In what ways does your faith change the way you approach lectures, group work, projects and essays? Whether you’re studying physics, psychology, philosophy or photography, our faith should shape the way we study.
Primarily, our faith in Christ commits us to learning together with integrity. Integrity is important because the sacred-secular divide has not only separated university evangelism from our engagement with our studies, but it has also created the conditions in which it is possible to have affirmed an evangelical statement of faith (doctrine) for years without working through its implications for our own approaches and attitudes to study. Our challenge as Christians in the university is to live as disciples of Christ in everything we do, our degree included.
Integrity in the way we learn
Our faith calls us to relate Christ and our work: so, we take our academic field seriously and we take Scripture seriously - moving from one to the other and back again, as each helps us appreciate the other.
This positive view of learning arises because God speaks to us through the creation he has made (‘general revelation’) and through Christ in the gospel - now principally held out to us through Scripture and the Spirit’s work in our minds helping us to understand it (‘special revelation’). Scripture functions as our supreme authority, as described by our doctrine.
Instead of being ‘anti-intellectual’, with a largely negative or fearful stance toward education, we recognise that all our knowledge and our reasoning powers are a gift of God, which he wants us to use in dependence on him. Our “faith seeks understanding”. This gives us a humble confidence as we engage in genuine learning.
Fruitful study
The fruit that our faith produces in us has all kinds of positive impacts on how we approach our studies, and interact with others in our field. Here are just three examples:
Humility
The conviction that all knowledge arises from God’s revelation carries implications for our studies. It provides a humility, where ‘knowledge puffs up’ and could lead to academic arrogance. A truly biblical faith calls us to make more of Christ and less of ourselves. This should also shape how we work together with others - giving credit where it is due, for example. We will also recognise the limits of our own field and, when asking bigger questions, seek deliberately to pursue interdisciplinary thinking, especially with evangelical theology.
Faithfulness
This humility calls us to do full justice both to God’s general revelation and his special revelation. We can have confidence that there will be no final conflict between them when all the facts are known. But sometimes we might be unsure whether something requires us to revise our academic understanding, our theological understanding, or both. In such cases integrity demands that we do not rush to adopt inadequate answers, and that we should be willing, if necessary, to suspend our judgement and humbly admit that our faith continues to seek understanding.
Love
When describing others’ ideas we describe them at their best, avoiding ‘straw man arguments’. Where we disagree, we will not exaggerate to write them off. Not that we should refrain from being good academics: it is right for us to scrutinise one another’s work.
When we bring our faith into our studies, it commits us to Christlikeness both in our independent studies and in how we relate to lecturers and coursemates. Ultimately, this will leave a Jesus-shaped mark on our faculties!