Recovering Christianity As A Knowledge Tradition Means Saving Minds As Well As Souls

As humans, we were designed to act on knowledge in everyday life. If you and I don’t think the Bible and other sources of knowledge about God, morality, and the spiritual life are possible and we are not growing in this knowledge; then following Jesus in everyday life will be next to impossible because we always default to what we know. Moreover, there appears no good reason to exclude the knowledge claims of Christianity simply because they are “religious.” If they do not hold up to scrutiny, that is one thing. But Christianity, which is rooted in history, makes many claims, some of which are empirically testable, while others are testable by non-empirical means. The crucial point to grasp is that Christianity rises to the level of being either true or false, and it can be known to be true or false (cf. Luke 1:1–4).

If Christianity is relegated to the realm of fairy tales, which may provide personal significance or meaning but not knowledge, then people will continue not taking the claims of Jesus or the Christian worldview very seriously. If, however, people are invited to consider the claims of Christianity as a knowledge tradition then chances are good that they might come to know the living God and live life according to the knowledge provided in His Word. Charles Malik summarizes this idea well: “The problem is not only to win souls but to save minds. If you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world.”