Can Scholarship and Christian Conviction Mix? A New Look at the Integration of Knowledge

Abstract

THE PAST QUARTER century has witnessed two revolutions which have shattered the once regnant self-image of the academy. The first revolution has been that classical foundationalism has been found wanting and the actual practice of science has proved not to fit the self-image of ‘the logic of true science'. The second, and more important, revolution has been the repudiation of the self-image of learning as generically human. Learning in general, and science in particular, should be seen as a long-enduring social practice within which fundamental alterations are presently taking place. Those who engage in particularist perspectival learning must always face in two directions, engaging both in reflection with the members of their own communities and also in conversation with those who represent other perspectives. The Christian scholar is entitled to engage in the practice of learning as a Christian. This assumes an entanglement model of the relationship between Christianity and learning, wherein Christian control beliefs ought to function positively and negatively in the weighing of theories. Sometimes the revisions required to bring our faith and our learning into satisfactory equilibrium should go in the direction of revising something in what learning offers us, sometimes in the direction of revising something in our complex of Christian conviction. This does not mean abandoning our conviction that there is a Word of God from outside our existence, but rather recognising that it comes to us as fallen creatures.