DMLJ sees the church's drift
into philosophy as an evidence of “the wiles of the devil”[1]
and even goes so far as to describe philosophy as “the single greatest enemy of
the Christian faith and Christian truth,”[2]
the reason being its “final confidence in human reason, in the power of man’s
mind to arrive at the truth, to comprehend it, and to encompass it. The ultimate problem is always the problem of
authority.”[3] And it is this human authority that
challenges what DMLJ holds as axiomatic for the Christian Faith by denying what
the Scriptures clearly teach in Deut. 29:29.
Philosophers are
unable to say about something, “I don’t know!” Pride of intellect prevents them making this honest confession.
He sees as the
explanation for this the pre-occupation of philosophers with “vain deceit” and
“profane and vain babblings,”[4]
and proffers the view that the reason why the church in the nineteenth century
became “respectable” and better educated was that with these intellectual
advances, people required a more cultured ministry; proclaiming the simple and
unvarnished Gospel was not sufficient, and the sermons had to be laced with illustrations and
quotations from the Greek philosophers, the Latin classics, and the great
poets. In Mid-Victorian times, the
church wanted to be more intellectually respectable[5] so
she set about training men of culture and intellect for the ministry,
irrespective of whether or not they were true Christians.
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