Part one, two, and three of my study of Douglas Sloan’s Faith and Knowledge.

Chapter 4: The Theologians and the Two-Realm Theory of Truth

Previously, Sloan has made the argument that, for the mainline churches’ engagement of higher education to be successful, Christians – and especially Christian theologians – needed to show that faith was integral to the question of “faith and knowledge,” and not merely an optional component depended on personal taste.  In higher education, a concept of knowledge based solely on scientific, quantitative measures had become dominant, and it was up to Christians to show why the academy in general had any reason to care about qualititative truth, value, faith, etc. To give away the ending of this chapter, Sloan does not believe any of the mainline Protestant theologians succeeded in this task.

He first reviews the three major neo-orthodox theologians – Paul Tillich, Reinhold Neibuhr, and H. Richard Neibuhr.  All three, Sloan argues, subscribed to a “two-realm” theory of knowledge which placed “objective” or “scientific” knowledge into one ream, and “subjective” or “religious” knowledge into a completely separate realm, isolating each from the other. Each theologian formulated this distinction slightly differently, and some of their concepts – such as Tillich’s “knowledge of persons” and the Neibuhrs’ emphasis on community, narrative, and symbol - seemed to point toward an integration of the two realms.  Ultimately, however, all three fell into a “nearly complete acceptance of the scientific description of nature,” and this acceptance “posed problems that the theological reformers were often unable even to recognize, much less to deal with” (125).  Knowledge of God tended toward the “ineffable,” making it impossible to truly effect higher education’s view of knowledge.

Next, Sloan analyses the “secular theologians,” who were heavily influenced by Bonhoeffer’s concept of a “religionless Christianity” (129).  These theologians, such as Harvey Cox, William Hamilton, and Paul van Buren,

all agreed in taking the modern mind-set as normative and definitive for all statements about reality, theological statements especially. (129)

They agreed that “Christianity” was a suitable source for moral conviction and saw Jesus as the role model for personal life, but their definition of Christianity and of Jesus himself were so watered-down and so limited by the overal dominance of scientific knowledge, that it soon became questionable why anyone should really care.  For example, while the secular theologians stressed the importance of Jesus, “their ‘Jesus’ was a conscious projection of their own making” (134), not the cosmic redeemer and second person of the Trinity as in historical Christianity. Along with a third group discussed by Sloan (the “radical empricists,” theologians influenced by Whitehead’s process theology, including Charles Hartshrone, Bernard Meland, and John Cobb), this group of theologians went far beyond the “two realm” theory of knowledge and ultimately accepted

only one realm, that of modern scientific and theological truth, effectively eliminat[ing] the theological basis for the church’s engagement with higher education. (144)

Thus, the future does not look promising.  Next up, Chapter 5, “The Campaign Collapses: The Student Movement.”

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The Faculty Ministry Leadership Team is reading together Douglas Sloan’s book Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American Higher Education. Sloan himself gives a terse description of his purpose:

This book tells the story of this last, major attempt by mainline Protestantism to have a significant influence on American higher education. (vii)

This attempt began in the 1930’s, alongside the Protestant “theological renaissance” brought about by the writings of Barth, Buber, Tillich, the Neibuhrs, et al., and ended in the 1960’s.

[Note: my journal of Mark Noll's America's God is briefly on hold. I was reading a library copy for the first few chapters, and I am now waiting for my personal copy that I ordered from abebooks.com to arrive.]

Chapter 1: The Church, the University, and the Faith-Knowledge Issue: Background

Sloan sees the “faith and knowledge” question as central to the relationship of Protestant churches to universities. From the preface:

In the prevailing modern view of how and what we can know, the quantitative, the mechanical, and the instrumental [i.e. the primary content of higher education] are accorded full standing. All those things, however, that involve – as Huston Smith has put it – values, meaning, purpose, and qualities [i.e. the content of religion] are regarded as essentially having little to do with knowledge… (viii)

According to Sloan, the majority of intellectuals during the Victorian era regarded the “conflict” between science and religion as having been fully resolved. Evolution and religion were seen as having the same goal – the improvement of man (the famous Victorian faith in “progress”). As a result, many liberal Protestants welcomed the secularization of private colleges and the establishment of secular public universities as a sign of the “progress of civilization and the coming of the kingdom of God on earth” (22). Meanwhile, conservative, pietistic Protestants welcomed secular education because their children could learn professions without “the hazards of classical [i.e. pagan] learning” (23). In the midst of this, other forces also contributed to the reduction of Protestant influence. One example that Sloan gives is the Carnegie Foundation’s retirement plan for college faculty.

A major stipulation of the plan was that participating institutions had to be free of all denominational control [since this control inhibited the development of "true science"]. A number of colleges, such as Brown, Centre, Coe, Drake, Rochester, Rutgers, Wesleyan, and others severed their denominational ties and became eligible to receive the proffered retirement funds. (20).

As universities and churches were systematically disengaging from one another, theology was preparing for a re-engagement. The Victorian “synthesis” of science and religion had proven to be imaginary as both scientists and clergy had come to realize that the “value-free” principles of Darwinism were hardly compatible with a Christian world view. Any morality of this “progressive” movement had been imported wholesale from the Judeo-Christian tradition, without justification from within the mechanistic world view of Darwinishm and scientism. The horrors of the First World War shattered intellectual belief in the inevitable moral progress of man. Meanwhile, the “neo-orthodox” movement was gaining steam in North America through new translations of Barth, Brunner, Kierkegaard, and Buber, and the new American-based work of Reinhold Niebuhr, his brother H. Richard Niebuhr, and the German immigrant Paul Tillich. Sloan notes,

In many respects the emphases of the theological renaissance were tailor-made for engagement with higher education. Most importantly, the theological renaissance was preeminantly an intellectual movement…[The theologians] were capable as few before them of mobilizing an awareness of the religious origins of Western, and especially of American, higher education. Moreover, most of the leading theologians of the new movement were faculty at so-called university divinity schools [Union, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Vanderbilt] and well situated to speak to the university…

Thus, Sloan sets the stage for “Chapter 2: The Church and the Crisis in the University.”

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In this chapter, Noll provides a sketch of theology in the American colonies up to 1750. He contrasts this period with later, post-Revolution theology:

Christian believers in colonial America, though overwhelmingly Protestant, still assumed that God had structured society like a pyramid and that contentment with one’s created place was a godly virtue. The respect owed to pastors was an instance of the deference due to all whom God had placed in their superior stations. (19)

Noll reviews the major theologians and theological traditions in colonial American, beginning with the Puritans and their well-developed Calvinism. New England Puritans “took for granted that the central religious task was to orient the self to the prerogatives of God” as revealed in Scripture (21). Noll notes the “landmarks” of Samual Willard’s Compleat Body of Divinity (1726) and the considerable works of Cotton Mather (1663-1728). Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is the final and preeminent example of Puritan Calvinism. Noll then examines briefly Presbyterianism outside of New England, Anglicanism in Virginia, and other groups (like Quakers) throughout the colonies. All of these, even the sectarian groups, tended toward a traditional understanding of God’s covenant with the people of God.

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In London, a debate was held yesterday in which the motion put forth was “We’d Be Better Off Without Religion.” Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens each took part on the “pro” side of the argument.

Unfortunately, no one bothered to define “religion,” which frequently happens in these types of debates. No one bothered to differentiate one religion from another, either. This invariably leads to someone attacking “religion” on the grounds that it has caused horrible things to happen (the Crusades, 9/11), which leads someone else to defend “religion” on the basis that it has given us great works of art and philanthropy.

In (non)defense of religion
Christians should not attempt to defend “religion” unless the word is given meaning within a context. Often, “religion” is used to mean something like “a specific set of doctrinal statements and rituals observed by a specific group of people.” In those cases, why should a Christian be required to speak on behalf of Buddhism or Islam? It’s akin to asking a New Democrat to defend the divine right of kings simply because they are both “politics.” Discussions of religion without boundaries, where a discussion about the dual nature of Christ suddenly veers off into a debate about Middle Eastern terrorism, as is typical of web forums, are worse than useless. Christians and nonChristians alike are guilty of these context-wrenching “drive-by comments.”

We all have got religion
But that’s only one definition of “religion.” Another definition, which I prefer, is “one’s view of ultimate reality.” I strongly dislike attempts to separate “religious” beliefs from the rest of life, because our “religious” beliefs and presuppositions shape everything else we do, on a fundamental level. Atheism may not have specific rituals associated with it, but it assuredly affects life decisions just as much as traditional Catholicism.

One of the best recent comments along these lines came from, ironically enough, an atheist on a religion and philosophy web forum. She pointed out that, until the Enlightenment, the whole of life was considered part of “religion,” making it impossible to distinguish “religious” motives from nonreligious. Criticizing events of the past because of “religion” therefore makes no sense, because everything in the past was based on “religion.” I would extend this to current events as well. How can you glibly attribute something as complicated as, say, the troubles of Northern Ireland or the situation in the Middle East to “religion?” You might as well say that “politics,” “geography,” or “history” are to blame – such a statement says nothing.

I wish that the organizers of last night’s debate had been so thoughtful about defining their topic.

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