CHESTERTON HOUSE:
A CENTER FOR CHRISTIAN STUDIES
"daring to discuss the important and the amusing"
NEWSLETTER #30
FALL 2008
In a recent column appearing in the Wall Street Journal, legal scholar David Skeel observes that C.S Lewis's Mere Christianity has a combination of sophistication and accessibility that remains unmatched even by the very best contemporary work of apologetics, which he identifies as Tim Keller's The Reason for God. "Why can't evangelical authors produce a true successor to Mere Christianity?" he asks. "The main reason, I think, is that today's best scholars, like [Alvin] Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, can't write for a general audience, and the writers who can accomplish this are no longer real scholars. Lewis was both, at a time when the two were thought to be compatible" ("Apres Lewis," Wall Street Journal, 8/15/2008).
Although generalists and specialists are indeed less often found in the same person today--the old ideal of the "renaissance man" is increasingly remote--academic and "popular" modes of communication both remain important. Indeed, generalists and specialists need each other more than ever. If you look at the footnotes of Keller's book, for example, we see his reasoning is grounded in the scholarly works of philosophers Plantinga and Wolterstorff, historians Mark Noll and Lamin Sanneh, and sociologists Rodney Stark and Christian Smith. The folks in the footnotes do the heavy lifting, so to speak, while Keller repackages their most important ideas for the public.
I was reminded of this ripple effect of Christian scholarship last week as we watched a debate between two "public intellectuals"--Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great, and Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About Christianity. Hitchens, like the so-called New Atheists more generally, has a bit of a bug in his bonnet about religion still being a major force in the world. Although modernity was supposed to usher in secularization, people still find reasons to "cling" to religion. Ironically, one of those reasons can be perceived in the subtext of Hitchens' criticisms.
Hitchens argues against Christianity by noting that it has occasioned much violence throughout history. D'Souza, echoing Keller, observes that the atheistic regimes of Stalin, Mao and others have been immeasurably more violent. One of the most interesting parts of this exchange, however, is what it leaves unsaid--that the primary objections to Christian faith today are more historical than philosophical. This is a recent development; not too many years ago, critics of Christianity waxed philosophical about the incoherence of faith.
Why have critics of Christianity such as Hitchens largely given up on philosophical criticisms of faith? There are at least two reasons. First, among secularists, postmodernism has undercut confidence in autonomous human reason. Second, among Christians, there has been a renaissance of scholarship that has dramatically established the reasonability of faith. In 1978, a small group of Christian philosophers founded a professional society "to promote fellowship among Christian Philosophers and to stimulate study and discussion of issues which arise from their Christian and philosophical commitments." Despite its modest beginnings, the Society of Christian Philosophers has become very influential through the work of individuals such as William Alston, Eleonore Stump, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Alvin Plantinga. So great has been their influence that a writer in Philo, the Journal of the Society of Humanist Philosophers, recently lamented that philosophy is the first discipline to have lost the secularism that it once had! At least in the case of philosophy, then, academic specialization has helped, not hurt, Christianity.
Given the proliferation of knowledge and academic disciplines over the last half century, it seems increasingly unlikely that there even could be another great work of integration such as Mere Christianity. In any case, even if Lewis could do both the heavy lifting and the broadcasting himself, at least today we have both first-rate specialists (e.g., Plantinga and Wolterstorff) within various disciplines and first-rate generalists (Keller and D'Souza) broadcasting their best ideas to a wider audience. Maybe that's as good as it gets.
As those of you who follow the work of the Chesterton House ministry know, one of our primary goals is precisely to connect the best Christian scholars and their scholarship with a wider audience. If you look again at the scholars cited by Keller, you will see that they are the very same scholars that Chesterton House draws upon as speakers. This week we are privileged to be hosting one of the scholars Keller relies on most heavily, Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga will give two lectures on campus. Thursday evening he will give a public lecture entitled "Divine Action in the World," addressing the objection that scientific knowledge excludes the possibility of miracles, and on Friday he will give a technical talk to his colleagues in philosophy. More details on this and other Chesterton House news and events can be found below. Many thanks for your interest in and support of the ministry.
Karl E. Johnson
COMING EVENTS
Thursday, October 2, 7:00pm
"Divine Action in the World"
Dr. Alvin Plantinga, Philosopher, Notre Dame
Graduate Christian Fellowship Roundtable
165 McGraw Hall
Wednesday, October 15, 4:00pm
"Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance"
Dr. Guy Consolmagno, Astronomer, Fordham University
Bethe House Commons (235)
Saturday, November 1, 7:00pm
"Conversation on America's Future"
Dr. Jim Skillen, Executive Director, Center for Public Justice
Bethel Grove Bible Church, Family Center
Friday-Sunday, February 6-8, 2009
"Identity and Idolatry"
Rev. Dr. Richard Lints, Gordon-Conwell Seminary
Institute of Biblical Studies (with Bethel Grove and New Life Pres.)
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Upstate NY Christian Faculty Conference
Dr. Mark Noll, historian, Notre Dame
Cornell University
GOD'S LAW AND OUR LAWS
The above-mentioned David Skeel, who is the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania, was recently our guest and gave a fascinating talk entitled "God's Law and Our Laws: The Kingdom of Heaven in America." The Big Red Barn was packed with a full house that night, but for those who missed it, the audio of the lecture is available on our website. Skeel and his colleague William Stuntz, a professor at Harvard Law, maintain a blog Less Than the Least.
REV. DR. RICHARD LINTS TO SPEAK AT IBS
We are pleased to announce that Rev. Dr. Richard Lints will be our guest for the annual Institute of Biblical Studies in February, 2009. Lints is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and the author or editor of several books, including The Fabric of Theology, Westminster Dictionary of Philosophical Terms for Theology, Identity in Theological Perspective, and Radical Ironies: Religion and the Rise of Postmodernity in the 1960s. Co-sponsored with Bethel Grove Bible Church and New Life Presbyterian Church, the Institute has featured pastors and scholars such as D.A. Carson, William Edgar, and Stephen Um. The audio of past Institutes is also available on our website.
CORNELL SENIOR TRAVELS TO MADRID
Cornell senior Josiah Pothen '09, traveled to Madrid to attend the Metanexus Institute's 2008 conference "Subject, Self, and Soul" in July. Chesterton House is a recipient of a three-year Metanexus Local Societies Initiative Grant, which includes travel to the conference. "If there is one thing I am going to take away from this conference," Pothen wrote, "it is that orthodox Christian belief is far from boring. It inspires some of the most intelligent people across the world to think well and come up with intelligent and articulate answers to the problems our world is facing." Amen.
“God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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