The University of Rochester recently published a review of
decades of research demonstrating that “religious people are less intelligent than non-believers.”
A summation of 63 studies on the subject, the Rochester report cannot be
dismissed by the religious community. We must recognize as an objective fact
that people with higher IQs are turning to atheism.
“First, there is an incredible bias against theism within
higher education.”
It seems to me that the author of the article, David
Denison, locates his first cause for this problem in precisely the wrong place.
We are not talking about theism in the general sense. Mr. Denison has tackled
the subject of intellectual believers, or the lack thereof. Why does this
question matter? Unbelievers are more intelligent, as humans measure
intelligence, than believers. So why does this matter? Do we find it
embarrassing? Does it bother you that intellectuals view Christian theism with
intellectual contempt? Based on the study, it seems to bother some people.
Mr. Denison attempts to explain to us why intellectuals are
turned off by Christian theism. He tells us that the first reason for
intellectual repulsion is that the university has a built-in bias against
Christianity. Since the university turns out the intellectual, then it follows
that the intellectual embraces what the university has taught him. Well, he is
right and wrong about this. He is correct insofar as the university’s
disposition toward Christian theism is concerned. There can be little doubt
that secular university is intellectually hostile to Christian theism. However,
being a believer has absolutely nothing to do with a person’s intelligence
quotient or level of education. In fact, I believe the reason that
intellectuals and the highly educated are, for the most part, not believers, is
located someplace else. The difference between being a Christian and not being
a Christian is not located in the individual. That reason is located in God
Himself. It seems that Mr. Denison’s analysis is affected more by a distorted
theology than it is by psychological research.
Mr. Denison seems to have constructed a sort of humanistic
Christian theism. But this is precisely the problem with much of modern
American/Western Christianity. There is an amalgamation of humanism with
Christian theism that has come to be identified as Christianity in modern
culture. In this version of Christianity, men are the masters of their own
fate, the captain of their own soul even while God is merely their co-pilot.
In this version of Christianity, men decide that Jesus is the best option, He
was a good teacher, He has good values, a nice social framework, and He is
loving and flexible. Why wouldn't I accept Him? It is this version of
Christianity that many intellectuals are rejecting. Mr. Denison is attempting
to explain to us why that is and how we can fix it. But as anyone knows,
misdiagnosis leads to a false prescription.
In 1 Cor. 1: 17-18, the apostle Paul wrote these sober
words: “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in
cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For
the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved it is the power of God.” Apparently Paul thought that
emphasizing strategy or technique when delivering the message of the cross ran
the risk of nullifying the message. Paul said that he did not preach with σοφίᾳ λόγου, clever
or wise words, like a philosopher, because that sort of approach would κενωθῇ, nullify the cross. These
are not words we should gloss over as we read them. This word means, “to take
away the power or significance of something—‘to cause to lose power, to cause
to be emptied of power, to make powerless.”
Any attempt not to offend the intellect of the unbelieving
community risks nullifying the power of cross. If we nullify the power of the
cross, we have destroyed the power of the Christian message. If we destroy the
power of the Christian message, we have effectively destroyed Christian theism.
It is ironic that in his attempt to fix this problem of ‘intellectual
rejection’ of the Christian message so that Christianity might attract more
intellectuals, Mr. Denison seems to unwittingly take us to the brink of
destroying Christian theism itself. The unintended consequences of this
psychological approach ends up banishing biblical Christianity to the ash heap
of unwarranted, pre-critical Greek mythology and ancient Jewish fables. It
seems to me that our answer is best derived from Scripture. Why do
intellectuals reject Christian theism?
Paul informs us in 1 Cor. 2:14, “But the natural man does
not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him;
and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.” The
Greek word appraised here means, “to make a judgment on the basis of careful
and detailed information.” But this appraisal is a spiritual one. It is the
exercise of a spiritually minded man, one who has been born again by the power
of the very message being appraised. The intellect of the unbeliever is
spiritually dead. 2 Cor. 4:4 says that the god of this world has blinded the
mind of the unbeliever. The unbelieving intellect is in no condition to
evaluate Christian theism intellectually or otherwise.
“Secondly, I believe the present Church culture in America
is unfriendly to intellectual scrutiny.”
At face value, I cannot disagree with this statement. The
problem lies in its interpretation. I cannot say what Mr. Denison is getting
at. If he is referring to the miserable plight of the modern aversion to all
things intellectual in the Christian community, the hard work of honest
critical thinking about understanding the Christian system of truth, I am
onboard. Thinking is hard work. Thinking about the content of Scripture,
interpreting God’s message requires time, dedication, and high degree of energy.
The sad truth is that most Christians would rather be watching some pathetic
American reality show, having a picnic, a shallow conversation over lunch,
playing games and various other means of entertainment than working hard to
understand the philosophical, skeptical, cynical, and unbelieving challenges
that confront us in our culture every day.
The problem is that I cannot say what Mr. Denison is driving
at. If he means that we have to be open to challenges about our deeply
held theological commitments handed down to us by the long orthodox tradition
in the Church, then he is little more than one more emergent guy seeking to
reinvent the wheel and escape from the authority of the believing community for
the sake of autonomy. Should we examine and reaffirm ancient Christian
teachings? Absolutely. But can we be open to modern liberal ideas that
Scripture should be judged by autonomous human reason whether or not it is
inspired by God Himself? We simply cannot be open to such nonsense because the very
starting point for such a practice is by definition non-Christian and open
rebellion. Can we be open to the possibility that Jesus was not divine? We cannot.
Can we consider it a possibility that Christ did not raise from the dead? Under no
circumstances whatever!
In summary then, Christians do not become Christians because
they are smart, and because they figured out that Christian theism is the most
cogent philosophy of life available to humanity. Scripture tells us that God
intentionally did not choose the intellectually elite for salvation. (1 Cor.
1:20) The world has not come to know God by its own wisdom. (1 Cor. 1:21) God
has destroyed the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever. (1 Cor.
1:19) If Mr. Denison wanted to know why unbelievers score higher on the IQ test
or might have a higher level of education than believers perhaps he should have
consulted God for that answer. God has given us a clear answer to this inquiry.
Imagine the boasting Christians could do if we were able to point to a study
that demonstrates that Christians are smarter than the rest! But so that no man
could boast, God did it His way!
Am I sometimes embarrassed by intellectually lazy Christians
who seem to think there is no hard work involved in being a Christian, intellectually
or otherwise? Indeed I am. The truth is that Christians, even if we are not the
intellectually brightest from among humanity, should still be the best
thinkers. The reason for this is that our intellects have been born again,
being renewed by Scripture. Our intellects have been awakened to the true
beauty of God’s creation. We are, as Christians, thinking God’s thoughts after
Him. We are supposed to think just as God thinks. We are to think in His
pattern of thinking. We should cultivate a real fascination with what is
excellent in terms of life, meaning, purpose, reality, art, science, and the
amazing wonder of it all. Our sense of appreciation for the finer things should
be being refined daily. Only the Christian can see the real beauty in Vincent
Van Gogh, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Leonardo Da Vinci. Only the Christian can
hear with wonder and with fascination the true genius, and the real magic and
the incredible power in the music of men like Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert,
Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Bach.
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