The Gospel and the Mind

Green, Bradley G. The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2010.

Bradley G. Green, professor of Christian studies at Union University, shows in his book, The Gospel and the Mind, how the Gospel can help Evangelicals to recover the intellectual life. This book is also shaped by an Augustinian perspective of the life of the mind. In addition, Green demonstrates how the Gospel is soon followed by the Academy.

The Gospel and the Mind includes six chapters. The first chapter discusses the importance of creation and history. Chapter two discusses the telos of learning and chapter three focuses on the cross of Jesus Christ and crucified understanding. Words and language are analysed in chapters four and five. The last chapter is on the moral nature of knowledge.

The two theses of the book are: "The Christian vision of God, man, and the world provides the necessary precondition for the recovery of any meaningful intellectual life." Second, "The Christian vision of God, man, and the world offers a particular, unique understanding of what the intellectual life might look like."

Green presents a realistic view of the world. History and creation "remind us that some things simply are and have their existence apart from our wills and intellect" (31). A realistic view or a belief of reality outside of ourselves depends on an affirmation of creation. An important aspect of this creation is that it was created good. Marion Montgomery "suggests education is concerned with coming in contact with the truth of things" (360). The centrality of history is also important to a program of education because the Christian faith is basically incarnational. Kierkegaard said that "We live forward, but we can only think backward" (43). The Christian faith provides a reason to study the past. Green believes that any Christian and liberal arts education "will be one in which students are immersed in the central texts of the past" (47). In addition, study of the past helps us to take our contemporary "blinders" off.

Green emphasizes the position of faith seeking understanding. He asserts that all "knowledge is ultimately rooted in faith commitments" (83). MacIntyre has shown how the "liberal project of universal rationality and presuppositionless reasoning is fallacious and fantasy" (85). Everyone pursues education from some tradition. Macintyre argue that "moral enquiry without some kind of presupposed prior agreements is barren" (86). Sin effects our knowing. Green asserts, "Our intellectual development as Christians should always be seen as part of our being conformed to the image of Christ" (92). Augustine emphasized that our decisions are shaped by our desires. To follow God rightly our loves must not be disorderly.

Green has shown in The Gospel and the Mind how the Gospel does not have to lead to anti-intellectualism. Everywhere the gospel was planted, the academy was soon to follow. He uses the thought of Augustine to show how to pursue the life of the Mind in a Christ-centered way.

Cicero and Aquinas

This is the author's version of a book review that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source:

Shaffett, John E. Catholic Library World Vol. 88, No. 2 December 2017. p. 114. A Comparative Analysis of Cicero and Aquinas: Nature and the Natural Law by Charles P. Nemeth. Bloomsbury, 2017. 192 pages.

In A Comparative Analysis of Cicero and Aquinas, Charles P. Nemeth investigates whether Aquinas and Cicero’s writings on natural law are compatible. Both these authors were prolific writers and influential in their own time and after. Is it possible to compare writers whose occupations and historical periods were very different? Nemeth, in this book, investigates these two authors views on “nature and the natural order,” “nature and reason,” and the natural law. Nemeth suggests several agreements between Aquinas and Cicero after his investigation. First, their ideas of nature and the natural order were similar. Nemeth disagrees with the opinion that Cicero was “comfortable with the natural determinism residing in Stoicism” (25). The Stoics saw God and nature as identical; in contrast, Cicero thought of God as “metaphysically transcendent—overseeing a universe He created, not just existing” (25). Both Cicero and Aquinas emphasized the role of reason in knowing and applying the natural law. Nemeth asserts, “For St. Thomas, the natural law is known by all, imprinted on all, and discoverable by all” (66). Cicero thought that reason provided the “proper mechanism for making moral decisions” (51). Both authors believed that there existed a divine component of law that was higher than human law. Though there were basis similarities in Aquinas and Cicero’s writings on natural law, there were also differences. Cicero tends not to apply the natural law to troubling social issues. For example, Aquinas applies the natural law to specific moral issues: abortion, suicide, and homosexuality. Nemeth does a good job in showing both the similarities and differences of Aquinas and Cicero’s writings on natural law. This book is recommended for both universities and seminaries.   

 Reviewed by John E. Shaffett, Director of Library Services, The Baptist College of Florida, Graceville, Florida.