For the New Christian Intellectual
Episode 001 Transcript
Authors: Jacob Brunton and Cody Libolt

Today’s episode is “Why We Need New Christian Intellectuals.” 

Let’s head off one immediate objection. You might be asking, “Wait a minute. We want new ideas in Christianity? Isn’t that potentially dangerous?”

Yes. It is potentially dangerous. And it’s good for people to realize that it’s potentially dangerous. 

But really we’re not looking for new ideas in Christianity. We’re not trying to be innovative. Innovation in theology is often a bad thing. What we want to stick to is the concept of semper reformanda — always reforming — that is at the heart of the Reformation. That’s the heart of Protestantism and really at the heart of Christianity. We actually see what we’re doing as having roots in classical Christian thinking. 

And we see those ideas that we’re fighting against as contemporary and modern deviations from classical Christianity and from biblical Christian thought. The three major issues that we’ve identified as the fundamental branching off points between what we believe is classical Christianity and the contemporary deviations are the issue of:

-The role of reason in the Christian life or the role of the mind in the Christian life. 
-One's motivation for why he should do what he does (so the ultimate moral goal of the Christian life)
-The individual's relationship to society or to the rest of the church at large or to any collective or group. 

Those three issues can be summed up as: 

-Reason is what we believe is the fundamental role of the mind in the Christian life. 
-Self-interest (rational self-interest) is what we believe is the fundamental role of the motive in the Christian life. 
-Individualism is the fundamental Christian way of living in society. 

We’ve started by telling where we’re going. It’s good to have the conclusion in mind before we before we show the evidence to get there. But the first question that comes to mind is: “You’ve got all this from Scripture? You've got all this from a pastor? Where is this all coming from? What is the common theme in all of this?”

Can we find answers to those questions in Scripture that are different from what we're hearing? 

Absolutely. In fact often the more intellectual-minded Christians get accused of being influenced by worldly philosophers. And often it’s actually the other way around. The status quo Christian who isn’t very philosophically minded is actually being influenced by much more worldly philosophy than he realizes because he's not thinking about it. He doesn’t have his guard up. And so there is definitely an argument to be made that what we’re advocating here is what Scripture truly teaches. And that’s actually very obvious when you handle Scripture accurately. A lot of people don’t know (especially if you're not a Christian) that there is a science to how you handle Scripture. It’s called hermeneutics and exegesis. There is a way to do it right. And there are lots of ways to do it wrong. And what I noticed is that when you handle Scripture rightly and you’ve got these fundamental philosophical questions in mind with these issues, Scripture overwhelmingly teaches what we’re claiming here. 

Let’s start with the first one which was simply “reason” — the role of reason in the Christian life. What is our main emphasis in that area? 

The main emphasis here is that reason is the only means to knowledge. The alternative of course is this idea of blind faith or you might call it fideism. And essentially it’s the idea that faith is also a means of knowledge or it’s a supplement to reason. 

There are a lot of Christians today who would concede that there is not a dichotomy between faith and reason but they would say that faith is sort of a supplement to reason or a stopgap. Reason only gets us so far. And then faith has to get us the rest of the way. 

“You can’t build a lot of reason up to God” is one of the common slogans. “You’re using your own autonomous reasoning” it is a big one. 

But the point here is that you can’t do anything other. Relying on faith in any way as a means to knowledge is essentially relying on your emotions. It’s essentially the same thing as the Mormon “burning of the bosom.” 

There is no essential difference between relying on faith as a means to knowledge about the truth of Christianity and the Mormon who says, “Well I’ve got a burning in my bosom and so I know that Mormonism is right” or something along those lines. 

And it’s ultimately no different than the emotionalism of the left that so many Christians mock today. And that’s the irony. We Christians want to claim that we’re all about objectivity. We’re about the objective truth in absolutes and we’re the really serious ones when it comes to those types of things and that the left is the emotional crazy side. 

Well, in reality most Christians adopt a form of emotionalism or anti-intellectualism when it comes to their own Christian belief. And that’s in the form of using faith as a means to knowledge. 

This comes up when you’re talking to other people that are not believers, when you say “Well, why should you believe?” But it also comes up in everyday Christian experience in your own heart and in your own thoughts about God and about the Bible. And it comes up when you're talking to fellow Christians and you say, “Oh well I thought this is the reason why this is true,” and they look at you like “Oh no, you look for a reason for it to be true! What are you doing?”

It’s all over the church and it has different manifestations depending on where you go. But it might be something along the lines of “I just rely on the spirit” or “doctrine divides and Christ unites” or there are all kinds of notions that essentially boil down to “using too much reason is a bad thing.” There’s a point at which reason becomes a threat to the genuine Christian life—that is the common idea and that’s the notion that we want to dispel, because we believe that reason is a God ordained thing and a very good thing—and if something bad is coming about in the Christian life that seems to be the result of reason, most likely it is actually the result of corrupting reason rather than doing reason the right way. 

We have a paradigm in Hebrews 11:19 talking about how somebody put their faith in God and what happened when they put their faith in God. Hebrews 11 is known as a faith chapter. It’s all about faith. It’s often called the Hall of Faith. Abraham is the father of faith, and his ultimate faith action, the ultimate example of his faith, was him taking Isaac up to the altar. And that’s what Hebrews is talking about here and in Chapter 11 verse 19. It says Abraham reasoned that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead and that was the basis for his act of faith. And that’s emblematic of the fact that reason is what helped Abraham to know what was true and faith wasn’t involved in the obtaining of knowledge there. Faith was involved in him acting on what he knew to be true. So he knew rationally — as you should — that God the omnipotent being who created all the world is able to raise his son from the dead. 

That just makes sense. If God is who he says he is and Abraham believed that he was, then he was able to raise Isaac from the dead. That’s rational. The faith came in Abraham acting on what he knew to be true in spite of the horrible short term loss that would come about if he followed through that action. 

Are we changing our definitions now? Does this mean faith is not what we thought it was? Yes. Faith was never what most Christians today think it is. If you go through Scripture I don't know that you can ever find an instance where faith is used as a means to knowledge. Faith is always a response to knowledge. It has to do with your emotional state. And your actions based on what you know to be true. So it’s very similar to the idea of trusting something. But the trust is based on what you know with certainty to be true. 

So you we never say “I know this is true because I trust it.” That’s not a justification. 

No. You say you know this is true for X, Y, Z reasons. And because I know it’s true (for those reasons) therefore I'm going to trust it in spite of any of the obstacles that might get in my way. And there might be insurmountable or seemingly insurmountable obstacles to holding onto that belief, but because you've got such good reason to hold onto it your faith is what holds on it. 

There is a reason for anything that we as Christians believe or should believe and there is also a reason for the things that we choose to do. And one of the themes that we want to bring out is in Scripture very often when God commands people to come and worship him or to obey him it says “And here’s why.” It gives us the motivation. And a lot of people have overlooked that. 

So that brings us to our next point, which comes after “reason.” Our second point is the idea of self-interest. 

We want to qualify it with “rational” self-interest. We're not talking about, “Do what feels good to you.” We're talking about do what is objectively, rationally, actually, good for you. And we’re getting this from Scripture. Here’s the confusion. People see Scripture calling for instances of self-sacrifice all the time: 

“Consider others more important than yourselves.” 

“Jesus laid down his life for the sake of his bride.” 

Things like that. There are many instances of self-sacrifice in the Bible. The question is, what is the aim of all those instances of self-sacrifice? Is it self-sacrifice as an end in itself, or is it self-sacrifice for the sake of ultimate gain? And that’s the question that we’re zeroing in on here. And we’re saying everywhere in Scripture and here we're agreeing with much of Christian history. 

This goes back to Augustine, Aquinas, Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, and today John Piper. All have very articulately emphasized this point that every time Scripture calls us to sacrifice it is for the sake of ultimate reward. It is for the sake of ultimate personal gain. And that’s put on display most clearly in Mark 8:34-37. Jesus says if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Jesus is appealing to profit. 

He’s appealing to the desire to save your life. You want to save your life? Then lose it for my sake and the Gospels. You want overall your whole life to be of profit? Then save your soul rather than grasping on to the whole world and losing your soul. 

It’s what C.S. Lewis talked about as the unblushing promises of reward—Something that we are not necessarily comfortable with. But why aren’t we comfortable with it? 

Because Christians have been influenced (once again) by false philosophies that have said that the extent to which you gain from something is the extent to which that thing is no longer moral. There is this idea and it’s called altruism (and altruism doesn’t mean acts of service to other people or being nice to other people). Altruism as a moral code means that the ultimate goal for why you do what you do has to be the welfare of other people. 

And if it involves your own welfare in any degree then it’s no longer moral. It’s no longer good. It corrupts it. Your interest in something corrupts it. And the church has bought into this idea. And it’s somewhat easy to see why, because if you’re just reading Scripture very simplistically, if you’re not coming to it rationally (which is the first issue we talked about) and you’re not thinking systematically, you’re not making logical connections and reading the “therefore’s” and the “so that’s” and things like that, then you’re going to come away thinking that Scripture is calling you to self-sacrifice as an end in itself. 

But if you’re coming to Scripture rationally, and you’re reading the full context, and you’re thinking systematically, and you’re thinking about all of Scripture together as the whole word of God that doesn’t contradict itself anywhere else, then you're going to see: There are logical connections here that God is appealing to all the time where it’s ultimately always about rational self-interest. 

In Hebrews there’s the verse that whoever comes to God must believe that he is, and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. And so we’ve seen that if you want to have faith the way God says we should have faith—if you want to come to him the way he says—you have to do it thinking about the fact that he is the one who rewards you. It’s a part of what faith is: to believe that God’s promises are true. 

And what does it cost us if we forget that? It costs us a great deal. Theologically this is where it’s most important. The example that Piper uses is the most poignant, and if you’ve if you've listened to John Piper you probably heard this, but in case you haven’t: 

Imagine I show up at my house on the anniversary of my wife and my marriage and I’ve got a dozen roses and I say go get dressed I’m going to take you out we’re going to have a great time tonight. And she says why did you? And I say “Because it’s my duty.” She’s not going to feel honored. Now reverse and say that instead I say, “Because there’s nothing else I’d rather do tonight than spend the evening with you.” 

Not a million years would she say “Oh! Nothing you'd rather do! You selfish egotistical jerk!” Right? 

So there’s this dynamic: You don't fully honor someone if you’re not coming to them for your joy in them. And that’s particularly the case with God. Imagine going up to God and saying “I’ve got no vested interest in serving you. You're of no interest to me. I couldn't care less whether I'm here or not, but I'm doing it because I'm supposed to.” 

How offensive. That is not pleasing to God. And I think there’s abundant scriptural evidence that that’s the case. God is glorified when we come to him as our soul’s satisfaction. He is dishonored and belittled when we come to him as if we’re contributing to him through our duty. 

When I have talked about this idea with some of my friends that were not on the same page ideologically they would say, “Yeah, that all sounds good.” There is an objection that comes up though, and they say, “But... why are you talking about self interest? I mean, just talk about the fact that God is good, and that we need to seek him out and seek His glory. But if you bring this self-interest idea into it, what does that add to the discussion?”

The answer: There’s more to life than simply being with God. When I become a Christian I don’t drop dead and go to be with God right then. If I did, then that objection might be valid but because I’ve got to live the rest of his life and I have to be one who lives it with my own body and my own resources and my own time and my own mind, I have to make judgments. I have to make value decisions. I’m the one who has to do that. Me. I. 

If I don’t value myself, if I don’t value the things that God has given me, then I will not be a good steward of the things God has give me. In order to be a good steward of your life and your time and your gifts and your ministry and whatever it is that you’re doing, in order to truly glorify God in them and be a good steward of them, you have to value those things. Which means you have to value yourself. 

If you don't value yourself, you’re not going to be very careful about the ideas that you let into your mind. 

If you don’t value yourself, you're not going to be very careful about the affections that rise up in your heart. 

If you don't value yourself, you might not be very careful about the time that you spend doing certain things or the time and energy and the treasure that you invest in certain things. 

But if you do value yourself as an image of God and as a steward of the things that he has given you to glorify him with, then you’re going to be very jealous to make sure that you guard all those things and that you cultivate them in the right ways. 

And we see all throughout Jesus’ teaching he’s telling us you need to seek treasure in heaven. And that’s what we're talking about. It’s that hunger for more value than you currently have. And that’s what drives people forward. That is a proper motivation, not only an acceptable one, but the best one. 

What’s the alternative? Basically to lay down and die. I mean that’s really what it comes down to. And people people want to evade the fact that those are the alternatives. And so they kind of just sludge through life. But if you stop and think about it either you should live for your own rational self-interest in the glory of God or you should lay down and die. That there’s really no in-between. 

When we think about these issues it also brings up the question, “Well what do I owe to my neighbor?” And that is our third point out of the three. 

That is this idea of individualism—and do we see individualism in Scripture? We base this idea of individualism on the earlier idea of being rational and rational self-interest. But now specifically what is my responsibility toward you as my friend or toward others? 

The heart of this issue is (first of all) what is your responsibility to God? Because that’s the ultimate. Your responsibility God is individual. You will stand alone before the judgment seat. You will stand alone before Christ. Christ will say to you: “Well done good and faithful servant“—you the individual. 

And so that is what’s primary. That's what comes foremost. And then your obligation to others is only understood in that context. So as you relate with others in the church the ideal is that you become one (and you see this all over and Scripture and hopefully we’ll get the chance to talk about this in future episodes)—wherever Scripture calls for unity it typically calls for unity of mind and unity of heart, which means unity of ideas and unity of values. 

So you have to be an individual first. You have to have your own ideas and your own values—your own judgments (your own truth judgments, your own value judgments) and you have to have strong convictions about each. And then the way that you’re united to other people is that they have the same value judgments and the same truth judgments. They have the same ideas; the same values. And you’re united by virtue of the fact that you share those in common. That's what true unity is. 

And this is why there’s so much confusion about how truth and unity are together in the church. People always talk about it as if it’s something you have to balance. You know: “Well you've got a certain truth and a sense of unity, but if you get too much truth then you lose unity and vice versa.”

No there’s an integration here. Truth is for unity. Unity is around truth. Unity is of no value if it’s not around the right ideas. And it’s a false unity if it’s not a unity of ideas or unity of values. 

If I’m thrown in a room with a bunch of random Christians who are Christians simply by virtue of the fact that they proclaim themselves to be Christians, and I know nothing about what they believe about the Bible, I know nothing about what they believe about Jesus, or about salvation, or about the glory of God, or if they even value the glory of God, then there is no chance for me to be “united” with them. 

And there’s no value in the supposed unity that we have in being in the same room together. The value of unity in Scripture comes from being united in a common vision of God and a common passion for the glory of God. And the prerequisite for all of that is the individualism that we’re talking about here, where you have your own individual judgments about the truth of God and about the value of God and of all his creation as a result. 

So no one denies that we are individuals. No one denies that as a church we form a collective. But let’s get clear on what it is that we’re saying. We’re not anti “having a collective.” We are anti-collectivism though. 

There's a difference. Collectivism says that the group—the collective—whether it’s the church at large, or your individual church, or an organization, or just the majority of your neighbors, whatever it might be, whatever the collective is, it takes precedence over—and at the expense of—the individual and his and his independent judgment. 

So to use an historical example, the Catholic Church is really the quintessential example of Christian collectivism where you’re forbidden to think for yourself. You’re forbidden to even read Scripture for yourself (back in the medieval Catholic Church), and everything is controlled by “groupthink.“ You are significant only insofar as you align yourself with others. And everything is controlled by this collectivistic, groupthink, “go along with a tribe” mentality. 

But the Reformation was one of the ultimate examples of individualism in Christianity, where Luther said “Look I cannot recant unless I’m convinced from Scripture and from reason that I'm wrong. I cannot go against conscience. It’s neither safe nor right. Here I stand. God help me.” That is the ultimate example of Christian individualism. And that’s why Protestantism is essentially individualistic. 

Now the problem is we typically think of individualism as sort of a “lone ranger” Christianity. And we wouldn’t say that's the ideal. That’s a caricature. The ideal is: You have your own individual view of God and your own individual values about God, and you share those with the community. And that’s what the church is supposed to be. The collective (and being a part of a collective) is a function of being an individual and an individualist. 

You destroy that when you bring in collectivism, because then it’s forced group identity. It’s forced tribalism. And it negates the individual mind. It negates the individual affections. And it destroys the ability of the individual to relate to God as an individual. 

One of the themes that we’ve talked about today in all three of our points has been the role of the mind in the Christian life—the role of the mind in how do we even think about our faith: Rationality. And then also rational self-interest and individualism. The individual's mind is what we’re what we’re cherishing and valuing. And we think that it’s an indispensable part of Christianity. 

As we work together to expand on all of these topics we’re going to go into greater depth on what exactly we mean by rationality. We probably raised more questions than we answered today. 

What do we mean by the opposite of reason, which we would call fideism? What is rational self-interest? What do we mean but, what do we not mean? 

That is going to raise a lot of objections, especially for somebody who knows their New Testament well. We’re going to have an episode just on that. We’re going to have an episode just on altruism or the moral system of self-sacrifice, and then we’re going to have one episode on individualism and collectivism. 

So that gives you an idea of where we’re going. And I think that you’re going to have a lot of questions answered as we move that direction. 

In closing I want to say we’re not shy about trying to achieve here. When people rediscover the classical Christian principles of reason, rational self-interest, and individualism there will be a revolution in the way we exist as a nation and in the way we live our Christian lives. 

What’s missing from the world? From our own communities? There are better and more biblical answers than the ones we've been hearing. We’re looking for people with a similar passion who can help with this mission. Can you contribute financially? Can you contribute technical skills? Writing skills? Could it be that your contribution and your friendship is the missing piece to moving this mission forward? If you’re not already up subscriber, then I want you to do that first. 

Go, and the first action is go to ChristianIntellectual.com. Let us know that you exist. Become a subscriber. It’s free. And you'll let us know that we're doing something right—someone’s listening and someone wants to hear us. 

Also you can find us on Facebook at “For the New Christian Intellectual,” and on Twitter handle @FTNCI. 

In closing, we’d like to leave you with a verse that is at the heart of our ministry. 

Colossians 1:28-29: 

“We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may and present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor striving according to His power which mightily works within me.” 

That’s our goal for what we’re doing here. We want to proclaim the excellences of Christ in all wisdom in order to build up the church and that is our prayer for you.