A very interesting article which, I think, stems from the secular humanist (both postmodernists and modernists) and the Christian fundamentalist assumption that reason is fundamentally divorced from faith. I know that this statement is an oversimplification of the humanist and fundamentalist position but for the sake of the argument this, I think, is the general standing of the secular and fundamentalist’s position today (not necessarily what Christian fundamentalism stood for, say, at the time of “old Princeton Seminary” with Warfield and the like). What is the Christian’s responsibility? Show the world the coherence of faith and reason through a robust intellectual rigor and engagement in the “secular” disciplines by Christians who both affirm a strong orthodoxy and practice a godly faith. That is, bring everything under the supremacy of Christ; and in the protestant work ethic make every thought obedient to Christ through the very reason and science which God has created for his glory. I think the gospel demands that a Christian work differently than the secularist in a secular vocation. Is it too much to ask for Christians whom God has gifted intellectually within their fields to see the general revelation of God better than there secular counterpart…indeed can they not see and are they not called to see Reality with a clearer vision and therefore see reality generally more clearly also. But even when we do not “know” as much within a secular discipline/vocation as the secularist then there should still be a qualitative difference in how we do our discipline/vocation. There is, in a sense, an aesthetic which accompanies the labor of the Christian. This is the sense of the divine and of worship. This is what reason, in a secular sense, is missing…God. He is the moral imperative that the secularist through reason alone has no foundation for.
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A very interesting article which, I think, stems from the secular humanist (both postmodernists and modernists) and the Christian fundamentalist assumption that reason is fundamentally divorced from faith. I know that this statement is an oversimplification of the humanist and fundamentalist position but for the sake of the argument this, I think, is the general standing of the secular and fundamentalist’s position today (not necessarily what Christian fundamentalism stood for, say, at the time of “old Princeton Seminary” with Warfield and the like). What is the Christian’s responsibility? Show the world the coherence of faith and reason through a robust intellectual rigor and engagement in the “secular” disciplines by Christians who both affirm a strong orthodoxy and practice a godly faith. That is, bring everything under the supremacy of Christ; and in the protestant work ethic make every thought obedient to Christ through the very reason and science which God has created for his glory. I think the gospel demands that a Christian work differently than the secularist in a secular vocation. Is it too much to ask for Christians whom God has gifted intellectually within their fields to see the general revelation of God better than there secular counterpart…indeed can they not see and are they not called to see Reality with a clearer vision and therefore see reality generally more clearly also. But even when we do not “know” as much within a secular discipline/vocation as the secularist then there should still be a qualitative difference in how we do our discipline/vocation. There is, in a sense, an aesthetic which accompanies the labor of the Christian. This is the sense of the divine and of worship. This is what reason, in a secular sense, is missing…God. He is the moral imperative that the secularist through reason alone has no foundation for.
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