The previous blog ended on the note of discussing what can be realistically expected of arguments for the Christian faith. Recall that Campolo, at the end of the first chapter of the book he co-wrote with his son Bart, had written, “The world doesn’t need any more theological polemics or debates about the truth of Christianity, and this book certainly isn’t trying to be either of those,” despite that he immediately added that he always does try to make his best case for following Christ.

On the surface there seems to be a potential tension between Campolo’s claims: that we have no need for theological polemics or debates about the truth of Christianity, on the one hand, and that he nevertheless feels compelled to make the best case he can for following Christ, on the other. Perhaps what explains the apparent tension between these claims is that Campolo is intentionally casting polemics and debates with a negative connotation, but this is worth pointing out because not everyone construes polemics or debates in a negative way, nor should they.

Debates held with mutual respect and a commitment to rigor can be a highly effective way to foster substantive dialogue; in some ways, Campolo’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, there is an undeniable element of debate contained within this book. Each Campolo is making his case, after all, explaining his convictions, pointing to evidential considerations to make them plausible, underscoring perceived weaknesses of opposing views, and the like. This is essentially what a debate involves. That it can be done civilly and, in this case, even lovingly, with as much commitment to listen as to talk, only shows that debates need not be an unfriendly and inherently negative activity, nor need be construed in that way. If speaking the truth is love has primacy, each participant in a debate of this nature, in a real sense, should be rooting for his opponent. We wrestle not against flesh and blood.

For many readers of the Campolo book, after all, while deeply appreciating the irenic tone of the volume and the model the discussion provides of how to disagree agreeably, may well also be genuinely interested in weighing the relative merits of both sides in their own efforts to discover the truth and achieve greater clarity. Debates may be more pointed and adversarial than plenty of other dialogical exchanges, but they can surely serve useful purposes. Some might suggest we don’t need less of them (much less no more of them!), but a great many more, at least done well and right. I suspect the resistance to debates among many is because they often tend to be more about projecting appearances of victory and orchestrating mic drop moments than a genuine, mutual, and humble quest for the truth.

Likewise with polemics. In fairness it is likely Campolo was intentionally exploiting the common depiction of polemics as largely adversarial and predominantly confrontational. But colloquial employment of the locution doesn’t determine the essence of the referent. Lexical definitions themselves often don’t provide as penetrating insight into a word’s meaning as does careful conceptual analysis. Polemics in the realm of theology might pertain to arrogating or appropriating, say, a secular thought pattern, category, or story to a Christian application; or in the realm of dialectics, polemics often pertains to fine-grained discussions about which specific theology might be most in evidence—in an effort, for example, to adjudicate between Christian or Islamic theology. Since Bart by his own admission considers secular humanism his new religion, a polemical component to the discussion is practically unavoidable. This is a perfectly legitimate and valuable exercise with little to no hint of any intrinsically negative implications. The aversion plenty of kind-hearted persons to interpersonal conflict is laudable, but it shouldn’t mean we don’t see the value of iron sharpening iron. Not all ideas are equally good or defensible, penetrating or veridical. Of course in practice, as Tony and Bart admit, conversations of substance about significant differences calls for an abundance grace to keep the wheels turning.

Context can usually make clear whether one means by polemics its denotation or connotation, and it’s fairly obvious that Campolo was gesturing toward the latter. Fair enough. I’m not trying to strain for gnats here or be unduly nitpicky. Still, my point is this: contending for the truth ineliminably involves, by turns, both apologetics and polemics, rightly understood and properly practiced. To say we need more of neither in a book preoccupied with the propriety or lack thereof of believing the truth claims of Christianity strains credulity at least a little.

I considered perhaps trimming the present point a bit for fear of belaboring, but then thought the better of it, because I think there is an important point to emphasize here. Even etymologically “polemics” is connected to war, so this might be thought to confirm the fraught connotations of the term, but we can go to war with people or with ideas. Clearly Tony is not at war with his son, but there is a clash and conflict of worldviews here, and that’s okay. It shows we don’t have to make it a battle between persons; we can keep the conflict at the level of ideas, which is practically a lost art in our cultural moment. Seeking to root out bad ideas is a noble and needed venture, and thoroughly biblical. 2 Cor. 10:4-5 says this: “The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” And in fact Tony, to my thinking, marvelously models this approach throughout the volume.

Allow me now to back off from the specifics here in order to deal with the more pressing and general question all of this broaches: the relative importance of reasons and rationality in Christian conviction. Again, Campolo himself tries to make the best case for following Christ, as he does impeccably throughout this book. Still, perhaps what he’s getting at in distancing himself from any overly strident model of discourse here are what he recognizes to be some limitations to reason, limitations that reason itself might help us grasp. Perhaps these words by Campolo a few sentences later confirm this reading: “While I understand that Bart’s faith probably won’t be restored by my arguments, I hope they at least help him stay open to what ultimately must be the work of the Holy Spirit.” And of course he also hopes his arguments will model for other Christians a way to keep the communication lines open with nonbelieving loved ones, a way that is both wholly loving and respectful without compromising the gospel.

For help in understanding both the purpose and limits of reason and rationality when it comes to matters divine, let’s briefly consider a few points from John Wesley’s sermon entitled “The Case of Reason Impartially Considered.” Having taught Greek, logic, and philosophy at Lincoln College at Oxford, Wesley was clearly a man who took argument seriously, and he lamented when anyone under-appreciated reason. Here is what he wrote near the end of this sermon to such people:

Suffer me now to add a few plain words, first to you who under-value reason. Never more declaim in that wild, loose, ranting manner, against this precious gift of God. Acknowledge “the candle of the Lord,” which he hath fixed in our souls for excellent purposes. You see how many admirable ends it answers, were it only in the things of this life: Of what unspeakable use is even a moderate share of reason in all our worldly employments…. When therefore you despise or depreciate reason, you must not imagine you are doing God service: least of all, are you promoting the cause of God when you are endeavouring (sic) to exclude reason out of religion. 

Wesley says more in that vein, and it is most inspiring, but in fact at least half of the sermon is directed at those who over-value reason, assuming it is replete with powers of which in fact it’s quite bereft. Specifically, Wesley points out three central realities that reason alone cannot generate or guarantee, contra those in his day (and ours) who so lionized the power of reason as to form expectations that go beyond its capacities. First, reason cannot produce faith. “Although it is always consistent with reason, yet reason cannot produce faith, in the scriptural sense of the word. Faith, according to Scripture, is ‘an evidence,’ or conviction, ‘of things not seen.’ It is a divine evidence, bringing a full conviction of an invisible eternal world.”

Interestingly, while discussing this first point, Wesley spoke of a personal confirmation of this limitation of reason. He tells of having heaped up the strongest arguments that he could find, in ancient or modern authors, for the existence of God, and then finding there was still room for doubts that reason is powerless to quench. He challenges readers to do the same, setting all our arguments for God in an array, silencing all objections, and putting all their doubts to rest. The result is that they may repress their doubts for a season, but “how quickly will they rally again, and attack you with redoubled violence.” This does not show that faith is irrational or unprincipled, but rather that reason alone is not its ultimate source or locus. Can reason alone, for example, illumine what happens after the grave, satisfying our curiosities and banishing our fears? Hardly. The best unaided reason can do is suggest that death is, as Hobbes put it on the precipice of shuffling his mortal coil, “a leap in the dark,” whatever bravado we might wish to project to conceal our intractable existential angst.

Second, reason alone cannot produce hope in any child of man—scriptural holiness, that is, by which we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Where there is not faith, there is not such hope; and since reason is impotent to produce the former, likewise the latter. At most but a lively imagination or pleasing dream resides within rationality’s lonely grasp.

Third, reason, however cultivated and improved, cannot produce the love of God, for it can produce neither faith nor hope, from which alone such love can flow. It is only when we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God” that “we love Him because He first loved us.” Cold reason can produce merely fair ideas, drawing a fine picture of love, but “only a painted fire.” Beyond that reason alone cannot go.

Some other resultant limitations of reason include virtue and happiness. Those without the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love can experience pleasures of various kinds, but not the sort of happiness for which we were made—merely shadowy dreams of ephemeral pleasures fleeting as the wind, unsubstantial as the rainbow, lacking satisfaction.

“Let reason do all that reason can,” concludes Wesley. “Employ it as far as it will go. But, at the same time, acknowledge it is utterly incapable of giving either faith, or hope, or love: and consequently, of producing either real virtue, or substantial happiness. Expect these from a higher source, even from the Father of the spirits of all flesh. Seek and receive them, not as your own acquisition, but as the gift of God…. So shall you be living witnesses, that wisdom, holiness, and happiness are one; are inseparably united; and are, indeed, the beginning of that eternal life which God hath given us in his Son.”

Campolo and Wesley, both of them, recognized the importance of reason and its limitations, and depicted faith as a gift of God. In subsequent posts we will have occasion to speak in more detail about what each of them means by this, and whether or not their views converge. But for our next post, we will move on to Chapter 2: Bart’s story of his deconversion, how he left.