J. Budziszewski
Philosophy and Government,
University of Texas
The life of the academy is wonderful. As a Christian, however, it also holds five snares:
1. Intellectual pride
Our tendency to take personal credit for our intellectual gifts. “Knowledge puffs up,” said Paul. (1 Cor. 8:1) I don’t know why a scholar should be more inclined to pride in his or her intellectual gifts than a plumber is inclined to pride in plumbing gifts, but it is true.
2. Intellectual selfishness
The tendency to do not the particularly scholarly work to which God calls us, but other scholarly work instead. This may be the work we find easiest, that we have done before, that we find most interesting, or that earns the greatest worldly rewards. Which of these it is has no importance, if it is not the work God has given us.
3.Intellectual clubbishness.
This one has been well described by historian Paul Johnson in Intellectuals:
“Intellectuals, far from being highly individualistic and nonconformist people as they fancy themselves to be, follow certain regular patterns of behavior. Taken as a group, they are often ultra-conformist within the circles formed by those whose approval they seek and value. That is what makes them, en masse, so dangerous, because it enables them to create climates of opinion and prevailing orthodoxies which themselves often generate irrational and destructive courses of action.” [Harper and Row, 1988.]
4. Cowardice
The tendency, even when we do think outside of the prevailing secular orthodoxies, to hold back from speaking our minds. There is a time not to speak of certain things. But there are certainly times to speak, and some of them are times to speak loudly. In general, the time to speak loudest is just when we are running into the greatest scholarly opposition simply for being Christians.
5. Intellectual sloth
A failure to love the good with the ardor that it deserves. From ancient times sloth has been called a “deadly” sin, a kind of spiritual nerve gas. The essence of intellectual sloth is loving the intellectual life more than the goods of the intellect toward which this life is ordained.
Do we suppose that it is enough to love the truth? It is not enough. We must love truth more than the pursuit of truth. We must love it more than the pleasures of the scholarly life. If I love truth less than I love the smell of a book in which truth might be written–if I love it less than the fact that the book belongs to me — if I love it less than the fact that I wrote the book myself–then I am no friend of God. If I love it less than the privilege of controlling my schedule–less than the pleasure of going to conferences–less than the petty thrill of being thought smart–then I am in peril of hell.
These are the snares. So may we be, not Christians and scholars, but Christian scholars: Intellectual soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is King not only of matter, but of mind.
© 2006 J. Budziszewski
[Condensed, with author’s permission, from “Research and Scholarship as Unto the Lord” presented at CLM’s God & the Academy conference, Atlanta, June 2000. – Ed.]