Head and Heart Go to Seminary

Younger Christians today tend to view the academic and the spiritual as opposing spheres, as an either-or choice, at best as a relation of inferior to superior. Let me illustrate this with a few examples. (1) After three years in seminary, a student recently confessed that he had come to the seminary to “grow spiritually” and to become a more mature Christian person, but that all he had done was “learn theology.” The implication was that the seminary had failed him, that the spiritual had been sacrificed to the academic. (2) In a conference on the ministry, several persons expressed fear that their newfound faith in Christ and their intense personal commitment to him might be weakened or even lost in the halls of academia. The assumption was that somehow books and learning and critical thought threaten faith and commitment and devotion; that spiritual is opposed to rational; that reason is the enemy of faith; that critical inquiry and reflection is a dragon that constantly threatens the faith that God by his grace has created within us. (3) A student recently said that he saw no connection between the critical investigation of a biblical text and his spiritual life, and that the study of historical theology was really irrelevant to his Christian faith and his experience of Christ. The implication was that the experience of faith is the ultimate good, that understanding a biblical text or a historic Christian doctrine with the mind is not essential.

These examples suggest the mood in America’s young Christians, a mood that is paralleled in American life generally. The historian Richard Hofstadter calls it an anti-intellectualism that manifests itself in a demand for immediate relevance and in an indifference toward academic disciplines. E. Earle Ellis expressed it well:

One no longer is to “learn theology” of a past age; rather, one is to “do theology” in the present.… It is like making a lemon meringue pie with a purchased pie-shell, ready-mix filling, and aerosol topping—one is “doing cooking” without having to bother with “learning to cook” [“What Good Are Hebrew and Greek?,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, May 26, 1972, p. 8].

In this mood, “doing theology” is judged superior to “learning theology.” And since the “doing” often grows out of an intense personal experience of the grace of God and the Lordship of Christ, it is generally judged as more “spiritual” than the academic venture of biblical exegesis, of historical study, of critical theological thinking. This latter is then seen, at best, as a sort of inferior forerunner, a John the Baptist preparing the way for subjective, personal experience and faith.

Why this dichotomy? Why this divorce between reason and faith, between mind and spirit, between the order of understanding and knowledge and the order of faith and devotion and commitment? Why this suspicion of intellectual activity, of man’s rational capacities, of his thirst for knowledge, of the thoughtful exploration of all areas of his life, including faith?

There is really nothing new in this antithetical approach. Indeed, it may be said that the history of Christianity, and particularly the history of Christian thought, is the history of a conflict between faith and reason, between the so-called spiritual and rational aspects of Christian faith.

As early as the second century, when Christianity came into increasing conflict with Greek philosophy, the great church father Tertullian posed the historic question: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? The Academy with the Church? What is there in common between the philosopher and the Christian, between the pupil of Hellas and the pupil of heaven?” For Tertullian, Athens and Jerusalem represented two ways of man’s attempts to know God: Athens the quest of the mind, and Jerusalem the quest of the heart. Tertullian was not anti-intellectual as such; he was one of the most astute thinkers in the early Church, employing his intellect in vigorous debate with the opponents of Christianity. For him, “Athens” represented primarily pagan philosophy rather than reason. Yet pagan philosophy was so closely identified with the rational quest for God that in the ongoing life of the Church “Athens or Jerusalem” was used to signify the antithesis reason vs. faith.

The Church has made many attempts at trial marriages between Athens and Jerusalem. But these marriages have never been altogether happy. There have been all manner of squabbles and fights, separations and threatened divorces, the dominance of the one or the other partner, or the complete subjugation of the one to the other.

It seems to me that we are seeing a revival of the rejection of Athens in favor of the purity of Jerusalem. Personal faith, experience, and spiritual enthusiasm have been elevated to the throne. From this perspective, reason and critical inquiry into one’s faith are judged as inferior, and often as unspiritual. It is often implied that one who thinks about his faith, and sometimes even wonders if his faith is true, must be slipping in his spiritual life. To the question “How do you know that Christ lives—that is, that your faith is valid?,” the contemporary Tertullian enthusiast answers, “I know, because He lives within my heart!” Emotions and feelings are considered the foolproof means of validating one’s belief.

The assumption beneath this is that the mind of man was affected by the Fall, that his reasoning capacity is perverted and depraved, and that the quest of the mind cannot therefore be trusted. At the same time it is apparently assumed, though never stated, that the emotions and feelings, and man’s capacity for experiences, have not been affected by the Fall, and that these therefore continue to provide us with a valid index of spirituality.

It seems clear to me that this assumption is basically unchristian. Both head and heart are subject to the imperfections and limitations of human existence. Both head and heart are dust. But—and in this “but” lies the difference between despair and hope, between death and life—both head and heart also stand under the grace of God. Both head and heart are the objects of the redemption wrought by Christ. Both head and heart can be transformed into the image of Christ, and can reflect into our world the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Conversion, said St. Augustine over a millennium ago, unites the heart with the head! And unless I am mistaken, the biblical perspective leaves no room for a dichotomy between head and heart, between faith and reason, between what we call spiritual and intellectual. We are admonished to give reasons for the hope that is within us. We are asked to love God—that is, to serve him, to be at his disposal—with both heart and mind. We are called upon to undergo a transformation of our minds and to subject our all, body, soul, and mind, to the Lordship of Christ.

What does all this mean for what happens in a seminary? It means that we cannot divorce Athens from Jerusalem, for both stand under the sovereign Lordship of Christ, in whom all things adhere and come together. It means that Christ must continually enter not only our Jerusalem, but also our Athens. It means that both library and chapel, both classroom and closet, are “holy of holies” in which we penetrate ever deeper into the mystery of God revealed in Christ. It means that what we do in the classroom, in the study, and in the library can be as “spiritual” as what we do on our knees; conversely, what we do on our knees can be as “academic” as what we do in the classroom. A prayer spoken at the beginning of a class period does not necessarily make what goes on in the classroom more spiritual; nor is a half hour spent in Bible reading, meditation, and prayer necessarily more spiritual than spending time in critical reflection on a problem in theology or exegeting a text in Romans for a class in New Testament theology. A hard-hitting discussion in the student lounge on the implications of Christian faith for the American political scene can be as spiritual as a prayer session in a dormitory room. Jerusalem must be superimposed on Athens, and Athens must penetrate Jerusalem, and the Lordship of Christ must be allowed to penetrate every nook and cranny of both.

At its best, a seminary is subject to the will and Spirit of Christ in all its ways. It is both a community of inquiry, of reflection, of critical thought and a community of conviction, of commitment, of faith. If the seminary is indeed a community of inquiry, then what ought to be going on in it is the full performance of a first-rate intellectual endeavor, the conduct of academic life to the glory and praise of God! The fact that the seminary is also a community of conviction means we will bring to the work of teaching and learning a transforming diligence and a vision: any kind of slovenliness or mediocrity is not just a lapse but a kind of blasphemy!

The emancipating effect of the Gospel in this area means that the truly Christian student is freed from the temptation to second-rate scholarship and half-hearted commitment—and that he is freed for exuberant acceptance of the rigors of the scholarly task, done to honor God with the best service of the mind. But the freedom for this task comes only as we open the gates of both Jerusalem and Athens and give Christ a triumphal entry!

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.