Can Science Explain Everything? - A Review

Can science explain everything?

Most people would answer that question reflexively, but there is likely to be a divided response.

John Lennox, longtime apologist for Christianity and emeritus professor of Mathematics, argues that science cannot explain everything. His little book from The Good Book company, Can Science Explain Everything?, is a concise explanation of his response.

To some, the question itself might seem absurd, but one of the prevailing worldviews of the 21st century is scientism. We see this when people tell us to “follow the Science” or that “Science tells us” or some other trick of speech that assumes that there is a univocal authority in Science (it must be capitalized) that can shortcut any moral or practical concerns. Scientism is the belief that empirical scientific inquiry can answer any question and provide a consistent correct answer.

The question is significant because much of our cultural conversation seems to assume that science either knows everything or that it can know everything if we only ask the right questions and properly fund the research. There are huge ethical problems created by scientism, but there are more practical ones as well.

Scientism presumes that religion is either irrelevant to meaningful knowledge and thus useless for life or directly opposed to reason. This is the view of atheists like Richard Dawkins, but it is also a garden variety myth often used to marginalize Christians. Lennox topples scientism as a presupposition of reality and shows that while science is important, it is lacks sufficient structure to answer some of life’s most important questions.

Lennox opens his book arguing that being a scientist does not preclude belief in God. As a retired professor of mathematics, he has good reason to know this. But he also shares with us the account of his academic superiors attempting to shame him into rejecting Christianity. Lennox then moves on to a discussion of the shift in culture from faithful scientists seeking rational explanation for natural phenomenon because of their faith in God to some more contemporary scientists who seek to use their scientific findings to argue against the existence of God.

The substance of the argument of the book is that both religion and science are dependent upon reason, but they are often geared to ask different questions. Science tends to ask “What?” and “How?” while some sort of philosophical thought, including religion, is necessary to come to an answer about “Why?” The “Why?” in this case refers not to the process, but to purpose. Science can not answer questions of purpose.

Lennox also argues that there is no reason not to take the Bible seriously, despite the apparent power of science to explain all natural phenomena and exclude any supernatural events. He even argues that there is no reason to reject miracles. The miracles recorded in Scripture, like the resurrection of Jesus, are matters of history rather than of philosophy or science.

The whole book has an apologetic edge. Lennox is making a case that Christianity is credible. The book begins focused on the question of science, but turns during the discussion of miracles toward other objections to Christianity, for example, Lennox briefly discusses the problem of evil. After that point, he examines the trustworthiness of the text of Scripture we have as a way of explaining why the resurrection miracle has a historical basis. He then provides a chapter explaining that for the skeptic to falsify Christianity—that is, to prove that Christianity is not true, he needs to disprove the resurrection. Lennox shows that Christianity is falsifiable, but also makes the case that the account in the Bible of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection plausible and, indeed, even probable as the most credible explanation. Lennox closes the book by explaining how one can be a Christian and why it is important that skeptics and Christians test the faith honestly, seeking answers to doubts without perpetuating them indefinitely.

This is both a good book and a limited book. It is a worthy tool for the right applications, but is not the right instrument for every job.

Can Science Explain Everything? is an introductory level text. It is written at a level that an advanced junior high student could follow the argument. It is most suitable for those with more advanced reasoning skills—curious high schoolers, college students, or congregants who have come up against exclusive claims of scientism and are asking good questions about the faith. The book would also be helpful as an evangelistic tract for an open-minded skeptic who is honest about seeking answer to her questions. It will also be helpful for Christian students asking whether a skeptical teacher really has all the answers.

On the other hand, this is a book that is likely to meet resistance and ridicule by more hardened atheists because Lennox made the necessary tradeoffs between concision and completeness. In a book of 125 pages it is impossible to explore every contour of these important questions. This will lead more antagonist people to find the intentionally basic explanations Lennox offers unconvincing. This is not due to an inherent deficiency in the book, but a recognition of its purpose. Lennox has provided more substantial refutations of scientism in his book God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

This is a good, useful book. Don’t ask more of it than it is prepared to give, but it would be a handy resource for a youth pastor or church bookshelf to answer some of this culture’s most pressing challenges.

Can Science Explain Everything? (Oxford Apologetics) (Questioning Faith)

By John Lennox

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We Need to Recover Virtue

Until a few years ago there was a lot of talk among orthodox Christians about character. Public concern for character has eroded as political tides have shifted. But throughout the history of Christianity character—that is, embodied virtue—has been a consistent focus of discipleship.

The term virtue has been less commonly discussed among Protestants than among Roman Catholics. Due to the primary focus on Scripture, Protestants have leaned toward deontological ethics. Obedience to the duties outlined in Scripture have framed the way that many Protestant Christians discuss holiness. Among Roman Catholics there is a more robust tradition of virtue ethics and the pursuit of virtue, not least because of the work of Thomas Aquinas on the subject, though one finds similar language in Augustine and others.

One common objection to virtue talk among Protestants is that it enables a drift from Scripture. Situational ethics, for example, is a version of virtue ethics that emphasizes one virtue––that of love, ambiguously defined. Situation ethics can be used to justify violation of the clear requirements of Scripture in the name of virtue. Similarly, in versions of virtue ethics (like that espoused by Blanchard and O’Brien in An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism) adherents sometimes justify obvious disobedience to Scripture (as with acts of violence and property destruction) in the name of some other virtue. The vagueness of virtue language has made this approach to ethics and discipleship unpopular especially among conservative evangelicals.

The ambiguity of virtue language and the potential for drift is real, but the price of abandoning the pursuit of virtue is taking a significant toll on the public witness of conservative Christians. A duty-based ethics, absent the guardrails of virtuous character, can fall into self-justification and casuistry very quickly. In practice it often looks like finding proxy sinners to do the dirty work. We can promote an unscrupulous politician, even if we cannot ourselves engage in similar skullduggery. More concerning that voting for one of several bad options is cheering on the misdeeds of the dark hero, which is where the motives of our hearts are revealed.

There is room for a re-engagement in virtue thinking among evangelicals. Indeed, I believe it to be absolutely necessary. Pursuit of virtue must, of course, be filled with the content of Scripture, but we must go beyond proof-texts and seeking bare duties if holiness is going to become the signature quality of evangelicals.

If we are to pursue virtue, we will likely find help from the Roman Catholic tradition, because they have more consistently maintained a focus on virtue. Some instances of this are more helpful than others, but as with any theology, we should be prepared to chew the meat and spit the bones.

Romano Guardini’s book, Learning the Virtues That Lead You to God is a helpful place to begin. The title gives away the fact that Guardini sees virtues as a way of gaining merit that can increase the likelihood of salvation or reduce time in Purgatory, but setting those important considerations aside, there is deep value in studying the virtues as Guardini presents them.

After a brief preface, Guardini considers the nature of virtue, where he lays the groundwork of virtue from Greek philosophy (particularly Plato) and argues that the pursuit of virtue is an incremental work that believers should begin with the virtues that are most familiar to them. There are sixteen meditations that follow, each on a different virtue. These are not the classical virtues, but sixteen character traits including truthfulness, patience, justice, reverence, disinterestedness, kindness, gratitude, and others. As Guardini notes in his preface, “This interpretation shall be carried out in a very unsystematic way.” The book concludes with a brief meditation on justice before God, which attempts to bring unity to the previous chapters and encourages the pursuit of holistic virtue. The conclusion is the least satisfying chapter for someone in the Augustinian tradition, because it ends on a minor key of perpetual pursuit rather than comfort in Christ.

Learning the Virtues that Lead You to God is a book that deserves to be read slowly. While we might not agree with Guardini on the purpose of a pursuit of virtue, there is a great deal of wisdom in the pages.

In dealing with Justice, Guardini notes, “All criticism should begin with ourselves, and with the intention of improving things. Then we would soon see how much goes wrong because we do not permit the other person to be who he is and do not give him the room which he requires.”

While considering reverence, Guardini writes, “In the measure in which cultural evolution progressed, and a rational understanding and technical mastery of the world increased, the religious element receded. The concept of significance and value became predominant and awakened a respectful attitude in which there was still an echo of the old awe, that feeling of reverence of which we are speaking and by which a man of proper discernment still pays tribute to greatness.”

Writing about disinteredness: “The power of personality stems from the genuineness of life, the truth of thought, the pure will to work, and the sincerity of one’s disposition.”

Wrestling with courtesy, we read: “We must emphasize another point, something that has a direct effect on people’s dealings with each other; namely, the lack of time. Courtesy requires time. In order to exercise it, we must stop and wait; we must make a detour and we must be considerate and defer our own affairs. But all this takes time, and in our age of forced deadlines, of precisely functioning machinery, of the high costs of construction, and of fierce competition, the loss of time is something useless, irrational, erroneous, and even wicked.”

These few quotes help show the flavor of the chapters and demonstrate why this is a book that deserves to be read slowly and repeatedly. We need not agree with everything Guardini says, but there is value in hearing him say it and considering it carefully for application in our own lives.

Learning the Virtues: That Lead You to God

By Romano Guardini

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How do We Know? - A Review

One of the biggest needs in the church, especially among theologically conservative Christians, is a recovery of epistemology.

The problem is that that first statement alone will significantly limit the audience for a post like this or the sort of study that is needed to really help change the unhealthy approach to media and Bible study by many Christians.

Epistemology is the study of how we know things. It’s one of those words that until you read it a bunch of times in different settings and hear a number of people defining and explaining it, you will often have a hard time grasping what it really means.

How do we know things? Well, we just do, right? Not exactly.

In certain crowds, if I ask “How do we know?” I am likely to be told that we read the Bible. “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” I’ve seen more than a few bumper stickers to that effect.

That may be a comforting way to end a discussion for some, but how do we know that the Bible’s statements are true? What do we do with phenomena about which the Bible does not speak? In other words, even if I accept the Bible as absolutely trustworthy in everything it addresses, how do I live in a world that is culturally unlike the Bible.

Additionally, how do I know that my reading of the Bible’s statements is correct? Exposure to individuals from other cultures will quickly reveal that different people perceive different symbols different ways. How can I know that I know what is true in the Bible is really true?

That last question reveals how strange the question can get really quickly. It’s easier to jump back to “common sense” where we simply accept the received wisdom from epistemic authorities—the people or institutions we trust—than ask this slippery question.

But what happens when manipulative predators realize that folks are going to take their word for it? And what happens when there are so many entities posing as epistemic authorities because of the information age that anyone can jump on YouTube and present themselves as an authority that anyone can find and some folks will believe?

You get the right epistemic mess that we are in, with conspiracy theories flying around a mile a minute, distrust in any group that does not agree with you or your in-group, and a failure to recognize that even with an authoritative text like the Bible, a reader can bring so many presuppositions to the table that he or she can entirely misread the message. It’s a pretty bleak situation.

However, there is hope. First, because we have a living and loving God who inspired the Bible and illuminates it, so that the person of the Holy Spirit will continue to work on the minds and hearts of those who are honest in their pursuit of holiness. Second, there is hope because of books like How Do We Know? An Introduction to Epistemology, which was just released as a second edition, by Jamie Dew and Mark Foreman.

How Do We Know? is an attempt to provide a resource on a tricky subject that does not require a background in philosophy to understand. The authors come at the problem head on in the first pages of the series introduction: “Many people today have embraced, often without realizing it, an approach to knowing reality that undermines their ever coming to truly understand it.”

The book asks a series of questions in each of its chapters:

What is epistemology? What is knowledge? Where does knowledge come from? What is truth, and how do we find it? What are inferences, and how do they work? What do we perceive? Do we need justification? [of belief, not soteriology] Can we be objective in our view of the world? What is virtue epistemology? Do we have revelation? How certain can we be?

That is a lot of questions for a very short book. In about 150 pages, the authors try to provide reasonable answers to each one of those difficult, but very important questions. They do quite well.

How Do We Know? is a good place to start in getting a foothold in what I believe to be one of the most important topics for our day. There are obviously some side, tribal battles that pop up and might be cause for disagreement among more experienced theologians and philosophers. For example, some Reformed individuals who have been exposed to presuppositionalism may find points of disagreement. However, on balance, the authors are fair in their dealing with the tribal disagreements within Christian philosophy. As a result, the 150-pages of this book may be more helpful to a beginner than the 400-page tome that is John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, for example. Dew and Foreman wrote an introduction with all of its blessings and limitations. But it is a good introduction.

Even though this is the sort of book that is written specifically for those that have little background in philosophy, it requires either some scaffolding through a class or a decent education. This would make for an excellent undergraduate text, a useful volume for a small-group study with reasonably educated lay people—especially those who read. This is a book that would be well-placed withing a high school homeschool curriculum, particularly if a parent was available to help work through some of the hairy edges of the concepts. In other words, this is an accessible book, but the topic is very abstract and sometimes help is needed. Dew and Foreman have done about as well as can be done with an exceptionally important, but extremely difficult field of study.

One can hope that How Do We Know? gets a wide readership beyond academic settings. The church in general, and evangelical churches specifically, have a significant crisis of knowing, trust, and critical thinking on their hands. The answer is not more five-minute YouTube clips, but basic discipleship and training in how to process information, which is exactly what How Do We Know? provides.

How Do We Know? (Questions in Christian Philosophy)

By Dew Jr., James K., Foreman, Mark W.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The Ends Don't Justify the Means

The most destructive of ideas is that extraordinary times justify extraordinary measures. This is the ultimate relativism, and we are hearing it from all sides. The young, the poor, the minority races, the Constitution, the nation, traditional values, sexual morality, religious faith, Western civilization, the economy, the environment, the world are all now threatened with destruction—so the arguments run—therefore let us deal with our enemies by whatever means are handiest and most direct; in view of our high aims history will justify and forgive. Thus the violent have always rationalized their violence.

But as wiser men have always known, all times are extraordinary in precisely this sense. In the condition of mortality all things are always threatened with destruction. The invention of atomic holocaust and the other manmade dooms renews for us the immediacy of the worldly circumstances as the religions have always defined it: we know ‘neither the day nor the hour. . . .’

Wendell Berry published these paragraphs in 1972 in an essay called “Discipline and Hope”, but they could have been written yesterday. Maybe some of his examples would have changed, but the point is still valid.

Though Berry is still alive and the book is not quite old enough to count as an “old book” by Lewis’ definition, it is helpful to realize that about 50 years after these paragraphs were penned, the problem is still very much the same. It’s ok to be brutal to people on “the other side” because they are trying to destroy the SBC, the nation, the economy, the environment, Christianity, etc. The story is the same and so is the truth.

The truth is that it won’t matter much which side wins the culture war if the goodness of the culture is torn down to win it. Looking back, our children’s children will think we are fools and backward for a number of reasons that we can’t see and would never to think to recognize. They will look at some of the battles being fought and wonder why there was so much energy spent, when really the obvious problem was. . . .

But we can’t see what fills in that blank. And that is the nature of it. The very things that we do not question today because we can’t conceive of them being questioned will be the things that are assumed to be completely true or false (and obviously so) by a future generation.

As Christians we can see that there are many things wrong with this world and many people taking a wrong direction. But I can see the same thing in myself. The difference is that I can do something about myself and I have only limited influence on the rest of the world. My most significant influence on the world may be by living rightly in my own sphere of influence, showing people a positive way forward based on the truths of Scripture, and embodying those to the maximum extent possible. If the culture war is about goodness and truth, then so should our daily lives be.

The ends don’t justify the means. It is no good to win the culture war and lose our own souls, which is exactly we are risking. History may judge us all fools, and it may judge some on one side or the other of any issue as morally better than the others. But history isn’t the ultimate judge. God is. At the end of this life, our individual legacies will be laid before God. Our works will pass through the fire. Only those works wrought with faith, hope, and love will remain. The ends will be judged by the means.

We don’t know when the judgment is coming, but we Christians know the judge. We know his character. We have access to his standards through Scripture. We of all people should live like we know his judgment is coming, which should shape the way we fight our political battles today.

All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes - A Review

One of my best recent investments has been in a subscription to the Mars Hill Audio Journal.

I’ve known about Ken Myers for years, but with so many free podcasts and sermons, I’ve never felt justified in paying for the material. I was tremendously wrong.

The first inkling of the error of my delay came when I purchased a single edition, “The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis,” because one of the contributors to that edition also contributed to a book I was editing with the same title. After I listened to that hour-long recording a few times, I was ready to plunge into a full subscription.

Since I began listening to Ken Myers conducting interviews on a regular basis, I decided to finally pick up a copy of his book, All God’s Children & Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture. The book was originally released in 1989, but has remained in print since. Crossway released a reprint edition with a new introduction in 2012. In the world of publishing, that is a pretty significant record for longevity. It is well deserved.

The constant refrain of Myers and Mars Hill Audio Journal is to pursue permanent things. So much of what passes for culture in our age is intentionally temporary and of little durable value. Modernism, which is a nebulous movement with many tentacles, demands that we believe that what is new and shiny must be better than what is old and well-worn.

Myers’ book is intended for Christians, it is not a generic critique of culture for a broad audience. It offers a consistent reminder that Christianity should have its own unique culture, which should have a distinct shape. And, since that shape is caused by the character of our immutable, impassible God, it stands to reason that an authentically Christian culture should seek after permanent things.

More significant, I think, to Myers is that Christianity should reflect a degree of excellence in its culture, rather than subsisting on the edges of the mainstream of popular culture, picking up the crumbs and copying the worst trends of a few months or years ago.

In this way All God’s Children & Blue Suede Shoes espouses something similar to Andy Crouch’s concept in Culture Making or what T. M. Moore argues for in Culture Matters. In some way, Myers also seems to be pushing for the recovery and restoration of permanent institutions, much as James Davidson Hunter does in To Change the World. All God’s Children & Blue Suede Shoes was a foretaste of what the Mars Hill Audio Journal would become four years later. It is a vision that has withstood the past thirty years quite well.

The book begins by describing the dangers of popular culture, beginning with its tendency toward trendiness. Everything is temporary and disposable. There is an immediate gratification that finds itself fulfilled primarily in a disenchanted materialism. That bleeds into the way that even Christians make decisions, where dollars and cents are the only real consideration for vocational changes and entertainment selection. The soul is not fully considered.

As Christians, Myers argues, we should be seeking after durable things. We should seek to value beauty, goodness, and truth. Those are qualities to our distinctly Christian culture that should go beyond merely gluing a Bible verse onto the cover of a journal or modifying rock and roll lyrics to have a gospel-centered vibe. Instead, we should be looking for transcendent qualities in our literature and our music.

This means that sometimes we will prefer art that has been created by non-Christians much more than that that has been created by believers. Because, if a novel points us deeper into the human experience as it ought to be, then that is a cultural artifact that deserves preservation. At the same, Christians should be more capable of creating those durable works of art because we should have a stronger sense of the transcendent, because the transcendent God lives within us immanently.

This is the tragedy of Christian sub-culture. Too often it is kitsch and cliché. Too often it is derivative. Instead of forming new Austens and Dostoevskys, popular Christian culture knocks off Danielle Steel. Biblical manhood becomes a caricature of tavern culture, except without the good beer. Our worship music starts to sound like the top 40, except without the resonance that even that tissue paper culture has.

Myers calls us to a deeper relationship with culture. To cultivate enjoyment in complex artforms that exalt the human soul, lifting them toward God. This is hard work, as he notes, but it is also an act of worship.

The downside of Myers perspective is that he seems to cut himself off from those occasional snippets of popular culture that use a throwaway medium to make a deeper point. For Myers, good music seems to end with Bach, though he’s willing to accept the value of Jazz. And yet, there are times when the collective weight of a seemingly vacuous television series can make a deeper point. Those cases are, admittedly rare, but following Myers too closely would cut us off from those opportunities. Of course, when we consider the amount of work it takes to sift through the tares to get those few heads of wheat, he may be on to something.

It’s hard to place this book, exactly. It is one that I’d like to read with my teenagers as we think about what good music, movies, books, and art ought to do to us and for us. But it is a book that presumes that the reader has some awareness of good and bad quality and has an ability to make discerning choices. For those that are raised on the cotton candy of cartoons, super hero films, and Christian prairie romance novels, Myers’ thesis may be a hard pill to swallow. And yet, if we are to recover our love for transcendent things and our culture-making Christian character, then the Church needs to listen more carefully to people like Myers.

All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes (With a New Introduction / Redesign): Christians and Popular Culture (Volume 7)

By Myers, Ken

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Subversive - A Review

Faithful Christianity must always wage a war on two fronts. On one front are those who see the trends in culture and wish to conform Christianity to whatever the current fad in ethics or philosophy offers. On the other front are those who remember a particular cultural expression of Christianity and see that as normative, not the central aspects of Christian doctrine. Dorothy L. Sayers is helpful in subverting those who disagree on both fronts.

Crystal Downing’s book, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers, is an engaging book about one of the most interesting Christian humanists of the early twentieth century. In some circles Sayers is remembered for her friendship with C. S. Lewis, which was a wonderful example of two minds meeting and cultivating a meaningful friendship despite—or perhaps because of—their disagreements. Others remember Sayers primarily for her detective fiction, particularly because of her famous sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, but perhaps more significantly for the love story Wimsey had with the semi-autobiographical character, Harriet Vane. These are good reasons to remember Sayers. But a better reason to read Sayers is her engaging thought about Christianity and culture, which is the main focus of Downing’s book.

The thesis of this book is that Sayers held and put on display a Christianity that undermined the cultural Christianities of her day. Downing is also arguing that Sayers is valuable for our time precisely because of her ability to point beyond enculturated Christianity to a full-throated Christian orthodoxy. This comes through as Downing sees Sayers arguing for a Christianity that would better resist the market-based attitude of church shopping, the inroads of the prosperity gospel in congregations, and the conflation of politics. These are all errors that Downing sees in evangelicalism, which she finds Sayers helpful in eradicating.

When Downing stays on point, focusing on Sayers and her legacy, she is very helpful. The research is well done, touching on a wide range of Sayers’ work. If there is a strong emphasis on interpreting the themes of Sayers’ plays, that is little surprising since Downing’s background is in theatre as well as literature. This is a useful corrective to the theologians and literary critics who invest their research nearly exclusively in Sayers’ non-fiction and prose works.

In Sayers’ day, she was critiqued by those both to her right and left. Progressives critiqued (or dismissed) her for her stolid adherence to traditional Christian orthodoxy. Fundamentalists railed against Sayers for using slang language in her plays and embellishing the details around Christ’s life and death in her passion play, The Man Born to be King. In that sense, Sayers was certainly subversive of the various cultural Christianities of her day, pointing back toward the ancient, orthodox faith.

Inasmuch as Subversive explores how Sayers did her work in her day, it is revealing and explanatory. When Downing tries to bring Sayers forward into our own day to combat the theological and cultural dangers surrounding us, she betrays a good deal more bias that Sayers would have allowed and sometimes does not appropriately differentiate between her own opinions and those of Sayers.

One of Downing’s repeated concerns is that Christians avoid “certitude.”  To Downing, this seems to refer to those with an attitude like Judas who, “like many Christians today [was] certain that his interpretation of the truth was absolute.” (97) It is this sort of self-assurance that Sayers sought to subvert, but Sayers was also quick to subvert the ideas of those who were certain that the interpretations of the community of faith not correct.

According to Downing, the “exact opposite” of “certitude” is faith. (98) It isn’t clear from the text in what sense these two concepts are opposed, but Downing is confident that being confident in one’s reading of Scripture is a great evil. She argues, “Anyone who claims to know the correct interpretation of Scripture––as did Arius––ultimately proclaims to know the mind of God, which is both arrogant and blasphemous.” (37) In truth, Arius’ great error was not that he relied upon the Bible (which association Downing makes frequently) or that he was overconfident, but that the position he (or his followers) held was blasphemously wrong and sought to promote his misconception. Downing’s opposition of faith and “certitude” seems to paint faith as something other than what Scripture supports (e.g., Heb 10:19–39). Rather than a humble but confident faith, Downing seems to point to ambiguity as an essential attribute of the Christian life, though the lack of definitions sometimes make it unclear what Downing is striving for. More significantly for this book, Downing’s opposition of “certitude” and faith does not seem to arise from Sayers.

The authority of Scripture is another a particular sticking point for Downing. At one point she argues that the authority of the four ecumenical creeds exceeds that of the canon of Scripture because these “’footings’ of the foundation [of the church] as they are known, were poured by earnest followers of Christ in the early centuries of the faith before the biblical canon was even finalized.” (35) This is basically a paraphrase of a letter Sayers wrote to a critic. However, Downing introduces some terminological confusion. In some places Downing sets reliance on the prime authority of the creeds against “bibliolatry,” which in context sounds like the classical Protestant understanding of the supremacy of Scripture. In other places, Downing uses “bibliolatry” to refer to an unhealthy reverence for the King James Version (a problem Sayers faced), which is another problem altogether. There is imprecision here that Sayers would not have tolerated.

Downing’s actual beef appears to be with modernist hermeneutics, which often result in excessive confidence in readings of Scripture due to their presumed objectivity. One need not hold to supremacy of the creeds to argue against such hubris; orthodox Christians are justified in believing the creeds are authoritative inasmuch as they are faithful distillations of Scripture. Here Downing seems to have a related, but substantially different opinion than Sayers, who uses the ecumenical creeds as the starting line for “official” Christianity. But, as Sayers affirmatively declares, the men arguing at Nicaea “were fifty time greater sticklers for Biblical authority than any one living today.” (Letters, III:367) For Sayers, the issue is not the source of authority, but the way the argument is put together and the manner in which the conclusion is held. It is not that Sayers holds my position on the authority of Scripture (I am quite certain she did not), but rather than she does not hold Downing’s either, and that is difficult to tell from the text of Subversive.

At times, Downing does not differentiate her own opinions (which may be true of false on their own merits) from those of the subject of the book. Readers may well find themselves disagreeing with Downing and believe they are disagreeing with Sayers. This will not always be correct, based on my reading of Sayers. This ambiguity may push away some of the very readers who most need Sayers’ corrective to have a properly confident faith, that is held with humility.

Sayers’ work is incredibly valuable for our day largely because she built a positive case for a robust Christianity in her public work. She spent more time making much of Christ than subverting incorrect views. Sayers’ subversion was of cultural Christianity by presenting a true Christianity faithfully. Rather than to seek to undermine the legitimate faith of others, by way of critique she presented a more compelling vision that she hoped would outshine the lesser gods of the day. Her harshest published criticisms were delivered with a such a wit that it would draw a chuckle rather than a groan. Her subversively constructive approach is what makes Sayers such a valuable conversation partner in our age. In the end, there is enough of Sayers and enough good research in this volume to make it a worthwhile volume, especially for those engaged in the study of the life and work of Dorothy L. Sayers.

Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers

By Downing, Crystal

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Splendour in the Dark - A Review

There are those of us who would be delighted to read a shopping list that C. S. Lewis wrote. In the world of scholarship, there would be a rush to dissect it, look for literary imagery, and find out where the reference to plums coincides with one of the many feasts in the Chronicles of Narnia, demonstrating how personal the feast really was for Lewis.

As a result, the recent publication of the Wade annotated edition of Lewis’s Dymer along with analysis by Lewis expert, Jerry Root, will find a healthy reception in the world of Lewis studies. This book, Splendour in the Dark, is a good piece of scholarship that will help fill a gap in Lewis studies.

Prior to his conversion, Lewis published two books. Both were volumes of poetry. The first was a cycle of poems that were, largely, completed in the trenches of World War I. Spirits in Bondage is an early work, which shows both flashes of potential and points of weakness. Similarly, Dymer tells an interesting story, but has points of strength and elements of weakness. Were Lewis a lesser writer, these volumes would no longer be in print and rarely, if ever, discussed.

However, because of who Lewis is and has become among contemporary Christians, early works like Dymer will get discussed and related to his later works and evidence in the trajectory of his thought examined. Dymer provides rich soil for research.

The poem is something of a fantasy. It begins with a young man in a totalitarian society who breaks free having struck his teacher so hard that the teacher dies. Dymer, the title character, then goes on a journey, finds a palace, has a tryst with a goddess, meets a magician who shoots him, and eventually comes to grips with his own fantasies. The story is, in fact, quite engaging, though there are points where the narrative poem is heavy sledding. This is a poem for those seeking to study Lewis rather than for those seeking to study excellent poetry.

David Downing, the codirector of the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton, added notations to the 114-page poem, which clarify at a few points terms or allusions that are likely to get past a reader a century removed from its publication. Then the work itself is followed by several essays by Root analyzing it, with responses from some of his Wheaton colleagues.

Taken together, this reprint with annotations plus scholarly analysis by a leading expert in the field is well worth a place in the library of someone interested in Lewis studies and the college library. Root’s essays help tie Dymer to Lewis’s broader thought life. He helpfully shows where some of the pre-conversion ideas Lewis shows forth in Dymer are cultivated and bloom more vigorously in later Lewisian works. Root’s analysis is excellent, bringing to bear his decades of study in Lewis. The responses by various other Wheaton professors are at some points interesting and at some points a bit frustrating. None of the three respondents are C. S. Lewis experts, but two English professors and a theatre professor who are well-credited in other areas. Their lectures begin with too many apologies for their own lack of expertise, which is likely a testament to Root’s status in the field of Lewis studies and the obscurity of this poem—it is quite easy to find people who have strong opinions and understanding of, say, The Chronicles of Narnia, but this project likely was well outside their comfort zone. In any case, there are some helpful tidbits in the essays, but their contribution was likely strongest in their delivery as a response to a friendly audience in the moments after Root delivered his three lectures. What does come from each of the respondents is the sense that Dymer is, in fact, a second-rate poem. It is significant, but not excellent. Good, but not great. So, this book is valuable for Lewis-lovers primarily. 

Read for what it is—a reprint edition with helpful annotations and commentary on a neglected work by a famous author with a brilliant mind—this is a solid book. The purpose is accomplished with skill and quality. Splendour in the Dark is exciting for those of us who love talking about Chronicles, Surprised by Joy, and the ‘A’ Side works, but really want to go beyond. It is a good entry in that conversation, which will prompt further study, deepen the understanding of Lewis’s pre-conversion work, and generally enrich an ever-growing body of literature.

Splendour in the Dark: C. S. Lewis's Dymer in His Life and Work (Hansen Lectureship Series)

By Root, Jerry

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The History of the Ancient World - A Review

George Santayana is most famous for quipping, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This has become a cliché, often misquoted, but there is certainly some truth to it.

Since we can’t remember the past being our own limited experience, we resort to studying history. The problem with studying history is that it is hard to know where to begin. Returning to the textbookish surveys I was exposed to as a child doesn’t seem helpful. My college history books have long been disposed of and I don’t remember them being all that interesting, now that I think of it.

Since we homeschool, I decided to give Susan Wise Bauer’s The History of the Ancient World a try for putting the pieces of this world together. The bet was a good one.

Given the range of material Bauer covers in this tome, it is amazing how well she weaves the timelines and stories together. The first section of the book begins with the civilizations with only fragmentary records. None of her work is original, but she assembles stories of Sumer, what would become Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China into a coherent narrative.

She then moves through the various twists and turns of various civilizations as the records improve, new technological and civic inventions grow, and cities become more prominent. What emerges is something that is more complex than the pictures of clay tables with cuneiform writing and fragments of pottery that I remember from my studies of history. Thankfully, she also expands the scope of her interest beyond a flyby of Mesopotamia leading to the Greeks and Romans and landing in a Euro-centric focus. What we get is a fairly balanced record of known civilizations, including those in the East, the Mid-East, and toward the West.

Bauer is surveying four or five thousand years of history of multiple, integrated civilizations. It is amazing that she was able to sort through so much material. This, of course, means that there is a great deal detail left out and many places where Bauer was forced to pick a reading of history and run with it. It is clear from some of her footnotes that she is aware of alternate interpretations, but it’s a survey, not a monograph on a particular subject.

The book is written in a manner that will displease some Christians and also anger vocal secularists. Bauer assumes an ancient earth and treats the Hebrew Bible in the same manner she treats other historical sources. This, of course, means that she is much less derogatory toward the value of those ancient documents than many secular scholars would be, which leads to accusations of religious bias. At the same time, she also does not hold to a young earth and sometimes floats assertions that the biblical record was sanitized to make certain kings look good. This perspective will tend to annoy some Christians, particularly homeschoolers seeking to rigorously shield their children from opposing views. (A quick scan of the Amazon reviews shows that both of these positions exist in decent numbers.)

Frankly, as a conservative Christian, I think this book is an excellent way to introduce a child later in her schooling to critical sources. There will be a point at which our kids are going to have to engage with other voices to grow and learn, Bauer’s approach is good historically and at least fair toward the Judeo-Christian tradition. I can’t give advice to secularist parents, other than to note that her assumptions are pretty mild and certainly not satisfying in any religious way. This isn’t a book seeking to promote the Judeo-Christian tradition as the one, true religion. It also doesn’t go out of the way to bash Judaism and Christianity, either. As a religious text, it fails; as a history book, it’s pretty good.

Aside from debates about Bauer’s biases, this is, above all, an extremely readable book. It certainly isn’t a novel, graphic or otherwise, but it was a pleasure to pick this book up and read a couple of chapters every day. I wouldn’t recommend the volume for elementary readers, but for a thoughtful high schooler this would make an excellent text for homeschool or as summer reading. I picked up an electronic copy of the study guide that goes with the book and it is well structured with enough questions and answers to help this integrate easily into the homeschooling parent’s life, without having to become an expert.

This is the sort of book that I wish I had had access to when I was younger. I would have read the volume just for edification, beyond my regular school work. I am looking forward to the next two volumes in the series and very hopeful that Bauer writes the fourth and final volume in the very near future.

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

By Susan Wise Bauer

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Back to Virtue - A Review

If I had the opportunity to spend a week with one living scholar, I would probably spend it with Peter Kreeft. There is wisdom and breadth in his writings that would make conversation—better yet, simply listening—an intellectually and spiritually edifying experience.

Kreeft has authored a massive number of works. All of those that I have read have been stimulating, entertaining, and helpful. His work is saturated by a love for God, an appreciation for Lewis and Tolkien, and an intellectual humility that makes journeying along with him a pleasure.

Recently as I re-read his 1986 book, Back to Virtue, which, by its title, is something of a response to Alasdair McIntyre’s book After Virtue. McIntyre is, of course, doing something broad and sweeping and is engaging in diagnosing the problems of a highly relativistic society that has no common moral compass. It is mainly description, with the reader left to develop the solution on his own. Kreeft’s book provides something of a solution. A return to the virtues as they were understood in the medieval Christian tradition. (One of Kreeft’s most significant academic works is editing The Summa of the Summa, thus creating an accessible version of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. He is, thus, deeply familiar with the Thomistic virtue tradition.)

The book is divided into two parts. The first part lays out the case that society is unhealthy because people are generally not virtuous and, more significantly, virtue is not seen as something to be striven for. Published thirty-four years ago, these three chapters are interesting largely because they adequately describe our own day and age. The landscape has obviously changed, with the Cold War and the seeming imminent threat of nuclear war a distant memory, but his diagnosis still appears to be accurate.

In the second part, which is comprised of eleven chapters, Kreeft shifts to discussing virtue. In Chapters Four and Five, he defines and explains the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues respectively. Chapter Six makes the argument that the Beatitudes help confront the seven deadly sins. The Seventh through Thirteen Chapter each have a meditation on one of those sins and how the Beatitudes help counter them: pride, avarice, envy, anger, sloth, lust, and gluttony. Kreeft closes with a brief exposition of the benefits and goodness of virtue.

This book is refreshing. It is not new material, but the combination of a deep trust in the intellectual and spiritual heritage of the Christian tradition with an affirmation in its goodness makes the both pleasing and instructive to read. Kreeft reminds his readers that it’s good to be a good guy but that most people won’t agree. He writes,

“Moral traditionalists, who believe in the wisdom of the past, seem to their opponents like drab, dour doomers and damners. But they are not. They are rebels, for in an age of relativism, orthodoxy is the only possible rebellion left; and they sing as they fight. They have hope even as they pronounce judgment on our civilization. All the prophets offer hope. The patient is not dead yet.”

This brief passage illustrates the joy of reading Kreeft. He offers critique, but it is a critique with hope. His criticism of culture is not a call to destroy it, or wound those in it who disagree with us. Instead, it is a call to be the sort of person that would make a better society and then to salvage the good of civilization from within. More importantly, he still believed in 1986 it is possible, and his book makes the reader believe that he is correct.

There is no answer to the turbulence of the world around us. No simple solution will resolve the evils of society, cause racism to evaporate, erase the rift between Left and Right, or diminish poverty and all the structural ills of this world. But there is hope in the slow and steady progress toward holiness––through good, old fashioned goodness as it was defined by the saints of yesteryear and through the words of Jesus himself––if we are willing to take up the task.

Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion

By Peter Kreeft

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Bavinck: A Critical Biography - A Review

Herman Bavinck is one of the more interesting theologians of the modern era. In the English-speaking world he has, to a great degree, been overshadowed by the legacy of Abraham Kuyper. In fact, it is entirely possible that those who have read and resonated deeply with Kuyper have actually never heard of—or have only heard of in passing––a man whose theological legacy is greater than Kuyper’s, if he was less accomplished politically. Kuyper is helpful in many ways and worthy of study, but in many ways, we are in a day that needs Bavinck even more. Thankfully, the works of Bavinck are becoming more readily available in English and the amount of secondary literature is also exploding, including a recent biography.

James Eglinton’s recent biography of Bavinck will prove to be a classic for years to come. It is a critical biography, which means that it goes beyond the facts that every adoring fan would like to know into the ups and downs of Bavinck’s life. The conclusion that a reader will come to is that while Bavinck was certainly not a perfect man, he seems to have been a good man.

Bavinck is an intriguing figure. He came from a family engaged in denominational struggle—which had significant social and political implications in the day—and which ended up on the less preferred side. His father was a leader in a group that had splintered off the more main stream branch of the Dutch Reformed church. This left Bavinck with less social cache than many of his contemporaries, and yet his natural abilities and effort carried him to significant places, including a seat in parliament, a long-standing role in the Anti-Revolutionary Party, and a high level of esteem in theological circles.

For many people, such achievement would be closely accompanied by a string of compromises. However, that does not seem to be the case with Bavinck.

In some ways, reading the biography of Bavinck as a fan can be frustrating. He is not a larger-than-life figure who dazzles everyone along the way to success. Bavinck was deeply in love with a girl whose family would not allow them to marry. He pined for her and did not win the day. Bavinck turned down several career advances for one reason or another. At points it seems that he was simply indecisive, which is hardly the typical characteristic of a hero. Though he led the Anti-Revolutionary Party after Kuyper, he lacked the personality to hold it together and the part lost political ground under his leadership. All of this would seem to make Bavinck someone whom history would forget.

And yet, what rises from the pages of this biography is a portrait of a good man and an honest man. This is accompanied by the deep, resonant theology that many contemporary Christians have been feasting on. That theology is very important because it is robustly orthodox in the face of the acid of modernity. Bavinck intentionally studied theology among modern liberal theologians to know it better. He came out a lover of God who held more tightly to the great truths of the faith and who was prepared to defend those truths against the most hostile attacks. However tentative Bavinck may have been in his personal and career decisions, there is a well-reasoned boldness in his theology which cheers the heart and inspires the soul of today’s reader.

Bavinck’s theology causes the Jesus-loving heart to soar, but his consistent character is compelling. In a day when so many theological heroes are being discarded for their often-legitimate sins, Bavinck shines in some important ways. For example, one of his pointed observations of America was that, especially in the South, there was a significant, sub-Christian racism, where some Christians openly argued against the humanity of blacks. Bavinck also fought to disentangle missions from colonialism, recognizing the one as an important Christian duty and the other as a sin. In many ways Bavinck was ahead of his time.

This is a compelling book about a compelling man. Bavinck’s story would be interesting even if it were told by a less able writer. But Eglinton has managed to produce a work of art because he tells an engaging story in an engaging manner. Though it is an academic biography it is a good one. Above all, it is a good book. It will make good reading for someone who has not studied Bavinck’s theology and it deserves a broad reading beyond those deeply interested in the contours of Dutch Reformed theology.

Bavinck: A Critical Biography

By Eglinton, James

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.