Theology and Culture with Ken Keathley: Part 2
This post resumes my interview with Ken Keathley, Director of the Center for Faith and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. In this second half (for Part 1, click here), we move from pastoral ministry into cultural and philosophical issues.
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JW: I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about the Center for Faith and Culture (CFC). During Bruce Little’s tenure as director, he focused on introducing young evangelicals to a comprehensive vision for faith in the public square. This was reflected in the kinds of speakers who came and lectured, as well as some of the things he had us read. How do you envision the Center’s work going forward as you’ve come into this director role in the last year or so?
KK: Dr. Little did an excellent job launching the Center. He had a vision of how we are to engage with the culture and the public square. My goal is to continue his vision. In other words, there’s not going to be a dramatic shift or change or turn in the CFC’s vision or strategy, because I affirm what Dr. Little did in a big way. What we’re doing hopefully is building on the good foundation that he established. What we hope to do now is not only to call evangelicals to engage in the public square, but also to model how it is done. We’ve had men like Andy Crouch who have talked about culture, forming culture, and those like that still casting the big vision of Christ in culture. Now we’re also having conferences where we engage in particular arenas of the public sphere. We had a very significant conference this fall on Noah’s flood and the age of the earth where we had evangelical scientists from a variety of perspectives (young and old earth perspectives, et cetera), but evangelicals who are doing the work of science in an academic setting.
This spring we will have a conference with the Acton Institute on business as mission model. The name of the conference will be “Business, Vocation, and the Great Commission.” What is an evangelical theology of economics? What is a biblical theology of business? All business relationships are moral relationships. So I can’t think of a venue in which our Christian faith should be more engaged and more involved than in the business world. Sadly enough, we as Baptists have to take a great responsibility for this. We have taught people that the way they serve the Lord is in their local church: You know, go and teach Sunday School; and then you go to work, and you work at that jobs so you might be able to support your family; and then you come back and do the work of the Lord. There is this bifurcation, this wall, in which there is not just a separation between church and state, but a separation of church and business. And so sadly, people think and live one way in the church, and do not bring those Christian values and worldviews into the business world. You know, nature abhors a vacuum. So if the Christian worldview is not dominating the business world, then the Darwinian worldview is more than happy to do so.
There are plenty of Christians who are involved in the business world, and if they were to be honest with you, they operate more like Richard Dawkins than they do C.S. Lewis in the world. They are practical and functional atheists at their jobs. And it’s our fault because we haven’t taught them how their faith should inform their business. It should be the very foundation and provide the entire framework for what they’re doing. You think about it, Jackson. When we talk about the public square, we’re talking about business, sports & leisure, movies and arts, and more. What we intend to have are events in which those who are modeling what we are hoping to promote come in and share with us. So we’ve cast the big vision as Dr. Little did, and then show strategically how this plays out in various arenas.
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JW: In recent months the Center sponsored a conference dealing with creation and the age of the earth. You also have a forthcoming book with Kregel on creation. Then at ETS this year there was a panel based off of the new book on the historical Adam. Do you think this discussion of origins and the early chapters of Genesis has reached kind of a stalemate? How would you characteristic that status of that discussion among evangelicals?
KK: That’s a very good question, and I’m glad you brought that up. One of the contributors to that discussion on the historical Adam, C. John Collins, will be at the CFC, and he will be presenting a series of lectures on whether Adam and Eve really existed. He’s going to give a very strong defense of the historicity of Adam from a biblical perspective and why it matters theologically, but also how we can engage with the sciences, especially as it relates to genetics. Dr. Collins is uniquely qualified to address these issues, and I think he has something very important to say. I think that the good news is that we haven’t yet reached a stalemate—I would not characterize it that way.
There seems to be some crystallization among evangelicals. You have some in BioLogos who argued that we could jettison the historical Adam. I’m thinking of Peter Enns and Dennis Lamoureux and Karl Giberson. The good news is that I think BioLogos recognizes that jettisoning the historical Adam cannot be done in a way that preserves evangelical foundations. In other words, the great story of redemption is creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. And if you pull out the historicity of the fall, you really don’t have a Gospel narrative anymore. One of the things that I see happening is there does seem to be a clear consensus among the majority of evangelicals, though there will also be a faction who say, “Well the Gospel can be preserved without the historical Adam.”
I do think we’re going to have some interesting discussions about what we mean by “the historicity of Adam.” I think that this is an ongoing discussion that we haven’t heard the final word on. Having men like Collins address that issue is very important. You asked me how I would characterize the status of this discussion. At the risk of hyperbole, theologically speaking, I think that this is the most important issue that we’ll deal with in the next ten years. This is a Gospel issue. It really is. One cannot have an imaginary fall and still have a literal Gospel. I just don’t know how evangelicals will still look like evangelicals if we jettison the historicity of the fall. At the risk of exaggeration, I cannot imagine any issue more important than this one over the next 5-7 years at least.
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JW: I do have one final question because I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about Molinism. You’ve written an entire book about this approach to questions of salvation and sovereignty. Briefly, could you explain what middle knowledge is and what account it provides of some of the thorny questions that Arminians and Calvinists (among others) often disagree over?
KK: At the risk of oversimplification, Molinism is the position that God is able to perfectly accomplish His will with precision and success in the lives of genuinely free creatures primarily by means of His foreknowledge. We are particularly addressing that area of foreknowledge which we call middle knowledge. Arminians are generally known for wanting to affirm the genuineness of human actions; and by so doing, ensuring the genuineness of human response, and also protecting God from the author of sin accusation. So those are good biblical truths that Arminians want to affirm, and I affirm them with my Arminian brethren. Calvinist are wanting to ensure that the sovereignty of God and the graciousness of salvation are preserved, and that we do justice to everything Scriptures says about God being glorious. So I want to affirm my Calvinist brethren who want to affirm those truths.
Molinism attempts to integrate both Calvinism and Arminianism. So this is a middle way. You know what they say about those are in the middle of the road? They get hit by traffic going in both directions. But I am perfectly comfortable having people oppose me on both sides, because I believe the Scriptures teach both divine sovereignty and human agency. I believe that the Scriptures teach both so unambiguously than I am willing to stand there. Molinism is a philosophical model that demonstrates that it is at least reasonable to affirm both. So that’s all that one has to do. I do not have to prove that Molinism is the position one has to hold to—in this sense it is more of a defense than a theodicy. All I have to do is demonstrate that we’re not nuts for holding to divine sovereignty and human agency.
What middle knowledge says is this (this is the 25 cents explanation): You have some things that are true just by virtue of God’s nature. Love is what it is. Holiness is what it is. Truth is what it is. These things are true due to God’s nature. Then there are some things which are true by virtue of God’s will. Creation is an example of this. God didn’t have to create, and if He hadn’t, He still would have been just as glorious. So there are some things which are true due to God’s nature, and there are certain things which are true due to God’s will. So what about the genuinely free decisions made by human agents? And those actually fall in a category in-between. They’re not true due to God’s nature. They’re not due to God’s will. They’re somewhere in-between. Does God know what those choices and decisions are? Yes; God has knowledge of those in-between things, and that’s why it’s called “middle knowledge.” We’re arguing as Molinists that God is able to use His perfect knowledge of those choices to accomplish His will so that God can control a situation without being the efficient cause of it. S therefore God can control things, even when sinful, evil agents are acting, but He’s not the author of the sinful and evil actions. That would be Molinism in a nut-shell.
JW: Maybe on another occasion we can pursue this further because obviously this is something that there has been a lot of conversation about in theological and philosophical circles in recent years. But I’ll just refer readers to your book to learn more about this subject. Thanks a lot for your time!
KK: I enjoyed it, Jackson. It’s always good to talk with you.
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Forum readers can learn more about Dr. Keathley’s theological vision at Theology for the Church, or explore larger issues of faith and culture by navigating to the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture website, part of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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