Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Editors note: We apologize for the absence of last years September/October and November/December
issues. Events beyond our control threw us off our publication schedule. In September the Rev. Sue Cyre
retired as planned after 20 years of faithful service at the helm of Theology Matters. Unfortunately, her
successor was unable to continue the work, due to unforeseen circumstances. The board of directors has
designated me, Alan Wisdom, as interim editor while it resumes the search for a permanent editor and
executive director. We are committed to carrying forward Theology Matters mission of strengthening
the church in the areas of doctrine, apologetics, and Christian worldview. In this issue we present two
articles related to apologetics. William Dembski and Jay Richards discuss the importance of preparing
Christians, especially seminary students, to defend their faith against the challenges that inevitably
come. Steven Smith provides an example of apologetics in practice, as he addresses the question of
whether morality can have a firm foundation apart from the biblical God.
Is God Irrelevant?
by Steven D. Smith
In a small, posthumous book called Religion Without
God,1 the late Ronald Dworkin argues that morality
does not need God. Though not himself a theist, in this
book Dworkin does not argue against Gods existence.
The argument, rather, is that whether or not there is a
God, He (or She, or It) is neither necessary nor even
helpful in grounding or explaining moral goods and
obligations.
Dworkins position is hardly novel. As Mark Movsesian
observes in a perceptive review,2 the bottom-line
argument goes back at least to Platos Euthyphro.
Dworkin himself thinks his conclusion follows closely
and naturally from Humes principlenamely, David
Humes famous claim that ought statements cannot be
derived from factual or is statements3 (including,
presumably, statements that It is a fact that God
commands such and such). (26-28) Philosophers have
developed arguments essentially similar to Dworkins
but in more methodical and rigorous fashion.4
Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry
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gospel. For those who receive it, the gospel is the best
news imaginable. For those who reject it, the gospel
signifies sorrow and loss. The apostle Paul put it this
way: We are the aroma of Christ to God among those
who are being saved and among those who are
perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to
the other a fragrance from life to life (2 Cor 2:15-16).
An urgency attaches to the Christian message. Peoples
lives are in the balance. Not every story will have a
happy ending. Everything is not going to turn out all
right in the end. Only where Gods grace is manifested
will things turn out all right. But where Gods grace is
spurned, things will not turn out all right. There is a
move afoot these days in theological circles to embrace
a position known as universalismthat in the end
everyone will be saved. This is the teaching neither of
Scripture nor of church tradition. There is no universal
safety net. Our feel-good pop psychologies urge us to
think it more befitting of God to save everyone. Reality,
however, is not ultimately determined by what we think
fitting. Certainly we should be comforted in knowing
that the God who decides human destinies is rich in love
and mercy. But we must never neglect the holiness and
justice of God.
Because the truth of Christ is humanitys chief truth, the
truth of Christ is at once glorious and urgent. It follows
that Christians have a mandate to declare the truth of
Christ. This mandate consists of bringing every aspect
of life under the influence of this truth. In an age of
unbridled freedom and licentiousness, this no doubt will
smack of elitism and intrusiveness. But in fact, unifying
every aspect of life around the truth of Christ is the only
hope humanity has to find true freedom and fulfillment.
In the epistle to the Colossians, Paul writes that all
things were created by and for Christ. To be united with
Christ is therefore to fulfill a persons true purpose,
whereas to be separated from Christ is to lose his or her
way.
Rooting Out False Ideas
If we now grant that unifying every aspect of life around
this truth of Christ is the ideal that ought to guide every
Christian scholar, the question remains: How do we get
there? Let us begin by acknowledging how far we
actually are from attaining this ideal. Consider the
words of J. Gresham Machen, a well-known Princeton
theologian who was active early in the twentieth
century:
False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the
Gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a
reformer and yet succeed only in winning a
straggler here and there, if we permit the whole
collective thought of the nation or of the world to
be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless
Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry
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reason, Christian
inoculation.
apologetics
needs
to
stress
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Students at todays mainline seminaries are more
conservative than their faculties (at least at the
beginning of their studies). This contrasts with the
situation in the 1960s, in which students were much
more liberal and radical than their professors. There are
now far more students from evangelical congregations
than from liberal ones that attend seminary. In contrast,
liberal Christianity has great difficulty regenerating
itself. Hardly anyone converts from agnosticism to
liberal Christianity. Many liberal Christians started out
as evangelicals. Indeed, liberal Christianity is parasitic.
To survive it must recruit evangelical Christians.
Whats more, the key recruiting ground is the
theological seminary.
What we are proposing, then, is to exploit the
theological disparity between students and faculty at
mainline seminaries through focused and intentional
student activism. To succeed, such activism requires
that a few committed seminary students be willing to
risk their status, security, and popularity. Additionally,
it requires the help and encouragement from faithful
people in the pewsthis includes spiritual, emotional,
and financial support.
Standing up for Christian orthodoxy at a mainline
seminary is a quick way to lose friends and alienate
people. Members of the Charles Hodge Society were
threatened with two lawsuits for their work on the
Princeton Theological Review, threatened with physical
violence, accused of racism and sexism, denied funding
that other campus groups readily received, had posted
signs destroyed and removed, and were explicitly
informed by faculty that membership in the Charles
Hodge
Society
jeopardized
their
academic
advancement. Nonetheless, we also met with approval
and encouragement from some faculty and
administrators, from lay people in the churches who
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