A Heart in the Door

Christian philosophy must find knowledge of God, like human redemption, in divine grace rather than human earning. In particular, a Christian philosophy must acknowledge that the things of God are taught by God‟s Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, and not by “human wisdom.” Paul states that “we have received the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12). In making Christ preeminent in all things, even in wisdom and philosophy, God does not allow the world to know God by its own wisdom. Paul remarks: “in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through [its] wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:21). Instead, according to Paul, “Christ Jesus … became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30; cf. Col. 2:3).

Paul remarks that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1), and he could have added that philosophy puffs up, too. Accordingly, he reports that he does not trade in “eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17). This suggests that a philosophy can empty the power from the cross of Christ. Paul has in mind the redemptive power of the cross, as he immediately mentions the cross as “the power of God” for “us who are being saved” (1 Cor. 1:18). How, then, can a philosophy empty the redemptive power of the cross of Christ? The answer: in many ways, given that there are many ways to mislead and obstruct people regarding God.

This was the great coming together for me-the breakthrough. What was life about? What was it for? Why do I exist? Why am I here? To be happy? Or to glorify God? Unspoken for years, there was in me the feeling that these two were at odds. Either you glorify God or you pursue happiness. One seemed absolutely right; the other seemed absolutely inevitable. And that is why I was confused and frustrated for so long.

Compounding the problem was that many who seemed to emphasize the glory of God in their thinking did not seem to enjoy him much. And many who seemed to enjoy God most were defective in their thinking about his glory. But now here was the greatest mind of early America, Jonathan Edwards, saying that God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion.

When I saw this, I knew, at last, what a wasted life would be and how to avoid it.

God created me-and you-to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion-namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for others to see and admire, we deceive ourselves, because the mark of God-enthralled joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others. The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

Paul‟s Letter to the Colossians offers a striking portrait of Christ-shaped philosophy. To that end, it offers a firm warning: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy… and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8; translations from NRSV). Notice the contrast between philosophy and Christ. Philosophy outside the authority of Christ, according to Paul, is dangerous to human freedom and life. The alternative is philosophy under Christ, and this involves a distinctive kind of wisdom. If philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom, Christian philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom under the authority of Christ, which calls for an ongoing union with Christ, including one‟s belonging to God in Christ.

No more is there a secret or a mystery ‘hidden’ like a black box at the heart of the One or of God, actually at the heart of the Logos, but a secret that remains like a secret that does not alter its ‘formal’ revelation because it is already revealed: a revealed-without-revelation, a secret (of) the One already given by the World, a secret of humility that its communication does not cut into.