exercise of their individual free will? How did blind chance determine that what learning means to you is the same as what it means to others?

Naturalism denies objective morality
One can’t believe in naturalism and objective right or wrong at the same time. Take naturalism seriously and you have no ground for defending any form of morality or human right. There is no way of explaining the jump from the primary assumptions of naturalism to practical morality that is the foundation of social existence of all humanity. If naturalism is true, we should expect its beliefs to generate patterns of relationship and morality that are consistent with its fundamental principles. On the contrary, the empirical evidence about morality points away from the tenets of naturalism. In personal and social relationships, we expect equity and fairness. We condemn greed and tyranny. We experience shame and guilt. We praise and blame others and ourselves. Surely, these enduring and universal moral characteristics of human beings could not have arisen from chaos and chance as naturalism would like us to believe.

Attractions of naturalism
Many scholars are attracted to naturalism for intellectual and ethical reasons. Intellectually, it presents the material reality as the only object and end of academic inquiry. Such reductionism promises to remove the burden of “beyond material” speculations from reason. But in so doing, naturalism arbitrarily caps our rational capacity before we have determined the true boundaries of reality.

Some thinkers use the slow progress of knowledge as an argument for this stunting pressure of naturalism on intellectual imagination. In their view, the sheer scale of the unknown in nature is a sufficient reason for not recognizing other non-natural dimensions in the pursuit of knowledge.

Others are attracted to the naturalistic worldview because it promises to make no fundamental moral demands on the intellect. This also is a false promise. Good scholarship goes with a moral base. The street of reality which you must walk as a scholar and as a functional social being is lined with moral barricades.

Conclusion
To take naturalism or postmodernism seriously means that you must necessarily reject essential biblical truths. Naturalism grounds itself in beliefs that are antithetical to the reality of human experiences. In an unavoidable attempt to adjust to practical reality, naturalism jumps from the premises of chaos and chance which it affirms, to order which it denies. It neither explains this jump nor concedes the implied contradiction.

Tom Th.

See related posts: Encountering non-Christian Worldviews in Your Courses:Part 2: Postmodernism

Studying from the Christian Worldview. Understanding the beginning of knowledge.

The Christian worldview
The Christian worldview is a biblical picture of reality that stretches from eternity to eternity. Christians understand all reality in the light of God and His self-disclosure in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as written in the Bible. This framework serves as the mental grid through which we process every idea, event and phenomenon in life. Four sequential themes that are captured in this picture are creation, disobedience, reconciliation and restoration.

Creation
At a specific point in eternity which we understand as the beginning,  God created the universe, human beings and all things. God gave human beings a dignified position in relation to  all other creation. He placed human beings in charge of all other creation. He endowed human beings with special attributes so that  we can live in harmony with His divine purposes. These attributes include intellect, emotion and capacities for communication, moral distinction, obedience and relationship with God and other people.  Collectively, these divine imprints  prepare human beings to live in the dignity that God confers on us.

Disobedience
The perfect  original created order was thrown into disarray by an act of willful disobedience on the part of the first two human beings, Adam and Eve. From this original human rebellion against God, sin spread to all creation. Consequently the harmony between God and all creation was fundamentally disrupted. All human problems are direct consequences of this original sin. In our daily lives, we are inclined towards lifestyles that contradict and demean our original human dignity. We develop distorted views of our origin, our past, our present and our future. Our social institutions are equally disorganized by sin. We pursue systems of culture, politics, economics and education that  are not in harmony with God’s perfect design.

An effect of this original rebellion is particularly evident in our reckless and misdirected use of rationality. Our error-prone mind continually unleashes irrationalities in every branch of knowledge. Yet in the place of  autonomous omniscience promised by our natural intellect, scholars, and indeed all human beings, remain perpetually embarrassed by the sheer scale of the unknowable.

All creation is daily afflicted by the results of sin and the choices that we make as individuals, communities and nations. As a  consequence of the original sin, our life on earth in this phase of eternity is capped with the tragedy of death, and for many, with a horrific prospect of continuing eternity as enemies of God.

Reconciliation
In this fallen state, human beings are doomed and incapable of finding their way back to God. In His mercy, God designed a  plan to reverse the consequences of sin and bring us back to Himself. God offered Himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to sort out the mess caused by Adam and Eve, our common ancestors.

This redemption plan in Christ Jesu reverses the catastrophic effects of sin in all creation. Jesus Christ opened the door for us to return to a right relationship with God. In Christ, humanity has the way back to God. Many people all over the world choose to receive this good news and pledge their allegiance to Jesus Christ. Many others choose to reject Him. They remain alienated from God.

This reconciliation phase of eternity is stamped with God’s patience. It is not His wish that any individual should remain  in the tragedy of the Fall. The offer for every person to be reconciled to God through Christ remains valid. However, in God’s plan, this period of grace will not last forever. It must end for the divine work programme  to be fully implemented.

Restoration
God created us as eternal and immortal beings. Life here on earth is not the end of it all. There is going to be a grand completion of God’s plan for this phase of eternity. The conflict between our fallen humanity and the redeemed nature will not remain forever.  God will restore the full glory that humanity lost through sin. In His appointed time, God will bring this redemption phase to a close in order for our victory over sin and Satan to be fully celebrated.

Conclusion
The Christian worldview is the true intellectual basis for your studies as a believer. Only the Christian worldview makes logical sense of the past, explains the present and refocuses the future in a single truth claim. The process of intellectual maturity for you as a Christian student involves a continuous discovery of how all questions and answers about life fit into the biblical Christian worldview.

Knowledge of the Christian worldview helps you to detect direct and subtle attacks on your faith in any subject. It  gives you focus, boldness and confidence. When you are thoroughly familiar with the Christian worldview, you can easily handle all attacks against your faith in the classroom.

Tom Th.

See related topics: Encountering non-Christian worldviews in your courses: Part 1: Naturalism  and  Part 2: Postmodernism.

First, you are presented with an explosive variety of ideas and philosophies inside and outside the classroom. You find yourself in the company of women and men with awesome intellectual pedigree. How do you relate to them? In this state of intellectual vulnerability, you enter your first class with anticipation and fear. You expect erudite professors to open the fountain of knowledge and satisfy your intellectual thirst. At the same time, you fear that you may not understand the issues very well. Your expectation is met. The professor delivers eloquently. The class ends. Your fear comes true. You have no clue what the professor has been talking about for the past forty-five minutes or so. Curiously, you are amazed that everything a lecturer says appears to be true.

Furthermore, your course descriptions list dozens of books and many more journal articles. You try to read some but the language is almost impossible to follow. The volume of writing is beyond what you have ever read before. Besides, little or nothing of what you manage to read seems to provide a clue about what your lecturers talk about in formal classes.

The situation is not helped by the behaviour of some lecturers. They assume that you know nothing and take deliberate steps to prove it during your first set of classes. They present lectures as though they are addressing colleagues at the same level of intellectual sophistication. They project intellectual superiority and use long-winding language to confuse you. It is easy for many new students to fall for this intellectual hazing because their emotional state in the first few weeks of university learning is rarely stable.

The intellectual disorientation you may experience is related to two characteristics of advanced tertiary learning. First, at the tertiary level, knowledge is not a well-ordered package that is handed to you in a class by lecturers. All terrains of knowledge are contested. As knowledge advances, so do diversity and disagreement in most disciplines of study. Scholars rarely agree on what is true and valid. Secondly, you are likely to encounter good and bad teachers in your tertiary learning career. This is because teaching abilities are not always emphasized in the recruitment and assessment of university lecturers. Many universities reward demonstrated research abilities more than competence in undergraduate teaching.

You will be pleased to know that your initial experience of bewilderment is not necessarily a sign of intellectual weakness on your part. As days and weeks pass by, your understanding of texts and lectures should improve. Your opinions and views should begin to form almost imperceptibly different courses. Enjoy a fruitful new 2009 academic year.

This persecution develops an intellectual dimension for Christian scholars and students when they take seriously the implications of their biblical convictions for how they think and do academic work. They see their intellectual activity as an expression of their faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ.They are determined to subject their rationality to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to ensure that in every discipline of knowledge, their assumptions, methodology and conclusions are consistent with the truth of the Bible. For these reasons, they are persecuted.

Intellectual persecution is part of a bigger spiritual war that you are engaged in as a follower of Jesus Christ. Satan knows that he is eternally  doomed. He decides, within the time and power allowed for him, to play the role of a spoiler in the grand design of God for all creation. He calls up an army of other rebels described by the Bible as principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6: 12) Their single objective is to frustrate the purposes of God for humanity and all creation. They use every strategy at their disposal to distract your attention from our full status and privileges in Christ. This is the heart of  the conflict that we are engaged in daily as Christians. On the intellectual front, you contend with a diabolical army whose intent is to corrupt and subvert true knowledge.

Human agents of intellectual persecution
Satan employs human agents for intellectual persecution of the Christian student.In the classroom, intellectual persecution of Christian students often takes the form of derogatory and irresponsible remarks by non-Christian lecturers that are calculated to discredit your faith. Some lecturers and tutors make explicit personal attacks on your faith, beliefs and lifestyle. Some lecturers use their institutional authority to force on you the idea that your Christian faith is not compatible with a rigorous intellectual tradition. Sometimes, lecturers deliberately teach courses in ways that don’t tolerate your Christian worldview. In the natural sciences, such lecturers advocate beliefs and theories that clearly contradict  biblical authority without exposing you to conflicting alternatives. In humanities and arts, you are likely to encounter lecturers who design and teach courses in ways that are offensive to Christian principles and  morality.

Today, intellectual persecution of Christians is severe in countries that claim to protect freedom of intellectual expression and in countries that don’t. Regrettably,  Christian students and intellectuals are denied public expression of their commitment to the Lord Jesus in State-financed institutions in many influential Western democracies.

On your response in the classroom

As you prepare your responses, let’s dismiss a source of fear from your mind. Some Christian students feel troubled by a possibility that the basis of their faith may not stand rigorous intellectual scrutiny. As a result, they lack the confidence and freedom to publicly identify with Christ in the intellectual world. This fear is baseless. The truth is that the foundation of your faith  is easily defensible as the basis of true rationality and true scholarship. The weight of true  reason is on your side. As you become more intellectually skilled, you will be thrilled to know that you have been right all along by simply believing what God said about things.

Intellectual persecution comes with different forms of provocation that may tempt you to react like non-Christians. Don’t misinterpret  intellectual persecution as no more than academic harassment or an infringement of your human rights and freedom of speech. Otherwise, you may be tempted to depend entirely on human strategy or human institutions.

Intellectual persecution is spiritual conflict, and  must be fought with spiritual weapons. The Lord has made available a full system of defensive and offensive  weapons with which you can resist ungodly forces in the classroom. A summary of the weapons that are available for your use at all times is found in Ephesians 6:10-20.

A direct and practical response in the form of evenhanded scholarly debates would be ideal in an intellectual environment. Christians who are skilled in reasoned defence of the faith welcome such intellectual engagements with non-Christian ideas. However, this option may not be your best response at this stage of your intellectual career. The level of rigour and time  required to confront some of these beliefs is way beyond the scope of undergraduate-level work.  What is important at the present time is that you understand clearly the issues and points of disagreement in your specific areas of study. Hold firm that the Bible is true, and that all philosophies and conclusions that contradict the Bible must be wrong. The Holy Spirit will guide you to adopt correct Christian attitudes in specific classroom situations— when, what and how to respond, how to answer specific examination questions prepared by professors who are less than friendly to your faith, and your general reactions as a Christian witness to your professors and colleagues.

Implications for your studies
If you hold faithfully to a biblical Christian worldview as a student, you will experience intellectual persecution. Intellectual persecution is designed to do more than hurt or embarrass you. It aims to make you cast doubt on, and if possible,  abandon your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. The goal is to suggest to you that God is not there, that the Bible is not true and that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is not central for your  intellectual formation. These attacks can be embarrassing and hurtful, especially since,  as a student, you don’t usually have a similar platform to present a response.

You are not alone as a Christian student in your determination to learn as a Christian. Many Christian students in different parts of the world currently face similar challenges. Other believers who understand the weight of pressure on your shoulder in the classroom are praying for you. No intellectual or any other form of persecution is able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ achieved decisive and comprehensive victory for us in this conflict. We inherit this victory as Christians. However, in God’s time table, this victory is yet to be fully celebrated in the lives of all believers. This is why you experience the pleasures and pains of an active participant in this conflict.. Sometimes you think you’ve lost out and wear a long face as you walk away from the lecture hall. Many other times you experience a clear win and the satisfaction of a victor.

The thought of being examined by professors who are antagonistic to the gospel can generate paralyzing fear in a Christian student. How do you respond to examination questions that are set by lecturers who perhaps persecute you intellectually? Won’t they mark you down if you express Christian points of view in your answers?

THE TRUTH

It is not necessarily true that all teachers fail students simply because they disagree in matters of personal beliefs. Some mean lecturers can do that, but it doesn’t follow that all students who share a teacher’s ideological or religious perspectives pass their courses only because of such affinities. Other factors can play important roles in your performances in an examination. At the institutional level, the quality control systems can minimize subjective assessment of students in formal examinations.

WORK BEFORE EXAMS
Earning good marks in an examination requires consistency in academic work and practical preparations. Academic excellence is not necessarily a demonstration of how well you have worked in the past eight weeks or so. It is often a reflection of accumulated intellectual training.
It is easy to be distracted from academic work especially when you have adjusted to the university after the first two or three semesters. This may result in poor performance in examinations.

MARK-EARNING SKILLS
“What exactly does this professor expect from me?” Here’s what the professor expect in one form or the other. Undergraduate-level examinations test you on criteria that include various forms of conceptual and technical competence. Lecturers expect you to demonstrate mastery major concepts, methods and perspectives in your discipline. These are competencies that you develop through consistent study and participation in lectures and other course activities.

In addition to these, communication skill is a critical factor in your performance in an exam. There are no other means of communicating what you know in an exam apart from written and oral presentations. Many bright students earn disappointing marks because they failed to develop the required level of written and oral competence in their courses. You can improve your communication skills by consistent learning and practice. Learn the specific language and jargon of your discipline, and practice professional writing that is suitable for your field of study.

ANSWERING EXAM QUESTIONS
For specific exam situations, train yourself in several intellectual skills that have proved to earn high marks. Some of these skills are highlighted here.

1. Understand the scope of a question
In many disciplines, mere descriptive answers don’t earn high marks. Unless you are specifically required to describe and stop at that, a description rarely stand on its own. It is often a precursor to analytical or polemic answers. Take time to understand the differences between descriptive and analytical answers in specific courses.

2. Stick to the question
Learn to provide only those answers that are relevant to an examination question. Many students ‘spot’ or ‘perm’ questions while preparing for an examination. Since examination questions are rarely phrased in the exact format they spotted, some students force their prepared answers to questions. Such answers may meet mark-earning criteria but risk being assessed as ‘off the point’.

3. Demonstrate your knowledge of the course
Show in your answers that you are thoroughly familiar with the subject matter of your course including the themes, the main focus, technical terms, definitions, specific jargon, scope, key theories, main arguments, key scholars and their writings.

4. Show originality of thought
At the undergraduate level, no good teacher awards high marks to a student who simply memorizes their lecture notes and reproduces these verbatim in an answer to questions. Convert or recycle your notes into original thoughts that address questions from your perspective.

5. Interpret data or evidence accurately
Demonstrate to the lecturer that you know what data or types of information are available in your course, and how to use them in your answers. Convince the examiner in your answers that you have gained competence in the concepts and applications of relevant techniques in your courses.

6. Present balanced arguments
A balanced argument separates very good students from others. This is where most students flounder especially in the nervous environment of an examination hall. You present a balanced argument when you identify, describe and recognize the merits of all evidence and points of view that are relevant to a question; then, you go on to make a case for your own point of view depending on what the question is about. If your personal view is required, resent it clearly but with a language that demonstrates awareness of competing perspectives.

Obviously, some of the criteria highlighted here are more relevant to some courses than others. The principle is fairly the same for all disciplines. There is no substitute for hard work and thorough intellectual preparations if you want to do well in examinations. This is true for courses that you like and those that you dislike. It is also true for courses offered by Christian and non-Christian lecturers.

IMPLICATIONS FOR YOUR STUDIES
The point here is to caution that you don’t easily attribute poor performance in an examination to differences in faith between you and your non-Christian lecturers. In every area of life, it is easy to blame other people for our negative experiences, circumstances and failure. A charge of intellectual persecution is not one you should make lightly, especially when examinations are involved. You must be honest enough to the Lord to assess the contribution of all other factors including the quality and quantity of your personal investment in studying a particular course.

However, when you have done your best and, for no other reason than your faith in Jesus, you get marked down, rejoice in the Lord. Keep your bigger victories and success in view. The same is true when you earn a mark that is lower than you expected in a course for which you worked really hard. Be on your guard when your marks are low. Don’t let your legitimate feelings of disappointment to degenerate into bitterness against the Lord and doubts about His faithfulness to you.

Other articles in this category:

How to study under non-Christian professors
How to handle intellectual persecution in the classroom

The epistemic authority of the Bible is contested by most of your lecturers. Depending on your course of study, you are likely to encounter casual critics, higher critics, intellectual hypocrites and others who approach the Bible from a cultural perspective.

CASUAL CRITICS
Direct casual attacks on the Bible usually come from prejudiced scholars, atheists, humanists and others who resent various aspects of your Christian faith. Generally, this group of critics are militant in their opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are open enemies of the gospel. Casual critics of the Bible are sometimes pedestrian in their approach.  Many of them have not seriously studied the Bible first hand. They rely on the views of other prejudiced scholars. Listening or reading carefully, you can easily identify the patterns of their criticism that often reflect superficiality, biases and faulty logic.

HIGHER CRITICS
Higher criticism doesn’t mean either of two things. First it has nothing to do with advanced or objective critical analysis of biblical stories and messages. Secondly, the term doesn’t refer to the historic process of careful evaluation of ancient manuscripts in order to determine, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the ones that qualify as parts of the Bible.

Higher criticism is an intellectual approach to the Bible which starts with an assumption that the Bible is not an inspired documentation of God’s self-revelation to all humanity. Higher critics are not prepared to concede any form of supernaturalism in the events, accounts, themes, styles and messages contained in the texts of the Bible.

Their methods follow logically from a rejection of supernatural contents or influences in biblical texts. Higher critics see the Bible as no more than a piece of literature, and insist that it  must be studied as such, understood as such and improved as such.  From this position, they proceed with various literary methods to analyze biblical texts. They question authenticity, authorship, dates, contexts and motives of  biblical texts. They interpret these texts in terms of tradition,  stories, legends, myths, socio-historical contexts and experiences of specific human authors.

It is easy to identify higher critics in the intellectual world. All higher critics share one thing in common. They don’t have a genuine personal relationship of commitment with the Lord Jesus Christ. Some higher critics have a form of religion but they deny the practical power of faith in Christ Jesus.

Understand the issues raised by higher critics from the standpoint of their true motivation. They see a necessity to strip the Bible of its authority and overwhelming influence in personal and social morality. Their aim is to repackage and reinterpret biblical texts in materialistic and humanistic terms that are adaptable to any moral climate. This anti-Christian  motivation invalidates any claim of objectivity in most conclusions that higher critics reach about the Bible.

CULTURAL CRITICS
Lastly, there are  scholars who advocate perspectives that locate the Bible in specific cultures.  Practically this means that they interpret the Bible primarily on the authority of  the cultural background of peoples. This cultural approach is not in agreement with the true Christian understanding of the relationship between humanity and God. It transfers your allegiance from the Bible  to dominant cultures, thus making  a nonsense of the universality of the truth claims of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Don’t be fooled by the pretences of these cultural advocates.  Many of them don’t believe that Jesus Christ died for all humanity. They don’t believe that Jesus Christ really is the way, the truth and the life. Some of them don’t believe that you should communicate the gospel to others. They don’t persuade other people to repent from their false beliefs and turn to Jesus as the only Saviour of the  world.  Their culture-specific view of the Bible is part of their lack of personal and genuine commitment to the Lord.

Followers of Christ Jesus use  biblical standards to understand and evaluate beliefs, lifestyle and behaviour in all places and at all times. This means that the committed Christian assigns final authority to the Bible in all matters of faith and practical living. The Bible is the epistemic starting point for the true believer. It is also the ultimate validatory authority for all issues about morality, politics, economics and human behaviour in every culture of the world. The Christian assesses similarities and differences in world cultures by the extent to which they agree with or differ from foundational truths of the Bible. The Christian approves cultural values that the Bible approves and rejects cultural values that are condemned by the Bible.

INTELLECTUAL HYPOCRITES
Complicated forms of attacks on the Bible come from a group of intellectuals that are best described as  hypocrites. These include some famous personalities who may command respect as theologians,  authors,  teachers and pastors. They are characterized by intellectual sophistry and spiritual compromise. With carefully crafted language, they pretend to accept the authority of the Bible and its implications for practical living. In reality though, they don’t demonstrate any serious allegiance to the Bible. They hide behind intellectual analysis to advocate an understanding of the Bible that suits their anti-Biblical beliefs. These hypocrites use their strong influences to present a fragmented picture of truth, deny biblical  miracles and exaggerate the so-called discrepancies in books of the Bible.

We can expand on some of these sleights. First, they fragment the idea of truth in order to be accommodated in the prevailing non-Christian intellectual culture. They subtly introduce unnecessary tensions between truth from nature and truth of the Bible. Their favourite  line of argument is that the Bible deals with only spiritual truths while the rest of nature speaks a practical and preferred language for understanding reality.

Another way they fragment truth is to place exaggerated emphasis on the fact that the Bible is not a textbook. Of course there is a good sense in which the Bible cannot be handled exactly the same way as other textbooks in all your  courses. You won’t find mathematical formulae and scientific procedure in the Bible the way they are presented  in your textbooks. This  is quite obvious to everyone.  However, the Bible contains truth principles for every discipline of knowledge. Hypocrites don’t accept this. They would rather suggest to you that the truth of the Bible is different from the “truths” of various disciplines of knowledge. If you fall for this error of epistemic pluralism, you will find yourself easily accepting  several  other propositions that deny the lordship of Jesus Christ in various branches of learning.

Secondly, these hypocrites deny biblical miracles. If God is God, then what we see as the Bible is a showcase of His miraculous disclosure of Himself to us as human beings. Specific miracles in the Bible are an integral part of the package of this divine self-revelation. Hypocrites don’t see things this way. They deny God the prerogative to set aside the laws of nature anytime, anywhere and for any purposes of His choice. They wrongly assume that  a miracle must fit into our human rationality. Their approach is to judge the miraculous only  by the extent to which such events  agree with demonstrable laws of nature.

Lastly, intellectual hypocrites magnify alleged difficulties in Biblical texts. They approach passages of the Bible with the same naturalistic  assumptions used by higher critics. They totally discount the supernatural dimension and believe that their literary techniques and compromises can improve the texts of the Bible. These enemies of the gospel are quick to cite isolated cases of numerical inconsistencies, linguistic limitations and translation ambiguities as evidence against the supernatural authority of the Bible.

IMPLICATIONS FOR YOUR STUDIES
Contrary to the misconceptions raised by critics, the Bible is true and clear in its message to humanity. Christians approach its difficult passages  with the honest principle that what we don’t currently understand cannot contradict what we know clearly in the Bible. No difficult passage invalidates any fundamental truth claim of the Bible. There is no ambiguity in the Bible about creation, the fall in Adam, salvation in Christ Jesus and eternity. The Bile is clear about  how we can be reconciled to God and how we should live faithfully for the Lord in this world. The Christian approach is simple obedience and commitment to what God has revealed to us in this phase of eternity. We accept that the secrets of the Lord belong to Him, and that He reveals only what He sees necessary for us to know in order to please Him in this life.

Thorough knowledge of the Bible is a formidable strength that Satan can’t stand in a Christian student Invest your interest in knowing the Bible. With the explosion of technology, there is no excuse for not having the Bible in various media formats. Load it in your computer, walkman, iPod, MP3 or cellular phone. Enjoy reading, discovering and obeying the Bible as a Christian student. Learn to work out the implications of biblical principles for what and how you study in various courses.

See Part 1 of this article: The Bible in Your Intellectual Work.

The Bible is divinely inspired. Its messages include extraordinary and exclusive truth claims. It is intricately tied to history with hundreds of prophecies that have been fulfilled to the letter. The Bible is internally consistent despite being a collection of books that literally spanned centuries of uncoordinated compilation. The records of its documentation, preservation, interpretation and dissemination  through the centuries are nothing less than miraculous. We cannot begin to expand any of these amazing features of the Bible without exceeding the scope of our interest here.

THE BIBLE IS YOUR INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATION
As you begin your intellectual training, don’t lose sight of three critical facts about the Bible. First, it is the final authority in all matters about knowledge. Explanatory models stand and fall on the basis of their agreement with biblical truths. Secondly, the Bible is true. The truth of the Bible is absolute in every sense. Human beings and all creation were,  in history, what the Bible says they were. Human beings and all creation are, today, what the Bible says they are. They will, in future, be what the Bible says they will be. Thirdly, the truth of the Bible is sufficient for all your intellectual needs. The Bible is the dependable starting point for every area of study. It alone, is the ultimate validator of all answers and conclusions. It sets the absolute standard of truth, and corrects errors in ideas, theories and facts of every discipline of knowledge.

IMPLICATIONS FOR YOUR STUDIES
God has given you His authoritative and inerrant wisdom in the Bible to shape your thinking and perspectives. The Bible is the final and timeless guide in all matters of intellectual pursuit and practical wisdom. You cannot go far in Christ-honoring learning without complete submission to the axiomatic status of biblical principles.

Read Part 2 of this article: How to understand criticisms of the Bible in the classroom.

Do you know that as a Christian, you are best equipped for intellectual excellence? Many Christian students are afraid and confused when faced with intellectual challenges in the classroom. This is because most academic institutions today reject the authorities of the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The book that generations of Christian students asked for is finally here. It is packed full of professional advice on core intellectual issues that worry Christians students in the classroom— resisting wrong beliefs in academic work, handling anti-biblical worldviews and data, relating with non-Christian lecturers, victory in intellectual persecution, success in exams, etc.  In the book you learn how to relate to the intellectual world as a Christian student, including how to:
• study your courses in ways that are consistent with your faith,
• Stand your ground when your faith is challenged in the classroom,
• study under non-Christian professors and succeed in exams,
• and much more.

This definitive guide for every Christian student is written by an experienced Christian professor who knows what it means to be a Christian student in a hostile intellectual environment.

The book will be released by ProcrossMedia in April 2009. Be sure to get a copy from your university bookshop, other bookshops or general outlets. Feel free to contact us for more information about how to obtain your copy of  Facing Intellectual Giants.

The holiday is over with its headaches. You are now ready to return to the classroom. In many countries, the January month takes you to a new level of courses.  Often, new courses come with new professors. In this article, we draw your attention to a number of issue about how to relate to your non-Christian professors as you begin the 2009 academic year. Your professors are the most important direct human points of contact between you and specific disciplines of knowledge. This intellectual relationship is a necessary part of your learning experience. Unfortunately, majority of those who teach and supervise your work at various stages in your formal learning career are not Christian. This fact raises questions about how you see them as human beings and how you process the information they present to you in different courses.

THEIR BASIC ERROR

Non-Christian scholars reject the Lord Jesus Christ as the ultimate reality, reason and truth. This is their basic intellectual error. When non-Christian intellectuals reject the Lord Jesus Christ, they reject the truth. Whatever else they do in search of knowledge turns out to be a departure from truth in the end. In rejecting Jesus Christ, non-Christian intellectuals engage with knowledge from wrong starting points. They start from various points that need to be accounted for in the first place. Some of them opt for human rationality, human sensation or empirical evidence. Others start from majority opinions or shared beliefs. They expect you to accept these as alternatives to biblical primary assumptions. We know that if not grounded in divine revelation, human rationality, human sensation, empirical evidence and majority opinions do easily lead to wrong directions and wrong conclusions. The Lord Jesus Christ is the true reason and the basis for true logic.  Intellectuals who deny Jesus Christ as the ultimate reality don’t have truth on their side. Consequently, they don’t meet the basic condition for proper uses of human rationality, human sensation, empirical evidence and similar resources in scholarly engagements.

HOW THE BIBLE SEES INTELLECTUALS WHO REJECT GOD

Why is it that many apparently capable scholars and professors don’t attain proper knowledge of God in the Lord Jesus Christ? This problem goes far back into the beginning. God gave human beings a perfect intellect. But in Adam, things went horribly wrong. People exchanged the authority of human rationality for the authority of God’s wisdom. As a result, the natural human mind is debased (Romans 1:28), blinded (2 Corinthians 4:4), darkened (Ephesians 4.18), vainly puffed up in sensuality (Col 2:18), corrupted (1 Timothy 6:5, 2 Timothy 3:8) and defiled (Titus 1:15). The natural mind is no longer able to receive the things of the Spirit of God by default due to the Fall. Human rationality on its own is unable to make sense of the wisdom of God that is expressed in the good news of Jesus Christ.

Their hearts are darkened. The state of the heart affects the intellect because the two are intimately connected. Ultimately, intellectual issues become issues of the heart, and the other way round. The hearts of ungodly intellectuals are darkened by the original sin and remain enemies of God because they are not subject to the authority of God. (Romans 8.7). This is why they can’t connect to the true spiritual insights as useful knowledge.

They suppress the truth. Every mind is created by God with an inbuilt ability to relate to the truth about God’s existence, His characters and His moral demands on human beings. What is knowable about God is evident within every heart. This makes those who refuse the truth of God inexcusable. The issue is not that non-Christian intellectuals don’t have access to the truth of God. The problem of many non-Christian intellectuals is that they suppress the truth of God in their hearts. They suppress the truth in their hearts and profess lies about God to students, colleagues and the society.

They are not as wise as they think. The Bible describes intellectuals who deny God’s existence as fools (Psalm 14:1). Practically, they are plainly wrong about God. They are wrong about Jesus, the Bible, heaven, Satan, sin and hell. Their intransigence is a hopeless attempt to rationalize rebellion against God.  All disciplines of knowledge are full of such intellectuals. Many of your courses are designed and taught by them. Each time you attend a class in any subject, there is a good chance that you are lectured by a person who is considered a fool by the Bible. Wisdom requires that you thread with caution here.  You can’t be rude to your professor under any circumstance.The liberal mercy of our God leaves him or her with intellectual abilities and other endowments with which to find the way back to the Truth. Pray for your professors and use every encounter with them in the classroom to encourage their return to God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

LEARNING FROM NON-CHRISTIAN PROFESSORS

Considering the true biblical portrait of non-Christian intellectuals, should a Christian learn from them at all?  If yes, what type of knowledge do you to gain from unregenerated minds? The answer to the first question is straightforward. Yes, you can learn from non-Christians. This is because non-Christians are not entirely bankrupt in useful  intelligence.  In this period of grace, all human beings remain repositories of God-given rationality, intelligence and ingenuity as part of provisions for human repentance and reconciliation to God. The answer to the second question is less straightforward. It raises several issues about why you are in the university. You can  expect to benefit from their intellectual expertise, technical skills and professional experiences. At their best, non-Christian professors expose you to the state of knowledge in specific disciplines. They teach theories, specific techniques, historical developments and unresolved issues in your discipline. You can also learn advanced skills in the use of academic material, academic  writing, thinking, analysis and general academic demeanor from non-Christian intellectuals. Beyond these, there are certain things that you don’t expect to learn directly from ungodly professors. This is particularly true when they go beyond technical description and analysis to make prescriptive statements about reality and life in general. They don’t  have the truth about origin and destiny of the universe and life. They don’t have the correct epistemic foundations for the truth about ultimate purpose, meaning and morality.

IMPLICATIONS FOR YOUR STUDIES

The Bible presents a clear picture of intellectuals who reject the Lord Jesus Christ. Their hearts are darkened, they suppress the truth and profess to be wise in foolishness. They are deluded in their refusal to acknowledge God, and live a life that is contrary to their preferred worldviews. These include most people with whom you interact daily in the university as your professors and tutors. In the early phase of your  intellectual adjustment, you are tempted to overlook their true spiritual state. Don’t be taken in by their apparent technical skills in specific disciplines. The reality is that non-Christian intellectuals are, overall, enemies of Christ Jesus.

The intention here is not to encourage you to disrespect the authority of your teachers or belittle their professional accomplishments because they are non-Christians. As we mentioned earlier, you can learn useful technical information, intellectual skills and experience. The idea is to help you develop a true biblical perspective of ungodly intellectuals. A correct view of your non-Christian professors empowers you not to dis them but to know better how to interpret  the materials they present to you as part of your formal  intellectual training.

Tom Th.