>... It would be well for us to brush up on recent philosophy,
>because that is really where the battle is, not geology or
>biology, as Schaeffer emphasized. These philosophical issues
>are fundamental, so "fundamentalism" in the sense of getting to
>the bottom of issues should be our goal.
It is good to see Schaeffer's (Francis, I assume) name crop up from time to
time. In late high school, his writings were a real step for me into a
world where Christians think, and wrestle with those outside the faith.
(Sometimes I feel that Schaeffer is becoming dated, and he always painted
with too large a brush.) An unquestioning scientism that assumes that it
has proved that God does not exist needs to be called on the carpet. I am
reminded of Ruth Graham's (wife of Billy) wily comment concerning the
Russian cosmonaut who stated that he had looked for God from his capsule and
hadn't see Him, to the effect that "If he had just stepped outside, he would
have !" In the arena of world views, Phil Johnson certainly makes an
important point.
An aside, as Christians, I believe we can rightly ask of any scientific
"fact": in what way does this "fact" exist in order to allow or protect
man's life on this world. Hugh Ross (for all his over confidence) often
does this.
Glen replied:
>And here I absolutely disagree that the battle is in philosophy. I
>call what most Christians do 'The Retreat into Philosophy'. They can
retreat
> from the observational world. They don't have to deal with any data or
> even learn anything in order to do modern Christian apologetics. All they
have
> to do is philosophize the problems away. They never have to explain the
> data, just philosophize why the data doesn't say what it obviously says.
> ... If we can't present a workable scenario that matches the data, then we
> will never compete with the perceived naturalistic explanation of
> life--evolution. They have a scenario which is presented in nearly every
> science book, we Christians don't have anything except philosophy and that
> simply won't suffice! The atheists are teaching what actually happened,
> THEY ARE NOT DOING PHILOSOPHY---THEY ARE EXPLAINING THE OBSERVATIONAL
> DATA ! We aren't !
>
I feel that both views are required. We are forced to work on two fronts at
once - the underlying philosophy AND the scientific data. Neither side can
be ignored. If we are ruled out of even participating in the dialogue, we
have no influence (except preaching to the choir). If we are invited into
the discussion and have nothing interesting, accurate or compelling to say,
then our voices will soon be silenced or ignored.
Paul continued:
> I won't comment on the logical fallacies here; you can see them
>easily. They have characterized the methodology of Morris and his
followers
>since the 1960's. The point is that these are logical and philosophical
>issues. It bothers me that the public schools and maybe(?) most colleges
>no longer require a basic course in practical logic and philosophy, this
>being a capitalist democracy based on advertising and political campaigning
>and other kinds of advocates. Our children are constantly being harangued
>by these advocates and they are unequipped to deal with them, because
>philosophy is in such a state of disrepute. No wonder they eventually
>retreat to relativism.
My school is switching to a "classical Christian" approach that includes
three aspects: three years of Latin (4-6 grades), two years of formal logic
(7,8), a high school course in rhetoric, along with existing courses in
Ethics and Christian Perspectives. I am encouraged by the prospects for the
future.
Al McCarrick