Now and then while reading this book I mutter an 'amen' with a strength of conviction to match the most passionate Calvinist, hearing a prayer of thanksgiving for God's sovereign electing grace and its fixity in the eternal decrees. Or with just as much conviction as Charles Wesley in 'Let Earth and heaven Agree', one of his less savagely satirical anti-calvinist hymns, in which he trumpets, "For all my Lord was crucified, For all, for all my Saviour died".
What provoked such occasional passionate responses in reading this book wasn't in fact these specifics and collision points of theology. It's the way the writers defend that without which all theology becomes a reiterated loop of propositional slogans – a teachable mind. By the way, time and again Calvin preached about the need to be teachable (memorably on Ephesians) – to cultivate a docility and receptiveness open to the truth of God. Not sure what Jean Calvin the pastor would make of the postmodern mindset, but I think he would have little quarrel with the defence of reasonable theologising that's commended in this book:
[The] challenge to one's deepest assumptions plays an important part for the renewal of the mind and for the training of the intelligent – indeed, wise – leaders for the coming generations.* Christian education is not faith-affirming if it merely confirms our cultural and denominational prejudices.* Only when our deepest assumptions are challenged will we be able to hold our faith with the kind of intelligent conviction that makes us credible witnesses of the new humanity instituted by Christ.**
Because God has given all of us reason as a gift integral to understanding the world asnd our purpose in it, thinking is a Christian calling.* In this calling the Christian has to recognise that reason is given to all and that all truth is God's truth…If Jesus is the incarnate Logos in whom we live, and move, and have our being, then all truth is part of him and leads to him.* This makes all truth about humanity and nature worthy of study. To think is not a luxury for the Christian but part of the essence of the Christian's religion.* A person's experience of freedom, including the freedom of intellectual enquiry, is absolutely fundamental to authentic Christian experience.** Thinking, with all its risks, is mandatory for the Christian."*
The Passionate Intellect. Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education, Norman Klassen and Jens Zimmermann (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 196-7.
The italics for emphasis are in the original (including Wesley's), - the asterisks represent the aforementioned muttered 'Amens!' I use a well developed way of marking books I read – think I'll add to them an A*, symbolising 'intensely muttered convictonal Amen'.
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