Mere Lewis, Vol. 126 2/2
Arthur V. Chadwick (chadwicka@swac.edu)
Sat, 19 Aug 1995 21:00:43 -0700>all there is to know. Evolutionary biology is not, therefore, the
>only bad boy on the block. It is merely the most ill behaved
>member of a whole clan of naturalistic ideas to move into the
>West. All of science has become overrun with naturalistic
>assumptions.
>
>In the circles that count, naturalism is utterly dominant.
>Attempts by theists to compromise with such a system are
>failures. The elites allow such folk the marginal existence of
>the good Negro in the segregated South. They have no
>influence, no seat at the table, in the forums that count.
>Naturalism is presented to the public as fact. The scientific
>establishment expresses no doubt to the public. Skepticism is
>the shibboleth that proceeds statements of metaphysical
>dogmatism about the nature of the world.
>
>The audience knew from first hand experience the truth of this
>message. They had experienced the polite exclusions, the
>tokenism, the compassionate condescension first hand. On the
>other hand, it was difficult for some to see how the thing
>could be turned around. Was there any use fighting this state
>religion of naturalism on the intellectual front? Was victory
>even possible in the marketplace of ideas? This was not clear
>to many of those fresh from the snubs of their own department
>meetings.
>
>In this regard, the next lecture was the pivotal one. Johnson
>spoke on the implications of this new state religion for the
>culture. He cautioned that one should not reject Darwinism, or
>any other theory, merely because it has bad consequences. The
>issue is not whether we like the consequences, but whether
>the theory is true. On the other hand, we should not assume
>that a theory with important and possibly undesirable cultural
>consequences is true merely because it satisfies a particular
>professional community. Evolutionary biologists may have
>their narrow professional reasons for assuming a naturalistic
>outlook, regardless of the state of the evidence, but the rest of
>us are entitled to ask for proof.
>
>Johnson argued that the heart of the debate between
>naturalism and Christianity was not found in Genesis chapter
>one, but in John chapter one. Saint John claims that the
>cosmos comes out of the Logos. Modern science asserts that
>logos is born out of the Cosmos. This distinction makes all
>the difference in a culture.
>
>With the rise of the naturalistic world view, both conservative
>and liberal naturalists could unite in proclaiming the death of
>God. Modernist morals, for example, become mere cultural
>artifacts. Such morality reduces marriage to the sanction of
>society and a legal advantage. It becomes impossible to argue
>in this context, for example, that same-sex couples should not
>obtain civil marriages.
>
>This was a controversial point for many in the audiences. They
>wanted to believe that some sort of argument from nature
>without the support of Christian theism could preserve
>traditional family morality. More than anything else, this
>worry revealed the status of Christian ideas on the modern
>campus. To defend Christian institutions with Christian ideas
>is not allowed. On the other hand, Johnson was pointing out
>that non-Christian, naturalistic ideas would also undercut
>Biblical positions. What is a Christian faculty member to do?
>He must either work to revive Christian theism itself as an
>option or be doomed to lose all the side battles that have
>come from the death of God. If God is dead in the academy,
>then His teachings cannot be saved there.
>
>In ethics, Johnson pointed out the current cultural power of
>the "grand sez who" in winning any argument. People use this
>trump question to free themselves to live in any manner they
>choose, if the choice itself is authentic. Are there bad
>consequences to choosing? Society is to blame and so must
>pay. All of this can traced to the initial changes of
>metaphysics. If God is dead in ethics, then any authentic
>choice must be good.
>
>By the end of Phillip Johnson s stay at the conference it was
>clear that his message had deeply penetrated into the minds of
>those attending. They were hearing, believing, and acting on
>what was being said. The home team was preparing for battle
>with new weapons and a more effective analysis. The very
>forcefulness of the presentation almost visibly bridged the
>strategic gaps for these cultural warriors.
>
>Of course, these same men and women were going every day to
>mass meetings and pouring their hearts out to God. In that, one
>can see at least one reason for the failure of Lewis, Taylor and
>Rimmer in the early parts of the century. What if A.E. Taylor
>had met Harry Rimmer? What would have come of it? Nothing
>would have come of it. We have already seen that even in the
>fifties, C.S. Lewis and much more mainstream Billy Graham
>could talk, but could not have a meeting of the mind and heart.
>
>Taylor and Lewis, products of British education, were cut off
>by culture and education from their natural allies. The passion
>and the heart religion of the Rimmers could not relate well to
>the beer drinking, pipe smoking Lewis of Oxford and Cambridge.
>On the other hand, the arguments of both of the classics
>professors, when decoupled from the experiential religion of
>the American evangelicals, failed to produce the conversions
>need to sustain it in the next generation. The language,
>attitude, and prejudices of both groups were too far apart. A.E.
>Taylor found the gospel in Plato's Timaeus. Rimmer argued
>from the text of the Bible alone. It was impossible for the two
>to become allies. Naturalism won, by splitting the Taylors
>from the Rimmers. It did not even have to try very hard to
>achieve this. Both men remained, as far as we know,
>resolutely unaware of the world of the other.
>
>C.S. Lewis, of course, tried to bridge the gap. Evangelicals,
>however, did not begin to appreciate his work until the time of
>his death. They were often too concerned about his low view
>of Scripture and his personal life style to take the time to see
>him as a natural ally. When academic evangelicals began to
>pay attention to him, it was too often to canonize him. The
>Wade Collection at Wheaton is a good example of this. Most of
>the educational ideas that Lewis despised, all the academic
>trends of modernism, are found at this evangelical school.
>Lewis has become a totem figure, a smart Christian,
>acceptable to the lay donors of the college. He is worshiped
>for what he was, an Oxford don, and not for his ideas. His
>antifeminism, for example, is sanitized or forgotten. Lewis,
>whose literary career centered on debunking the study of the
>psychology of the author over the ideas in his books, is
>worshipped as an ideal man while his ideas are repudiated in
>practice.
>
>On the other hand, Lewis did infect the thinking of generations
>of evangelicals. His Space Trilogy and Chronicles of Narnia
>slowly shaped the mind of many children in conservative
>churches. As he became accepted in fundamentalist lay
>circles, he began to influence the level of the discussion. Many
>conservative readers moved from Lewis to writers he
>recommended such as Milton and Plato.
>
>Of course, most of the changes in the conservative Christian
>community in were not due to Lewis. He was one leavening
>influence changing the attitudes of the movement.
>Fundamentalists and evangelicals saw that they were losing
>the cultural battle in America, and that had already been lost
>in Europe. Men like Carl Henry and Billy Graham began to look
>for a more thoughtful expression of the theological truths of
>their fathers. While some evangelicals spent time apologizing
>for the errors of their parents, others felt their forefathers
>had been essentially correct, but had erred in tactics and
>method. They began to try to find new ways to approach
>modernity.
>
>The battle over Darwinism was lost by the time of the
>Darwinian centennial. The Taylors had been marginalized and
>forgotten. They lacked numbers and fervor. The Rimmers had
>been marginalized and forgotten. They had the numbers, but
>lacked the proper frame for the issue. Both Taylor and Rimmer
>were right and both essentially agreed. But Rimmer never
>talked to Taylor. Graham did speak to Lewis, but Lewis was
>unable to communicate his vision of the world to Graham. The
>passion of Graham and the vision of Lewis were never really
>linked.
>
>Many evangelicals retreated in shame and capitulated. If they
>did not know Taylor, they had watched with awe the smart set
>at their local state college. The next generation stopped
>conversing with Rimmer and began to try to curry the favor of
>Huxley. A wonderful example of this is in the little book by a
>pastor named Frank Arthur Campbell. He agonizes over those
>students wishing for some sympathetic, intelligent help in
>bridging the chasm between Professor's Science and Mother's
>Religion. He found his answer in theistic evolution. Campbell
>reported that he had wandered in the labyrinth of Evolution
>and has enjoyed something of the thrill of its immense
>distances and endless dimensions . . . He had done this and
>could still say, . . . I have kept my faith in the God of the first
>chapter of Genesis. He warned against the Rimmers that
>would turn the children against the Faith. In a delightful little
>poem with which he ended his 1926 book he said,
>
>A fire mist and a planet
>A crystal and a cell,
>A Jelly fish and a Saurian,
>And caves where cave-men dwell;
>Then a sense of law and beauty,
>And a face turned from the clod-
>Some call it Evolution
>And others call it God.
>
>Whatever the merits of this little work as poetry, it proved to
>be a disaster as a method for fighting the culture war. Rev.
>Campbell's own Presbyterian denomination would not be
>recognizable to him today. A failure to confront naturalism
>has led to grave theological discord.
>
>Choices in those days were not promising. The academic types
>were isolated from the masses who were their natural allies.
>The leaders of popular religion were bright men, and they saw
>the main problems with naturalism, but they could not frame
>the issues to appeal outside their own constituencies.
>Modernity had not yet revealed itself in its utter futility.
>People could still say with a straight face slogans about
>science solving all problems.
>
>Times have changed, however. I saw it happen. In July of
>1995, almost forty years since the victory of naturalism
>seemed assured, its certain doom was sounded. Taylor has
>talked to Rimmer. What will the world do if the flaming,
>crusading, zeal of the evangelical right is combined with the
>thoughtful care of the best of the old academy? What if the
>fundamentalist is given the story he needs to win the culture
>war? I saw it happening with my own eyes. A group of men
>and women prayed and thought hard and refused to adapt to the
>spirit of the age. They snapped up copies of Reason in the
>Balance and then went to repent of their sins. What will
>Eugenie Scott do with three thousand campus workers with the
>evangelical fervor of Bill Bright and the arguments of Phillip
>Johnson? The gates of hell will not prevail.
>
>Of course, none of this happened over night. Many, many
>leaders have gone before and paved the way for this new
>outlook in evangelical circles. The failure of the
>accomodationists to attract any cultural power or in
>maintaining, evangelical distinctives have helped. The
>compromising Campbells of the Coalition of Christian Colleges
>and Universities are no longer the cutting edge. They sound
>like wraiths from the twenties. It is time to let them rest in
>their self-made tombs. The old Genesis centered apologetic,
>which tried to solve every problem of Biblical history in one
>inexpensive volume, has also failed. Christians, however, have
>the advantage of being able to begin again. It is possible, in
>this historic moment, to combine the best of both worlds. We
>can defend reason, give the culture a new and better story, and
>win the long war against naturalism. So at least it seems to
>me after the National Faculty Leadership Conference. After
>all, in spirit at least, I saw Phillip Johnson speak to Bill
>Bright.
>
>
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>
Art
WWW: http//chadwicka.swac.edu/chadwick.html