FACE TO FACE WITH THE INTELLECTUAL

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.