The Current Crisis of Knowledge in Western Academia

The following quote presents something of the contemporary challenge facing Christians in the academic world. Its depiction of the current “intellectual and cultural contest” in academic resonates with my own relatively recent experience (2003-4) of studying an M.A. in cultural and historical geography at the University of Nottingham. In particular, I found describing it in terms of scientific naturalism and postmodern anti-realism to be more helpful than the usual modernism-postmodernism dichotomy.

There is a great intellectual and cultural contest going on today, what some might call a crisis of knowledge. Scientific naturalism – which for so many generations has ruled the academy and which proclaims the certainty and bias-free nature of scientific study and its promise to order and liberate all of life – is under severe attack. Most prominent of the assailants are the postmodern anti-realists, who claim that there is no fundamental structure to be found in the universe itself. Rather, humans create all of the categories; they construe knowledge. In either case, both parties seek a way of living without reference to a divine Creator and Lawgiver – the naturalists by saying that nature is self-creating and self-regulating, and the anti-realists by saying that humanly created order is the only order there is.

According to Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, both parties misplace the role of
humanity. Scientific naturalism reduces human beings to the status of complicated machines, with no real creativity. The postmodern anti-realists, by contrast, substitute human beings for God by making human consciousness the source of all reality. Christian scholars may be tempted to cheer for one side or the other – for the naturalists for defending the existence of a real world that exists outside of ourselves, or for the anti-realists, who point out the failures of science to bring a consensus about how to order our lives. Christian thought, however, points to a third way. With the naturalists, it points to a real world that exists independently of our ordering of it. With the anti-realists, it has long insisted that there are no such things as purely objective facts and theories. But against both, Christian thought insists that our world only makes sense when we acknowledge the Almighty, the God of the Bible.

From Carpenter, Joel “The Mission of Christian Scholarship in the New Millennium” in Henry, Douglas & Agee, Bob (2003) Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), pp.62-74; quote from pp.64-65

Garry Williams on hostile history

I am inspired by Rosemary's post God loves maths. And arts. And science... to post some notes from a seminar given by Garry Williams on a Christian view of history or, more precisely on historiography, the writing of history. Williams argues that we are intrinsically historical as human beings. History is not a peripheral subject of interest to a few (out-of-date?) people, but something that shapes our understanding of the world we live in and our own identity. Consciously or not, we are all historians - we all have a view on/ an understanding of the past - and if we're not conscious of it, that probably indicates that we have by default adopted the version presented to us by our culture. As Christians, therefore, we must work to develop a Christian interpretation of history; if not we will unwittingly imbibe a non-Christian version, a version which will operate by principles that are profoundly hostile to the Lordship of Christ.

I hope to write more on history in future posts, but for now here are the said notes:

Hostile History
Garry Williams

22nd Evangelical Ministry Assembly 2005. Faith Facing Hostility.


Hostility towards Christ in the telling of history.

How we tell history is not neutral, but an arena of conflict

1) because of the extent of human depravity into all areas of human activity

history cannot properly be understood without the context of the progress of the gospel.

Pascal: “how fine it is to see with the eyes of faith, Darius and Cyrus, Alexander, the Romans, Pompei and Herod, working without knowing it for the glory of the gospel.”

history is Christian or anti-Christian history.
no facts outside of an interpretative framework
Van Til: “it is a Satanic falsehood to say that a fact is a fact to everybody alike.”

2) everybody is a historian

Despite anti-historical tendencies, “no culture can possibly continue for a moment without an articulated history.”
By telling history we define our world, and our place within the world. History is fundamental to our identity; telling history is an inalienable human activity.

all people are historians because all people are religious.
innate desire to worship, but channelled into history.


Responding to hostile history, engaging in Christian counter-history.

1) The Bible commits us to being historical creatures.
The Bible gives us an authoritative interpretation of history.

What about history beyond Acts, post-biblical history?
But the Bible embraces all of history – not in an ‘detailed end-times map’/rapture-index sense

“There is plenty of more mainstream evidence, is there not, for the reach of Scripture beyond the Acts of the Apostles in its discussion of human history. Think of the visions of Daniel, of that rock growing into a great mountain. Think of the mustard seed growing into a tree that shelters the birds, the nations, that come to nest in its branches. Think of the lump being leavened as the yeast leavens the whole. Think even of the Great Commission – making disciples of all nations. All of these are Biblical pictures of post-biblical history.”

“How we view the last 2000 years is determined by the teaching of Scripture.”

2) The Lord Jesus Christ claims total Lorship over all the earth

“The Christian religion must become the universal religion because Jesus is the universal Lord.”

3) If we don’t, we will by default pick up a non-Christian history of the world


In practice

1) self-scrutiny. What kind of history have we imbibed?
2) forming our own historical understanding. Take small steps.
3) teach historically

The full seminar can be bought from the Proclamation trust here.
You can read about Garry Williams, a lecturer at Oak Hill theological college, here.

PS. I also found the following article by Garry Williams very helpful:
Cross Purpose: replying to Steve Chalke on penal substitution.