Evangelogia: Justin D. Barnard | The Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship

JUSTIN D. BARNARD
Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship
Email: jbarnard@uu.edu

Justin D. Barnard is Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Institute for Intellectual Discipleship and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. Prior to his appointment at Union, Dr. Barnard was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Crichton College in Memphis, Tennessee, where, from 2005-2007 he served as Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. From 2002-2004, Dr. Barnard was a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. Dr. Barnard holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Florida State University. He is an active member of the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Evangelical Philosophical Society, serving in the latter as chair of the southeastern region. The author of several articles, essays, and book chapters, his teaching and scholarly interests include: bioethics, philosophy of religion/apologetics, and the philosophical legacy of C.S. Lewis. In addition, Dr. Barnard regularly speaks to church and public audiences on issues related to Christian faith and culture.

Can Mean Atheists Mean Atheism?

October 7, 2009 - At times, those who embrace a thoroughly naturalistic view of the universe exhibit refreshing intellectual honesty. Consider, for example, a recent post in which an atheist writes, “You can look for meaning if you’d like, but the Universe is a semi-random collection of energy and matter, and based on all the evidence I have seen was not created with intent . . . What I am saying is that there is no direction to the Universe, no intent, no internal morals or purpose or meaning.”

Such candor is refreshing precisely because it displays a recognition of the internal logic of one’s position. In this case, if there’s no God and matter-and-energy is all there is, then the matter-and-energy that there is possesses no inherent meaning. It is, in itself, meaningless. That’s because meaning (or purpose) is inextricably linked with intentionality. Hence, a universe that is not the product of Intent is a pointless universe.

What’s striking about such honesty is that it is frequently accompanied by an inability to follow the internal logic of the naturalistic worldview to its full conclusion. This particular post is no exception. For while its author unhesitatingly embraces the pointlessness of matter-in-motion, insofar as it concerns “the universe,” he is uncomfortable with the prospect that human existence, in the grip of a universe that does not care, is equally absurd. He writes: “You might want to use the same reductionist reasoning on humans too, and say we are nothing more than machines and have no free will, no choice but to obey whatever laws of physics command us. And I cannot discount that, but I suspect we are richer than that.”

Why a naturalistic atheist would “suspect” that human beings are “richer” than the blind material forces that constitute every aspect of the universe is logically inexplicable. Of course, it’s possible that the psychological resilience of human nature defies the absurdity of naturalism. Despite the logic, the naturalist cannot help but believe there’s a point to it all. But the atheist’s confession of faith exacts a heavy cognitive sacrifice. And the struggle of the worshipper at the altar of a universe indifferent to human existence requires a Nietzschean effort of will to create meaning ex nihilo.

For the doom of a universe with no God is sure. If the far-flung gasses that comprise the galaxies have no point, then neither do the motions of the neurons in one’s brain – neither do the motions of the molecules in the space between the illuminated screen and the optical receptors in my eyes. Words, thoughts, speech, ideas are as meaningless as the motions of the heavens.

To be sure, the atheist may attempt to overcome these difficulties by asserting the meaningfulness of such things – as this particular author does. But the will-to-power cannot escape the grip of the internal logic except on pain of irrationality.

Relief and reason(!) reside in the Word – Who is, as Christians confess, before all worlds. The atheist’s intuition that there must be meaning is borrowed capital. But the Capital is real. Otherwise, the atheist’s blog would be as pointless as the universe of which it is a constituent. To which the atheist should respond: “Thanks be to God!”

Nietzschean Education

September 7, 2009 - Tomorrow President Barack Obama will address many of the nation’s public school children in an address that generated a firestorm of media attention well before its release. The brouhaha was predictably partisan: Republicans fearful of executive abuse of power – raising concerns of socialist indoctrination, and indignant Democrats filled with moral outrage – wondering how anyone can quibble with a pep talk.

Sadly, the bickering in the blogosphere impedes the prospect of deeper reflection about the text of the President’s speech. It turns out that both the Democrats and the Republicans were right – at least by half. By and large, the President’s remarks are a pep talk for K-12 students. And in a moment in our nation’s history when an exceedingly high dropout rate still plagues historically disadvantaged minorities, one should not devalue the potentially inspirational effect this speech will have coming from the first African-American President. At the same time, motivational speeches, by their very nature, are not ideologically neutral. (Try to imagine being motivated by one that was!) Thus, even if they were chasing the wrong stick, the Republican hounds were not entirely mistaken in raising the possibility that the speech would be tossed from the President’s own ideological front porch.

Whether it’s his front porch or not, Christians should think carefully about the architecture of the one from which the President will be speaking tomorrow. At face value, the remarks are innocuous. Stay in school; set goals; be responsible, etc. It appears to be the stuff to which only a partisan crank would object. But a reflective student (or parent) will consider not merely imperatives, but the grounds on which those admonitions are based as well. In short, “Why?” What is the point of education?

Here the President’s remarks are suggestive, not definitive. Still, the overtones are clear enough. One goes to/stays in school for the sake of self and country. (Interestingly, in the order of chronology, self comes first; though arguably country is first in the order of priority.) This is a philosophy of education according to which learning is an instrument of consumer desire. “If I want X (fill in . . . success, fame, wealth, or a specific career), I must do Y.” To be sure, the President’s talk does not articulate a crassly consumer-driven view of education’s purpose. After all, the desires of the individual are subjugated to the demands of the collective: “Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.” Still, the justification for education rises no higher than either individual or national wish-fulfillment.

Caution is called for here. No citizen of good will would deny the value of an educated citizenry in a nation with an economy and political structure such as ours. But Christians necessarily possess divided allegiances. The phrase “God and country” captures priority, not merely conjunction. And a speech in which the former is entirely absent leaves one wondering whether the latter is meant to command ultimate allegiance – at least as far as education is concerned.

A distinctly Christian philosophy of education is rooted neither in unbridled nationalism nor in free-market consumerism. For the Christian, the love of knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom are – in themselves – an expression of worship of the triune God in whose image human beings are made. When one “quits” (i.e., refuses to seek knowledge and wisdom) it may very well be a form of self-destruction. It may even result in the loss of goods that would otherwise have been bestowed upon some people or nation. But that is not – as the President’s speech clearly suggests – the ultimate point.

To refuse to cultivate one’s intellectual gifts is to hate the Giver. But it does not follow from this that one must “stay in (public) school.” For there might be circumstances in which the love of God requires desertion of country.

As the Apostle Paul pointed out in I Corinthians 1, such a view of education in relationship to the state is “foolishness” to those “who are perishing.” For the latter, the polis commands our highest allegiance, if not worship. But Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to God’s the things which are God’s.” A student’s vocation – the natural terminus of formal education – is God’s gift. Thus, it is not, contrary to President Obama, owed to the state. It is rather to be rendered to God. For it is only in serving God first that the state can be served properly at all. Education for “self and country” is nothing more than idolatry.

The Worship of Tashlan

August 28, 2009 - Charity is the virtue that, among other things, ought to prevent believers from offering ungenerous caricatures of those whose views they oppose. Every so often however, an opponent of the Gospel says or does something so inexplicable that those who merely report it must defend against objections rooted in charity: “I’m not making this up.”

Consider, for example, Brian McLaren, who is apparently now observing the Muslim month of fasting known as Ramadan. Professing as he does to be a follower of Christ, fellow Christians might wonder what would possess another professing believer to engage not merely in interfaith dialogue, but interfaith practice and ritual. (Dare one say . . . worship?) Prolific author that he is, McLaren offers the rationale.

Writes McLaren: “We are not doing so in order to become Muslims: we are deeply committed Christians. But as Christians, we want to come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them. Just as Jesus, a devout Jew, overcame religious prejudice and learned from a Syrophonecian woman and was inspired by her faith two thousand years ago (Matthew 15:21 ff, Mark 7:24 ff), we seek to learn from our Muslim sisters and brothers today.”

The grounds for McLaren’s participation in Ramadan could not be more astonishing. We are apparently to follow Jesus Christ (moral) Superstar who, as it seems, overcame a spiritual vice (read: sin) – namely, ethnic-religious bigotry – by having his own provincial religious perspective corrected by a more enlightened cosmopolitan woman. (Sounds a great deal like The Shack!)

In fairness to McLaren, many evangelicals struggle with civility in interfaith dialogue – much less mutual understanding. Perhaps this is why God inspired James to remind followers of Christ to be “quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” But to suggest, as McLaren has, that we “seek to learn from our Muslim sisters and brothers” by active participation in their religious life, serves to denigrate not only the uniqueness of the Gospel, but demeans the seriousness with which devout Muslims themselves take their faith.

To presume that professing Christians may somehow vicariously (or actually) participate in the rituals associated with Ramadan is to treat the latter as though they were peripheral to being a Muslim. It’s as if to say, “These things that you Muslims do during Ramadan are not really central to your identity as Muslims, since we’re not and we can do them too!” The deep irony here is that what makes McLaren’s view possible is his tacit acceptance of the privitization of religion that is characteristic of the triumphalist, Enlightenment west for which McLaren is effectively attempting to apologize in such exercises. If religious conviction is ultimately nothing more than a deep, personal, private commitment to some ethereal set of personal values, then external forms of religious observance are more or less a matter of indifference. Hence, a professing Christian can observe Ramadan just as easily as a Buddhist might partake of the Lord’s Supper.

Of course, there’s a lesson here for evangelicals – who tend to take external forms of religious expression as a matter of mere cultural preference. When the apostle Paul inquired rhertorically, “what fellowship does light have with darkness?” (II Corinthians 6:14-ff), he was not speaking about esoteric abstractions. His counsel was situated in the concrete reality of idol worship. The external forms of religious practice were not matters of indifference for Paul or any of the earliest believers. To participate in the forms of pagan idolatry was, by its very nature, to worship someone other than God in Jesus Christ. This is what the early Christian martyrs knew that McLaren apparently does not.

By the same token, the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup are not peripheral observances in the life of Christ’s body. Rather, to partake of the Lord’s Table is to be the body of Christ. “What agreement does the body and blood of our Lord have with Ramadan?” might well be a question worth asking when in conversation with Muslims. But Paul’s negative answer is implied when it comes to living out one’s faith in the life, ministry, and worship of the church.

Can Mean Atheists Mean Atheism?

Nietzschean Education

The Worship of Tashlan

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