Integration of Faith and Learning

Daniel Wells asked over at the Talk about Erskine Facebook group what we thought about evolution and how philosophy should be taught at Erskine:

First, in my time at Erskine and since graduating I have not heard anyone (pastor, elder, administrator, faculty, Synod executive) ever promote young earth creationism or the "six-day" view of Genesis 1 as the sole view needing to be taught at Erskine in either Bible or science classes. The same can go for Intelligent Design, Old Earth Creationism, the Framework Hypothesis, Gap Theory, Progressive Creation, Theistic Evolution (and its various models), etc. I find this to be a positive notion.

Second, the main issue with the teaching the sciences (and every discipline, for that matter), the Synod and other voices calling for missional fidelity seem most concerned with "methodological naturalism" since such a hermeneutic is at odds with the ARP Church's "Philosophy of Christian Higher Education."

Third, if professors at a Christian liberal arts college which is the ministry arm of an orthodox, evangelical church must adhere to a faith statement and commitment to the Christian liberal arts tradition, this does not necessarily produce indoctrination. Rather, the Christian liberal arts truly "liberates" the professor to be an instructor on both Books from God (Nature and Scripture).

Fourth, many students in both science departments and other departments did not receive much teaching regarding issues in the Philosophy of Science. A couple of J-term courses have been taught (Wingard, Schelp, and Schmelzenbach I think) over the last ten years, but not much else. As a Philosophy and Religion double major, I observed many discussion between various science majors with other disciplines. Rarely did issues of presuppositions, structural paradigms, plausibility structures, sociology of knowledge, or philosophy of science get raised. Even science majors among themselves debated the evolution question from a purely evidential/verification/positivistic point of view without dealing with the underlying questions of hermeneutic and method. This is probably where the debate is lost with students, administrators, and faculty on campus due to a lack of nuance and sufficient knowledge of these issues.

Note two things: first, his use of language. Rhetoric is supposed to persuade and convince the audience. Wells’ audience is hardly uneducated, but he uses terms here that require precise definition and careful attention to detail when reading. Moreover, these terms are probably not used often by those uninterested in philosophy. More to the point: his post is long on verbiage and is difficult to parse; this is not a good persuasive technique.

Regardless, I quote the following reply (since deleted):

As a science major who sat through a majority of the science classes offered at Erskine, I feel like I should be able to contribute a lot to this conversation... but I cannot! I am at a complete loss for words.

Should I give examples? The biology department taught evolution as fact. Yet they were also “liberated” as you say to discuss other concerns too – how they reconciled evolution with their Christian faith, how they felt Intelligent Design fit into science, and questioned students as to our beliefs on the issue. We did not all agree with the professor – nor were we condemned for it. We were asked to keep an open mind and learn – indeed, can we ask more of them? The same occurred in the Physics department, as indeed the same occurred in each department I sat under at Erskine.

Yet Ask a Commissioner and the Commission report say that integration of faith and learning is not ONE or TWO things you do in class but a holistic approach, in which case my few examples above and LITERALLY every other example I can think of from four years of education are STILL not enough prove that the science department (or any other) integrates faith and learning. I am powerless in that I literally have no idea what is expected (since examples of integration of faith and learning are NOT what is expected), or how to prove (or disprove) each professors’ diligence to it.

Scarier still - should I even name names? Call me paranoid, but I would never have presumed that Synod would fire fourteen Trustees. What will Synod do to THESE men and women? If I tell the world what they said in class, will Synod take offense and - dare I say it - seek to fire them? I certainly could not bear to be the catalyst for that. I feel intimidated into silence out of fear, and it is a terrible feeling.

Perhaps the science professors are not interested in philosophy? Not everybody is. Maybe they should be fired for this – or maybe not. Maybe they are trying their best to teach science and don't have time – or maybe they should make time. Maybe they just simply don't know anything about the philosophy of science. I have no idea what "methodological naturalism" is; I certainly won't speak for my professors, but maybe they don't know either, or maybe they don't care.

So I cannot help this discussion: firstly because I am afraid to give examples because of the "culture of intimidation" of potential firings in the future, secondly because examples of the integration of faith and learning have been explicitly condemned by the Commission report, and thirdly because I am not sure that science professors are interested in, knowledgeable of, and competent to teach philosophy of science and "structural paradigms, plausibility structures, sociology of knowledge." These are philosophical concepts that should certainly be discussed in philosophy class, preferentially with a Christian world view alongside. But in Biology 102?

I do know one thing: they did a pretty good job teaching science and integrating their faith both in, and out of, the classroom. This seems pretty good to me.

Haha! What a fool! He doesn’t even know what “structural paradigms” are!