How Can I Avoid Worldly Thinking in My Studies?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Happy Friday, everyone.
00:00:05.760 | We are back to talk about education,
00:00:08.160 | specifically how do we pursue education in this world
00:00:11.900 | without getting taken captive
00:00:13.120 | by the thinking of this world?
00:00:16.200 | It's a question we get often from students
00:00:17.960 | navigating higher learning
00:00:19.560 | and wanting to do so with discernment,
00:00:22.040 | both in non-Christian and in Christian schools even.
00:00:25.120 | James, one listener, asks it this way.
00:00:28.120 | Hello, Pastor John, I'm a Christian studying philosophy
00:00:30.840 | at a secular university.
00:00:32.680 | What steps can I take to do, as Colossians 2:8 says,
00:00:35.640 | and avoid being taken captive by philosophy
00:00:38.860 | and empty the seat according to human tradition,
00:00:41.220 | according to the elemental spirit of the world,
00:00:43.960 | and not according to Christ?
00:00:46.040 | And the question comes from Michael as well.
00:00:47.880 | Hello, Pastor John, I'm about to begin my senior year
00:00:50.040 | as a philosophy major,
00:00:51.560 | and I am currently working on an honors thesis
00:00:54.400 | on Christian compatibilism.
00:00:56.640 | As I have felt God lead me to study philosophy
00:00:59.600 | and take great delight in what I study,
00:01:01.480 | I also recognize that Colossians 2:8
00:01:03.240 | challenges the study of this discipline as a whole.
00:01:06.480 | While I esteem the Word of God above all else,
00:01:08.760 | I also believe that the study of philosophy
00:01:10.880 | can be used for the church.
00:01:13.180 | The question that I would like to ask is,
00:01:14.640 | in your view, what is the role of Christian philosophy
00:01:17.500 | and where should one take care
00:01:19.200 | in the pursuit of this discipline?
00:01:21.240 | Is it okay to explore possibilities
00:01:23.080 | and things that Scripture does not directly deal with
00:01:25.340 | as long as one does not speak with authority
00:01:28.320 | on these issues?
00:01:29.760 | Pastor John, what would you say?
00:01:31.800 | - Well, thanks for the question.
00:01:34.200 | I was a literature major in college,
00:01:36.320 | but I did have a philosophy minor,
00:01:38.920 | so I had enough of a taste to be able to resonate positively,
00:01:43.920 | because of my experience at a Christian school,
00:01:47.960 | positively with what they're saying.
00:01:50.380 | The word philosophy occurs one time in the Bible,
00:01:55.380 | namely in Colossians 2:8, where it says,
00:01:58.240 | "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy
00:02:03.120 | "and empty deceit according to human tradition,
00:02:09.000 | "according to the elemental principles of the world,
00:02:12.520 | "and not according to Christ."
00:02:16.080 | So let's think about this verse for just a moment,
00:02:18.880 | and then we'll step back
00:02:20.440 | and think about the larger task of philosophy.
00:02:25.440 | The word philosophy, both in English and in Greek,
00:02:28.440 | literally means love, philos, of wisdom.
00:02:32.720 | Sophia, love of wisdom.
00:02:35.080 | It means thinking about the great issues of life.
00:02:39.160 | What is ultimate reality?
00:02:41.100 | How can you know it?
00:02:43.560 | What's right and wrong?
00:02:45.960 | What's the good life?
00:02:48.600 | In and of itself, therefore, one would, I think,
00:02:52.960 | be inclined to say, who could find fault with that?
00:02:56.080 | Like, loving wisdom?
00:02:58.000 | Well, of course, we should love wisdom
00:03:01.320 | and pursue it with all our might.
00:03:04.760 | In fact, this book of Colossians is filled
00:03:09.000 | with positive references to wisdom.
00:03:12.440 | Colossians 1:9, Paul prays that they would be filled
00:03:15.880 | with spiritual wisdom.
00:03:17.120 | Colossians 1:28, Paul says that he teaches everyone
00:03:20.480 | with all wisdom.
00:03:22.160 | Colossians 2:3, he says that in Christ are hidden
00:03:25.240 | all the treasures of wisdom.
00:03:27.680 | In Colossians 3:16, he tells us to teach
00:03:30.400 | and admonish one another with all wisdom.
00:03:34.080 | In Colossians 4, 5, he says, "Walk in wisdom."
00:03:37.840 | My goodness, it seems to me that in view of all that,
00:03:42.280 | just in Colossians, I mean, not to mention
00:03:44.240 | all the other places in the Bible,
00:03:46.720 | it seems to me that in view of all of that,
00:03:50.080 | it would be a sin not to love wisdom,
00:03:54.720 | not to be a philosopher in that sense, right?
00:03:58.440 | A wisdom lover.
00:04:00.080 | So if you just take the word philosophy,
00:04:04.800 | love of wisdom, by itself, it would surely be a good thing.
00:04:09.800 | But Colossians 2:8 says it's not a good thing.
00:04:16.360 | Why not?
00:04:17.960 | Paul says four things about philosophy in Colossians 2:8,
00:04:22.960 | and let's look at them to see what the problem is here.
00:04:31.240 | First, he says it is empty deceit.
00:04:35.200 | Deceit means that it pretends to offer a fullness,
00:04:40.640 | but is in fact empty.
00:04:43.440 | It pretends to be full of what would make the good life
00:04:47.360 | and bring us lasting satisfaction
00:04:49.520 | and finally get us to eternal happiness,
00:04:52.560 | and none of it is real.
00:04:54.240 | It proves to be totally empty
00:04:56.680 | and leaves us miserable in the end.
00:04:59.400 | That's the first thing he says about this so-called
00:05:01.960 | philosophy that he's worried about in Colossi, empty deceit.
00:05:06.440 | Second, it is, quote, "According to human tradition."
00:05:11.160 | In other words, it has no true warrant from God.
00:05:14.960 | It's coming out of human heads rather than from God's mind.
00:05:19.800 | It's mere human thinking, not dependent on God's thinking.
00:05:24.800 | Of course, and this is the really interesting part
00:05:29.520 | about philosophy, aspects of human thinking,
00:05:33.720 | human thinking, can parallel or overlap
00:05:38.720 | with God's revelation of his own thinking in Scripture
00:05:42.560 | and in the world, but what Paul means
00:05:46.040 | is that this teaching doesn't carry in it
00:05:50.400 | any built-in submission to God's thinking.
00:05:54.400 | Therefore, it is fundamentally flawed,
00:05:57.600 | not because it may not have some overlap with truth,
00:06:01.560 | but because at its root,
00:06:03.680 | it doesn't care about conforming to God's truth,
00:06:07.800 | and therefore, even in those places
00:06:09.960 | where it may parallel some divine truth,
00:06:13.440 | it has the aroma of error because it doesn't love
00:06:17.000 | that truth as coming from God and conforming to God
00:06:20.640 | and glorifying God.
00:06:22.400 | That's the second thing he says,
00:06:24.360 | human tradition, mere human.
00:06:26.820 | Third, Paul says this so-called philosophy
00:06:31.320 | is according to the elemental principles of the world.
00:06:35.880 | Now, later in the chapter, Paul explains
00:06:38.560 | what he means by elementary principles.
00:06:41.000 | He says in verses 20 following,
00:06:43.960 | "If in Christ you died to the elemental principles
00:06:47.560 | "of the world, why, as if you were still alive,
00:06:51.480 | "do you submit to regulations?"
00:06:53.400 | And these are, I think, the names
00:06:55.080 | of the elemental principles.
00:06:57.880 | "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch
00:07:01.560 | "according to human precepts and teachings."
00:07:06.120 | These have indeed an appearance of wisdom
00:07:11.120 | in promoting self-made religion and asceticism
00:07:14.520 | and severity to the body, but they are of no value
00:07:17.320 | in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
00:07:20.520 | Virtually every philosophy points to a way to live
00:07:25.520 | that it considers wise or profitable,
00:07:29.040 | the path to greatest meaning, greatest satisfaction.
00:07:32.640 | And in this case of this philosophy
00:07:36.480 | threatening the church in Colossae,
00:07:39.400 | the way to live in this philosophy
00:07:42.720 | was summed up in certain ascetic elements and rules,
00:07:46.840 | elemental principles, they call them,
00:07:49.400 | rules so that through severity to the body,
00:07:54.080 | one might find a pathway to illumination
00:07:57.600 | and to good life and the approval of angels.
00:08:00.840 | And it was backfiring because this ascetic rule-keeping,
00:08:05.800 | this philosophy, was feeding the sin of pride
00:08:09.400 | rather than subduing the power of sin.
00:08:13.400 | And the fourth thing he says about this philosophy
00:08:16.400 | is that it is not according to Christ,
00:08:21.920 | which is the fundamental issue for him.
00:08:25.480 | It says in 2:19, Colossians 2:19,
00:08:28.960 | "Not holding fast to the head
00:08:32.520 | "from whom everything is coming."
00:08:35.360 | So as we step back now and ask,
00:08:38.280 | how can the study of philosophy,
00:08:40.960 | the history of the love of wisdom
00:08:43.440 | as humans have tried to see it,
00:08:45.520 | how can this study be made truly profitable
00:08:50.520 | rather than a snare like it was at Colossae?
00:08:54.960 | And I think the central answer
00:08:56.920 | in the book of Colossians is this.
00:08:59.280 | If you want to measure all philosophy rightly
00:09:05.480 | and thus profit from what God has revealed
00:09:09.080 | by special revelation in his word
00:09:11.480 | and general revelation from the writings
00:09:15.000 | of influential thinkers in history,
00:09:17.640 | if you wanna profit from that,
00:09:19.800 | one, know Jesus Christ as he is pervasively
00:09:25.120 | and profoundly revealed in scripture.
00:09:28.200 | And two, treasure his fullness
00:09:32.280 | as the ground and goal and access to all true wisdom.
00:09:37.280 | And three, live in a way that shows in your life
00:09:43.000 | how this wisdom defeats pride and sin and exalts Christ.
00:09:48.000 | I say it that way,
00:09:51.680 | with those three criteria of good philosophy,
00:09:54.480 | knowing Christ as supreme,
00:09:56.400 | treasuring Christ as supreme,
00:09:58.480 | showing Christ as supreme in your life,
00:10:01.040 | because of these texts in Colossians, Colossians 1:15.
00:10:05.880 | He is the image of the invisible God,
00:10:08.800 | the firstborn over all creation,
00:10:10.760 | for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth,
00:10:15.320 | visible and invisible,
00:10:16.640 | whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,
00:10:19.520 | all things were created through him and for him.
00:10:24.520 | In other words, he is the ground and the goal of everything,
00:10:30.120 | all true philosophy.
00:10:32.640 | Colossians 2:7, be rooted and built up in him
00:10:36.400 | and established in the faith.
00:10:38.680 | All true life flows from him as root and foundation.
00:10:43.280 | Colossians 2:8, do your thinking according to Christ.
00:10:48.560 | Let all thought, all affection, all action,
00:10:51.800 | accord with Christ and all that can be known about Christ.
00:10:56.800 | Colossians 2:19, hold fast to Christ as the head,
00:11:02.040 | that is hold fast to him as the all supplying one.
00:11:05.200 | His redemption makes all knowledge
00:11:08.320 | and all the enjoyment of all that is good possible
00:11:12.480 | for forgiven sinners.
00:11:14.480 | And then Colossians 2, 3, in him are hidden
00:11:19.480 | all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
00:11:23.800 | Whatever is valuable in any truth found anywhere
00:11:28.800 | is the way it points to Christ.
00:11:32.960 | Let me say that again, 'cause that's a little complex.
00:11:37.040 | Whatever is valuable in any truth found anywhere,
00:11:41.960 | whatever that value is, is this,
00:11:44.720 | it's the way that truth points to Christ
00:11:49.080 | and helps us know him and treasure him and show him.
00:11:53.640 | That's the truth.
00:11:54.860 | That's what's found in him.
00:11:57.140 | There are very, very few scholars in the world
00:12:02.640 | who are willing and able to pursue wisdom
00:12:06.560 | that is due philosophy in this Christ saturated,
00:12:10.720 | Christ treasuring, Christ showing, Christ exalting way.
00:12:15.720 | But if you can, if God gives you the grace to do that, do it.
00:12:21.640 | - Yeah, very good.
00:12:23.920 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:12:24.740 | And thank you, James and Michael for the questions.
00:12:27.440 | If you have a question of your own,
00:12:28.520 | get it to us via email through our online home
00:12:30.500 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:12:34.600 | We're now headed into the weekend,
00:12:37.360 | but with a big week ahead.
00:12:38.840 | On Wednesday, we're going to look at
00:12:41.240 | what we as Christians do with our disordered desires.
00:12:45.040 | We still have those desires in our hearts,
00:12:47.080 | those disordered desires.
00:12:48.560 | So what do we do with them?
00:12:49.960 | That's on Wednesday.
00:12:50.960 | Then Friday, we look at whether or not
00:12:52.120 | we can become more holy by treating our bodies more harshly.
00:12:56.840 | It's an important discussion on asceticism to end the week.
00:12:59.880 | But first up on Monday, we start the week
00:13:01.960 | looking at the power of our adversary, the devil.
00:13:04.840 | The Bible tells us that Satan has been disarmed.
00:13:08.840 | So what did he get disarmed of?
00:13:10.840 | What powers did he lose in the death
00:13:13.240 | and resurrection of our Savior?
00:13:16.240 | Wow, see, I told you, it was a big week ahead.
00:13:18.160 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,
00:13:19.120 | and we will see you on Monday.
00:13:20.840 | Have a great weekend.
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