God is omniscient. He knows all our thoughts (spoken and unspoken). Psalm 94:11 proclaims: “The LORD knows the thoughts of man” (“They are but a breath.”) Similarly, Psalm 139:2b says: “You discern my thoughts from afar.” God declares: “For I know the things that come into your mind” (Ezek 11:5). Amos 4:13a states: “He who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought.” Additionally, God depicts his knowledge utilizing the image of the heart (mind): “Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD; how much more the hearts of the children of man!” (Prov 15:11). And David wrote: “The LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought” (1 Chron 28:9).

However, God does not simply observe passively but scrutinizes our intellectual activity—in real time, 24/7. Several terms are used to express this activity: “test,” “try,” “prove,” “search,” “search out,” and “examine.” The Lord declares: “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind” (Jer 17:10). Others testify about him: “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts” (Prov 17:3); “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart” (Prov 21:2); “If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?” (Prov 24:12); and “O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind” (Jer 20:12).

In the Old Testament mental piety appears in heartfelt petitions that invite divine testing. These are prayers for intellectual and motivational purification. David implored the Lord: “Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind” (Psalms 26:2). Psalm 139:23 states: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” Psalm 19:4 declares: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.”

Perhaps the most poignant expression of intellectual piety and redemptive epistemology is Psalm 131:1—2.

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Do you, Christian thinker, pray this way also?

Because human beings are created as the imago Dei, we are hard-wired for extension, development, economic growth, even globalization. But, because we are fallen, the usual result are misguided visions of utopia on earth. From these we produce conquest, empire, mono-culturalism (consumerism, for example), subjugation, exploitation, plunder, and extinction. As a matter of course we often create cultures that are nothing short of abusive, inhumane, and unjust.

Clearly, “east of Eden” (Gen 3:24) and “under the sun” (Eccl 1:9) the human project is flawed. Existence is conditioned by finitude, falleness, and God’s curse (Gen 3:14–19; Ps 90). This is the “present evil age” (Gal 1:4), as Paul wrote. As a result, there will never occur in this eschatological epoch a utopia through communism or socialism, capitalism or consumerism, Islam, or any of the myriad alternative spiritualities. This side of eternity, there will never be a true “holy fill in the blank empire.”

Christians should be continuously wary of incarnations of the cultural mandate gone awry.

The reality is that history is full of failed and tragic experiments in culture building and identity formation. Consider the many corrupt leaders and violent empires of destruction, beginning with Babel: ancient empires such as Pharaoh’s kingdom of the sun-god or Caesar’s Pax Romana, the medieval Holy Roman Empire, modernity’s myth of progress, and ideologies like Nazism, communism, and totalitarianism.

We should honestly ask ourselves: How many millions have perished because of the lust for empire and its cousin, colonialism, throughout human history? God alone knows the suffering and injustice inflicted due to the divine right of kings and manifest destinies. How often have lands been acquired, peoples dispersed, raw materials confiscated, or access to the sea or trade routes expropriated for purposes of security, gain or glory? How often has mankind raped the earth of its natural resources, failing to steward God’s goodness? How many people have been enslaved or exploited for want of manpower or greed? And most importantly, how often has Christianity affiliated with the powerful and prosperous, but overlooked the victims of empire: the poor, exploited, enslaved, abused, and condemned? Surely, for all this creation “mourns” (Jer 4:28; 14:2; Hos 4:3).

Christians should, therefore, be continuously wary of incarnations of the cultural mandate (Gen 1:26-28, Psalm 8) gone awry. Whenever we hear a neo-Babelite battle cry, “Let us build ourselves a city . . . that we can make a name for ourselves” (Gen 4:11a); whenever would-be Pharaohs exclaim, “Who is the Lord?” (Exod 5:2); whenever God’s people declare “Give us a king to lead us” (1 Sam 8:6); or whenever an ideology proposes to “put an end to war and set all things in order” (spoken about Caesar and Pax Romana), the church should take heed. The impetus may be religious or philosophical, but the social and economic manifestations are usually totalitarian and theocratic. The forms can be explicitly religious (Islam or medieval Catholicism), ideologically secular (communism, National Socialism, Imperial Japan, North Korean Juche, or even secular humanism), or implicitly religious (consumerism).

Jan Hus (c. 1373–1415) is one of my heroes. He was a Czech religious reformer and a forerunner of the Reformation. He modeled pious intellectuality―under great duress.

At ten years of age, Hus was sent to a monastery. Not long after, he was sent to Prague to study, because he was clearly intelligent. In 1393, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Prague. Three years later, he got a Master’s degree and began to teach at the university. Hus became Dean of the philosophical faculty in 1401 and was designated a candidate for the Doctor’s degree in theology. In 1409, he was elected Rector. He was also ordained as a priest and was well-known for his theological writing and preaching. In addition, he introduced improvements to writing in his native language.

Hus was appointed a preacher at the newly established Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. He taught in Czech, so that listeners could understand. In 1401, he discovered the English Reformer, John Wycliffe, and he was deeply impacted by his theology. Hus translated and distributed his works, even though they were condemned by the Church. Hus embraced Wycliffe’s teaching about the primacy of Scripture. He echoed his criticism of the papacy and his demand for reforms concerning indulgences and clerical corruption.

The religious and social context in the Czech lands was very complex and tumultuous. Political and nationalistic intrigue occurred between the Czechs and Germans. Both wanted to control territory, wealth, and religion. Both struggled to dominate the university. Both curried favor with the Pope(s) and church hierarchy. And both rejected intrusive reform or upheaval brought about by Wycliffe and Hus.

The Catholic church was torn by dissent. During Hus’s lifetime, three Popes vied for supremacy. Each appealed to political, religious, and educational leaders for support. Clerical leadership abused and demeaned the lower clergy. The Church imposed onerous taxationwithin their lands and possessed enormous wealth. Bribes were paid for favors and power. Indulgences were marketed to finance ungodly agendas. Ecclesiastical offices and privileges were sold.

Meanwhile, Hus’s influence grew steadily through his teaching, preaching, and writing. He spoke out against corruption and the use of force by the Church. As a result, he drew the ire of Church leadership. They ordered him to stop preaching and spreading Wycliffe’s heretical ideas. Hus refused and continued his ministry.

When he was pressured to affirm unacceptable doctrines at the university, he declared, “Even if I should stand before the stake which has been prepared for me, I would never accept the recommendations of the theological faculty.” When he was invited to the Council of Constance to defend his views, he said that he would repent―if convinced from the Scriptures.

Though he was promised safe travel the Council, he was betrayed, arrested, and condemned to die at the stake. Before his death, he reportedly prophetically declared about future Reformers, “You may kill a weak goose, but more powerful birds, eagles and falcons, will come after me.” When asked a last time if he would recant, he said, “God is my witness that the things charged against me I never preached. In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today.” As he breathed his last, he prayed, “Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on us!”

Hus taught with intellectual integrity, pastoral empathy, and zeal. He produced instructional materials in Czech for priests and laymen. Výklad víry, for instance, is an “Exposition of the Faith, of the Ten Commandments, and of the Lord’s Prayer.” As you read the following statement from this text, consider how Hus loved God with his mind. He demonstrated that sometimes intellectual piety is costly and dangerous:

Thus, faithful friend, search for the truth, listen to the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, tell the truth, keep the truth, defend the truth until death; for the truth will set your free from sin, from the devil, from the death of soul and from death eternal.

Think, as well, how this admonition applies to us even today.

(For more information about Jan Hus click here.)

I served as the Interim President of the Anglo-American College (now a university) in Prague, Czech Republic, from November, 1999 to February 2001. AAU is a private, secular university founded in 1991, after the fall of communism. I was a missionary with Global Scholars in Prague from 1995 to 2003. In 2018, I visited the university and delivered these remarks entitled “My Vision for AAU.” Below is an excerpt. This site is dedicated to thinking Christianly, so perhaps these comments to a secular, intellectual audience are interesting and relevant.

Introduction
Perhaps it is difficult for you to imagine what a pleasure it is for me to be here in Prague again. So many important developments occurred in my life and for my family here.

I taught first in September, 1995 – 1997. I served as President from 1999 – 2001. At this time I became a Founder of the Anglo-American College and the Anglo-American Institute For Liberal Studies. I continue serving on the Founders Board of AAU.

It is a great honor for me to address you today, to share company with people whom I respect, and to share the history of AAU. I hope that I might present a few ideas that could be useful as you develop the long-term trajectory of this school. I will talk briefly about memory and identity.

Institutional Memory
I believe, also, that institutions can forget their past and in this way lose their identity. I have several observations about institutional memory and identity that might be useful as you envision the future. In my thinking my three ideas are interrelated.

The first is the now, old fashioned term, liberal arts or even humanities. There is something intrinsically valuable about learning the past and the ideas of great thinkers. Wisdom from our forbears hinders our pretensions in the present.

I remember joking with my business and humanities students. I told the business students that they had a brain but no heart. I told the humanities students that they were all heart but no brain. Liberal arts, carefully conceived, promote humility and healthy skepticism, a big heart and broad mind.

I have remarked that it would be a shame if AAU produced only soulless technocrats or lifeless bureaucrats or greedy businessmen and women. I am quite serious about this. If AAU produces mostly profit-motivated entrepreneurs, they might advance globalization and their own fortunes, but they might not model integrity or benefit society.

This is why I have urged that programs about social entrepreneurism be established at AAU. I have proposed an annual ethics symposium and required ethics courses in each field. It would be a pity if AAU graduates gain the whole world, but lose their souls.

The second is cultural history, worldview, and religion. When I taught here, I offered courses like comparative religions, comparative worldviews, the Bible as literature, history of Christianity, intellectual history, and business ethics. At that time students were interested in the big questions in life. They were sometimes stunned to learn what the Bible said or what Islam or Hinduism taught, for example. They were amazed to learn about the positive influence of religion in the public square.

At the beginning of a course they would sometimes ask: “Professor, what do you think about this or that”? But, I often said: “What is more important is what you think.” They did not know how to think, but at least they were curious.

Specifically, I think that AAU should encourage Czech and Slovak students to reconnect with their famous Christian forebears, Jan Hus and Jan Amos Komenský. AAU should also urge its European students to re-examine the religious influence upon European culture.

I think, also, that AAU should teach students to think about basic worldview questions, like: Where did I come from? Why I am here? Where I am going? An unexamined life really is not very worthwhile.

The third is dissidence. When I began here, many of my students and their parents had participated in the Velvet Revolution. They were hungry for change and rightfully skeptical of the former controlling narratives. But, is that the same today? Or, are most people no longer thinking at all, except about the next party or short-term pleasure? Are they simply following the story lines laid out for them and playing their part in globalization and consumerism? Is this why AAU exists: to develop this kind of person?

I want AAU to encourage healthy dissidence. I want foreign students to discover Václav Havel, in particular “The Power of the Powerless” and “Letters To Olga.” I want all students to question and push back against the controlling narratives today.

I hope that AAU students resist the trivialization of popular culture promoted so eagerly by consumerism. They should resist the manipulating messages of the consumer matrix: “I shop, therefore I am.” They should resist the distortions produced by social media. They should resist the transforming power of “McWorld,” the unholy alliance of McDonalds and Disneyworld.

I urge AAU to push back against secularization in modern Europe. There is so much to learn from the spiritual and religious legacy of Europe. It is wise to ponder the impact of Christianity and Judaism upon law, human rights, political philosophy, health, the arts, etc.

Back in 1998 I wrote an article about my students for the “New Presence” magazine entitled “My Atheist Students — So-Called.” I found that many atheists and agnostics here embrace a variety of implicit religions. I doubt that this is much different today.

When we lived here, my wife bought me a picture that she felt represents the struggle of religion in this country.  I urge AAU to foster intellectual hospitality that permits students to question the reigning paradigms of naturalism and secularism that squeeze spirituality out of life and the public square.

Conclusion
I do not believe that AAU can or should clone the state educational system’s values, method or message. But, neither should it sell its soul to the highest, foreign bidder. AAU is a distinct, independent entity — almost a verb. We should not forget.

I hope AAU will foster creative dissidence. Promote integrity and social entrepreneurism. Value the liberal arts and encourage students to think about the meaning of life. I suspect, would be education with a difference. This would be AAU.

Read this review in The Joyful Life online magazine!

“His ultimate goal in this endeavor is to encourage believers to mature in their faith by turning from an ‘anti-intellectualism’ mindset, a fear of knowledge, or biblical illiteracy, to one which shepherds fellow Christians into the beauty of learning to love God with their minds.”

There are many useful books about idolatry, but in this blog I recommend four for your consideration. Each of these books describe the misdriection of mental capacity to unworthy objects and causes.

First, you should begin with Greg Beale’s We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry. The book is an examination of the Old and New Testaments concerning what, how, and why idol worship occurs, as well as its impact. Though the title might sound academic, the text is quite readable and interesting. Beale writes:

What do you and I reflect? . . . God has made humans to reflect him, but if they do not commit themselves to him, they will not reflect him but something else in creation. . . . What people revere, they resemble either for ruin or restoration.

Second, read Jacques Ellul’s The New Demons. The chapter titles tell you what the book is about: Post-Christian Era and Secularization, The Sacred Today, Modern Myths, Secular Religions: Current Religious Attitudes, Secular Religions: Political Religion, and Coda for Christians. His analysis of secular religions and political religion is profound and prophetic. He described two mistakes the church has made:

1) Constantinism: an orientation toward wanting to win over to Christianity the rich, the powerful, the control centers . . . . 2) The cultural mistake: the incorporation into Christianity of all the cultural values. Christianity becomes the receptible for all the civilizations of the past, the establisher of culture and a synthesis of the philosophies.

Third, read Tim Keller’s popular-level book Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, Power, and the Only Hope that Matters. The book is a pastoral discourse on the many idols that define popular culture in the West. Keller writes:

An idol is something we cannot live without. We must have it, and therefore it drives us break rules we once honored, to harm others and even ourselves in order to get it. Idols are spiritual addictions that lead to terrible evil.

Lastly, read Christopher Wright’s “Here Are Your Gods”: Faithful Discipleship in Idolatrous Times. The book begins with description of idolatry in the Bible (like Beale, but simpler). The second section is especially relevant: Political Idolatry Then and Now. The third section is God’s People in an Idolatrous World. Wright says, “idolatry is a very important topic in the Bible — much neglected by contemporary evangelical Christians, partly because we ourselves are unconsciously involved with and sometimes dominated by the false gods of the people around us.” He also asks:

Can there be a sustainable future for a civilization and culture that is built on historic violence and bloodshed, that systemically increases poverty and inequality, that sets nation against nation, that corrodes the foundations of marriage and family, that desecrates God’s creation, and that devalues to the point of meaningless the very concept of public truth?

This is the second video in a series about wisdom in Proverbs.

This is the first video in a series about wisdom in Proverbs.

“A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.”

While conducting research for my book (Such a Mind as This), I ran across an intriguing statement by the French playwright Molière (1622–1673). His play “The Learned Ladies”  satirizes pseudo-scholars and their acolytes for their pretentious aspiration to glory and influence through knowledge acquisition. In this context, he stated, “A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.”

In my book, I apply Molière’s aphorism to the mentality of Qohelet, the main speaker in Ecclesiastes. He was intelligent and learned. But his intellectual project was skewed and foolish. He grasped for illegitimate knowledge “under the sun.”[1]

Is it possible for learned evangelicals to be foolish? Absolutely. Let us consider how.

I argue that the fool of Psalm 14, who claims that God does not exist, represents the apex of noetic corruption in the Old Testament.[2] The fool is not a philosophical atheist, but a functional or willful non-believer. He is an epistemological rebel. He knows deep in his heart that God exists but operates as if God were irrelevant (unknowing, impotent, uncaring). The fool minimizes and marginalizes deity as a form of self-justification for doing evil.[3] This outlook is expressed several times in the Old Testament:

In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” . . . He says in his heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.” (Ps 10:4, 11)

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good. (Ps 14:1)

How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High? (Ps 73:11)

The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive. (Ps 94:7)

He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. (Jer 5:12)

The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill. (Zeph 1:12)

Ethical maleficence rooted in divine marginalization is not something in which most Christian thinkers engage. However, we do slip into forms of intellectuality that are not in accord with biblical revelation and that minimize God’s dominion. One way this occurs is through an epistemic sacred – secular division.[4] This mental posture functions as if God’s reign does not extend to all human thinking, as if he were intellectually irrelevant. It is observable in the following practices:

Professors who do academic (secular) thinking from Monday to Saturday and sacred thinking on Sunday.

Devoting oneself to professional intellectual development while also exhibiting aspects of anti-intellectualism or illiteracy with reference to the Bible.[5]

Operating cognitively as if pluralism or relativism is valid and obvious truths.

Failing to recognize sin as an epistemological reality as it applies to personal cognition, as well as social thought.

Negating the importance of apologetics and cultural critique under the influence of tolerance and pluralism.

False neutrality―i.e., imagining that any fact, thought or experience can be properly understood apart from the existence of God, the Creator and Lord, and his revelation.

Theoretical naivete―not thinking about one’s discipline with reference to its fundamental assumptions or the biblical worldview.

Inconsistent intellectual piety―i.e., failure to apply intellectual virtues consistently to each day of the week and every sphere of knowledge.

Each of these compartmentalized ways of thinking minimize God’s lordship over the mind. Indeed, operating as if God is extraneous in any sphere of life, is folly. Such foolishness implies a negation of Jesus’s claims about himself (“I am the way, the truth, and the life”) and ignores the applicability of the Great Commandmen to every aspect of life : “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:29–30).

On the other hand, John M. Frame describes a mental posture consistent with the biblical worldview. All human knowing, he says, is “servant knowledge” or “a knowledge about God as Lord and a knowledge that is subject to God as Lord.”[6]

Paul M. Gould explains how this works out in practice, providing guidelines for the would-be missional thinker: “Christian scholars ought to be, among other things, actively engaging the dominant plausibility structures embedded within culture, so that the gospel message can gain a fair hearing.” He adds, “We need Christian scholars to engage the underlying presuppositions of every discipline, correcting assumptions where needed and making connections that have hitherto gone unnoticed, to demonstrate the unity and elegance of the Christian worldview within the fragmented academy.”[7]

Christian thinkers should self-consciously flee folly. They ought to possess epistemic self-awareness. They should know where to draw the line regarding intellectual assimilation.[8] They must discern the difference between the common good and biblical distinctives. They must navigate epistemological relativism and ontological pluralism, carrying their solid biblical grounding into the world around them for God’s glory and mankind’s blessing.

[1] See my book chapter 5 concerning Qohelet and chapter 6 about ignorant foolishness.

[2] Paul cites Psalm 14:2–3 in Romans 3:11–12 indicating that noetic depravity is a central and universal aspect of the human condition. As no one obtains epistemic perfection in this life, no one escapes the influence of folly this side of eternity.

[3] As Dostoevsky noted, “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.”

[4] Other ways include, for instance, laziness or the lack of curiosity about biblical knowledge.

[5] Christian scholars invest many years of study and thousands of dollars to gain an academic specialty. But how many hours and dollars do they invest in acquiring biblical wisdom? Paul M. Gould observes, “While experts within their own particular fields of study, Christian professors often possess a Sunday school level of education when it comes to matters theological and philosophical . . . and the result is a patchwork attempt to integrate one’s faith with one’s scholarly work and an inability to fit the pieces of one’s life into God’s larger story.” (The Outrageous Idea of a Missional Professor, 7)

[6] Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 40 (emphasis in original).

[7] Gould, “The Consequences of (Some) Ideas,” Cultural Encounters 8, no. 1, 124.

[8] See chapters 13–14 in my book.

Handley Carr Glyn Moule (1841–1920) was the epitome of a pastor-scholar. He possessed a fervent evangelical piety. His father was an Anglican pastor. His mother modeled saintly prayer and “read to him from great books, instilling in him a lifelong quest for learning.” (See “Profile in Faith: Bishop Handley Moule.”)

Moule became a renowned academic at Cambridge University. He was known for his godly affection and was particularly sensitive to those struggling with doubt and despair. He was an ardent supporter of missions and hosted Hudson Tylor at the University.

He was appointed the first Head of Ridley Hall at Cambridge, established to preserve, and instill evangelical knowledge and piety. He wrote over sixty books, including biblical commentaries. He composed hymns and wrote two volumes of poetry.

In 1901, he was appointed the Bishop of Durham. He wrote the people of the Diocese:

I need and seek your prayers. Ask for me especially . . . a real effusion in me of that grace of the Spirit whereby Christ dwells in the heart by faith; a strength and wisdom not my own for my pastorate, and for the preaching of Christ Jesus the Lord; and a will wholly given over for labour and service at our Master’s feet.

In May 1920, he preached before the King and Queen at Windsor Castle. He died shortly after.

I am particularly taken with his meditation about scholarship. He expresses eloquently the mindset of one who desires to love God with the mind (Deut 6:4‒5)―as an academic:

Lord and Savior, true and kind,
Be the Master of my mind;
Bless, and guide, and strengthen still
All my powers of thought and will.

While I ply the scholar’s task,
Jesus Christ, be near, I ask;
Help the memory, clear the brain,
Knowledge still to seek and gain.

Here I train for life’s swift race;
Let me do it in Thy grace;
Here I arm me for life’s fight;
Let me do it in Thy might.

Thou hast made me mind and soul;
I for Thee would use the whole;
Thou hast died that I might live;
All my powers to Thee I give.

Striving, thinking, learning, still,
Let me follow thus Thy will,
Till my whole glad nature be
Trained for duty and for Thee.