How Scholarship Shields us from the Bible
By Trevin Wax on Mar 21, 2009 in Quotes of the Week | 
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Worth repeating…
“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly.
“Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship.
“Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.
“Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”
- Soren Kierkegaard
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This is one time where I won’t take a contrarian view as this quote sums up perfectly my feelings of present day Christianity. Christianity is a call to action, not a couch potato religion. Jesus wants us to actually do what He says.
RJ | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
although i loathe his extentialism, there is no substitute for the Bible to be believed and put into practice.
It is not hard to understand, but is hard[ without the Holy Spirit’s aid, to be believed.
dr. paul foltz | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
This is a wonderful quote. Thank you so much. Oh, to be changed by the Bible. The Word IS living and active.
Jen Balsbaugh | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
Nice! A quote from Kierkegaard!
Barry | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
wow, everyone is quick to agree with kierkegaard! am the only one who had godly professors in seminary? i went to MBTS & let me tell you, i was blessed to learn biblical studies from godly folks who are top-notch scholars and focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ, even in their personal lives.
kierkegaard denounced christian scholarship because of the spiritually dead protestantism of his day, both in the churches and in the theological schools which perpetuated the problem. although much of american theological scholarship is just as dead, let’s acknowledge those faithful bastion’s of orthodoxy AND orthopraxy like the one i went to, MBTS.
seriously, am i the only who had godly professors of biblical studies?
mike | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
I have that one highlighted in my copy too.
Tony Kummer | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
There are no Bible Scholars just Bible students.
No human knows everything contained in it for the Word is alive and powerful.
My hermeneutics and Doctrinal teacher was the late Dr. Mark G.Cambron. He was a gifted instructor and implanted in me, a love and reverence for the Bible.
I don’t judge the Bible, it judges me.
dr. paul foltz | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
Mike, it is not a matter of what you learned from your teachers but instead a matter of how we who call ourselves Christians live out the words of Jesus Christ. I believe we are just too much like the secular world in that we concentrate almost all of our daily energy on ourselves instead of reaching out to our brothers as Jesus did. It is not about us. It is about loving our brothers and therefore showing the love of the Lord in our everyday lives.
RJ | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
Amen, RJ Amen.
dr. paul foltz | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
Knowing the Bible is not the point. Knowing God is the point. We love God by obeying his commands. His command is a new one: Love one another. Obedience is better than sacrifice.
Eric Peterson | Mar 21, 2009 | Reply
I can only say “Amen,” Trevin. Thank you for sharing this quote. I should be grateful if you would also post the citation.
Dan Martin | Mar 23, 2009 | Reply
Mike and RJ, I hope my comments bring some clarity to the discussion. Scholarship is not the call of the Christian life; all Christians are not required to be scholars in order to be counted faithful. As students of Church History know, the 1st and 2nd cent. church was largely uneducated but expressed incredible faithfulness. Many comments here are from pastors and ministers whose hearts are with the common people of the church, and I reaffirm their love and concern for the body.
HOWEVER, Christian scholarship is NOT “the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself from the Bible.” It is the calling of some to defend the Bible from the world! The world who would undermine it and tear it apart, even in the guise of biblical scholarship (historical criticism). Who will rise against Bart Ehrman? Who will rise against the Jesus seminar? What do we make of the Documentary Hypothesis? Who will defend the resurrection as a historical event (Thank you Gary Habermas and Mark Liconas)? God FORBID that we don’t rise to defend the faith against scholarly attacks and in like fashion, using sound logic, clear words, and immaculate scholarship.
Yes, scholarship can be used improperly. People can restrict their spiritual life in ways that leave their scholarship untouched. Sadly, I’ve talked to more seminary students who struggle with this than one’s who haven’t. But Mike is so right in appreciating the great spiritual scholars in his life. I know I am ever so indebted to Jonathan Edwards, who is still regarded worldwide as one of the greatest intellectuals to ever grace America. Dare I say he was distancing the Bible from himself in his labors.
I think the real issue is to see biblical scholarship as one of the myriad human endeavors that we can engage in for the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31) and as a part of our spiritual life. For the Christian, there is a continuity of worship throughout everything we do. Don’t fall into a restricted spirituality that counts some activities as more pleasing to God than others. Read Tozer’s words in Chapter 10 of the Pursuit of God (http://www.theboc.com/freestuff/awtozer/books/the_pursuit_of_god/the_sacrament_of_living.html), and see how spirituality is more and more being restricted to a shorter and shorter lists of activities. LET US NOT BE RESTRICTED, BUT FREE!
Clayton | Mar 28, 2009 | Reply
Clayton;
The Bible is like a lion, let it out of its cage and it will defend itself. The trouble men have with it is not they don’t understand it, but is they don’t believe it. It takes the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of those God has chosen.
All the rest are reprobated.
Dr. Paul W. Foltz | Mar 28, 2009 | Reply
The Bible itself commands you to be ready to give a reason for the hope that lies within you, not just glibly quoting it. So to do less is to simply not obey God. William Wilberforce’s children all left the faith over the same attitude of “the Bible will defend itself” that was prevalent in Great Britain while being challenged by early higher criticism and so-called archaeological errors in scripture that went unanswered, leaving them and now British Christianity with the sad results.
Take this from one who has given the gospel effectively to atheists of all stripes, including the world’s leading atheist scholar at the time, Antony Flew, to a leading astronomer who is now a strong believer (Baptist nonetheless), the leading academic philosophical defender for several years of Roe V Wade , good men and women in Appalachia who had PhD’s and those who couldn’t read at all.
I do agree that the Bible is much more significant than it is generally credit – addressing right from the beginning, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.
Yet the source and direction of the quote in this blog by Soren Kierkegaard is reason enough to question its value to adding any clarity to the concerns.
Ross McGary | Mar 28, 2009 | Reply
This blog is often devoted to the intellectual pursuit of understanding God and his Word. I am a masters student contemplating a future Ph.D. So I am not anti-scholarship.
That said, Kierkegaard’s warning to those of us who enjoy scholarship is appropriate. Perhaps one of Satan’s temptations to us scholars is to have us endlessly debating what the Bible says without putting it into practice.
Trevin Wax | Mar 28, 2009 | Reply
Once I was humble, now I’m proud, walking with the Doctor’s crowd.
The Apostle Paul never knew such bliss, for he had no title to equal this.
Call me Doctor, sake’s alive, on my ego I must thrive.
Dr. Paul W. Foltz | Mar 28, 2009 | Reply
Quoting Kierkegaard with no disclaimer would be akin to quoting from “A Generous Orthodoxy” that gets a few statements correct too – but still heterodoxy, at best.
Pride is found among persons of all social strata and so is humility.
There is a legitimate concern for a new scholasticism. But also for a resurgence of restricted piety – ditches both.
So what do you do? Not what do you blog about. Astronomy, Law, Linguistics, Oceanographer, Photo journalism? Some I know in these fields have Masters and some have PhD in Theology as well. How do you do that to the glory of God? Monasticism in practice is not a Biblical option.
Ross McGary | Mar 28, 2009 | Reply
Whether your choice is “scholarship” (hated by Paul 1Cor1 20-28) or blind “faith” (fideism) . . . you’re just talking to one another . . . might as well say nothing.
** Becoming-who-you-are requires skepticism and self-assertion **
The word ‘islam’ means submission. Obviously submission to the will of Allah, as prescribed in the five pillars of faith. The big-3 monotheisms are alike in dismissing an individual’s will — “not my will but thy will done” as we’re shown in the poignant scene at Gethsemane in the NT. (But, the xian god-man is no hero.)
For the big-3 empire building monotheisms, self-assertion takes on the character not of honest questioning and personal growth, but of insubordination and rebellion. (Can’t be godly cannon fodder unless you obey orders, mister.)
>> One SicK danish strudel, to go!
With characteristic, combative verve, Kierkegaard condemns the doubter as insubordinate, a rebel against xian fideism:
“They would have us believe that objections against Christianity come from doubt. This is always a misunderstanding. Objections against Christianity come from insubordination, unwillingness to obey, rebellion against all authority. Therefore, they have been beating the air against the objectors, because they have fought intellectually [against] doubt, instead of fighting ethically [against] rebellion. . . .So it is not properly doubt but insubordination.” (Lowrie 122)
Thus, SK. Almost needless to say, but his rhetoric works equally “well” in the mouth of any fideist zoroastrian, jew, xian, muslim, or morman.
>> Got guilt? Well, why not, sinner?
Even attempting to leave a religious culture which demands ’subordination’ or ’submission’ to someone else’s interpretation of an alleged “will of god” adversely affects the psychological well-being of the “apostate.” Irrational anxiety feelings get induced. Guilt is the nonexistent elder brother of nonexistent “sin.”
Becoming-who-you-are or “individuation” (to use Jung’s terminology) is the goal of personal growth. It cannot occur without self-doubt or without doubting authority and authority figures. When you’ve made a “leap of faith” into hyper-religious space there is no return except by self-assertion, and doubt is just a form of it. You emulate not Jesus, but Odysseus. The hero labors, struggles, succeeds or dies trying; but throughout remains human.
>> Religious “commitment” is not a choice; it’s a moral cop-out
Irrational self-assertion characterizes our popular culture. Irrational fideism characterizes fundamentalism. One “commitment” to Christ and you drop into the womb of unknowing. “Rebirth” is a pale substitute for individuation.
Tolerance is that wide band of humane behavior, including rational self-assertion, lying between inhuman anarchy and inhuman puritanism. Trying to navigate there requires years of training and making a lot of very human mistakes.
The de-deification of culture (including all the sciences) is our task for the next 100 years.
anti-supernaturalist
anti-supernaturalist | May 4, 2009 | Reply