Nuclear Family

Please see the attached readings and assignment instructions:

  

Nuclear Family: (MUST BE at least 400 words APA format. WIH 2 SCHOLARY SOURCES) Using this module’s reading in the Moreland & Craig text, describe philosophically, biblically (based on Scripture), and civically (based on Bennett’s reading in this module), why the two-parent nuclear family (a family with both a father and mother) is the best form and institution of family in society. If you do not subscribe to this belief, describe your own viewpoint on the same premises stated above. Include source support for your position. Your thread must reveal an in-depth exploration of the question in a comprehensive answer reflecting specific concepts and principles. 

  

Bennett, W. J. (2002). The Broken Hearth. Random House Digital Inc..

https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9780385504867

 Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, InterVarsity Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=5144368. 

Module 1

Nuclear Family: (MUST BE at least 400 words APA format. WIH 2 SCHOLARY SOURCES) Using this module’s reading in the Moreland & Craig text, describe philosophically, biblically (based on Scripture), and civically (based on Bennett’s reading in this module), why the two-parent nuclear family (a family with both a father and mother) is the best form and institution of family in society. If you do not subscribe to this belief, describe your own viewpoint on the same premises stated above. Include source support for your position. Your thread must reveal an in-depth exploration of the question in a comprehensive answer reflecting specific concepts and principles. 

References

Bennett, W. J. (2002). 
The Broken Hearth. Random House Digital Inc.. 

https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9780385504867

AN INVITATION TO CHRISTIAN
PHILOSOPHY

1—WHY PHILOSOPHY MATTERS
On a clear autumn day in 1980, twenty-five miles west of Chicago in
Wheaton, Illinois, Charles Malik, a distinguished academic and statesman,
rose to the podium to deliver the inaugural address at the dedication of the
new Billy Graham Center on the campus of Wheaton College. His
announced topic was “The Two Tasks of Evangelism.” What he said must
have shocked his audience.

We face two tasks in our evangelism, he told them, “saving the soul and
saving the mind”—that is, converting people not only spiritually but
intellectually as well—and the church, he warned, is lagging dangerously
behind with respect to this second task. We should do well to ponder
Malik’s words.

I must be frank with you: the greatest danger confronting American
evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism. The
mind in its greatest and deepest reaches is not cared for enough. But
intellectual nurture cannot take place apart from profound
immersion for a period of years in the history of thought and the
spirit. People who are in a hurry to get out of the university and start
earning money or serving the church or preaching the gospel have
no idea of the infinite value of spending years of leisure conversing
with the greatest minds and souls of the past, ripening and
sharpening and enlarging their powers of thinking. The result is that
the arena of creative thinking is vacated and abdicated to the enemy.
Who among evangelicals can stand up to the great secular scholars
on their own terms of scholarship? Who among evangelical scholars
is quoted as a normative source by the greatest secular authorities on

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history or philosophy or psychology or sociology or politics? Does
the evangelical mode of thinking have the slightest chance of
becoming the dominant mode in the great universities of Europe and
America that stamp our entire civilization with their spirit and
ideas? For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus
Christ, as well as for their own sakes, evangelicals cannot afford to
keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual
existence.1

These words hit like a hammer. The average Christian does not realize that
there is an intellectual struggle going on in the universities and scholarly
journals and professional societies. Enlightenment naturalism and
postmodern antirealism are arrayed in an unholy alliance against a broadly
theistic and specifically Christian worldview.

Christians cannot afford to be indifferent to the outcome of this struggle.
For the single most important institution shaping Western culture is the
university. It is at the university that our future political leaders, journalists,
teachers, business executives, lawyers, and artists will be trained. It is at the
university that they will formulate or, more likely, simply absorb the
worldview that will shape their lives. And since these are the opinion-
makers and leaders who shape our culture, the worldview they imbibe at the
university will be the one that shapes our culture. If the Christian worldview
can be restored to a place of prominence and respect at the university, it will
have a leavening effect throughout society. If we change the university, we
change our culture through those who shape culture.

Why is this important? Simply because the gospel is never heard in
isolation. It is always heard against the background of the cultural milieu in
which one lives. A person raised in a cultural milieu in which Christianity is
still seen as an intellectually viable option will display an openness to the
gospel that a person who is secularized will not. One may as well tell a
secular person to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ! Or, to
give a more realistic illustration, it is like our being approached on the street
by a devotee of the Hare Krishna movement, who invites us to believe in
Krishna. Such an invitation strikes us as bizarre, freakish, perhaps even
amusing. But to a person on the streets of Mumbai, such an invitation
would, one expects, appear quite reasonable and be serious cause for

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reflection. Do evangelicals appear any less weird to persons on the streets
of Bonn, London, or New York than do the devotees of Krishna?

One of the awesome tasks of Christian philosophers is to help turn the
contemporary intellectual tide in such a way as to foster a sociocultural
milieu in which Christian faith can be regarded as an intellectually credible
option for thinking men and women. As the great Princeton theologian J.
Gresham Machen explained,

God usually exerts [his regenerative] power in connection with
certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to
create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favourable
conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the
greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach
with all the fervour 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 force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as
anything more than a harmless delusion.2

Since philosophy is foundational to every discipline of the university,
philosophy is the most strategic discipline to be influenced for Christ. Malik
himself realized and emphasized this.

It will take a different spirit altogether to overcome this great danger
of anti-intellectualism. For example, I say this different spirit, so far
as philosophy alone—the most important domain for thought and
intellect—is concerned, must see the tremendous value of spending
an entire year doing nothing but poring intensely over the Republic
or the Sophist of Plato, or two years over the Metaphysics or the
Ethics of Aristotle, or three years over the City of God of
Augustine.3

Now in one sense it is theology, not philosophy, that is the most
important domain for thought and intellect. As the medievals rightly saw,
theology is the queen of the sciences, to be studied as the crowning
discipline only after one has been trained in the other disciplines.

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Unfortunately, the queen is currently in exile from the Western university.
But her handmaid, philosophy, still has a place at court and is thus
strategically positioned so as to act on behalf of her queen. The reason
Malik could call philosophy, in the absence of the queen, the most
important intellectual domain is because it is the most foundational of the
disciplines, since it examines the presuppositions and ramifications of every
discipline at the university—including itself! Whether it be philosophy of
science, philosophy of education, philosophy of law, philosophy of
mathematics, or what have you, every discipline will have an associated
field of philosophy foundational to that discipline. The philosophy of these
respective disciplines is not theologically neutral. Adoption of
presuppositions consonant with or inimical to orthodox Christian theism
will have a significant leavening effect throughout that discipline that will,
in turn, dispose its practitioners for or against the Christian faith. Christian
philosophers, by influencing the philosophy of these various disciplines,
can thus help to shape the thinking of the entire university in such a way as
to dispose our future generations of leaders to the reception of the gospel.

It is already happening. Over the last forty years a revolution has been
occurring in Anglo-American philosophy. Since the late 1960s Christian
philosophers have been coming out and defending the truth of the Christian
worldview with philosophically sophisticated arguments in the finest
scholarly journals and professional societies. And the face of Anglo-
American philosophy has been transformed as a result. In an article
lamenting “the desecularization of academia that evolved in philosophy
departments since the late 1960s,” one atheist philosopher observes that
whereas theists in other disciplines tend to compartmentalize their theistic
beliefs from their professional work, “in philosophy, it became, almost
overnight, ‘academically respectable’ to argue for theism, making
philosophy a favored field of entry for the most intelligent and talented
theists entering academia today.”4 He complains, “Naturalists passively
watched as realist versions of theism . . . began to sweep through the
philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of
philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians.”5
He concludes, “God is not ‘dead’ in academia; he returned to life in the late

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1960s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy
departments.”6

This is the testimony of a prominent atheist philosopher to the change
that has transpired before his eyes in Anglo-American philosophy. He is
probably exaggerating when he estimates that one-quarter to one-third of
American philosophers are theists; but what his estimates do reveal is the
perceived impact of Christian philosophers on this field. Like Gideon’s
army, a committed minority of activists can have an impact far out of
proportion to their numbers. The principal error he makes is calling
philosophy departments God’s “last stronghold” at the university. On the
contrary, philosophy departments are a beachhead, from which operations
can be launched to influence other disciplines at the university for Christ,
thereby helping to transform the sociocultural milieu in which we live.

But it is not just those who plan to enter the academy professionally
who need to have training in philosophy. Christian philosophy is also an
integral part of training for Christian ministry. A model for us here is a man
like John Wesley, who was at once a Spirit-filled revivalist and an Oxford-
educated scholar. In 1756 Wesley delivered an address to the clergy, which
we commend to all future ministers when commencing their seminary
studies. In discussing what sort of abilities a minister ought to have, Wesley
distinguished between natural gifts and acquired abilities. And it is
extremely instructive to look at the abilities Wesley thought a minister
ought to acquire. One of them is a basic grasp of philosophy. He challenged
his audience to ask themselves,

Am I a tolerable master of the sciences? Have I gone through the
very gate of them, logic? If not, I am not likely to go much farther
when I stumble at the threshold. . . . Rather, have not my stupid
indolence and laziness made me very ready to believe, what the
little wits and pretty gentlemen affirm, “that logic is good for
nothing?” It is good for this at least, . . . to make people talk less; by
showing them both what is, and what is not, to the point; and how
extremely hard it is to prove any thing. Do I understand
metaphysics; if not the depths of the Schoolmen, the subtleties of
Scotus or Aquinas, yet the first rudiments, the general principles, of
that useful science? Have I conquered so much of it, as to clear my

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apprehension and range my ideas under proper heads; so much as
enables me to read with ease and pleasure, as well as profit, Dr.
Henry Moore’s Works, Malebranche’s “Search after Truth,” and Dr.
Clarke’s “Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God?”7

Wesley’s vision of a pastor is remarkable: a gentleman, skilled in the
Scriptures and conversant with history, philosophy, and the science of his
day. How do the pastors graduating from our seminaries compare to this
model?

The authors of this book can both testify personally to the immense
practicality and even indispensability of philosophical training for Christian
ministry. For many years we have each been involved not just in scholarly
work but also in speaking evangelistically on university campuses with
groups like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Cru, and the Veritas Forum.
Again and again we have seen the practical value of philosophical studies in
reaching students for Christ. From questions dealing with the meaning of
life or the basis of moral values to the problem of suffering and evil and the
challenge of religious pluralism, students are asking profound philosophical
questions that are much more difficult to answer than to pose. They deserve
a thoughtful response rather than pat answers or appeals to mystery. The
conventional wisdom says, “You can’t use arguments to bring people to
Christ.” This has not been our experience. In fact, there is tremendous
interest among unbelieving students in hearing a rational presentation and
defense of the gospel, and some will be ready to respond with trust in
Christ. To speak frankly, we do not know how one could minister
effectively in a public way on our university campuses without training in
philosophy.

Finally, it is not just scholars and ministers who will benefit from
training in philosophy but also laypeople who need to be intellectually
engaged if our culture is to be effectively reformed. Our churches are
unfortunately overly populated with people whose minds, as Christians, are
going to waste. As Malik observed, they may be spiritually regenerate, but
their minds have not been converted; they still think like nonbelievers.
Despite their Christian commitment, they remain largely empty selves.
What is an empty self? An empty self is a person who is passive, sensate,

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busy and hurried, incapable of developing an interior life. Such a person is
inordinately individualistic, infantile, and narcissistic.

Imagine now a church filled with such people. What will be the
theological understanding, the evangelistic courage, the cultural penetration
of such a church? If the interior life does not really matter all that much,
why should one spend the time trying to develop an intellectual, spiritually
mature life? If someone is basically passive, he will just not make the effort
to read, preferring instead to be entertained. If a person is sensate in
orientation, then music, magazines filled with pictures, and visual media in
general will be more important than mere words on a page or abstract
thoughts. If one is hurried and distracted, one will have little patience for
theoretical knowledge and too short an attention span to stay with an idea
while it is being carefully developed. And if someone is overly
individualistic, infantile, and narcissistic, what will that person read, if he
reads at all? Books about Christian celebrities, Christian romance novels
imitating the worst that the world has to offer, Christian self-help books
filled with slogans, simplistic moralizing, lots of stories and pictures, and
inadequate diagnoses of the problems facing the reader. What will not be
read are books that equip people to develop a well-reasoned, theological
understanding of the Christian faith and to assume their role in the broader
work of the kingdom of God. Such a church will become impotent to stand
against the powerful forces of secularism that threaten to wash away
Christian ideas in a flood of thoughtless pluralism and misguided scientism.
Such a church will be tempted to measure her success largely in terms of
numbers—numbers achieved by cultural accommodation to empty selves.
In this way, the church will become her own gravedigger; for her means of
short-term “success” will turn out in the long run to be the very thing that
buries her.

What makes this envisioned scenario so distressing is that we do not
have to imagine such a church; rather, this is an apt description of far too
many American evangelical churches today. It is no wonder, then, that
despite its resurgence, evangelical Christianity has been thus far so limited
in its cultural impact. David Wells reflects,

The vast growth in evangelically minded people . . . should by now
have revolutionized American culture. With a third of American

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adults now claiming to have experienced spiritual rebirth, a
powerful countercurrent of morality growing out of a powerful and
alternative worldview should have been unleashed in factories,
offices, and board rooms, in the media, universities, and professions,
from one end of the country to the other. The results should by now
be unmistakable. Secular values should be reeling, and those who
are their proponents should be very troubled. But as it turns out, all
of this swelling of the evangelical ranks has passed unnoticed in the
culture. . . . The presence of evangelicals in American culture has
barely caused a ripple.8

The problem, says Wells, is that while evangelicals have for the most part
correct Christian beliefs, for far too many these beliefs lie largely at the
periphery of their existence rather than at the center of their identity. At core
they are hollow men, empty selves. If we as the church are to engender a
current of reform throughout our culture, then we need laypeople who are
intellectually engaged with their faith and take their Christian identity to be
definitive for their self-conception.

Besides cultural reform, a revival of intellectual engagement is
absolutely critical for restoring vibrant, life-transforming apprenticeship
under the lordship of Jesus, the Master Teacher. No apprentice will become
like his teacher if he does not respect the authority of that teacher to direct
the apprentice’s life and activities. However, today the authority of the
Bible in general, and of Jesus Christ in particular, is widely disregarded.
The general attitude, even among many of Christ’s own followers, is that
while Jesus Christ is holy, powerful, and so forth, the worldview he taught
and from which he lived is no longer credible for thinking people. As
Dallas Willard observes,

The crushing weight of the secular outlook . . . permeates or
pressures every thought we have today. Sometimes it even forces
those who self-identify as Christian teachers to set aside Jesus’ plain
statements about the reality and total relevance of the kingdom of
God and replace them with philosophical speculations whose only
recommendation is their consistency with a “modern” [i.e.,
contemporary] mindset. The powerful though vague and

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unsubstantiated presumption is that something has been found out
that renders a spiritual understanding of reality in the manner of
Jesus simply foolish to those who are “in the know.”9

Willard concludes that in order to restore spiritual vitality to the church, we
must recapture a view of Jesus as an intellectually competent person who
knew what he was talking about.

For Willard, who is himself a philosopher, this will include revitalizing
philosophical reflection in the church. Philosophical reflection is, indeed, a
powerful means of kindling the life of the mind in Christian discipleship
and in the church. Again, the authors of this book can testify that our
worship of God is deeper precisely because of, not in spite of, our
philosophical studies. As we reflect philosophically on our various areas of
specialization within the field of philosophy, our appreciation of God’s truth
and awe of his person have become more profound. We look forward to
future study because of the deeper appreciation we are sure it will bring of
God’s person and work. Christian faith is not an apathetic faith, a brain-
dead faith, but a living, inquiring faith. As Anselm put it, ours is a faith that
seeks understanding.

These are very exciting times in which to be alive and working in the
field of philosophy, where God is doing a fresh work before our eyes. It is
our hope and prayer that he will be pleased to use this book to call even
more Christian thinkers to this effervescing field and to equip the church
and her ministers to serve him and his kingdom even more effectively into
the twenty-first century.

2—AN INVITATION TO DIALOGUE
Convinced of the benefit of philosophical training for Christian scholars,
ministers, and laypeople, we offer Philosophical Foundations for a
Christian Worldview as an introductory text to the field of philosophy from
a Christian point of view. We do not affect, therefore, some pretended
neutrality on the issues we discuss. Our text is intentionally Christian and
therefore aims to offer, not just a soporific review of positions pro and con,

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but rather an articulation of what we take to be the most plausible stance a
Christian can take on various questions. Of course, we recognize that other
stances are permissible for Christian thinkers, and in some cases we
ourselves might disagree on the preferred position or leave multiple options
open. We welcome critique and dialogue on all the positions we defend. So
when we argue for particular positions that we recognize to be matters of
controversy, such as anthropological dualism, a tensed theory of time, social
trinitarianism, or christological monotheletism, we intend, not to close, but
to open discussion on these matters. We invite our readers to engage our
arguments for the positions we defend.

Philosophical Foundations is obviously a large book, covering a wide
range of issues in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics,
and philosophy of religion, as well as basic rules of reasoning. Much of it
will be difficult reading for newcomers to the field, so that those who use
the book as a text will find it fertile soil for discussion. We do not
anticipate, therefore, that students will be expected to plow through the
whole book in a single semester. Rather, professors may selectively choose
chapters to assign that mesh best with the questions they find most
interesting or important, leaving aside the rest. Of course, we hope that
students’ interest will be sufficiently piqued that they will eventually return
to the book at some later time to read and wrestle with the unassigned
material!

Each chapter includes an exposition of the most important questions
raised by the issue under discussion, along with a Christian perspective on
the problem, and closes with a condensed summary of the chapter and a list
of key terms employed in that chapter. These key terms are printed in
boldface type when they are first introduced and are defined in the text.
Students would do well to add these words to their working vocabulary. A
list of suggested further reading for each chapter is included at the back of
the book.

We have tried to keep footnotes to a minimum. The suggested further
reading will, we trust, adequately point the reader to the literature discussed
in each respective chapter.

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3—ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge the meticulous editorial work and patience of
Jim Hoover of InterVarsity Press in bringing this large project to realization.
We are indebted to Mark and Jennifer Jensen for their careful preparation of
the indexes. We also wish to thank the Discovery Institute, Howard
Hoffman, and Paul and Lisa Wolfe for grants that greatly helped this project
come to completion. We would also like to thank Jarred Snodgrass and
Timothy Bayless for their hard and excellent work in providing the index to
this book. Finally, we wish to acknowledge the spiritual support and
intellectual stimulation we have received from our faculty colleagues and
graduate students at Talbot School of Theology, especially from those in the
Talbot Department of Philosophy and Ethics.

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1

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

Where am I or What?
From what causes do I derive my existence,

and to what condition shall I return?
Whose favor shall I court, and whose anger must I dread?

What beings surround me?
And on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me?

I am confounded with all these questions,
and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable,

inviron’d with the deepest darkness,
and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

DAVID HUME, A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE

Not every problem, nor every thesis, should be examined,
but only one which might puzzle one of those who need argument.

ARISTOTLE, TOPICS 1.11 (105A1-5)

Ought not a Minister to have,
First, a good understanding, a clear apprehension, a sound judgment,

and a capacity of reasoning with some closeness? . . .
Is not some acquaintance with what has been termed the second part of logic,

(metaphysics), if not so necessary as [logic itself], yet highly expedient?
Should not a Minister be acquainted with at least the

general grounds of natural philosophy?

JOHN WESLEY, ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY

1—INTRODUCTION
You are about to embark on an exciting and fascinating journey—the
philosophical exploration of some of life’s most important ideas, ideas

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about reality, God, the soul, knowledge and truth, goodness, and much,
much more. Make no mistake about it. Ideas matter. The ideas one really
believes largely determine the kind of person one becomes. Everyone has a
philosophy of life. That is not optional. What is optional and, thus, of
extreme importance is the adequacy of one’s philosophy of life. Are one’s
views rational or irrational, true or false, carefully formed and precise or
conveniently formed and fuzzy? Are they conducive to human flourishing
or do they cater to one’s fallen nature? Are they honoring or dishonoring to
the triune God? The discipline of philosophy can be of great help in aiding
someone in the search for an increasingly rich and robust philosophy of life.

For centuries, people have recognized the importance of philosophy. In
particular, throughout the history of Christianity, philosophy has played an
important role in the life of the church and the spread and defense of the
gospel of Christ. The great theologian Augustine (354–430) summarized
the views of many early church fathers when he said, “We must show our
Scriptures not to be in conflict with whatever [our critics] can demonstrate
about the nature of things from reliable sources.”1 Philosophy was the main
tool Augustine used in this task. In 1756, John Wesley delivered an address
to a group of men preparing for ministry. He exhorted them to acquire skills
that today are often neglected in seminary education but that seminaries
would do well to reinstate. And much of what he said is sound advice for all
Christians. For Wesley, among the factors crucial for the service of Christ
was a tolerable mastery of logic and philosophy in general.

Unfortunately, today things are different. Theologian R. C. Sproul has
called this the most anti-intellectual period in the history of the church, and
former secretary general of the United Nations and Christian statesman
Charles Malik warns that the greatest danger facing modern evangelicalism
is a lack of cultivation of the mind, especially as it relates to philosophy.

This trend within the church is coupled with two unfortunate features of
Western culture: the rampant pragmatism in society with the concomitant
devaluation of the humanities in university life and the nonexistence of
philosophy in our precollege educational curricula. The result is that
philosophy departments are endangered species in Christian colleges and
seminaries, and serious philosophical reflection is virtually absent from

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most church fellowships. This, in turn, has contributed to intellectual
shallowness and a lack of cultural discernment in the body of Christ.

But is philosophy really that important for the life, health, and witness
of the church? Are God’s people not warned in Scripture itself to avoid
philosophy and worldly wisdom? And just what is philosophy anyway?
How does it help believers form an integrated Christian worldview? How
does philosophy relate to other disciplines taught at the university?

2—THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY
Scholars generally agree that there is no airtight definition that expresses a
set of necessary and sufficient conditions for classifying some activity as
philosophical, conditions that all and only philosophy satisfies. But this
should not be troubling. In general, one does not need a definition of
something before one can know features of the thing in question and
recognize examples of it. One can recognize examples of historical study,
love, a person, art, matter, sport, and a host of other things without
possessing an airtight definition. Nevertheless, definitions are useful, and a
reasonably adequate definition of philosophy can be provided.

How might someone go about formulating such a definition? Three
ways suggest themselves. First one could focus on the etymology of the
word philosophy. The word comes from two Greek words, phileō, “to
love,” and sophia, “wisdom.” Thus a philosopher is a lover of wisdom.
Socrates held that the unexamined life is not worth living, and the ancient
Greek philosophers sought wisdom regarding truth, knowledge, beauty, and
goodness. In this sense, then, philosophy is the attempt to think hard about
life, the world as a whole, and the things that matter most in order to secure
knowledge and wisdom about these matters. Accordingly, philosophy may
be defined as the attempt to think rationally and critically about life’s most
important questions in order to obtain knowledge and wisdom about them.
Philosophy can help someone form a rationally justified, true worldview,
that is, an ordered set of propositions that one believes, especially
propositions about life’s most important questions.

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Second, our understanding of philosophy will be enhanced if we
observe that philosophy often functions as a second-order discipline. For
example, biology is a first-order discipline that studies living organisms,
but philosophy is a second-order discipline that studies biology. In general,
it is possible to have a philosophy of x, where x can be any discipline
whatever; for example, law, mathematics, education, science, government,
medicine, history, or literature. When philosophers examine another
discipline to formulate a philosophy of that field, they ask normative
questions about that discipline (e.g., questions about what one ought and
ought not believe in that discipline and why), analyze and criticize the
assumptions underlying it, clarify the concepts within it, and integrate that
discipline with other fields.

Consider biology again. Philosophers ask questions like these: Is there
an external world that is knowable and, if so, how does one know it? What
is life, and how does it differ from nonlife? How should someone form, test,
and use scientific theories and laws? Is it morally permissible to experiment
on living things? When biologists talk about information in DNA, how
should we understand this talk? How does the biological notion of being a
member of the kind Homo sapiens relate to the theological notion of being
made in the image of God or to the metaphysical notion of being a person
with legal/moral rights? These questions are all philosophical in nature, and
by examining them it becomes evident that philosophers ask and seek to
answer presuppositional, normative, conceptual, and integrative questions
about other fields of study. Thus by its very nature philosophy is, perhaps,
the most important foundational discipline in the task of integrating
Christian theology with other fields of study. This claim is examined in
more detail later.

One more observation is important. Because philosophy operates at a
presuppositional level by clarifying and justifying the presuppositions of a
discipline, philosophy is the only field of study that has no unquestioned
assumptions within its own domain. In other words, philosophy is a self-
referential discipline, for questions about the definition, justification, and
methodology of philosophy are themselves philosophical in nature.
Philosophers keep the books on everyone, including themselves. The
justification of the assumptions of any discipline, including philosophy, is
largely a philosophical matter.

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A third way to characterize philosophy is simply to list the various
subbranches of philosophy. In addition to the different second-order
branches of philosophy, such as philosophy of science (see part 4) or
religion (see part 6), a number of standard areas of study are first-order
parts of philosophy. For example, logic (see chap. 2) investigates the
principles of right reasoning and focuses on questions such as when a
conclusion can legitimately be drawn from premises and why.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief (see part 2).
What is knowledge? Can we have it? How do we know things and justify
our beliefs? What are the kinds of things we can know? Metaphysics is the
study of being or reality (see part 3). Here are some metaphysical questions:
What does it mean for something to exist? What are the ultimate kinds of
things that exist? What is a substance? What is a property? Is matter real? Is
mind real? What are space, time, and causation? What is linguistic
meaning? Value theory is the study of value; for example, ethical value
(see part 5) and aesthetic value. What does it mean to say something is right
or wrong, beautiful or ugly? How do we justify our beliefs in these areas?

These subbranches combine with the various second-order areas of
investigation to constitute the subject matter of philosophy. In these areas of
study, philosophy serves both a critical and a constructive function.
Philosophy is critical because it examines assumptions, asks questions of
justification, seeks to clarify and analyze concepts, and so on. Philosophy is
constructive because it attempts to provide synoptic vision; that is, it seeks
to organize all relevant facts into a rational system and speculate about the
formation and justification of general worldviews. Chapter two includes an
examination of the role of philosophy in forming and assessing a
worldview.

We have briefly examined the different aspects of philosophy in order to
get a better grasp on what the discipline is and the sorts of issues within its
purview. Let us now look at the importance of philosophy for the Christian
life in general and the Christian university in particular.

3—A CHRISTIAN JUSTIFICATION OF PHILOSOPHY

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The history of the church reveals that philosophy has always played a
crucial role in the nurture of believers and in the proclamation of a Christian
worldview in general and the gospel in particular. The first universities in
Europe were, of course, Christian, and the study of philosophy was
considered of central importance to the health and vitality of the university
and the Christian life. This is no less true today. In fact, there are at least
seven reasons why philosophy is crucial to the texture, curricula, and
mission of the Christian university and the development of a robust
Christian life.

First, philosophy is an aid in the task of apologetics. Apologetics is the
task of giving a reasoned defense of Christian theism in light of objections
raised against it and of offering positive evidence on its behalf. Scripture
commands us to engage in apologetics (see 1 Pet 3:15; Jude 3). The Old
Testament prophets often appealed to broad arguments from the nature of
the world to justify the religion of Israel. For example, they would ridicule
pagan idols for their frailty and smallness. The world is too big, they
claimed, to have been made by something that small (see Is 44–45).
Arguments like this assume a philosophical position on the nature of
causation; for example, that an effect (the world) cannot come from
something of lesser power than itself (the idol). Again, the Old Testament
prophets often appealed to general principles of moral reasoning in
criticizing the immorality of pagan nations (e.g., Amos 1–2). Arguments
such as this utilize natural moral law and general philosophical principles of
moral reasoning.

In the New Testament, the apostles used philosophical argumentation
and reasoning to proclaim Christ to unbelievers (see Acts 17:2-4, 17-31;
18:4; 19:8). Their practice was consistent with that of the Old Testament
prophets in this regard. Philosophy aids a person in stating arguments for
God’s existence. It also helps one clarify and defend a broad view of what it
is for something to exist so as to include nonphysical and
nonspatiotemporal entities; for example, God, angels, and perhaps
disembodied souls. When an objection against Christianity comes from
some discipline of study, that objection almost always involves the use of
philosophy. When Freud argued against religion on the grounds that our
ideas of God are mere illusions, grounded in and caused by our fears and
the need for a father figure, his attack, while rooted in psychology,

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Pet+3%3A15;+Jude+3&version=NRSV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Is+44%E2%80%9345&version=NRSV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Amos+1%E2%80%932&version=NRSV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17%3A2-4,+17&version=NRSV

nevertheless involved the discipline of philosophy. He was considering the
basic question of how the source of our belief relates to our justification for
that belief.

Second, philosophy aids the church in its task of polemics. Whereas
apologetics involves the defense of Christian theism, polemics is the task of
criticizing and refuting alternative views of the world. For example, in the
field of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology there is a tendency
to view a human being in physicalist terms, that is, as a complex physical
system. Despite protests to the contrary from some Christian thinkers,
dualism (the view that we are composed of both a physical and a mental
entity) is the view taught in Scripture (see 2 Cor 5:1-8; Phil 1:21-24). Part
of the task of a believer working in the areas of artificial intelligence or
cognitive psychology is to develop a critique of a purely physicalist vision
of being human, and this task includes issues in the philosophy of mind (see
chaps. 11–14).

Third, philosophy is a central expression of the image of God in us. It is
very difficult to come up with an airtight definition of the image of God, but
most theologians have agreed that it includes the ability to engage in
abstract reasoning, especially in areas having to do with ethical, religious,
and philosophical issues. God himself is a rational being, and humans are
made like him in this respect. This is one of the reasons humans are
commanded to love God with all of their minds (Mt 22:37). Since
philosophy, like religion, is a discipline that chiefly focuses on ultimate
questions near the very heart of existence, then philosophical reflection
about God’s special and general revelation can be part of loving him and
thinking his thoughts after him.

Fourth, philosophy permeates systematic theology and serves as its
handmaid in several ways. Philosophy helps to add clarity to the concepts
of systematic theology. For example, philosophers help to clarify the
different attributes of God; they can show that the doctrines of the Trinity
and the incarnation are not contradictory; they can shed light on the nature
of human freedom, and so on.

Further, philosophy can help to extend biblical teaching into areas
where the Bible is not explicit. For example, several areas currently under
discussion in medical ethics (active/passive euthanasia, genetic screening,
withholding artificial food and hydration, artificial insemination) are not

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Cor+5%3A1-8;+Phil+1%3A21-24&version=NRSV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mt+22%3A37&version=NRSV

explicitly mentioned in Scripture. The philosopher can, however, take the
language and doctrines of the Bible and appropriately recast them in the
relevant categories under discussion. In this way the philosopher can help to
shed biblical light on an issue not explicitly mentioned in Scripture by
providing conceptual categories and analysis that fit the situation and
preserve the tenor and substance of biblical teaching.

Fifth, the discipline of philosophy can facilitate the spiritual discipline
of study. Study is itself a spiritual discipline, and the very act of study can
change the self. One who undergoes the discipline of study lives through
certain types of experiences where certain skills are developed through
habitual study: framing an issue, solving problems, learning how to weigh
evidence and eliminate irrelevant factors, cultivating the ability to see
important distinctions instead of blurring them, and so on. The discipline of
study also aids in the development of certain virtues and values; for
example, a desire for the truth, honesty with data, an openness to criticism,
self-reflection, and an ability to get along nondefensively with those who
differ with us.

Of course, the discipline of study is not unique to philosophy. But
philosophy is among the most rigorous of fields, and its approach and
subject matter are so central to life, close to religion, and foundational to
other fields of investigation that the discipline of philosophical study can
aid someone in the pursuit of truth in any other area of life or university
study.

Sixth, the discipline of philosophy can enhance the boldness and self-
image of the Christian community in general. It is well known that a group,
especially a minority group, will be vital and active only if it feels good
about itself in comparison with outsiders. Further, there will be more
tolerance of internal group differences, and thus more harmony, when a
group feels comfortable toward outsiders.

In a fascinating study, John G. Gager argues that the early church faced
intellectual and cultural ridicule from Romans and Greeks. This ridicule
threatened internal cohesion within the church and its evangelistic bold ness
toward unbelievers. Gager argues that it was primarily the presence of
philosophers and apologists within the church that enhanced the self-image
of the Christian community because these early scholars showed that the

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Christian community was just as rich intellectually and culturally as was the
pagan culture surrounding it. Says Gager:

Whether or not the apologists persuaded pagan critics to revise their
view of Christians as illiterate fools, they succeeded in projecting
for the group as a whole a favorable image of itself as the
embodiment of true wisdom and piety. . . . Whatever we may say
about the expressed purpose of these apologies, their latent function
was not so much to change the pagan image of Christians as to
prevent that image from being internalized by Christians
themselves.2

Gager’s point could and should be applied to the value of Christian
scholarship in general, but the applicability of his remarks to the field of
philosophy should be obvious. Historically, philosophy has been the main
discipline that has aided the church in its intellectual relationship with
unbelievers. Because of the very nature of philosophy itself—its areas of
study and their importance for answering ultimate questions, the questions
it asks and answers, its closeness to theology —the potential of this
discipline for enhancing the self-respect of the believing community is
enormous.

It seems clear that evangelicalism in America is having a serious self-
image problem. The reasons for this are no doubt varied, but it can hardly
be an accident that the average Bible college has no philosophy department,
and many evangelical seminaries do not offer serious, formal training in
philosophy and apologetics beyond a course here and there.

Seventh, the discipline of philosophy is absolutely essential for the task
of integration. To integrate means to blend or form into a whole. In this
sense, integration occurs when one’s theological beliefs, primarily rooted in
Scripture, are blended and unified with propositions judged as rational from
other sources into a coherent, intellectually adequate Christian worldview.
Since this will be the main topic of discussion below, little needs to be
added at this point except to note that the need for integration occurs in at
least three ways.

For one thing, the believing community needs to draw from all areas of
knowledge in forming an integrated Christian worldview consistent with

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Scripture. Second, a person grows to maturity to the extent that he or she
becomes an integrated, unfragmented self, and one of the ways to become
an integrated person is to have the various aspects of one’s intellectual life
in harmony. If Smith believes one thing in church and another thing in the
lab or office, he will to that extent be a fragmented, dichotomized individual
wherein Christ can dwell only in a shrinking religious compartment of his
life. Finally, when the gospel confronts a new culture, Christian theology
must be related to that culture in a way that is at once sensitive to the
culture and faithful to Scripture. Such a task will include questions of value,
knowledge, and thought forms, and these questions essentially involve
philosophical clarification and comment.

These are some of the reasons why the church has always found
philosophy to be necessary. C. S. Lewis once remarked that “to be ignorant
and simple now—not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground—
would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated
brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual
attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason,
because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”3

The great social critic William Wilberforce (1759–1833) was a man of
deep devotion to God and great passion for practical ministry. But
Wilberforce saw the value of philosophy and apologetics even for the
training of children in the church! Queried Wilberforce, “In an age in which
infidelity abounds, do we observe [believers] carefully instructing their
children in the principles of faith they profess? Or do they furnish their
children with arguments for the defense of that faith?”4 Sources for similar
attitudes could be cited throughout the history of the church: Justin Martyr,
Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley,
Francis Schaeffer, Carl Henry. Nevertheless, there is a general perception
among many believers that philosophy is intrinsically hostile to the
Christian faith and should not be of concern to believers. There are at least
four reasons frequently cited for such an attitude.

First, the claim is made that human depravity has made the mind so
darkened that the noetic effects of sin, that is, sin’s effect on the mind,
render the human intellect incapable of knowing truth. However, this claim
is an exaggeration. The fall brought about the perversion of human

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faculties, but it did not destroy those faculties. Human reasoning abilities
are affected but not eliminated. This can be seen in the fact that the writers
of Scripture often appeal to the minds of unbelievers by citing evidence on
behalf of their claims, using logical inferences in building their case and
speaking in the language and thought forms of those outside the faith.

Second, it is sometimes claimed that faith and reason are hostile to each
other, and whatever is of reason cannot be of faith. But this represents a
misunderstanding of the biblical concept of faith. The biblical notion of
faith includes three components: notitia (understanding the content of the
Christian faith), fiducia (trust), and assensus (the assent of the intellect to
the truth of some proposition). Trust is based on understanding, knowledge,
and the intellect’s assent to truth. Belief in rests on belief that. One is called
to trust in what he or she has reason to give intellectual assent (assensus) to.
In Scripture, faith involves placing trust in what you have reason to believe
is true. Faith is not a blind, irrational leap into the dark. So faith and reason
cooperate on a biblical view of faith. They are not intrinsically hostile.

Third, some cite Colossians 2:8 as evidence against philosophy: “See to
it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,
which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this
world rather than on Christ” (NIV). However, on an investigation of the
structure of the verse, it becomes clear that philosophy in general was not
the focus. Rather, the Greek grammar indicates that “hollow and deceptive”
go together with “philosophy,” that is, vain and hostile philosophy was the
subject of discussion, not philosophy per se. In the context of Colossians,
Paul was warning the church not to form and base its doctrinal views
according to a philosophical system hostile to orthodoxy. His remarks were
a simple warning not to embrace heresy. They were not meant in context to
represent the apostle’s views of philosophy as a discipline of study. Those
views are not relevant to the context and do not square with the grammar of
the passage.

Finally, 1 Corinthians 1–2 is cited as evidence against philosophy. Here
Paul argues against the wisdom of the world and reminds his readers that he
did not visit them with persuasive words of wisdom. But again, this passage
must be understood in context. For one thing, if it is an indictment against
argumentation and philosophical reason, then it contradicts Paul’s own
practices in Acts and his explicit appeal to argument and evidence on behalf

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+2%3A8&version=NRSV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+1%E2%80%932&version=NRSV

of the resur rec tion in 1 Corinthians 15. It also con tradicts other passages
(e.g., 1 Pet 3:15) as well as the practice of Old Testament prophets and
preachers.

The passage is better seen as a condemnation of the false, prideful use
of reason, not of reason itself. It is hubris (pride) that is in view, not nous
(mind). The passage may also be a condemnation of Greek rhetoric. Greek
orators prided themselves in possessing “wise and persuasive words,” and it
was their practice to persuade a crowd of any side of an issue for the right
price. They did not base their persuasion on rational considerations, but on
speaking ability, thus bypassing issues of substance. Paul is most likely
contrasting himself with Greek rhetoricians.

Paul could also be making the claim that the content of the gospel
cannot be deduced from some set of first principles by pure reason. Thus
the gospel of salvation could never have been discovered by philosophy, but
had to be revealed by the biblical God who acts in history. So the passage
may be showing the inadequacy of pure reason to deduce the gospel from
abstract principles, not its inability to argue for the truth.

We have seen that there are good reasons why the church has
historically valued the role of philosophy in her life and mission, and
reasons to the contrary are inadequate. It is time now to turn to the issue of
the role of philosophy in the integrative task of forming a Christian
worldview.

4—THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN INTEGRATION
It may be helpful to begin this section by listing examples of issues in a
field of study that naturally suggest the relevance of philosophical reflection
and where someone in that field of study may, inadvertently, don a
philosopher’s cap.

4.1 Examples of the Need for Philosophy

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15&version=NRSV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Pet+3%3A15&version=NRSV

1. A biblical exegete becomes aware of how much her own cultural
background shapes what she can see in the biblical text, and she
begins to wonder whether meanings might not reside in the
interpretation of a text and not in the text itself. She also wonders if
certain methodologies may be inappropriate given the nature of the
Bible as revelation.

2. A psychologist reads the literature regarding identical twins who are
reared in separate environments. He notes that they usually exhibit
similar adult behavior. He then wonders if there is really any such
thing as freedom of the will, and if not, he ponders what to make of
moral responsibility and punishment.

3. A political science professor reads John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice
and grapples with the idea that society’s primary goods could be
distributed in such a way that those on the bottom get the maximum
benefit even if people on the top have to be constrained. He wonders
how this compares with a meritocracy wherein individual merit is
rewarded regardless of social distribution. Several questions run
through his mind: What is the state? How should a Christian view
the state and the church? What is justice, and what principles of
social ordering ought we adopt? Should one seek a Christian state or
merely a just state?

4. A neurophysiologist establishes specific correlations between
certain brain functions and certain feelings of pain, and she puzzles
over the question of whether there is a soul or mind distinct from the
brain.

5. An anthropologist notes that cultures frequently differ over basic
moral principles and goes on to argue that this proves that there are
no objectively true moral values that transcend culture.

6. A businessman notices that the government is not adequately caring
for the poor. He discusses with a friend the issue of whether
businesses have corporate moral responsibilities or whether only
individuals have moral responsibility.

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7. A mathematician teaches Euclidean geometry and some of its
alternatives and goes on to ask the class if mathematics is a field that
really conveys true knowledge about a subject matter or if it merely
offers internally consistent formal languages expressible in symbols.
If the former, then what is it that mathematics describes? Do
numbers exist and, if so, what are they?

8. An education major is asked to state his philosophy of education. In
order to do this, he must state his views on human nature, the nature
of truth, how people learn, what role values play in life, what the
purpose of education ought to be, and who should be entitled to an
education.

9. A physicist ponders Einstein’s theory about the relativity of space
and time, and she believes that space and time themselves must be
distinguished from the empirical, operational space and time utilized
in scientific observations and tests. She agrees that the latter are
relative, but she does not think that this settles the question of the
real nature of actual space and time.

Each example is a case where philosophy is relevant to some other
discipline of study and crucial for the task of forming a well-reasoned,
integrated Christian worldview. Philosophy asks normative questions (What
ought one believe and why? What ought one do and why?), it deals with
foundational issues (What is real? What is truth? What can humans know?
What is right and wrong? Do right and wrong exist? What are the principles
of good reasoning and evidence evaluation?), and it seeks knowledge of
what some phenomenon must be in all possible worlds, not what may
happen to be the case in this actual world.

4.2 Different Models of Integration

In each of the cases listed above, there is a need for the person in question,
if he or she is a Christian, to think hard about the issue in light of the need
for developing a Christian worldview. When one addresses problems like

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these, there will emerge a number of different ways that Christian doctrine
and theology can interact with an issue in a discipline outside theology. And
philosophy can be useful both in deciding which model is the best one to
use in a specific case and in helping a person do the work of

integration

within that chosen model. Here are some of the different ways that such
interaction can take place.

1. Propositions, theories, or methodologies in theology and another
discipline may involve two distinct, nonoverlapping areas of
investigation. For example, debates about angels or the extent of the
atonement have little to do with organic chemistry. Similarly, it is of
little interest to theology whether a methane molecule has three or
four hydrogen atoms in it.

2. Propositions, theories, or methodologies in theology and another
discipline may involve two different, complementary, noninteracting
approaches to the same reality. Sociological aspects of church
growth and certain psychological aspects of conversion may be
sociological or psychological descriptions of certain phenomena that
are complementary to a theological description of church growth or
conversion.

3. Propositions, theories, or methodologies in theology and another
discipline may directly interact in such a way that either one area of
study offers rational support for the other or one area of study
raises rational difficulties for the other. For example, certain
theological teachings about the existence of the soul raise rational
problems for philosophical or scientific claims that deny the
existence of the soul. The general theory of evolution raises various
difficulties for certain ways of understanding the book of Genesis.
Some have argued that the big bang theory tends to support the
theological proposition that the universe had a beginning.

4. Theology tends to support the presuppositions of another discipline
and vice versa. Some have argued that many of the presuppositions
of a realist understanding of science (see chap. 17) (e.g., the
existence of truth, the rational, orderly nature of reality, the
adequacy of our sensory and cognitive faculties as tools suited for

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knowing the external world) make sense and are easy to justify
given Christian theism, but are odd and without ultimate
justification in a naturalistic worldview. Similarly, some have argued
that philosophical critiques of epistemological skepticism and
defenses of the existence of a real, theory-independent world and a
correspondence theory of truth (according to which true
propositions correspond with the “external” world; see chaps. 5–6)
offer justification for some of the presuppositions of theology.

5. Theology fills out and adds details to general principles in another
discipline and vice versa, and theology helps one practically apply
principles in another discipline and vice versa. For example,
theology teaches that fathers should not provoke their children to
anger, and psychology can add important details about what this
means by offering information about family systems, the nature and
causes of anger, and so on. Psychology can devise various tests for
assessing whether one is or is not a mature person, and theology can
offer a normative definition to psychology as to what a mature
person is.

These are some of the ways that integration takes place. From the examples
and models listed above, it should be clear that philosophy is central to the
task of integration. Nevertheless, the task of forming an integrated
worldview is a very difficult one, and there is no set of easy steps or
principles that exhaustively describes how that task is to be conducted or
what role philosophy should play in the quest for integration. With this in
mind, the following is a list of principles that can aid someone unfamiliar
with philosophy to think more clearly about its role in integration.

4.3 Some Philosophical Principles Used in Integration

1. Philosophy can make clear that an issue thought to be a part of another
discipline is really a philosophical issue. It often happens that scholars
untrained in philosophy will discuss some issue in their field and without

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knowing it cross over into philosophy. When this happens, the discussion
may still be about the original discipline, but it is a philosophical discussion
about that discipline.

For example, attempts to put limits on a given discipline and attempts to
draw a line of demarcation between one field of study and another, say
between science and theology, are largely philosophical matters. This is
because such attempts assume a vantage point outside of and above the
discipline in question where one asks second-order questions about that
discipline. Philosophy, it will be recalled, focuses on these kinds of second-
order questions.

Consider the following six propositions that describe conditions under
which science places a limit on theology or vice versa:

S1. Theological beliefs are reasonable only if science renders them
so.

S2. Theological beliefs are unreasonable if science renders them so.

S3. Theological beliefs are reasonable only if arrived at by
something closely akin to scientific methodology.

T1. Scientific beliefs are reasonable only if theology renders them
so.

T2. Scientific beliefs are unreasonable if theology renders them so.

T3. Scientific beliefs are reasonable only if arrived at by
theologically appropriate methods.

Contrary to initial appearances, these propositions are not examples of
science or theology directly placing limits on the other, for none is a
statement of science or theology. Rather, all are philosophical statements
about science and theology. Principles about science and theology are not
the same as principles of science and theology. These six principles are
philosophical attempts to limit science and theology and show their
relationship.

Consider a second example of where a discussion crosses over into
philosophy almost unnoticed.

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Evolutionist: The origin of life from inanimate matter is a well-
established scientific fact.

Creationist: But if life arose in the oceans (abiogenesis) as you
claim, then dilution factors would have kept the concentration of
large, macromolecules to levels so small as to have been negligible.

Evolutionist: Well, so what? I do not think abiogenesis took place
in the ocean anyway. Rather, it took place in some isolated pool that
had some concentrating mechanism in place.

Creationist: But the probabilities for such a process are incredibly
small, and in any case, evidence appears to be coming in that the
early earth’s atmosphere was a reducing atmosphere, in which case
the relevant reactions could not occur.

Evolutionist: Give us more time, and we will solve these problems.
The only alternative, creationism, is too fantastic to believe, and it
involves religious concepts and is not science at all.

Creationist: Well, neither is evolution science. Science requires
firsthand observation, and since no one was there to observe the
origin of first life, any theory about that origin is not science, strictly
speaking.

The discussion starts out as a scientific interaction about chemical reactions,
probabilities, geological evidence, and so on. But it slides over into a
second-order philosophical discussion (one that represents a
misunderstanding of the nature of both creationism and science; see chaps.
17–19), about what science is and how one should define it. These issues
are surely relevant to the debate, but there is no guarantee that two
disputants trained in some first-order scientific discipline have any expertise
at all about the second-order questions of what science is and how it should
be practiced. If scientists are going to interact on these issues, then
philosophy will be an essential part of that interaction.

2. Philosophy undergirds other disciplines at a foundational level by
providing clarity, justification for or arguments against the essential

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presuppositions of that discipline. Since philosophy operates as a second-
order discipline that investigates other disciplines, and since

philosophy

examines broad, foundational, axiological, epistemological, logical, and
metaphysical issues in those other disciplines, then philosophy is properly
suited to investigate the presuppositions of other disciplines. For example,
in linguistic studies, issues are discussed regarding the existence, nature,
and knowability of meaning. These issues, as well as questions about
whether and how language accomplishes reference to things in the world,
are the main focus of the philosophy of language and epistemology.

Again, science assumes there is an external world that is orderly and
knowable, that inductive inferences are legitimate, that the senses and mind
are reliable, that truth exists and can be known, and so on. Orthodox
theology assumes that religious language is cognitive, that knowledge is
possible, that an intelligible sense can be given to the claim that something
exists that is not located in space and time, that the correspondence theory
of truth is the essential part of an overall theory of truth, and that linguistic
meaning is objective and knowable. These presuppositions, and a host of
others besides, have all been challenged. The task of clarifying, defending,
or criticizing them is essentially a philosophical task.

3. Philosophy can aid a discipline by helping to clarify concepts,
argument forms, and other cognitive issues internal to a field. Sometimes
the concepts in a discipline appear to be contradictory, vague, unclear, or
circularly defined. Philosophers who study a particular discipline can aid
that discipline by bringing conceptual clarity to it. An example would be the
wave-particle nature of electromagnetic radiation and the wave nature of
matter. These concepts appear to be self-contradictory or vague, and
attempts have been made to clarify them or to show different ways of
understanding them.

Another example concerns some conceptions of the mechanisms
involved in evolutionary theory. Some scientists have held that evolution
promotes the survival of the fittest. But when asked what the “fittest” were,
the answer is that the “fittest” were those that survived. This was a problem
of circularity within evolutionary theory, and attempts have been made to
redefine the notion of fitness and the goal of evolution (e.g., the selection of
those organisms that are reproductively favorable) to avoid circularity.
Whether these responses have been successful is not the point here. The

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point is, rather, that philosophers have raised problems for a scientific
theory because of issues of conceptual clarity. In these and other examples
like them, philosophy can help to clarify issues within a discipline. When
philosophy is brought to bear on questions of this sort, the result may be
that the theory in question is problematic because it involves an internal
contradiction or is somehow self-refuting.

For example, the sociological claim that there is no difference between
intellectual history (roughly, the attempt to trace the development of ideas
through history by focusing on the rational factors involved in the ideas
themselves, including their own inner logic and relationships to ideas
coming after them, e.g., the development of empiricism from John Locke to
George Berkeley to David Hume) and the sociology of knowledge (the
attempt to trace the development of ideas as a result of nonrational factors
in a given culture, e.g., social status, economic conditions, and so on) is
sometimes justified by an appeal to conceptual relativism. The claim is
made that different cultures have different language games, different views
of the world, and so forth, and that all of one’s views are determined by
nonrational factors and thus are not to be trusted. Such a claim is self-
refuting, for presumably this theory itself would be untrustworthy on its
own terms.

4. Philosophy provides a common language or conceptual grid wherein
two disciplines can be directly related to one another and integrated.
Sometimes two different disciplines will use a term in a slightly different
but not completely unrelated way. When this occurs, philosophy can help to
clarify the relationship between the different disciplinary uses of the term in
question.

For example, sometimes an operational definition of some notion can
be related to an ordinary language definition of that notion or a definition
from another field. An operational definition is, roughly, a definition of
some concept totally in terms of certain laboratory or experimental
operations or test scores. Thus one could operationally define a number of
sociological concepts (minority group, traditional family roles, group
leadership) or psychological terms (depression, intelligence) completely in
terms of some operation or test score. A person could be said to be
depressed if and only if that person scored between such and such a range
on some standard psychological test.

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Now these operational definitions may be related to our ordinary
language notions of the relevant concepts in question; but they may not be
clearly related, and in any case, they are certainly not identical to them. So
philosophical clarity needs to be given before we can specify the
relationship between depression as it is understood in ordinary language
and depression as it is operationally defined in some test.

This type of philosophical elucidation is especially important when the
term in question appears to be normative in nature. Thus, if one tries to give
an operational, psychological definition of a “mature” or “healthy” adult,
then all one can give is a descriptive definition, not a prescriptive one, for
psychology as it is currently practiced is a descriptive field. Philosophy
focuses on moral prescriptions and oughts; psychology focuses on factual
descriptions. So philosophy becomes relevant in clarifying the relationship
between a “mature” adult, psychologically defined, and a “mature” adult
taken as a normative notion (i.e., as something one ought to try to achieve).

Philosophy also helps to clarify and relate the different disciplinary
descriptions of the same phenomenon. For example, biologists describe a
human being as a member of the classification Homo sapiens. Philosophy,
theology, law, and political science (to name a few) treat a human being as a
living entity called a human person. It is a philosophical question as to
whether the two notions are identical and, if they are not, how they relate to
one another.

5. Philosophy provides external conceptual problems for other
disciplines to consider as part of the rational appraisal of theories in those
disciplines (and vice versa). A philosophical

external conceptual problem

arises for some theory in a discipline outside of philosophy when that
theory conflicts with a doctrine of some philosophical theory, provided that
the philosophical theory and its component doctrines are rationally well
founded. For example, suppose there were a good philosophical argument
against the view that history has crossed an actual infinite number of events
throughout the past to reach the present moment. If this argument is a
reasonable one, then it tends to count against some scientific theory (e.g., an
oscillating universe) that postulates that the past was beginningless and
actually infinite. If there were a good philosophical argument for the claim
that space and time are absolute, then this argument would tend to count
against scientific theories to the contrary.

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Again, if there are good philosophical arguments for the existence of
genuine freedom of the will or arguments for the existence of real moral
responsibility and the necessity of full-blown freedom as a presupposition
of moral responsibility, then these would tend to count against sociological,
economic, or psychological theories that are deterministic in nature. In
cases like these, a rationally defensible position is present within
philosophy, and it runs contrary to a theory surfaced in another field. The
philosophical external conceptual problem may not be sufficient to require
abandonment or suspension of judgment of the theory in the other
discipline; it may merely tend to count against it. Even so, these kinds of
conceptual problems show that philosophical considerations are relevant to
the rationality of theory-assessment in other disciplines.

In sum, we have looked at five different ways that philosophy enters
into the task of integration in a Christian university. It is important to realize
that the Christian philosopher should adopt the attitude of faith seeking
understanding. The Christian philosopher will try to undergird, defend, and
clarify the various aspects of a worldview compatible with Scripture. This
will involve working not only on broad theological themes—for example,
the dignity of being human—but also on defending and clarifying specific
verses in Scripture. Of course, caution must be exercised. One should not
automatically assume that one’s particular interpretation of a biblical text is
the only option for an evangelical, and one should not automatically assume
that the biblical text was intended to speak to the issue at hand. But when
due care is given to these warnings, it is nevertheless important that the
Christian philosopher tries to forge a worldview that includes the teaching
of specific biblical texts, properly interpreted.

Earlier in the chapter reference was made to a remark from Augustine to
the effect that the Christian intellectual must work on behalf of the church
to show that Scripture does not conflict with any rationally justified belief
from some other discipline. Many years ago the great evangelical
Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen remarked that false ideas were the
greatest hindrance to the gospel. According to Machen, we can preach with
all the fervor of a reformer and even win a straggler here and there; but if
we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or world to be
dominated by ideas that, by their very logic, prevent Christianity from being

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regarded as anything more than a hopeless delusion, then we do damage to
our religion.

Members of the Christian family have a responsibility to promote
worldwide evangelization, the nurture of the saints, and the penetration of
culture with a Christian worldview. This task is important to the very life
and health of the church, and when we engage in it, philosophy is now, as it
has always been, an essential participant in this great task.

CHAPTER SUMMARY
While there is no airtight definition for philosophy, nevertheless, three
features of philosophy help us understand what it is. The term philosophy
means love of wisdom, and philosophy is an attempt to think rationally and
critically about life’s most important questions. Moreover, philosophy is a
second-order discipline. Finally, there are several first-order areas of
philosophy itself, such as logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and value
theory.

From a Christian perspective, philosophy can be an aid to apologetics,
polemics, and systematic theology. Further, work in philosophy can be a
central expression of the image of God and can be a spiritual discipline.
Finally, philosophy can help to extend biblical teaching to areas not
explicitly mentioned in Scripture, it can enhance the self-image of the
believing community, and it can aid in the task of integrating theology with
other disciplines in forming a Christian worldview. Moreover, four
arguments against philosophy were evaluated and rejected.

The last section of the chapter cited examples of the need for integration
and for philosophy to be involved in that activity, various models of
integration were listed, and five philosophical principles used in integration
were examined.

CHECKLIST OF BASIC TERMS AND CONCEPTS
apologetics

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epistemology

external conceptual problem

faith

first-order discipline

integration

intellectual history

logic

metaphysics

noetic effects of sin

operational definition

philosophy

polemics

second-order discipline

sociology of knowledge

value theory

worldview

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Bennett, W. J. (2002). 
The Broken Hearth. Random House Digital Inc.. 

https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9780385504867

Chapter 1 The State of Maiiage and the Family

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